Muslim apologetes have opportunistically glommed onto Bart Ehrman’s radical views with respect to NT textual criticism and early church history to attack the Bible.
I also notice that some Muslims cite the collaboration between Bruce Metzger and Bart Ehrman as evidence that Metzger agrees with Ehrman’s conspiratorial theory of church history and its dire effect on the canon.
But this overdraws the evidence. We don’t know how much of Ehrman Metzger has actually read—especially Ehrman’s sensational potboilers. Metzger spends his time reviewing scholarly works.
To my knowledge, Metzger has never written a glowing dust-cover blurb plugging one of Ehrman’s more provocative titles.
Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus came out the same year as the fourth edition of Metzger’s classic monograph on The Text of the New Testament.
In connection with Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman has given a number of revealing interviews to promote his book.
As Metzger explains in his autobiography, his professional collaboration with Ehrman began back in 1993, the year that Ehrman published his monograph on The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. Cf. Reminiscences of an Octogenarian (Hendricksen 1997), 150.
So their formal collaboration predates the more sensational stuff.
At that time, Metzger did, in fact, review Ehrman’s 1993 title. As Metzger summarized the thesis, “the volume traces how the early struggles between ‘heresy’ and ‘orthodoxy’ occasionally affected the wording of certain passages in the scriptures,” Princeton Seminary Bulletin, 15/2 (1994), 211.
Notice the carefully caveated statement: “occasionally” affected the wording of “certain” passages of Scripture.
So Metzger took his younger colleague to be asserting a very modest claim. Nothing revolutionary.
More recently, Metzger has also collaborated with Lee Strobel and Dr. D. James Kennedy in defense of the faith.
In his interview with Strobel, Metzger defends the integrity of the NT text as well as the traditional canon, to the exclusion of apocryphal gospels like the Gospel of Thomas.
All-in-all, it’s quite clear that Metzger’s professional collaboration with Ehrman, which antedates the public apostasy of Ehrman, does not amount to a blanket endorsement of Ehrman’s more radical positions. To the contrary, Metzger has clearly staked out a fairly conservative position in direct contrast to Ehrman’s emerging iconoclasm.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
A Word of Wisdom for My SBC Brothers and Sisters
On June 1, Wade Burleson will be posting his decision about whether or not to name names, places, events, and the sordid details about the situation at the IMB for all the world to see. He may not choose to do this, but many, including myself believe he may. This note is to encourage, no admonish, my SBC brethren in particular to please read what he says carefully and to think before you respond, particularly if he does this. If he posts in multiple parts, may I suggest that "If a man gives and answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame." (Prov. 18:13). Let those who criticize him and run him down do so, particularly the famous "Anonymous." (Anonymous sure gets around the Baptist blogs a lot does s/he?) Such persons will hang themselves eventually. Let what he says settle, and if it angers you, whichever "side" you take, calm down and then respond. If it angers you enough, come to Greensboro to the SBC, vote your conscience, and take an interest in your Convention.
Science fiction & supernaturalism
SF is a very popular literary and cinematic genre. What accounts for its popularity?
It’s often said that SF is the Western genre transposed to outer space. There’s some truth to that, but not the whole truth.
The basic appeal of SF is the domestication of the impossible. Technology makes possible many things which were hitherto impossible. And futuritic technology extends the domestication of the impossible.
Technology is a kind of mechanized magic.
SF has often been a vehicle for secular humanism. The utter antithesis of Christian supernaturalism
And yet, at a deeper level—or, should I say, a more superficial level?—SF is a secularized strain of supernaturalism.
It’s a way of making miraculosity acceptable for the self-respecting atheist. He doesn’t believe in God, angels, demons, healers, or seers.
And yet he’s still a mirabilist at heart. His boxy materialism feels too claustrophobic to house the limitless aspirations of the soul.
So he creates an ersatz supernaturalism. A literary genre which allows him lead a double life—to play Moses or Elijah in the movie theater while he impersonates Bertrand Russell or Richard Dawkins in the classroom.
It’s often said that SF is the Western genre transposed to outer space. There’s some truth to that, but not the whole truth.
The basic appeal of SF is the domestication of the impossible. Technology makes possible many things which were hitherto impossible. And futuritic technology extends the domestication of the impossible.
Technology is a kind of mechanized magic.
SF has often been a vehicle for secular humanism. The utter antithesis of Christian supernaturalism
And yet, at a deeper level—or, should I say, a more superficial level?—SF is a secularized strain of supernaturalism.
It’s a way of making miraculosity acceptable for the self-respecting atheist. He doesn’t believe in God, angels, demons, healers, or seers.
And yet he’s still a mirabilist at heart. His boxy materialism feels too claustrophobic to house the limitless aspirations of the soul.
So he creates an ersatz supernaturalism. A literary genre which allows him lead a double life—to play Moses or Elijah in the movie theater while he impersonates Bertrand Russell or Richard Dawkins in the classroom.
Debunking liberal Jew-haters
A few days ago, Joe Holman published a hatchet job on Christianity. It was set up as an invidious contrast between Islam and Christianity, in which Christianity came out as bad or worse than Islam.
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/05/islam-vs-christianity.html
But in the course of wielding his hatchet, Holman dropped a classic anti-Semitic comment.
I believe that I was the first blogger to draw attention to this smear.
It was also picked up by a secular Jewish blogger.
http://thejewishfreak.blogspot.com/
To make matters worse, Daniel Morgan came running to the defense of Holman. And Holman, instead of retracting his comment, went on the defensive, and thereby dug himself in much deeper with even more anti-Semitic stereotyping.
Ironically, we now have a debate between an ex-Christian Jew-hater and a secular Jewish Christophobe. The ex-Christian is anti-Jewish while the secular Jew is anti-clerical.
Holman’s anti-Semitism is not an anomaly. The Left has been anti-Semitic for years now.
The European elite signed a suicide pact with the Muslim world a long time ago. We increasingly witness the emergence of Eurabia, along with the concomitant resurgence of Continental anti-Semitism and anti-clericalism.
When I was a kid, growing up in the Sixties, there were no Palestinians—only Arabs. There was no conflict between Jews and Palestinians or Israelis and Palestinians: only a conflict between Israel and the Arab world.
What is more, Israel was the good guy.
So, where did all the Palestinians come from? Were they cloned?
And when did Israel become the bad guy?
Well, as I recall, this happened almost overnight when Yasir Arafat, the granddaddy of modern-day terrorism, succeeded in completely rewriting the history of the conflict.
Arafat was Egyptian, but somehow he managed to convince the “world community” that there was such a thing as a “Palestinian people,” whose land was being “occupied” by Israel.
It was a remarkably successful PR job. Several factors made this propagandistic about-face possible:
1.For all its multicultural rhetoric, the Left would rather talk about other cultures, talk to other cultures, talk at other cultures, and talk on behalf of other cultures, rather than listen to other cultures in order to learn from them.
2.With its watered down Marxism, the Left assumes that the winners are the bad guys and the losers are the good guys. In its paradigm of class warfare, the underdog is oppressed by the powerful.
Of course, the liberal establishment exempts itself from this paradigm.
As long as Jews were either defenseless or dead, its heart went out to Jewry. But when Jews fought back, liberal sympathy was transferred to the plight of those poor old “Palestinians.”
3.The Left only cares about feeling good, not about doing good. Liberals feel good about themselves by living vicariously—by adopting and patronizing the social mascot du jour. Because this is nothing more than a radical chic fashion, the Left quickly becomes bored with one cause, and drops it for the latest fad.
The Left loves the black cause as long as blacks play their assigned role as Sidney Poitier in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? Mannerly and groveling.
But uppity black conservatives like Condi Rice are demonized.
It loves women as long as women play the part of angry victims.
4.The Left also prides itself on being contrarian by going out of its way to take the wrong side of every issue. It oozes empathy for pedophiles and cop killers and jihadis.
This is a badge of liberal sophistication. Behind its gated communities, the Left can afford to be merciful to the merciless.
For his part, the “Jewish Freak” has yet to figure out who his real friends and enemies are. He’s caught in a time warp of pogroms, crusades, and inquisitions.
If Holman is trapped in a past that never was, the “Jewish Freak” is trapped in a past that no longer is.
This has give rise to the oddest mutation of all—the self-hating Jew, personified by the likes of Michael Lerner and Noam Chomsky.
Left to its own devices, secular humanism will turn on its own kind, while Islam will administer the coup de grace.
The only salvation for Jew and Gentile like is in a Jewish Messiah.
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/05/islam-vs-christianity.html
But in the course of wielding his hatchet, Holman dropped a classic anti-Semitic comment.
I believe that I was the first blogger to draw attention to this smear.
It was also picked up by a secular Jewish blogger.
http://thejewishfreak.blogspot.com/
To make matters worse, Daniel Morgan came running to the defense of Holman. And Holman, instead of retracting his comment, went on the defensive, and thereby dug himself in much deeper with even more anti-Semitic stereotyping.
Ironically, we now have a debate between an ex-Christian Jew-hater and a secular Jewish Christophobe. The ex-Christian is anti-Jewish while the secular Jew is anti-clerical.
Holman’s anti-Semitism is not an anomaly. The Left has been anti-Semitic for years now.
The European elite signed a suicide pact with the Muslim world a long time ago. We increasingly witness the emergence of Eurabia, along with the concomitant resurgence of Continental anti-Semitism and anti-clericalism.
When I was a kid, growing up in the Sixties, there were no Palestinians—only Arabs. There was no conflict between Jews and Palestinians or Israelis and Palestinians: only a conflict between Israel and the Arab world.
What is more, Israel was the good guy.
So, where did all the Palestinians come from? Were they cloned?
And when did Israel become the bad guy?
Well, as I recall, this happened almost overnight when Yasir Arafat, the granddaddy of modern-day terrorism, succeeded in completely rewriting the history of the conflict.
Arafat was Egyptian, but somehow he managed to convince the “world community” that there was such a thing as a “Palestinian people,” whose land was being “occupied” by Israel.
It was a remarkably successful PR job. Several factors made this propagandistic about-face possible:
1.For all its multicultural rhetoric, the Left would rather talk about other cultures, talk to other cultures, talk at other cultures, and talk on behalf of other cultures, rather than listen to other cultures in order to learn from them.
2.With its watered down Marxism, the Left assumes that the winners are the bad guys and the losers are the good guys. In its paradigm of class warfare, the underdog is oppressed by the powerful.
Of course, the liberal establishment exempts itself from this paradigm.
As long as Jews were either defenseless or dead, its heart went out to Jewry. But when Jews fought back, liberal sympathy was transferred to the plight of those poor old “Palestinians.”
3.The Left only cares about feeling good, not about doing good. Liberals feel good about themselves by living vicariously—by adopting and patronizing the social mascot du jour. Because this is nothing more than a radical chic fashion, the Left quickly becomes bored with one cause, and drops it for the latest fad.
The Left loves the black cause as long as blacks play their assigned role as Sidney Poitier in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? Mannerly and groveling.
But uppity black conservatives like Condi Rice are demonized.
It loves women as long as women play the part of angry victims.
4.The Left also prides itself on being contrarian by going out of its way to take the wrong side of every issue. It oozes empathy for pedophiles and cop killers and jihadis.
This is a badge of liberal sophistication. Behind its gated communities, the Left can afford to be merciful to the merciless.
For his part, the “Jewish Freak” has yet to figure out who his real friends and enemies are. He’s caught in a time warp of pogroms, crusades, and inquisitions.
If Holman is trapped in a past that never was, the “Jewish Freak” is trapped in a past that no longer is.
This has give rise to the oddest mutation of all—the self-hating Jew, personified by the likes of Michael Lerner and Noam Chomsky.
Left to its own devices, secular humanism will turn on its own kind, while Islam will administer the coup de grace.
The only salvation for Jew and Gentile like is in a Jewish Messiah.
God Existing In Flesh, Made And Not Made
Christopher Price has a good article on references to the deity of Jesus in the writings of the earliest church fathers. As he explains, many other passages could be cited. In his section on Irenaeus, he gives five examples. I have a list of dozens of passages in my own notes on Irenaeus. These early fathers repeatedly make comments about Jesus that could only be applied to God. Irenaeus explains that when he refers to "God" he has the one God of monotheism in mind (Against Heresies, 4:2:5), so it can't be argued that he's using "God" in the sense of "god". Similarly, the early fathers often refer to Jesus as uncreated, something that could only be said of God (Ignatius, Letter To The Ephesians, 7; Justin Martyr, Dialogue With Trypho, 129; etc.). And the deity of Christ is mentioned in some early sources Price doesn't include in his article: Hermas, The Shepherd, Similitude 9:12; Second Clement, 1; Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus, 2:22; etc. Whatever questionable or inaccurate statements some early sources made about Jesus' identity, whatever implications of Jesus' deity they didn't think through, the fact remains that Jesus was explicitly and frequently referred to as God.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Article 51
Last night I caught an address by Noam Chomsky at West Point, of all places.
Below I’ll be quoting from an outline of his speech.
http://www.zmag.org/Sustainers/Content/2006-05/20chomsky.cfm/NEWS08
Since Chomsky is, among the living, American’s leading liberal political theorist, it is worthwhile to engage him on the war effort.
***QUOTE***
Concepts aside, actions in the real world all too often reinforce the maxim of Thucydides that "The strong do as they can, while the weak suffer what they must" — which is not only indisputably unjust, but at the present stage of human civilisation, a literal threat to the survival of the species.
***END-QUOTE***
The image of the strong dominating the weak, with the US representing the strong, and the Third World representing the weak, is a fulcrum of Chomsky’s worldview.
However, it’s also simplistic. For not only is there a distinction between strong and weak on the global stage, but also at a local level.
You may have a regime which is far weaker than the US, but is strong enough to oppress its weaker neighbor or its own populace.
If a superpower intervenes to topple or restrain the oppressive domestic policy or aggressive foreign policy of a lesser power, is that just or unjust?
Indeed, some might argue that a superpower has a special responsibility in this regard. It’s the duty of the strong to succor the weak.
At present I’m not going to argue that point one way or another. My immediate point is that a dipolar contrast between the strong and the weak disregards important moral and practical distinctions.
***QUOTE***
In his highly praised reflections on just war, Michael Walzer describes the invasion of Afghanistan as "a triumph of just war theory," standing alongside Kosovo as a "just war." Unfortunately, in these two cases, as throughout, his arguments rely crucially on premises like "seems to me entirely justified," or "I believe" or "no doubt."
***END-QUOTE***
It’s important to keep in mind that just-war theory was intended to impose a qualitative and quantitative limit on war—to restrict the extent as well as the destructive intensity of warfare.
Just-war theory is essentially proscriptive rather than prescriptive. It proscribes certain types and methods of warfare.
It lays down certain criteria for when a war is permissible, and how it should be conducted.
Now, just-war theory may be a flawed theory, but the alternative to just-war theory is not a reduction in the number or brutality of wars.
Incidentally, Calvin’s criteria for going to war seem to be broader than classical just-war theory. Cf. Institutes 4.20.11.
***QUOTE***
By "just war," counterterrorism or some other rationale, the US exempts itself from the fundamental principles of world order that it played the primary role in formulating and enacting.
After World War II, a new regime of international law was instituted. Its provisions on laws of war are codified in the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions and the Nuremberg principles, adopted by the General Assembly. The Charter bars the threat or use of force unless authorized by the Security Council or, under Article 51, in self-defense against armed attack until the Security Council acts.
In 2004, a high level UN panel, including, among others, former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, concluded that "Article 51 needs neither extension nor restriction of its long-understood scope ... In a world full of perceived potential threats, the risk to the global order and the norm of nonintervention on which it continues to be based is simply too great for the legality of unilateral preventive action, as distinct from collectively endorsed action, to be accepted. Allowing one to so act is to allow all."
The National Security Strategy of September 2002, just largely reiterated in March, grants the US the right to carry out what it calls "pre-emptive war," which means not pre-emptive, but "preventive war." That’s the right to commit aggression, plain and simple.
In the wording of the Nuremberg Tribunal, aggression is "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole" — all the evil in the tortured land of Iraq that flowed from the US-UK invasion, for example.
The concept of aggression was defined clearly enough by US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who was chief prosecutor for the United States at Nuremberg. The concept was restated in an authoritative General Assembly resolution. An "aggressor," Jackson proposed to the tribunal, is a state that is the first to commit such actions as "invasion of its armed forces, with or without a declaration of war, of the territory of another State."
That applies to the invasion of Iraq. Also relevant are Justice Jackson’s eloquent words at Nuremberg: "If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us." And elsewhere: "We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well."
For the political leadership, the threat of adherence to these principles — and to the rule of law in general — is serious indeed. Or it would be, if anyone dared to defy "the single ruthless superpower whose leadership intends to shape the world according to its own forceful world view," as Reuven Pedatzur wrote in Haaretz last May.
Let me state a couple of simple truths. The first is that actions are evaluated in terms of the range of likely consequences. A second is the principle of universality; we apply to ourselves the same standards we apply to others, if not more stringent ones.
Apart from being the merest truisms, these principles are also the foundation of just war theory, at least any version of it that deserves to be taken seriously.
***END-QUOTE***
There are several problems with this argument:
i) Chomsky retreats into the technicalities of international law. But what’s the value of law if not to defend the innocent?
It’s morally obtuse to begin with the law, for that begs the question of whether we have good laws or bad laws. The rule of law is not an end in itself, but a means to an end.
ii) One of the fundamental problems with the UN is that it gives every member a vote. In so doing, it gives the bad guys a vote, and the bad guys outnumber the good guys.
iii) Is global order the overarching norm? Should stability trump all other considerations?
Every position has consequences. Is instability the worst-case scenario? Can there not be forms of totalitarian stability which constitute a worst-case scenario?
iv) Is universality a sound principle?
It’s trivially easy to come up with counterexamples:
Unless everyone has a right to adopt kids, no one should have a right to adopt kids. Ergo, pedophiles should have a right to adopt kids.
Unless everyone has a right to bear arms, no one should have a right to bear arms. Ergo, a convicted sniper should have a right to bear arms.
Universality is a simplistic principle. A sounder principle would be equality—all other things being equal. But if all other things are unequal, then inequality is preferable to equality.
So, for example, equally qualified couples should be allowed to adopt kids, but you will still have a screening process to weed out unqualified couples.
Likewise, law-abiding citizens should be free to bear arms, but you will still do background checks to weed out bank robbers.
v) To take a more immediate example, it would be irrational to say that no nation has a right to nuclear arms unless every nation has a right to nuclear arms.
For some nations are more responsible than others. Some nations have nuclear arms as a defensive deterrent, whereas others have, or seek, nuclear arms to wage wars of unprovoked aggression and conquest, or to extort the “world community,” under threat of nuclear blackmail.
vi) There are certain conditions that must be met to justify preemptive action. The principle of preemption does not imply that any nation is entitled to wage war against any other nation under the pretext of preemption.
vii)”Allowing” one country to take unilateral action does not “allow” every other country to take unilateral action.
This assumes that countries need multilateral permission to wage war, and, absent such permission, their actions are disallowed.
But there is no enforcement mechanism to allow or disallow preemptive action.
Article 51 is a paper theory. Article 51 never prevented a war.
Nations wage war when it’s in their perceived national self-interest, when they think they can win, and when they think they can get away with it. International law is a dead letter in warfare.
Below I’ll be quoting from an outline of his speech.
http://www.zmag.org/Sustainers/Content/2006-05/20chomsky.cfm/NEWS08
Since Chomsky is, among the living, American’s leading liberal political theorist, it is worthwhile to engage him on the war effort.
***QUOTE***
Concepts aside, actions in the real world all too often reinforce the maxim of Thucydides that "The strong do as they can, while the weak suffer what they must" — which is not only indisputably unjust, but at the present stage of human civilisation, a literal threat to the survival of the species.
***END-QUOTE***
The image of the strong dominating the weak, with the US representing the strong, and the Third World representing the weak, is a fulcrum of Chomsky’s worldview.
However, it’s also simplistic. For not only is there a distinction between strong and weak on the global stage, but also at a local level.
You may have a regime which is far weaker than the US, but is strong enough to oppress its weaker neighbor or its own populace.
If a superpower intervenes to topple or restrain the oppressive domestic policy or aggressive foreign policy of a lesser power, is that just or unjust?
Indeed, some might argue that a superpower has a special responsibility in this regard. It’s the duty of the strong to succor the weak.
At present I’m not going to argue that point one way or another. My immediate point is that a dipolar contrast between the strong and the weak disregards important moral and practical distinctions.
***QUOTE***
In his highly praised reflections on just war, Michael Walzer describes the invasion of Afghanistan as "a triumph of just war theory," standing alongside Kosovo as a "just war." Unfortunately, in these two cases, as throughout, his arguments rely crucially on premises like "seems to me entirely justified," or "I believe" or "no doubt."
***END-QUOTE***
It’s important to keep in mind that just-war theory was intended to impose a qualitative and quantitative limit on war—to restrict the extent as well as the destructive intensity of warfare.
Just-war theory is essentially proscriptive rather than prescriptive. It proscribes certain types and methods of warfare.
It lays down certain criteria for when a war is permissible, and how it should be conducted.
Now, just-war theory may be a flawed theory, but the alternative to just-war theory is not a reduction in the number or brutality of wars.
Incidentally, Calvin’s criteria for going to war seem to be broader than classical just-war theory. Cf. Institutes 4.20.11.
***QUOTE***
By "just war," counterterrorism or some other rationale, the US exempts itself from the fundamental principles of world order that it played the primary role in formulating and enacting.
After World War II, a new regime of international law was instituted. Its provisions on laws of war are codified in the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions and the Nuremberg principles, adopted by the General Assembly. The Charter bars the threat or use of force unless authorized by the Security Council or, under Article 51, in self-defense against armed attack until the Security Council acts.
In 2004, a high level UN panel, including, among others, former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, concluded that "Article 51 needs neither extension nor restriction of its long-understood scope ... In a world full of perceived potential threats, the risk to the global order and the norm of nonintervention on which it continues to be based is simply too great for the legality of unilateral preventive action, as distinct from collectively endorsed action, to be accepted. Allowing one to so act is to allow all."
The National Security Strategy of September 2002, just largely reiterated in March, grants the US the right to carry out what it calls "pre-emptive war," which means not pre-emptive, but "preventive war." That’s the right to commit aggression, plain and simple.
In the wording of the Nuremberg Tribunal, aggression is "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole" — all the evil in the tortured land of Iraq that flowed from the US-UK invasion, for example.
The concept of aggression was defined clearly enough by US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who was chief prosecutor for the United States at Nuremberg. The concept was restated in an authoritative General Assembly resolution. An "aggressor," Jackson proposed to the tribunal, is a state that is the first to commit such actions as "invasion of its armed forces, with or without a declaration of war, of the territory of another State."
That applies to the invasion of Iraq. Also relevant are Justice Jackson’s eloquent words at Nuremberg: "If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us." And elsewhere: "We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well."
For the political leadership, the threat of adherence to these principles — and to the rule of law in general — is serious indeed. Or it would be, if anyone dared to defy "the single ruthless superpower whose leadership intends to shape the world according to its own forceful world view," as Reuven Pedatzur wrote in Haaretz last May.
Let me state a couple of simple truths. The first is that actions are evaluated in terms of the range of likely consequences. A second is the principle of universality; we apply to ourselves the same standards we apply to others, if not more stringent ones.
Apart from being the merest truisms, these principles are also the foundation of just war theory, at least any version of it that deserves to be taken seriously.
***END-QUOTE***
There are several problems with this argument:
i) Chomsky retreats into the technicalities of international law. But what’s the value of law if not to defend the innocent?
It’s morally obtuse to begin with the law, for that begs the question of whether we have good laws or bad laws. The rule of law is not an end in itself, but a means to an end.
ii) One of the fundamental problems with the UN is that it gives every member a vote. In so doing, it gives the bad guys a vote, and the bad guys outnumber the good guys.
iii) Is global order the overarching norm? Should stability trump all other considerations?
Every position has consequences. Is instability the worst-case scenario? Can there not be forms of totalitarian stability which constitute a worst-case scenario?
iv) Is universality a sound principle?
It’s trivially easy to come up with counterexamples:
Unless everyone has a right to adopt kids, no one should have a right to adopt kids. Ergo, pedophiles should have a right to adopt kids.
Unless everyone has a right to bear arms, no one should have a right to bear arms. Ergo, a convicted sniper should have a right to bear arms.
Universality is a simplistic principle. A sounder principle would be equality—all other things being equal. But if all other things are unequal, then inequality is preferable to equality.
So, for example, equally qualified couples should be allowed to adopt kids, but you will still have a screening process to weed out unqualified couples.
Likewise, law-abiding citizens should be free to bear arms, but you will still do background checks to weed out bank robbers.
v) To take a more immediate example, it would be irrational to say that no nation has a right to nuclear arms unless every nation has a right to nuclear arms.
For some nations are more responsible than others. Some nations have nuclear arms as a defensive deterrent, whereas others have, or seek, nuclear arms to wage wars of unprovoked aggression and conquest, or to extort the “world community,” under threat of nuclear blackmail.
vi) There are certain conditions that must be met to justify preemptive action. The principle of preemption does not imply that any nation is entitled to wage war against any other nation under the pretext of preemption.
vii)”Allowing” one country to take unilateral action does not “allow” every other country to take unilateral action.
This assumes that countries need multilateral permission to wage war, and, absent such permission, their actions are disallowed.
But there is no enforcement mechanism to allow or disallow preemptive action.
Article 51 is a paper theory. Article 51 never prevented a war.
Nations wage war when it’s in their perceived national self-interest, when they think they can win, and when they think they can get away with it. International law is a dead letter in warfare.
On Sale Now
Schaff's Church History, the full set for $49.99!!!
Yes, you read that correctly.
Go to Christianbook.com.
Yes, you read that correctly.
Go to Christianbook.com.
Monday, May 29, 2006
Logan's Run
Joe Holman, of the debunkers, lays out his worst-case scenario:
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/05/islam-vs-christianity.html
“But I am afraid of her...I'm afraid of one day waking up to a nation where the education departments promote creationism along side evolution, lumping superstition in with science.”
It’s very revealing how many Darwinians have so little faith in Darwinism. They don’t believe that Darwinism can survive a little bit of intellectual competition.
“I'm afraid of our nation having to one day face greater difficulties because of religiously influenced leaders and commanders who feel compelled to put our soldiers in harm's way out of the Christian compulsion to keep helping the Jews fight their wars, while it costs the lives of our boys in green.”
I’m sure that David Duke would appreciate Joe’s trenchant analysis of the war effort.
“I'm afraid of getting out of bed one day to find a government that has reverted back to oppressive edicts and judgments, like 'Blue Law Weekends' and other unwanted products of biblical influences.”
Yes, back to the bad old days when stores closed on Sunday. Imagine how oppressive it was when parents were forced to spend some quality time talking to their kids one day out of the whole week because the shopping mall was closed.
“I'm afraid to think of all the lives that will be lost if Christianity and her proponents continually stand against stem cell research and other developments of the vital sciences out of foolish superstitious paranoia.”
What’s the hard scientific evidence that embryonic stem cell research will save many lives?
“I'm afraid to one day open my eyes to find censorship increased and freedom of speech hemmed in, resulting in a greater stifling of liberty.”
Funny. All the campus speech codes and hate speech legislation are hailing from the liberal end of the political spectrum. The ACLU has become the leading lobbyist for prior restraint and content discrimination.
“I'm afraid to think of the loads of psychological damage inflicted by parents, pastors, and counselors, upon the kids and young adults in their care, who impose the damaging and restricting principles of New Testament morality and sexuality on their minds.”
Yes, back to the bad old days when a man had to marry a woman and actually provide for her in case he got her pregnant—instead of slapping a C-bill in her hand to be serviced by the local abortionist—like putting your car through the automated car wash to be hosed down, vacuumed out, and ready for reuse.
And let us hope that NAMBLA will be able to abolish the prudish old age of consent.
“I'm afraid to think that the right-wingers will one day get their wish and have abortion banned.”
Why is Holman so afraid of putting abortion up for a vote? After all, female voters outnumber male voters.
“Forcing many handicapped children into lives of despair.”
Yes, it’s better to kill people than care for people.
Do handicapped children lead lives of despair?
I’m afraid that Holman was born in the wrong time and place. He missed his true calling in life as a Nazi eugenicist.
“And bringing more unneeded human lives into this world, weakening it.”
Nietzsche could not have put it any better.
Come to think of it, the graveyard is full of needless people. After all, everyone dies sooner or later, yet the world keeps on ticking.
Which reminds me—is Joe a needed commodity? Couldn’t the world get along just fine without him? Really, he just a drag on the system. A parasite.
“I'm afraid of growing old and one day being incapacitated by a stroke, and finding others having to wait on me, hand and foot, since euthanasia would be outlawed.”
No doubt he’d prefer a world like Logan’s Run where everyone over 30 is euthanized.
So much better than one of those oppressive societies in which parents are expected to care for young children, while grown children are expected to care for aging parents.
“This is why I am afraid of Christianity.”
I understand. Life would be so much better if the world were one big concentration camp with Peter Singer as the commandant.
Thanks, Joe, for reminding us of the secular alternative to old-fashioned Christian morality.
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/05/islam-vs-christianity.html
“But I am afraid of her...I'm afraid of one day waking up to a nation where the education departments promote creationism along side evolution, lumping superstition in with science.”
It’s very revealing how many Darwinians have so little faith in Darwinism. They don’t believe that Darwinism can survive a little bit of intellectual competition.
“I'm afraid of our nation having to one day face greater difficulties because of religiously influenced leaders and commanders who feel compelled to put our soldiers in harm's way out of the Christian compulsion to keep helping the Jews fight their wars, while it costs the lives of our boys in green.”
I’m sure that David Duke would appreciate Joe’s trenchant analysis of the war effort.
“I'm afraid of getting out of bed one day to find a government that has reverted back to oppressive edicts and judgments, like 'Blue Law Weekends' and other unwanted products of biblical influences.”
Yes, back to the bad old days when stores closed on Sunday. Imagine how oppressive it was when parents were forced to spend some quality time talking to their kids one day out of the whole week because the shopping mall was closed.
“I'm afraid to think of all the lives that will be lost if Christianity and her proponents continually stand against stem cell research and other developments of the vital sciences out of foolish superstitious paranoia.”
What’s the hard scientific evidence that embryonic stem cell research will save many lives?
“I'm afraid to one day open my eyes to find censorship increased and freedom of speech hemmed in, resulting in a greater stifling of liberty.”
Funny. All the campus speech codes and hate speech legislation are hailing from the liberal end of the political spectrum. The ACLU has become the leading lobbyist for prior restraint and content discrimination.
“I'm afraid to think of the loads of psychological damage inflicted by parents, pastors, and counselors, upon the kids and young adults in their care, who impose the damaging and restricting principles of New Testament morality and sexuality on their minds.”
Yes, back to the bad old days when a man had to marry a woman and actually provide for her in case he got her pregnant—instead of slapping a C-bill in her hand to be serviced by the local abortionist—like putting your car through the automated car wash to be hosed down, vacuumed out, and ready for reuse.
And let us hope that NAMBLA will be able to abolish the prudish old age of consent.
“I'm afraid to think that the right-wingers will one day get their wish and have abortion banned.”
Why is Holman so afraid of putting abortion up for a vote? After all, female voters outnumber male voters.
“Forcing many handicapped children into lives of despair.”
Yes, it’s better to kill people than care for people.
Do handicapped children lead lives of despair?
I’m afraid that Holman was born in the wrong time and place. He missed his true calling in life as a Nazi eugenicist.
“And bringing more unneeded human lives into this world, weakening it.”
Nietzsche could not have put it any better.
Come to think of it, the graveyard is full of needless people. After all, everyone dies sooner or later, yet the world keeps on ticking.
Which reminds me—is Joe a needed commodity? Couldn’t the world get along just fine without him? Really, he just a drag on the system. A parasite.
“I'm afraid of growing old and one day being incapacitated by a stroke, and finding others having to wait on me, hand and foot, since euthanasia would be outlawed.”
No doubt he’d prefer a world like Logan’s Run where everyone over 30 is euthanized.
So much better than one of those oppressive societies in which parents are expected to care for young children, while grown children are expected to care for aging parents.
“This is why I am afraid of Christianity.”
I understand. Life would be so much better if the world were one big concentration camp with Peter Singer as the commandant.
Thanks, Joe, for reminding us of the secular alternative to old-fashioned Christian morality.
Welcome Neighor
Ben Cole has a new blog.
It's worth checking out if you are interested in Southern Baptists. Folks, the SBC needs prayer, and it needs reform. Dr. Cole is pulling no punches. Greensboro may be a watershed event.
It's worth checking out if you are interested in Southern Baptists. Folks, the SBC needs prayer, and it needs reform. Dr. Cole is pulling no punches. Greensboro may be a watershed event.
Firefox Plug-In for Monergism.com
Monergism.com has a search plug-in for us Firefox users here.
Y'all might want to check out the rest of the goodies by its designer. I quite like the CCEL plug-in.
Sorry, Steve, I guess you're being left out what with your fancy-shmancy Safari browser and all that. :~)
Y'all might want to check out the rest of the goodies by its designer. I quite like the CCEL plug-in.
Sorry, Steve, I guess you're being left out what with your fancy-shmancy Safari browser and all that. :~)
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Apostolicity
Jason Engwer has responded to Dagood’s latest exercise in ankle-biting.
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/05/skeptical-distortions-of-canon.html
Jason’s reply is characterized by his typical care and common sense. I’ll throw in a few comments of my own.
1.Dagood has no positive agenda. He’s on a search and destroy mission. His only objective is to foster as much doubt by any way he can.
This is true of the debunkers generally, as well as the Jesus Seminar and members of the Secular Web.
These people are prepared to destroy historical knowledge in general in order to destroy the historicity of Scripture in particular.
2.This stands in stark contrast to the methods of a historian, who is trying to reconstruct the past by sifting and piecing together the available evidence.
There are multiple lines of evidence for the OT text, the NT text, the OT canon, and the NT canon. To some extent, these lines of evidence also intersect.
3.One line of evidence for the NT canon is patristic. Now, these are some of the considerations that a serious historian would bring to bear:
i) An early witness may be a reliable witness for the simple fact that he’s an early witness. He is closer in time and place to the events.
He doesn’t have to be especially bright or well-educated. He has only to be near enough in time and place to be in a position to know what he’s talking about. He also needs to be a man of good character.
Examples would include Justin, Polycarp, Papias, Ignatius, and Clement of Rome.
ii) Then you have later witnesses. They may seem to be at a disadvantage since they are further removed from the events.
Yet this disadvantage may be offset by compensatory advantages. They may be well-educated and well-connected.
As such, they may enjoy a knowledge of the relevant facts than someone who is closer to the events, but whose experience is geographically confined.
They may also have greater critical discernment than an earlier witness.
Examples would include Origen, Hippolytus, Irenaeus, and Eusebius.
ii) In addition to individuals you also have local and regional churches. Now surprisingly, this results in some early variations between one regional canon and another.
The apostles and their deputies ministered in different regions. Some were better traveled than others. Likewise, different NT writings were originally addressed to different churches or patrons.
Likewise, some regions were better connected than others, depending on their strategic importance in the far-flung Roman Empire.
We’re talking about witnesses from such disparate localities as Rome, Corinth, Carthage, Antioch, Alexandria, Sardis, Smyrna, Hierapolis, Lyons, and so on.
As a result, one individual or regional church may be very expert on one subset of NT writings, but fairly inexpert on another.
What is surprising is not that we have these short-lived local variations. That’s to be expected.
What’s striking is how quickly it took the NT canon to coalesce.
iii) Very few NT books were ever in dispute, and very few apocryphal books were ever in play.
No apocryphal book ever enjoyed a geographically diverse sponsorship. Rather, it might enjoy individual or regional acceptance or apparent acceptance for two or three of reasons:
a) The general philosophy of a church father might color his theory of inspiration. A Platonist like Origen or Clement of Alexander had a looser view of inspiration. Hence, his canon might have a fuzzy circumference although the center was firm and fixed.
b) Some books were accepted by an individual or local church because the unsuspecting witness was naïve enough to take the pseudonymous ascription at face value.
c) The Christian faith was always an apologetic faith, and there’s a measure of audience adaptation as a church father addressed a pagan opponent on his own level.
iv) Finally, there’s one respect in which a modern church historian has an edge over the church fathers.
A modern historian frequently has a much firmer grasp of relative chronology. His historical distance is to his advantage insofar as he knows everything that came before. He is limited to what has survived, but of what has survived he has lines of evidence from every time and place.
v) There are also little quirks and eccentricities that creep into any historical record or historical process.
a) For example, the Muratorian Canon is either a Latin translation of a Greek autographon or at the very least a barely literate copy of a Latin autographon. Moreover, our extant copy is incomplete.
So some of the omissions may be due to scribal indolence or the mutilated state of the extant copy.
b) Likewise, Marcion’s canon is a deliberately idiosyncratic and reactionary canon which clearly takes its point of departure from a preexisting canon in general circulation, and tries to challenge the status quo.
Now, a serious historian would make allowances for all these variables, and thereby make suitable adjustments to evaluate and correlate the comparative data. And that’s because a real historian takes the possibility of historical knowledge seriously.
He’s not attempting to foster an artificial state of doubt, but to properly interrelate and coordinate the surviving evidence in place and time.
4.Another line of evidence comes from lower criticism. What we have are not, for the most part, copes of individual books of the NT. Rather, we have copies of the canon as a whole or subsets of the canon.
The fact that our MSS consist of sets or subsets of books means the copies were copied from a preexisting collection in general circulation.
The same holds true for the OT.
So that’s another witness to the canon of Scripture. I’ve already touched on this line of evidence when I summarized the evidence presented by David Trobisch.
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/05/muslim-conundrum.html
5. (3)-(4) represent external lines of evidence. But there are also internal lines of evidence. The Bible is not a random anthology.
Rather, it’s a compilation of books which subdivides into certain smaller blocks or units of interrelated material, which often overlap in various respects.
The Pauline correspondence goes together as one literary unit.
Should we group Luke with the four gospels, or with the Book of Acts? Either grouping would be logical.
Should we group 1-3 John with the other NT epistles, or with the other Johannine writings? Either grouping would be logical.
Should we group the Psalms of David with the rest of the Psalter, or with the life of David in 1-2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles? Either grouping would be logical.
The books of the Bible parallels each other in various ways, so there are different ways of pairing off one book with another. I’ve discussed this elsewhere:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2004/04/canon-of-scripture-1.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2004/04/canon-of-scripture-2.html
6.Apostolicity was a criterion of canonicity for the early church. But there are some conspicuous exceptions: Mark, Luke, Hebrews, James, and Jude.
How do we account for these exceptions?
In the case of James and Jude, the answer is obvious. These were members of the dominical family. As half-brothers of Christ they were obviously well-informed witnesses with respect to the historical Jesus.
Mark was a resident of Jerusalem whose home became an early house-church (Acts 12:12). Indeed, it was probably the site of the Last Supper (Mk 14:14; Acts 1:13-14). As such, it was the First Church of Jerusalem.
Mark was also a member of the Pauline circle. What is more, his name pops up in 1 Pet 5:13. It comes as no surprise that such a well-connected individual wrote one of the four gospels.
Luke was also a member of the Pauline circle, which, in turn, brought him into contact with members of the mother church in Jerusalem.
We know less about the author of Hebrews, except that he was a second-generation believer (2:3-4) as well as a friend of Timothy (13:23), who was a member of the Pauline circle.
So all the NT writers were moving within the same inner circle of friends and confidants.
7. Let us finish with a word or two about historical probabilities.
Apostates like Dagood try to unsettle the faithful by posing all sorts of hypotheticals and imponderables.
But one can turn this around. So what if I don’t know enough to answer every conceivable question? Why should I fret over unanswerable questions? Why should I fret over circumstances beyond my control?
If it’s truly beyond my control, then why should I feel responsible for it? And if I’m not responsible for things over which I have no control, then that is not a cause of concern, but a cause of contentment.
I’m not answerable to the unanswerable. Far from being one more thing I need to fret over, this is one less thing I need to fret over.
8. I don’t need to know all the answers as long as God knows all the answer. All I need to know is the one who knows all the answers.
I don’t need to be in control of all the variables as long as God is in control of all the variables, and I’m under control.
9.It’s not as if the unbeliever can offer certainty in place of uncertainty. It’s not as if he has a superior alternative. Quite the contrary.
As long as we’re going to toy with hypotheticals, let’s take the worse case scenario.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that a believer could be wrong while an unbeliever could be right.
A believer has everything to gain if he’s right, and nothing to lose if he’s wrong—while an unbeliever has nothing to gain if he’s right, and everything to lose if he’s wrong.
If an unbeliever is right, he will rot in unhallowed ground while an unbeliever, if he’s wrong, will rot in hallowed ground.
If an unbeliever is wrong, he will burn in hell, but if a believer is right, he will reign in heaven.
10.I don’t regard the Christian faith as a defeasible hypothesis. And I don’t regard saving faith as falsifiable.
But an apostate is a very strange animal. He has left the church for a suicide cult, and he is a zealous recruiter for his suicide cult.
He is a tempter who demands everything in exchange for nothing in return. Death in lieu of life. Despair instead of hope. Only an utter fool would fine such a bargain the least bit appealing.
“Come and die with us! Share our misery! You, too, can lead a pointless life! Come, let us join hands and jump from the cliff in mass suicide. Hurry up before this one-time offer expires!”
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/05/skeptical-distortions-of-canon.html
Jason’s reply is characterized by his typical care and common sense. I’ll throw in a few comments of my own.
1.Dagood has no positive agenda. He’s on a search and destroy mission. His only objective is to foster as much doubt by any way he can.
This is true of the debunkers generally, as well as the Jesus Seminar and members of the Secular Web.
These people are prepared to destroy historical knowledge in general in order to destroy the historicity of Scripture in particular.
2.This stands in stark contrast to the methods of a historian, who is trying to reconstruct the past by sifting and piecing together the available evidence.
There are multiple lines of evidence for the OT text, the NT text, the OT canon, and the NT canon. To some extent, these lines of evidence also intersect.
3.One line of evidence for the NT canon is patristic. Now, these are some of the considerations that a serious historian would bring to bear:
i) An early witness may be a reliable witness for the simple fact that he’s an early witness. He is closer in time and place to the events.
He doesn’t have to be especially bright or well-educated. He has only to be near enough in time and place to be in a position to know what he’s talking about. He also needs to be a man of good character.
Examples would include Justin, Polycarp, Papias, Ignatius, and Clement of Rome.
ii) Then you have later witnesses. They may seem to be at a disadvantage since they are further removed from the events.
Yet this disadvantage may be offset by compensatory advantages. They may be well-educated and well-connected.
As such, they may enjoy a knowledge of the relevant facts than someone who is closer to the events, but whose experience is geographically confined.
They may also have greater critical discernment than an earlier witness.
Examples would include Origen, Hippolytus, Irenaeus, and Eusebius.
ii) In addition to individuals you also have local and regional churches. Now surprisingly, this results in some early variations between one regional canon and another.
The apostles and their deputies ministered in different regions. Some were better traveled than others. Likewise, different NT writings were originally addressed to different churches or patrons.
Likewise, some regions were better connected than others, depending on their strategic importance in the far-flung Roman Empire.
We’re talking about witnesses from such disparate localities as Rome, Corinth, Carthage, Antioch, Alexandria, Sardis, Smyrna, Hierapolis, Lyons, and so on.
As a result, one individual or regional church may be very expert on one subset of NT writings, but fairly inexpert on another.
What is surprising is not that we have these short-lived local variations. That’s to be expected.
What’s striking is how quickly it took the NT canon to coalesce.
iii) Very few NT books were ever in dispute, and very few apocryphal books were ever in play.
No apocryphal book ever enjoyed a geographically diverse sponsorship. Rather, it might enjoy individual or regional acceptance or apparent acceptance for two or three of reasons:
a) The general philosophy of a church father might color his theory of inspiration. A Platonist like Origen or Clement of Alexander had a looser view of inspiration. Hence, his canon might have a fuzzy circumference although the center was firm and fixed.
b) Some books were accepted by an individual or local church because the unsuspecting witness was naïve enough to take the pseudonymous ascription at face value.
c) The Christian faith was always an apologetic faith, and there’s a measure of audience adaptation as a church father addressed a pagan opponent on his own level.
iv) Finally, there’s one respect in which a modern church historian has an edge over the church fathers.
A modern historian frequently has a much firmer grasp of relative chronology. His historical distance is to his advantage insofar as he knows everything that came before. He is limited to what has survived, but of what has survived he has lines of evidence from every time and place.
v) There are also little quirks and eccentricities that creep into any historical record or historical process.
a) For example, the Muratorian Canon is either a Latin translation of a Greek autographon or at the very least a barely literate copy of a Latin autographon. Moreover, our extant copy is incomplete.
So some of the omissions may be due to scribal indolence or the mutilated state of the extant copy.
b) Likewise, Marcion’s canon is a deliberately idiosyncratic and reactionary canon which clearly takes its point of departure from a preexisting canon in general circulation, and tries to challenge the status quo.
Now, a serious historian would make allowances for all these variables, and thereby make suitable adjustments to evaluate and correlate the comparative data. And that’s because a real historian takes the possibility of historical knowledge seriously.
He’s not attempting to foster an artificial state of doubt, but to properly interrelate and coordinate the surviving evidence in place and time.
4.Another line of evidence comes from lower criticism. What we have are not, for the most part, copes of individual books of the NT. Rather, we have copies of the canon as a whole or subsets of the canon.
The fact that our MSS consist of sets or subsets of books means the copies were copied from a preexisting collection in general circulation.
The same holds true for the OT.
So that’s another witness to the canon of Scripture. I’ve already touched on this line of evidence when I summarized the evidence presented by David Trobisch.
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/05/muslim-conundrum.html
5. (3)-(4) represent external lines of evidence. But there are also internal lines of evidence. The Bible is not a random anthology.
Rather, it’s a compilation of books which subdivides into certain smaller blocks or units of interrelated material, which often overlap in various respects.
The Pauline correspondence goes together as one literary unit.
Should we group Luke with the four gospels, or with the Book of Acts? Either grouping would be logical.
Should we group 1-3 John with the other NT epistles, or with the other Johannine writings? Either grouping would be logical.
Should we group the Psalms of David with the rest of the Psalter, or with the life of David in 1-2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles? Either grouping would be logical.
The books of the Bible parallels each other in various ways, so there are different ways of pairing off one book with another. I’ve discussed this elsewhere:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2004/04/canon-of-scripture-1.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2004/04/canon-of-scripture-2.html
6.Apostolicity was a criterion of canonicity for the early church. But there are some conspicuous exceptions: Mark, Luke, Hebrews, James, and Jude.
How do we account for these exceptions?
In the case of James and Jude, the answer is obvious. These were members of the dominical family. As half-brothers of Christ they were obviously well-informed witnesses with respect to the historical Jesus.
Mark was a resident of Jerusalem whose home became an early house-church (Acts 12:12). Indeed, it was probably the site of the Last Supper (Mk 14:14; Acts 1:13-14). As such, it was the First Church of Jerusalem.
Mark was also a member of the Pauline circle. What is more, his name pops up in 1 Pet 5:13. It comes as no surprise that such a well-connected individual wrote one of the four gospels.
Luke was also a member of the Pauline circle, which, in turn, brought him into contact with members of the mother church in Jerusalem.
We know less about the author of Hebrews, except that he was a second-generation believer (2:3-4) as well as a friend of Timothy (13:23), who was a member of the Pauline circle.
So all the NT writers were moving within the same inner circle of friends and confidants.
7. Let us finish with a word or two about historical probabilities.
Apostates like Dagood try to unsettle the faithful by posing all sorts of hypotheticals and imponderables.
But one can turn this around. So what if I don’t know enough to answer every conceivable question? Why should I fret over unanswerable questions? Why should I fret over circumstances beyond my control?
If it’s truly beyond my control, then why should I feel responsible for it? And if I’m not responsible for things over which I have no control, then that is not a cause of concern, but a cause of contentment.
I’m not answerable to the unanswerable. Far from being one more thing I need to fret over, this is one less thing I need to fret over.
8. I don’t need to know all the answers as long as God knows all the answer. All I need to know is the one who knows all the answers.
I don’t need to be in control of all the variables as long as God is in control of all the variables, and I’m under control.
9.It’s not as if the unbeliever can offer certainty in place of uncertainty. It’s not as if he has a superior alternative. Quite the contrary.
As long as we’re going to toy with hypotheticals, let’s take the worse case scenario.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that a believer could be wrong while an unbeliever could be right.
A believer has everything to gain if he’s right, and nothing to lose if he’s wrong—while an unbeliever has nothing to gain if he’s right, and everything to lose if he’s wrong.
If an unbeliever is right, he will rot in unhallowed ground while an unbeliever, if he’s wrong, will rot in hallowed ground.
If an unbeliever is wrong, he will burn in hell, but if a believer is right, he will reign in heaven.
10.I don’t regard the Christian faith as a defeasible hypothesis. And I don’t regard saving faith as falsifiable.
But an apostate is a very strange animal. He has left the church for a suicide cult, and he is a zealous recruiter for his suicide cult.
He is a tempter who demands everything in exchange for nothing in return. Death in lieu of life. Despair instead of hope. Only an utter fool would fine such a bargain the least bit appealing.
“Come and die with us! Share our misery! You, too, can lead a pointless life! Come, let us join hands and jump from the cliff in mass suicide. Hurry up before this one-time offer expires!”
Skeptical Distortions Of The Canon
Dagood continues to make a lot of misleading comments about the canon. I'm not going to address every claim he makes. I don't have the time or desire to do it, and he isn't showing much concern for accuracy. Once you correct one of his posts, he moves on to a new post with a new series of arguments, without making much effort to be more reasonable. However, I do think that addressing some of his latest claims should be helpful to other people who read this blog.
Dagood asks how we know who is and isn't an apostle, for example. He asks how we know that there aren't apostles alive today. While it's true that the term "apostle" is used in more than one sense in the New Testament, just like other words in any language will be used in different senses in different contexts, the term isn't as flexible as Dagood suggests.
Some of the figures who are called apostles are described as having to meet requirements that nobody living today could meet (Acts 1:21-22, 1 Corinthians 9:1). They're also described as having characteristics that people today don't have (John 14:26, 15:27, 16:13). Regardless of whether we call these people "apostles" or something else, the fact remains that their role is different from the role of anybody in the modern church.
Dagood tells us that people today could have visions of Jesus like the ones Paul had, but visions don't determine apostleship. We accept Paul's apostleship because he was a witness of the resurrected Christ and because the apostles authorized by Jesus accepted Paul's apostleship. We don't accept Paul's apostleship because he had visions.
The resurrection appearances of Jesus, which weren't just visions, came to an end. That's why Paul can speak of himself as the last witness (1 Corinthians 15:8). That's why Paul has authority over Timothy and instructs Timothy to maintain the teachings he received, not add to them (2 Timothy 1:13-14, 2:2). Timothy and the other church leaders he was to oversee didn't have the authority Paul had. That's why men like Clement of Rome and Ignatius refer to apostolic authority as something in the past, refer to themselves as having less authority than the apostles, and treat their own writings differently than the apostolic documents (see, for example, Clement of Rome, First Clement, 42; Ignatius, Letter To The Romans, 4; Papias, in Eusebius' Church History, 3:39:3-4; Polycarp, Letter To The Philippians, 6; The Epistle Of Barnabas, 5). The apostles were the foundation of the church (Ephesians 2:20), and a foundation isn't laid twice. Similarly, Jesus remains the cornerstone without having to be replaced with a new cornerstone in every generation. The New Testament documents refer to men like Peter and Paul having authority that future generations wouldn't have, and we find widespread agreement among the earliest post-apostolic sources regarding the closing of the apostolic age and the uniqueness of the authority of those first century apostles.
To suggest that the foundational role of these apostles is doubtful, because the term "apostle" is applied to other figures as well, would be unreasonable. Whatever may be unanswered or unclear about apostolic authority, there are other elements of apostolic authority that are addressed and are clear. Among those clear conclusions are the fact that men like Peter, John, and Paul were apostles in the highest sense and the fact that nobody living since their time has had comparable authority. Complaining that other elements of apostolic authority aren't addressed or aren't clear doesn't present a significant problem for Christianity.
Dagood makes a series of claims about how documents like The Shepherd Of Hermas and The Gospel Of Peter were accepted as canonical in the early church. He offers no documentation. We need to be careful here, because some of the patristic writers would refer to documents as inspired without intending to suggest canonicity, much as we today might refer to music or a piece of literature as inspired in some secondary sense. Clement of Alexandria, for example, is often cited as including various books in his canon because he refers to those books as inspired in some sense. See, for example, the discussion in Martin Hengel, The Four Gospels And The One Gospel Of Jesus Christ (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 2000), pp. 15-19.
Sources like Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, who wrote before Clement of Alexandria, tell us that our collection of four gospels was already long established in the church. The suggestion that Clement of Alexandria intended to add the Gospel Of Peter or the Gospel Of The Hebrews to the other four gospels is highly dubious. As Hengel observes:
"the knowledge of a widely recognized collection of the four Gospels which is used in worship is certainly substantially older than Irenaeus...Clement [of Alexandria] took it for granted that the collection of four Gospels was based on recognized church tradition and was unchallenged, since he does not have to defend it anywhere....Clement's relative generosity towards 'apocryphal' texts and traditions, which is connected with the unique spiritual milieu in Alexandria and his constant controversies with many kinds of discussion partners to whom he wants to present the true apostolic 'gnosis' of the Gospel, should not obscure the fact that even for him the apostolic origin and special church authority of the four Gospels was already unassailable. On this point, for all the differences there is no fundamental opposition between him and Irenaeus....We might also say that precisely because the unique authority of the four Gospels was indispensable for him [Clement of Alexandria], he could sometimes bring himself also to use 'apocryphal' texts which helped him in his argument, indeed turning the very texts of the 'heretics' against them, as is evident from the example of the Gospel of the Egyptians. Thus Clement is not arguing from a position of uncertainty but rather from one of strength." (pp. 14, 16, 18-19)
One of the points Hengel makes is that Clement of Alexandria is often careless in his use of scripture, meaning that he sometimes misquotes passages from memory, and he may have sometimes misremembered where a quote came from. Hengel also points out that Clement discusses the gospels in book 6 of his Hypotyposes, and Clement only mentions our four gospels. The Gospel Of Peter isn't included, nor is the Gospel Of The Hebrews. Hengel further notes that, in book 3 of his Stromata, Clement specifically refers to the number of gospels as four. Hengel explains that Clement would sometimes speak of documents as authoritative if he was addressing a group of people who considered that document authoritative, even if Clement himself didn't accept the document in the same way. To cite Clement of Alexandria as evidence that the Gospel Of Peter "was accepted as an apostolic teaching up until at least 200 CE", as Dagood puts it, would be misleading, and it's misleading for Dagood to cite Clement supporting the Gospel Of The Hebrews.
Dagood asks how we know where to draw the line in terms of what evidence to accept for or against the canonicity of a book. But the same question could be asked about the authorship of any historical document or the canon of any author's writings. How do we know where to draw the line with Tacitus' writings, for example? If somebody living 80 years after Tacitus tells us that Tacitus wrote the Annals, how do we know that 80 years is early enough? What if another source comments on Tacitus' authorship 120 years after Tacitus' death? Where do we draw the line? It's like asking when a pile of marbles becomes a large pile. Different people may define "large" in different ways. But do we give up using a term like "large", just because some uncertainties are involved? No. People may disagree about whether a pile becomes large after 50 marbles, 70 marbles, or some other number, but that disagreement probably won't keep most of us from agreeing that a pile of several million marbles is large. The existence of some uncertainties and some space for subjective judgments in our evaluation of the canon doesn't change the fact that many clearer and more objective factors are involved.
Dagood's objections could be applied to historical research in general, not just the issue of the Christian canon of scripture. Yet, historians are able to reach reliable historical conclusions, despite the involvement of factors like the ones Dagood has mentioned.
As I said earlier, Dagood makes some questionable or false claims without offering any documentation, but he is right about some early sources including books in their canon that Christians reject today. Dagood doesn't put that fact in a proper context, though. If a book is considered canonical by only one or two sources, whereas another book is considered canonical by every church around the world or the large majority of churches, it doesn't make sense to put the two books in the same category. And since we can read some of these documents for ourselves, we also have internal evidence to go by. We can read a document like The Shepherd Of Hermas for ourselves and see many indications that it was written after the time of the apostles and contradicts apostolic teaching.
Dagood ignores one of our most important sources on the canon, Eusebius of Caesarea. Eusebius lived and wrote in the late third and early fourth centuries. He tells us a lot about the canon. And we know that Eusebius wasn't just going by what the churches of his day believed. He repeatedly mentions that he's making his canonical judgments based both on what the churches of his day report and what sources of previous generations said. We know that Eusebius possessed many documents that are no longer extant, such as the writings of Papias, Quadratus, and Dionysius of Corinth. Thus, Eusebius was in a good position to assess the relevant evidence. What he tells us runs contrary to the assertions and suggestions of people like Dagood.
Eusebius explains that the large majority of our 27-book New Testament canon was undisputed. And the books that were disputed were accepted by the majority. Books like the Shepherd Of Hermas and the Gospel Of Peter are in another category. Dagood gives us examples of a book being accepted or rejected by one author, but Eusebius is reporting on multiple generations of testimony from all over the Christian world.
We also have some relevant evidence from non-Christian sources. We know that Christian documents were available to and read by the early enemies of Christianity, partly because sources like Aristides and Justin Martyr tell us so. I'm not aware of any early non-Christian source raising any significant objections to our 27-book canon. If a book like 2 Timothy was written 30 years after Paul had died, or 2 Peter was written 60 or 80 years after Peter's death, doesn't it seem unlikely that not only the Christian world, but also the early enemies of Christianity, would fail to take notice or would take notice without making much of an issue out of it?
I mentioned that most of the New Testament books were universally or almost universally accepted. For the sake of argument, let's temporarily limit ourselves to those books. I think that a good case can be made for disputed books like Hebrews and 2 Peter. But let's exclude those briefly, for the sake of argument. We would still have the entire Old Testament and 20 books of the New Testament. In other words, even if we were to limit ourselves to a higher standard for canonicity (universal or nearly universal acceptance of a book among the early sources), we would still have the large majority of our canon.
And the small minority of the canon that's disputed has been disputed for reasons that aren't too difficult to overcome. The book of Revelation, for example, has strong early evidence in its favor, but was disputed later. The later dispute doesn't overturn the high quality of the early evidence supporting the book. Thus, saying that Revelation was a disputed book is, in a sense, misleading. Similarly, the lack of early evidence for the second and third epistles of John isn't of much significance, given the shortness of those documents and the unoriginality of their content. I could give other examples, but the point is that even the more disputed books of the New Testament are credible.
If Dagood would give a proper place to factors such as the ones I've discussed in this article, his conclusions would have to be significantly altered. The same is true of other articles he's written. He takes a few elements of truth, mixes them with a lot of errors, misleading language, and ambiguities. Once he's been corrected, he moves on to another post and repeats the process, apparently not having learned much.
In closing, I would recommend that people read Glenn Miller's article on pseudonymity. As Miller demonstrates, determining the origins of a document wasn't just an issue for the ancient Christians, but for the ancient world in general, and many methods were undertaken to weed out the spurious from the genuine. Mentioning that documents like The Shepherd Of Hermas and the Gospel Of Peter existed, and mentioning that such documents were accepted by some people, doesn't change the fact that most people rejected those documents. It also doesn't change the fact that the ancient world knew about the dangers of false document attribution and took many significant steps to verify what they accepted.
Dagood asks how we know who is and isn't an apostle, for example. He asks how we know that there aren't apostles alive today. While it's true that the term "apostle" is used in more than one sense in the New Testament, just like other words in any language will be used in different senses in different contexts, the term isn't as flexible as Dagood suggests.
Some of the figures who are called apostles are described as having to meet requirements that nobody living today could meet (Acts 1:21-22, 1 Corinthians 9:1). They're also described as having characteristics that people today don't have (John 14:26, 15:27, 16:13). Regardless of whether we call these people "apostles" or something else, the fact remains that their role is different from the role of anybody in the modern church.
Dagood tells us that people today could have visions of Jesus like the ones Paul had, but visions don't determine apostleship. We accept Paul's apostleship because he was a witness of the resurrected Christ and because the apostles authorized by Jesus accepted Paul's apostleship. We don't accept Paul's apostleship because he had visions.
The resurrection appearances of Jesus, which weren't just visions, came to an end. That's why Paul can speak of himself as the last witness (1 Corinthians 15:8). That's why Paul has authority over Timothy and instructs Timothy to maintain the teachings he received, not add to them (2 Timothy 1:13-14, 2:2). Timothy and the other church leaders he was to oversee didn't have the authority Paul had. That's why men like Clement of Rome and Ignatius refer to apostolic authority as something in the past, refer to themselves as having less authority than the apostles, and treat their own writings differently than the apostolic documents (see, for example, Clement of Rome, First Clement, 42; Ignatius, Letter To The Romans, 4; Papias, in Eusebius' Church History, 3:39:3-4; Polycarp, Letter To The Philippians, 6; The Epistle Of Barnabas, 5). The apostles were the foundation of the church (Ephesians 2:20), and a foundation isn't laid twice. Similarly, Jesus remains the cornerstone without having to be replaced with a new cornerstone in every generation. The New Testament documents refer to men like Peter and Paul having authority that future generations wouldn't have, and we find widespread agreement among the earliest post-apostolic sources regarding the closing of the apostolic age and the uniqueness of the authority of those first century apostles.
To suggest that the foundational role of these apostles is doubtful, because the term "apostle" is applied to other figures as well, would be unreasonable. Whatever may be unanswered or unclear about apostolic authority, there are other elements of apostolic authority that are addressed and are clear. Among those clear conclusions are the fact that men like Peter, John, and Paul were apostles in the highest sense and the fact that nobody living since their time has had comparable authority. Complaining that other elements of apostolic authority aren't addressed or aren't clear doesn't present a significant problem for Christianity.
Dagood makes a series of claims about how documents like The Shepherd Of Hermas and The Gospel Of Peter were accepted as canonical in the early church. He offers no documentation. We need to be careful here, because some of the patristic writers would refer to documents as inspired without intending to suggest canonicity, much as we today might refer to music or a piece of literature as inspired in some secondary sense. Clement of Alexandria, for example, is often cited as including various books in his canon because he refers to those books as inspired in some sense. See, for example, the discussion in Martin Hengel, The Four Gospels And The One Gospel Of Jesus Christ (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 2000), pp. 15-19.
Sources like Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, who wrote before Clement of Alexandria, tell us that our collection of four gospels was already long established in the church. The suggestion that Clement of Alexandria intended to add the Gospel Of Peter or the Gospel Of The Hebrews to the other four gospels is highly dubious. As Hengel observes:
"the knowledge of a widely recognized collection of the four Gospels which is used in worship is certainly substantially older than Irenaeus...Clement [of Alexandria] took it for granted that the collection of four Gospels was based on recognized church tradition and was unchallenged, since he does not have to defend it anywhere....Clement's relative generosity towards 'apocryphal' texts and traditions, which is connected with the unique spiritual milieu in Alexandria and his constant controversies with many kinds of discussion partners to whom he wants to present the true apostolic 'gnosis' of the Gospel, should not obscure the fact that even for him the apostolic origin and special church authority of the four Gospels was already unassailable. On this point, for all the differences there is no fundamental opposition between him and Irenaeus....We might also say that precisely because the unique authority of the four Gospels was indispensable for him [Clement of Alexandria], he could sometimes bring himself also to use 'apocryphal' texts which helped him in his argument, indeed turning the very texts of the 'heretics' against them, as is evident from the example of the Gospel of the Egyptians. Thus Clement is not arguing from a position of uncertainty but rather from one of strength." (pp. 14, 16, 18-19)
One of the points Hengel makes is that Clement of Alexandria is often careless in his use of scripture, meaning that he sometimes misquotes passages from memory, and he may have sometimes misremembered where a quote came from. Hengel also points out that Clement discusses the gospels in book 6 of his Hypotyposes, and Clement only mentions our four gospels. The Gospel Of Peter isn't included, nor is the Gospel Of The Hebrews. Hengel further notes that, in book 3 of his Stromata, Clement specifically refers to the number of gospels as four. Hengel explains that Clement would sometimes speak of documents as authoritative if he was addressing a group of people who considered that document authoritative, even if Clement himself didn't accept the document in the same way. To cite Clement of Alexandria as evidence that the Gospel Of Peter "was accepted as an apostolic teaching up until at least 200 CE", as Dagood puts it, would be misleading, and it's misleading for Dagood to cite Clement supporting the Gospel Of The Hebrews.
Dagood asks how we know where to draw the line in terms of what evidence to accept for or against the canonicity of a book. But the same question could be asked about the authorship of any historical document or the canon of any author's writings. How do we know where to draw the line with Tacitus' writings, for example? If somebody living 80 years after Tacitus tells us that Tacitus wrote the Annals, how do we know that 80 years is early enough? What if another source comments on Tacitus' authorship 120 years after Tacitus' death? Where do we draw the line? It's like asking when a pile of marbles becomes a large pile. Different people may define "large" in different ways. But do we give up using a term like "large", just because some uncertainties are involved? No. People may disagree about whether a pile becomes large after 50 marbles, 70 marbles, or some other number, but that disagreement probably won't keep most of us from agreeing that a pile of several million marbles is large. The existence of some uncertainties and some space for subjective judgments in our evaluation of the canon doesn't change the fact that many clearer and more objective factors are involved.
Dagood's objections could be applied to historical research in general, not just the issue of the Christian canon of scripture. Yet, historians are able to reach reliable historical conclusions, despite the involvement of factors like the ones Dagood has mentioned.
As I said earlier, Dagood makes some questionable or false claims without offering any documentation, but he is right about some early sources including books in their canon that Christians reject today. Dagood doesn't put that fact in a proper context, though. If a book is considered canonical by only one or two sources, whereas another book is considered canonical by every church around the world or the large majority of churches, it doesn't make sense to put the two books in the same category. And since we can read some of these documents for ourselves, we also have internal evidence to go by. We can read a document like The Shepherd Of Hermas for ourselves and see many indications that it was written after the time of the apostles and contradicts apostolic teaching.
Dagood ignores one of our most important sources on the canon, Eusebius of Caesarea. Eusebius lived and wrote in the late third and early fourth centuries. He tells us a lot about the canon. And we know that Eusebius wasn't just going by what the churches of his day believed. He repeatedly mentions that he's making his canonical judgments based both on what the churches of his day report and what sources of previous generations said. We know that Eusebius possessed many documents that are no longer extant, such as the writings of Papias, Quadratus, and Dionysius of Corinth. Thus, Eusebius was in a good position to assess the relevant evidence. What he tells us runs contrary to the assertions and suggestions of people like Dagood.
Eusebius explains that the large majority of our 27-book New Testament canon was undisputed. And the books that were disputed were accepted by the majority. Books like the Shepherd Of Hermas and the Gospel Of Peter are in another category. Dagood gives us examples of a book being accepted or rejected by one author, but Eusebius is reporting on multiple generations of testimony from all over the Christian world.
We also have some relevant evidence from non-Christian sources. We know that Christian documents were available to and read by the early enemies of Christianity, partly because sources like Aristides and Justin Martyr tell us so. I'm not aware of any early non-Christian source raising any significant objections to our 27-book canon. If a book like 2 Timothy was written 30 years after Paul had died, or 2 Peter was written 60 or 80 years after Peter's death, doesn't it seem unlikely that not only the Christian world, but also the early enemies of Christianity, would fail to take notice or would take notice without making much of an issue out of it?
I mentioned that most of the New Testament books were universally or almost universally accepted. For the sake of argument, let's temporarily limit ourselves to those books. I think that a good case can be made for disputed books like Hebrews and 2 Peter. But let's exclude those briefly, for the sake of argument. We would still have the entire Old Testament and 20 books of the New Testament. In other words, even if we were to limit ourselves to a higher standard for canonicity (universal or nearly universal acceptance of a book among the early sources), we would still have the large majority of our canon.
And the small minority of the canon that's disputed has been disputed for reasons that aren't too difficult to overcome. The book of Revelation, for example, has strong early evidence in its favor, but was disputed later. The later dispute doesn't overturn the high quality of the early evidence supporting the book. Thus, saying that Revelation was a disputed book is, in a sense, misleading. Similarly, the lack of early evidence for the second and third epistles of John isn't of much significance, given the shortness of those documents and the unoriginality of their content. I could give other examples, but the point is that even the more disputed books of the New Testament are credible.
If Dagood would give a proper place to factors such as the ones I've discussed in this article, his conclusions would have to be significantly altered. The same is true of other articles he's written. He takes a few elements of truth, mixes them with a lot of errors, misleading language, and ambiguities. Once he's been corrected, he moves on to another post and repeats the process, apparently not having learned much.
In closing, I would recommend that people read Glenn Miller's article on pseudonymity. As Miller demonstrates, determining the origins of a document wasn't just an issue for the ancient Christians, but for the ancient world in general, and many methods were undertaken to weed out the spurious from the genuine. Mentioning that documents like The Shepherd Of Hermas and the Gospel Of Peter existed, and mentioning that such documents were accepted by some people, doesn't change the fact that most people rejected those documents. It also doesn't change the fact that the ancient world knew about the dangers of false document attribution and took many significant steps to verify what they accepted.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Ignorance begets apostasy
Dagood is like a bulldog who unfortunately mistakes a firecracker for a stick. He hangs on to that firecracker for dear life. Even after it blows up in his face, he runs off to fetch another firecracker.
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/05/feel-free-to-copy-me.html
“In my last blog I discussed David’s census.”
Yes, we remember.
“Once we concede that the manuscripts we have contain errors that were not in the original, it is difficult to be persuasive that the originals were either inerrant, or even inspired. How can we determine what we have now is error or not?”
There’s a word for this: lower criticism.
“If the believer agrees that the numbers we see conflict were due to error, is it not equally as likely that numbers that stand alone may also contain copyist error? Is it persuasive that the ONLY numbers that ever had any copyist error are the ones that we just happen to catch by two differing accounts? Could a copyist, for example, bolstered some numbers, to make a story sound more dramatic? Have David killing 10’s of thousands?”
This is simplistic. For one thing, the probability of numerical mistranscription depends on whether there are any contextual clues regarding the right or wrong number. If a number standards in isolation, then a mistranscription may be difficult to catch.
But if a number is part of a numerical sequence or part of a numerical sum, then an error is easy to catch.
“And why should it be limited to numbers? We also see names that conflict. Certainly if a copyist can introduce error in a number, they equally can introduce error in names. Or what about geography?”
Yes, names can also be miscopied. Indeed, anything can be miscopied.
However, many errors are obvious. If a scribe uses the wrong noun or verb form, the sentence will be unintelligible.
Likewise, place names are not the same thing as numbers. If people live in the same region that Scripture is writing about, then they will know the geography; they will know what a town or region is called. So errors like that are easily correctible except in the case of archaic place names.
“You see, once we concede there are any copyist errors, without the originals to compare, the best we can do is extrapolate back to the closest copy to the original, and even that becomes a matter of speculation.”
Once again, this is simplistic. Certain textual phenomena are more prone to mistranscription than others, such as the interchange of similar letters in Hebrew. And certain errors are more detectable than others.
“All of which is well and fine, if we were talking about a human book. But Christians proclaim that the Bible is unique. Different. Divine. I thought the idea was to propel its divinity, not indicate it is comparable to human efforts. The worst arguments that the Bible is unique are the ones that say it is like everything else.”
This is a straw man argument. The uniqueness of Scripture was never indexed to the process of textual transmission.
“It is not until the Early Third Century that we begin to have large portions of scripture to begin to compare textually for these copyist errors.”
Note the abrupt shift from OT textual criticism to NT textual criticism, as if these were interchangeable. Clearly Dagood doesn’t know what he’s talking about. What else is new?
“We lose any ability to determine what is inspired and what is not. God did not leave any distinguishing marks on those original inspired books. Nothing by which a human could say, “Hey, that’s God’s signature, so we know it was inspired.” The Wisdom of Solomon could be inspired. The Epistle of Barnabas, 1 Clement, the Shepard of Hermas all qualify. 2 Peter may not be. Revelation is up for grabs.”
Notice the sudden shift from evidence of textual integrity to evidence of divine inspiration. These are separate issues, with separate lines of evidence.
“And this method must include areas besides numbers. However God treated numbers, the method must either make an exception, for some reason, for numbers, OR it must equally treat other areas, such as names, places and events as to how God chose to preserve them or not.”
No, we don’t need a method for divining God’s providence. All we need are text-critical methods.
“Seriously, by what means can we possibly come up with any way in which to determine where God was involved in the preservation or not? I cannot fathom, nor have I seen any such system proposed. How can we account for the variations in every single manuscript?”
A straw man argument.
“What I see is a method by fatigue. To avoid the hard work of actually coming up with a method, one throws up one’s hands, and says, “God is involved with what we have today.” What we see is what God was involved in. If there is an error, then God was not involved. If there is not, God was. What we have comes from the inspired. If we don’t have it, it wasn’t inspired.”
From a Reformed perspective, God is involved in everything that happens. But maybe Dagood was an open theist before he became an atheist—assuming there’s a difference.
So a Calvinist doesn’t need to devise a method of distinguishing between divine involvement and divine noninvolvement. We reject the underlying assumption.
“Same thing with the Bible. After the fact we have it, it is defined as unique for its properties.”
True, we judge the Bible after the fact. We don’t judge the Bible before it was written. Only a brain-donor like Dagood would have a problem with this.
“One of the claims that the Bible is unique is how various writers all agreed on the same principles. O.K. Then why not add 1 Clement (another writer) and make it even MORE unique because there are even MORE writers? Or add the Gospel of Peter? Or the Gospel of Thomas? Seems to me, if agreement among various writers is the qualifier, we can find a whole bunch more to REALLY make the Bible stand out. The only reason this is used as an indicator of the uniqueness of the Bible is that it already has a number of different writers.”
Fails to distinguish between a necessary and a sufficient condition.
“This is the same act performed with inspiration. An ad hoc determination that what we have stems from the inspired originals, when we have no clue what the originals stated, nor any method to determine original inspiration, nor any method to determine how God was involved in maintaining accurate copies.”
We have “no clue” what the originals statement? What Bruce Metzger or Emanuel Tov do for a living is purely ad hoc?
Hey, it’s fine with me if Dagood wants to advertise his elementary ignorance of lower criticism.
“What I see is a defendant, scratching their head and coming up with the same excuse that millions of other human endeavors have stated.”
What I see in Dagood is a slick lawyer trying to get a guilty defendant off the hook by using the Twinkie defense.
BTW, why is Dagood once again using a plural possessive (“their”) with a singular noun (“a defendant”)? Is this a transgender defendant?
“I would agree that the “hands-off God” or the “spell-check” God are strawmen. I have never met a Christian that held to either proposition. (Having said that, watch one pop out!) What I was trying to figure out, if it is not Black, nor is it White, what shade of gray is it, and how do we determine it? Where, in the middle, can we come up with a system?”
We aren’t looking for a mediating position. The evidence of inspiration is one thing, while the evidence of textual integrity is another.
“Where did God indicate that you will have “reasonable confidence” that the teaching you receive are apostolic?”
It doesn’t have to be apostolic. It can also be prophetic.
“Why is apostolic a requirement?”
It isn’t.
“Couldn’t the Spirit teach non-apostles?”
Yes, he could.
“The entire Tanakh is written by non-apostles. Can you explain the sudden shift?”
Shift in what? Inspiration is the common denominator.
“This is one of those after-the-fact definitions.”
Yes, we define evidence after the fact, which is easier than defining evidence in advance of the fact, unless you happy to be the Red Queen.
Apparently, Dagood takes his rules of evidence from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, which would explain a lot about Dagood’s state of confusion.
“Because early authors attributed writings to apostles, Christians later defined “apostolic authorship” as a basis for canonicity.”
External attestation is not the only basis for such an attribution. There is the internal evidence or self-witness as well. Dagood is such a klutz.
“Yet nowhere is that requirement spelled out.”
Maybe because it was never a requirement. Duh.
“ Is every teaching that appears “apostolic” a basis for entering the Bible? 1 Clement, and the Epistle of Barnabas qualify.”
Other issues aside, Clement and Barnabas were not apostles—not in the technical sense. And the “Epistle of Barnabas” is apocryphal.
“The Gospel of Thomas purports to be from an apostle. Or are we going to limit which apostles the teaching must come from?”
For the Gospel of Thomas to be authentic, it would have to date to the 1C. That’s just for starters.
“Let’s see if we can stay consistent in this methodology. Mark was not an apostle. He got his information from Peter, according to Papias.”
Actually, Mark had two sources of information available to him. Since Jerusalem was his hometown, he could have been an eyewitness to the preaching and healing ministry of Christ whenever Jesus was in town. And since his home was also a founding house-church, frequented by the Apostles, for the nascent church of Jerusalem (Acts 12:12), he could also have interviewed Peter, James, John, and so on.
“Scholarship is veering away from Mark as either being an apostle (no one has claimed he was) or that he got his information from an apostle.”
i) Since scholarship never said that Mark was an apostle, it can hardly veer away from that nonexistent proposition.
ii) Notice that Dagood doesn’t cite his sources. Presumably he’s alluding to some liberal source.
“We know Luke was not an apostle.”
Yes, everyone knows that.
“Nor do we know where he obtained his information (other than Mark).”
It’s clear from the Book of Acts alone that Luke was a well-connected historian who had a wide circle of contacts from all the early churches, including informants from the mother church of Jerusalem.
“It should get the axe.”
Putting an ax to a straw man.
“The fact that Matthew relies upon Mark demonstrates this author was not an apostle.”
Even assuming Markan priority, which is just one theory for resolving the synoptic problem, how does this literary dependence disprove apostolic authorship?
Mark is hardly Matthew’s only source of information. There’s a tradition of later Bible writers using earlier Bible writers. If the Chronicler can use Samuel-Kings, why can’t Matthew use Mark? Jews respected literary precedent.
“Hebrews has always had an unknown author. Can an unknown, as long as it follows apostolic authority, be inspired?”
Yes. But while he’s unknown, we also know where to place him since he’s a friend of Timothy (Heb 13:23).
“Recent study demonstrates that Colossians, Ephesians, the Pastorals, and 2 Thess. were not written by Paul.”
i) Once again, Dagood doesn’t cite his sources.
ii) How would recentness be relevant? Have we made some stunning new discovery which overturns traditional authorship? Is Dagood getting his information from Dan Brown?
iii) Actually, recent study reaffirms traditional authorship. Read O’Brien on Colossians. Read Hoehner on Ephesians. Read Mounce on the Pastorals. Read Beale on Thessalonians. Read Guthrie’s NT introduction. Read the second edition of the Carson-Moo NT introduction.
iv) Incidentally, one doesn’t need to be a conservative to affirm traditional authorship. For example, G. B. Caird defended the Pauline authorship of Ephesians.
“Do they get the “grandfather” clause because we always thought they were? Even Eusebius determine Revelation was not written by John the Apostle.”
Really? Is that what Eusebius determined? I thought Dionysius was the one to deny its traditional authorship.
In any event, read Beale and Smalley on Revelation, as well as Guthrie and Carson-Moo.
“2 Peter is a copy of Jude, an unknown, but presumed apostle.”
i) The order of literary dependence between 2 Peter and Jude is an open question.
ii) Jude was hardly an unknown figure, and he was not an apostle, presumed or otherwise. Rather, he was a half-brother of our Lord.
Read Charles and Schreiner on 2 Peter-Jude.
“1-3 John are unknown authors.”
Sheer assertion in the teeth of contrary evidence.
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/05/feel-free-to-copy-me.html
“In my last blog I discussed David’s census.”
Yes, we remember.
“Once we concede that the manuscripts we have contain errors that were not in the original, it is difficult to be persuasive that the originals were either inerrant, or even inspired. How can we determine what we have now is error or not?”
There’s a word for this: lower criticism.
“If the believer agrees that the numbers we see conflict were due to error, is it not equally as likely that numbers that stand alone may also contain copyist error? Is it persuasive that the ONLY numbers that ever had any copyist error are the ones that we just happen to catch by two differing accounts? Could a copyist, for example, bolstered some numbers, to make a story sound more dramatic? Have David killing 10’s of thousands?”
This is simplistic. For one thing, the probability of numerical mistranscription depends on whether there are any contextual clues regarding the right or wrong number. If a number standards in isolation, then a mistranscription may be difficult to catch.
But if a number is part of a numerical sequence or part of a numerical sum, then an error is easy to catch.
“And why should it be limited to numbers? We also see names that conflict. Certainly if a copyist can introduce error in a number, they equally can introduce error in names. Or what about geography?”
Yes, names can also be miscopied. Indeed, anything can be miscopied.
However, many errors are obvious. If a scribe uses the wrong noun or verb form, the sentence will be unintelligible.
Likewise, place names are not the same thing as numbers. If people live in the same region that Scripture is writing about, then they will know the geography; they will know what a town or region is called. So errors like that are easily correctible except in the case of archaic place names.
“You see, once we concede there are any copyist errors, without the originals to compare, the best we can do is extrapolate back to the closest copy to the original, and even that becomes a matter of speculation.”
Once again, this is simplistic. Certain textual phenomena are more prone to mistranscription than others, such as the interchange of similar letters in Hebrew. And certain errors are more detectable than others.
“All of which is well and fine, if we were talking about a human book. But Christians proclaim that the Bible is unique. Different. Divine. I thought the idea was to propel its divinity, not indicate it is comparable to human efforts. The worst arguments that the Bible is unique are the ones that say it is like everything else.”
This is a straw man argument. The uniqueness of Scripture was never indexed to the process of textual transmission.
“It is not until the Early Third Century that we begin to have large portions of scripture to begin to compare textually for these copyist errors.”
Note the abrupt shift from OT textual criticism to NT textual criticism, as if these were interchangeable. Clearly Dagood doesn’t know what he’s talking about. What else is new?
“We lose any ability to determine what is inspired and what is not. God did not leave any distinguishing marks on those original inspired books. Nothing by which a human could say, “Hey, that’s God’s signature, so we know it was inspired.” The Wisdom of Solomon could be inspired. The Epistle of Barnabas, 1 Clement, the Shepard of Hermas all qualify. 2 Peter may not be. Revelation is up for grabs.”
Notice the sudden shift from evidence of textual integrity to evidence of divine inspiration. These are separate issues, with separate lines of evidence.
“And this method must include areas besides numbers. However God treated numbers, the method must either make an exception, for some reason, for numbers, OR it must equally treat other areas, such as names, places and events as to how God chose to preserve them or not.”
No, we don’t need a method for divining God’s providence. All we need are text-critical methods.
“Seriously, by what means can we possibly come up with any way in which to determine where God was involved in the preservation or not? I cannot fathom, nor have I seen any such system proposed. How can we account for the variations in every single manuscript?”
A straw man argument.
“What I see is a method by fatigue. To avoid the hard work of actually coming up with a method, one throws up one’s hands, and says, “God is involved with what we have today.” What we see is what God was involved in. If there is an error, then God was not involved. If there is not, God was. What we have comes from the inspired. If we don’t have it, it wasn’t inspired.”
From a Reformed perspective, God is involved in everything that happens. But maybe Dagood was an open theist before he became an atheist—assuming there’s a difference.
So a Calvinist doesn’t need to devise a method of distinguishing between divine involvement and divine noninvolvement. We reject the underlying assumption.
“Same thing with the Bible. After the fact we have it, it is defined as unique for its properties.”
True, we judge the Bible after the fact. We don’t judge the Bible before it was written. Only a brain-donor like Dagood would have a problem with this.
“One of the claims that the Bible is unique is how various writers all agreed on the same principles. O.K. Then why not add 1 Clement (another writer) and make it even MORE unique because there are even MORE writers? Or add the Gospel of Peter? Or the Gospel of Thomas? Seems to me, if agreement among various writers is the qualifier, we can find a whole bunch more to REALLY make the Bible stand out. The only reason this is used as an indicator of the uniqueness of the Bible is that it already has a number of different writers.”
Fails to distinguish between a necessary and a sufficient condition.
“This is the same act performed with inspiration. An ad hoc determination that what we have stems from the inspired originals, when we have no clue what the originals stated, nor any method to determine original inspiration, nor any method to determine how God was involved in maintaining accurate copies.”
We have “no clue” what the originals statement? What Bruce Metzger or Emanuel Tov do for a living is purely ad hoc?
Hey, it’s fine with me if Dagood wants to advertise his elementary ignorance of lower criticism.
“What I see is a defendant, scratching their head and coming up with the same excuse that millions of other human endeavors have stated.”
What I see in Dagood is a slick lawyer trying to get a guilty defendant off the hook by using the Twinkie defense.
BTW, why is Dagood once again using a plural possessive (“their”) with a singular noun (“a defendant”)? Is this a transgender defendant?
“I would agree that the “hands-off God” or the “spell-check” God are strawmen. I have never met a Christian that held to either proposition. (Having said that, watch one pop out!) What I was trying to figure out, if it is not Black, nor is it White, what shade of gray is it, and how do we determine it? Where, in the middle, can we come up with a system?”
We aren’t looking for a mediating position. The evidence of inspiration is one thing, while the evidence of textual integrity is another.
“Where did God indicate that you will have “reasonable confidence” that the teaching you receive are apostolic?”
It doesn’t have to be apostolic. It can also be prophetic.
“Why is apostolic a requirement?”
It isn’t.
“Couldn’t the Spirit teach non-apostles?”
Yes, he could.
“The entire Tanakh is written by non-apostles. Can you explain the sudden shift?”
Shift in what? Inspiration is the common denominator.
“This is one of those after-the-fact definitions.”
Yes, we define evidence after the fact, which is easier than defining evidence in advance of the fact, unless you happy to be the Red Queen.
Apparently, Dagood takes his rules of evidence from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, which would explain a lot about Dagood’s state of confusion.
“Because early authors attributed writings to apostles, Christians later defined “apostolic authorship” as a basis for canonicity.”
External attestation is not the only basis for such an attribution. There is the internal evidence or self-witness as well. Dagood is such a klutz.
“Yet nowhere is that requirement spelled out.”
Maybe because it was never a requirement. Duh.
“ Is every teaching that appears “apostolic” a basis for entering the Bible? 1 Clement, and the Epistle of Barnabas qualify.”
Other issues aside, Clement and Barnabas were not apostles—not in the technical sense. And the “Epistle of Barnabas” is apocryphal.
“The Gospel of Thomas purports to be from an apostle. Or are we going to limit which apostles the teaching must come from?”
For the Gospel of Thomas to be authentic, it would have to date to the 1C. That’s just for starters.
“Let’s see if we can stay consistent in this methodology. Mark was not an apostle. He got his information from Peter, according to Papias.”
Actually, Mark had two sources of information available to him. Since Jerusalem was his hometown, he could have been an eyewitness to the preaching and healing ministry of Christ whenever Jesus was in town. And since his home was also a founding house-church, frequented by the Apostles, for the nascent church of Jerusalem (Acts 12:12), he could also have interviewed Peter, James, John, and so on.
“Scholarship is veering away from Mark as either being an apostle (no one has claimed he was) or that he got his information from an apostle.”
i) Since scholarship never said that Mark was an apostle, it can hardly veer away from that nonexistent proposition.
ii) Notice that Dagood doesn’t cite his sources. Presumably he’s alluding to some liberal source.
“We know Luke was not an apostle.”
Yes, everyone knows that.
“Nor do we know where he obtained his information (other than Mark).”
It’s clear from the Book of Acts alone that Luke was a well-connected historian who had a wide circle of contacts from all the early churches, including informants from the mother church of Jerusalem.
“It should get the axe.”
Putting an ax to a straw man.
“The fact that Matthew relies upon Mark demonstrates this author was not an apostle.”
Even assuming Markan priority, which is just one theory for resolving the synoptic problem, how does this literary dependence disprove apostolic authorship?
Mark is hardly Matthew’s only source of information. There’s a tradition of later Bible writers using earlier Bible writers. If the Chronicler can use Samuel-Kings, why can’t Matthew use Mark? Jews respected literary precedent.
“Hebrews has always had an unknown author. Can an unknown, as long as it follows apostolic authority, be inspired?”
Yes. But while he’s unknown, we also know where to place him since he’s a friend of Timothy (Heb 13:23).
“Recent study demonstrates that Colossians, Ephesians, the Pastorals, and 2 Thess. were not written by Paul.”
i) Once again, Dagood doesn’t cite his sources.
ii) How would recentness be relevant? Have we made some stunning new discovery which overturns traditional authorship? Is Dagood getting his information from Dan Brown?
iii) Actually, recent study reaffirms traditional authorship. Read O’Brien on Colossians. Read Hoehner on Ephesians. Read Mounce on the Pastorals. Read Beale on Thessalonians. Read Guthrie’s NT introduction. Read the second edition of the Carson-Moo NT introduction.
iv) Incidentally, one doesn’t need to be a conservative to affirm traditional authorship. For example, G. B. Caird defended the Pauline authorship of Ephesians.
“Do they get the “grandfather” clause because we always thought they were? Even Eusebius determine Revelation was not written by John the Apostle.”
Really? Is that what Eusebius determined? I thought Dionysius was the one to deny its traditional authorship.
In any event, read Beale and Smalley on Revelation, as well as Guthrie and Carson-Moo.
“2 Peter is a copy of Jude, an unknown, but presumed apostle.”
i) The order of literary dependence between 2 Peter and Jude is an open question.
ii) Jude was hardly an unknown figure, and he was not an apostle, presumed or otherwise. Rather, he was a half-brother of our Lord.
Read Charles and Schreiner on 2 Peter-Jude.
“1-3 John are unknown authors.”
Sheer assertion in the teeth of contrary evidence.
Why I'm too sceptical to be a sceptic
Among the living, Paul Kurtz may be the world’s leading humanist philosopher. So what’s his cumulative case against theism in general and Christianity in particular?
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=pkurtz_26_4
“Why do skeptics doubt the existence of God? First, because the skeptical inquirer does not find the traditional concept of God as "transcendent," "omnipotent," "omnipresent," or "omnibeneficent" to be coherent, intelligible, or meaningful. To postulate a transcendent being who is incomprehensible to the human mind (as theologians maintain) does not explain the world that we encounter. How can we say that such an indefinable being exists, if we do not know in what sense that being is said to exist? How are we to understand a God that exists outside space and time and that transcends our capacity to comprehend his essence? Theists have postulated an unknowable "X." But if his content is unfathomable, then he is little more than an empty, speculative abstraction. Thus, the skeptic in religion presents semantic objections to God language, charging that it is unintelligible and lacks any clear referent.”
i) This would be an impressive objection if only it didn’t suffer from the minor liability of being wrong. Theologians do not generally maintain that God is unknowable or indefinable. That’s merely the extreme apophatic tradition.
ii) How is something that subsists outside of space and time not an object of knowledge? Are abstract objects unknowable or indefinable?
If he’s going to deny the existence of abstract objects, he will need a supporting argument.
“A popular argument adduced for the existence of this unknowable entity is that he is the first cause, but we can ask of anyone who postulates this, "What is the cause of this first cause?" To say that he is uncaused only pushes our ignorance back one step.”
i) Kurtz is treating the first cause as if it were the first member of a temporal series. That is not what Aquinas had in mind.
ii) There is more than one version of the cosmological argument. This is not about a linear series of cause-and-effect. The depiction of a causal series as “chain” of events with sequential links is just a picturesque metaphor, especially in connection to the cosmological argument.
The true relation is not one of temporal priority. Rather, cause is to exemplar as effect is to exemplum. God actualizes a concrete property-instance of an abstract universal.
“To step outside the physical universe is to assume an answer by a leap of faith.”
This is an assertion, not an argument. It assumes that the physical universe is all there is. There’s nothing outside the box.
What’s that if not a leap of faith?
“Nor does the claim that the universe manifests Intelligent Design (ID) explain the facts of conflict, the struggle for survival, and the inescapable tragedy, evil, pain, and suffering that is encountered in the world of sentient beings.”
i) This is a very dense objection. Dysteleology presupposes teleology. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the items in question are natural (or even moral) evils, they are only evil in relation to some ideal standard.
But once you deny design, there can be no declension from an ideal state of affairs. Kurtz is denying in his conclusion what he must affirm in his premise.
Also, how is “pain” or the “struggle for survival” inconsistent with teleology? Doesn’t pain serve a biological purpose? Doesn’t the predatory/prey cycle represent a balancing act in the ecosystem? How are these features dysteleological?
“Regularities and chaos do not necessarily indicate design.”
By definition, “chaos” does not indicate design. But about “regularities”?
“The argument from design is reminiscent of Aristotle's teleological argument that there are purposes or ends in nature. But we can find no evidence for purpose in nature.”
Another orphaned assertion.
“Even if we were to find what appears to be design in the universe, this does not imply a designer for whose existence there is insufficient evidence.”
An odd statement for a couple of reasons:
i)”If we can find no evidence for purpose in nature,” then why does Kurtz feel the need to bring in this backup argument to take up the rear? Sounds like he not so confident of his original claim after all.
ii) How would the evidence for a designer’s existence be insufficient if he were to find what appeared to be evidence?
Wouldn’t that be, of itself, evidence for a designer?
Is Kurtz saying that since there is insufficient evidence for the existence of God, apparent evidence of design would be insufficient to overcome this insufficiency?
But if there is apparent evidence of design, then what we took to be insufficient evidence of God’s existence would be less insufficient than we took it to be apart from such additional evidence.
And how does inevidence negate evidence? The only evidence for something is evidence.
Inevidence is not a bar to evidence. Kurtz is acting as if inevidence were the same thing as contrary evidence, so that any new evidence would have to overcome counter-evidence.
But inevidence is just that—the lack of evidence. All you need to counter the negative, to counter the absence of evidence, is evidence.
If I have no evidence for the existence of four-leaf clovers, and I discover a four-leaf clover, that’s all the evidence I need.
I wouldn’t say that even if a found a four-leaf clover, this does not imply a four-leaf clover for whose existence there is insufficient evidence, would I?
Or does it all turn on the distinction between evidence and “apparent” evidence?
But that distinction is equally unclear. The only evidence of evidence is apparent evidence.
What’s the alternative to apparent evidence? Inevident evidence?
Or does he mean that the evidence is only “apparent” evidence because it could be deceptively evidentiary when, in fact, it is not real evidence after all?
But couldn’t we say that about any kind of evidence—such as scientific or historical evidence?
Real evidence is apparently real, but deceptive evidence is apparently real as well.
It looks like Kurtz is trying to arbitrarily cordon off evidence of natural design, as if it were in a class apart from other types of evidence.
“The evolutionary hypothesis provides a more parsimonious explanation of the origins of species.”
There are two or three basic problems with this appeal:
i) There is frequently a tradeoff between a simple explanation and a simple ontology. The reason that a scientist or logician or metaphysician may postulate hypothetical entities is that a more complex ontology will simplify his explanation, just as a more Spartan ontology may complicate the explanation. So there’s often an inverse ratio between one type of parsimony and another.
ii) In addition, if you knew what reality was like, you wouldn’t need Occam’s razor, for you’d already know how simple or complex the world is.
If you need Occam’s razor, then you don’t know what reality is like, in which case you don’t know if it’s simple or complex, or to what degree, in which case the principle of parsimony is either prejudicial or otiose.
iii) Why should parsimony enjoy any ontological presumption over plenitude?
“The changes in species through time are better accounted for by chance mutations, differential reproduction, natural selection, and adaptation, rather than by design.”
Yet another wailing assertion left on the doorstep. We will have to open a foundling hospital to feed and house all of Kurtz’s deserted assertions.
“Moreover, vestigial features such as the human appendix, tailbone, and male breasts and nipples hardly suggest adequate design; the same is true for vestigial organs in other species. Thus, the doctrine of creation is hardly supported in empirical terms.”
Are male beasts and nipples vestigial features? What is Kurtz saying, here? That hominids were originally female, and males evolved out of female hominids, which is why they retain these vestigial secondary sexual characteristics?
i) One little question: in the absence of male hominids, how did the females reproduce? How were they impregnated?
ii) Actually, the male breast is more than vestigial. It is potentially functional, and, in some situations, men are able to lactate.
Why treat this as an evolutionary relic rather than an adaptable survival mechanism or inbuilt backup system in the event of environmental situations where the female cannot nurse enough of the offspring?
“Another version of the Intelligent Design argument is the so-called fine-tuning argument. Its proponents maintain that there is a unique combination of "physical constants" in the universe that possess the only values capable of sustaining life, especially sentient organic systems. This they attribute to a designer God. But this, too, is inadequate. First because millions of species are extinct; the alleged "fine-tuning" did nothing to ensure their survival. Second, great numbers of human beings have been extinguished by natural causes such as diseases and disasters. The Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 that suddenly killed over two hundred thousand innocent men, women, and children was due to a shift in tectonic plates. This hardly indicates fine tuning-after all, this tragedy could have been avoided had a supposed fine tuner troubled to correct defects in the surface strata of the planet.”
This is a non sequitur. The fine-tuning argument is an argument for the possibility of life. Having the preconditions in place. It is not an argument for the actual existence of life, much less the survival of any particular species or individual members thereof.
“A close variant of the fine-tuning argument is the so-called anthropic principle, which is simply a form of anthropomorphism; that is, it reads into nature the fondest hopes and wishes of believers, which are then imposed upon the universe. But if we are to do this, should we not also attribute the errors and mistakes encountered in nature to the designer?”
That is not the anthropic principle:
i) To begin with, there is more than one version of the anthropic principle.
ii) Far from being “anthropomorphic,” critics object to the principle, not because it isn’t true, but because it’s a truism or tautology.
iii) Of itself, the anthropic principle is not a theistic proof.
“Related to this, of course, is the classical problem of evil. If an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnibeneficent God is responsible for the world as we know it, then how to explain evil? Surely, humans cannot be held responsible for a massive flood or plague, for example; we can explain such calamities only by inferring that God is malevolent, because he knew of, yet permitted, terrible destructive events to occur-or by suggesting that God is impotent to prevent evil. This would also suggest an unintelligent, deficient, or faulty designer.”
i) Other issues aside, natural disasters are natural goods which only seem like natural evils when human beings get in the way. There is nothing dysteleological about a hydrological system or bacteria. These have a natural function in the ecosystem.
ii) In addition, how does Kurtz define a human being? Does he agree with the secular scientific definition of Richard Dawkins? If so, what’s so bad about blindly programmed survival machines perishing in a flood or dying from a plague?
Does he agree with the secular scientific definition of Paul Churchland, according to which “pain” and “suffering” are folk psychological archaisms which ought to be expunged from the materialistic lexicon? If so, then the problem of pain is an illusion. We don’t suffer.
“The historic religions maintain that God has revealed himself in history and that he has manifested his presence to selected humans. These revelations are not corroborated by independent, objective observers.”
How does he define “independent” or “objective”? If an observer were to corroborate a revelation, he would presumably believe in it. How could he corroborate a revelation he didn’t believe in?
“They are disclosed, rather, to privileged prophets or mystics, whose claims have not been adequately verified: there is insufficient circumstantial evidence to confirm their authenticity.”
i) Another stranded assertion.
ii) In addition, one cannot intelligently evaluate religion in general. Rather, this must be done on a case-by-case basis.
“To attribute inexplicable events to miracles performed by God, as declared in the so-called sacred literature, is often a substitute for finding their true causes scientifically. Scientific inquiry is generally able to explain alleged "miracles" by discovering natural causes.”
A straw man argument. In Scripture, a miracle is not a stopgap to explain an otherwise inexplicable event. Bible writers are not attributing otherwise inexplicable events to divine agency, as if they were floating a theory or postulating a hypothetical entity.
“The Bible, Qur'an, and other classical documents are full of contradictions and factual errors. They were written by human beings in ancient civilizations, expressing the scientific and moral speculations of their day. They do not convey the eternal word of God, but rather the yearnings of ancient tribes based on oral legends and received doctrines; as such, they are hardly relevant to all cultures and times.”
i) Another lonely assertion in search of a warm-bodied supporting argument.
ii) Notice how he jumbles together very different “scriptures,” as if he could dispatch all revelatory claimants with one stroke. This is simple-minded and anti-intellectual. A mental short-cut.
“The Old and New Testaments are not accurate accounts of historical events.”
Another groundless assertion.
“The reliability of the Old Testament is highly questionable in the events and personages it depicts; Moses, Abraham, Joseph, etc. are largely uncorroborated by historical evidence.”
i) Lack of corroboration doesn’t imply either inaccuracy or unreliability. For that you would need contrary evidence, not the absence of evidence.
ii) Given the fact so little evidence has survived, or been excavated, even partial corroboration is mighty impressive—especially when the world at large took so little interest in ancient Israel or 1C Christians.
“As for the New Testament, scholarship has shown that none of its authors knew Jesus directly.”
A one-sided remark which disregards, without benefit of argument, a broad and deep body of conservative scholarship.
“The four Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses but are products of oral tradition and hearsay.”
Why assume they were the products of oral tradition? Didn’t 1C Jews know how to read and write?
“There is but flimsy and contradictory evidence for the virgin birth, the healings of Jesus, and the Resurrection.”
Another naked assertion, shivering in the cold.
“Some claim to believe in God because they say that God has entered into their personal lives and has imbued them with new meaning. This is a psychological or phenomenological account of a person's inner experience. It is hardly adequate evidence for the existence of a divine being independent of human beings' internal soliloquies. Appeals to mystical experiences or private subjective states hardly suffice as evidential support that some external being or force caused such altered states of consciousness; skeptical inquirers have a legitimate basis for doubt, unless or until such claims of interior experience can somehow be independently corroborated. Experiences of God or gods, or angels or demons, talking to one may disturb or entrance those persons who undergo such experiences, but the question is whether these internal subjective states have external veracity. This especially applies to those individuals who claim some sort of special revelation from on high, such as the hearing of commandments.”
Another couple of problems:
i) It’s true that my subjective experience, all by itself, cannot count as evidence for a second-party. That’s a built-in limit to the argument from experience. But it’s a limit, not a defeater, or even an undercutter.
ii) Interior experience is our only port of entry to the external world. The human mind does not enjoy direct access to the world “out there.” We only know the external world via our internal experience of the external world. So subjectivity is the only gateway to objectivity.
iii) Ironically, the only alternative would be divine revelation. Revelation can infuse our private, inner experience with information about the public world.
The only “independent” check on our perception of the sensible world is divine revelation. Apart from that, we have no intersubjectival source or standard of knowledge regarding extramental events.
“Second, is God a person?”
God is personal. Indeed, he’s three persons in one!
“Does he take on human form?”
In theophanies and especially the Incarnation.
“Has he communicated in discernible form, say, as the Holy Spirit, to Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Muhammad, or other prophets?”
Yes, he spoke to Moses, Abraham, and Jesus. Indeed, Jesus is God speaking.
No, he never spoke to Muhammad.
“These claims again are uncorroborated by objective eyewitnesses. They are rather promulgated by propagandists of the various faith traditions that have been inflicted on societies and enforced by entrenched ecclesiastical authorities and political powers.”
i) NT Christians were a persecuted minority group. They had no entrenched ecclesiastical authorities. And the political powers are arrayed against them.
ii) Secular propagandists like Kurtz inflict their faithless traditions on society, enforced by entrenched media and academic authorities as well as political powers.
“They are supported by customs and traditions buried for millennia by the sands of time and institutional inertia. They are simply assumed to be true without question.”
There is a vast body of literature in the field of Christian apologetics, natural theology, and philosophical theology which gives the lie to this sweeping assertion.
“The ancient documents alleging God's existence are preliterate, prephilosophical, and, in any case, unconfirmed by scientific inquiry.”
i) The ANE world in which the OT was revealed was hardly preliterate. The Greco-Roman world in which the NT was revealed was hardly preliterate.
The problem is not with ancient illiteracy, but with Kurtz’ illiteracy.
ii) Science is not the only source of knowledge. Science is suited to empirical objects of knowledge, but unsuited to privileged mental states, abstract objects, and the like.
“They are often eloquent literary expressions of existential moral poetry, but they are unverified by archeological evidence or careful historical investigation.”
He simply disregards Biblical archeology and conservative scholarship.
“Moreover, they contradict each other in their claims for authenticity and legitimacy.”
It’s true that different religions contradict each other. So what?
“The ancient faith that God is a person has not been corroborated by the historical record.”
This is a very vague denial. What would such corroboration look like?
“Such conceptions of God are anthropomorphic and anthropocentric, reading into the universe human predilections and feelings. "If lions had gods they would be lionlike in character," said Xenophon. Thus, human Gods are an extrapolation of human hopes and aspirations, fanciful tales of imaginative fiction.”
i) This is an assumption, not an argument, and the reasoning is reversible. The properties of an artifact in some ways resemble the properties of an artificer. A da Vinci painting is a projection of da Vinci’s genius. But that hardly makes da Vinci a fictitious or imaginary painter.
God’s nature would be the template of what’s possible or actual. So we’d expect the creature to resemble the Creator in certain respects.
ii) Kurtz is contradicting himself. He earlier said the concept of God is “indefinable” and “unintelligible,” an “empty, speculative abstraction.”
Now, however, he says it’s “anthropomorphic” and “anthropocentric,” an “extrapolation” of human hopes, &c.
“Third, the claim that our ultimate moral values are derived from God is likewise highly suspect. The so-called sacred moral codes reflect the socio-historical cultures out of which they emerged. For example, the Old Testament commands that adulterers, blasphemers, disobedient sons, bastards, witches, and homosexuals be stoned to death. It threatens collective guilt: punishment is inflicted by Jehovah on the children's children of unbelievers. It defends patriarchy and the dominion of men over women. It condones slavery and genocide in the name of God.
The New Testament consigns "unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's"; it demands that women be obedient to their husbands; it accepts faith healing, exorcisms, and miracles; it exalts obedience over independence, fear and trembling over courage, and piety over self-determination. “
Setting aside his simplistic, acontextual summary of the evidence, all that his comparison amounts to is a contrast between secular ethics, on the one hand, and Biblical ethics, on the other.
But to compare and contrast the two is hardly an argument for the superiority of secular ethics. All that Kurtz has done is to take secular ethics as his presumptive standard. Is begging the question the best he can do?
“From the fatherhood of God, contradictory moral commandments have been derived; theists have often lined up on opposite sides of moral issues. Believers have stood for and against war; for and against slavery; for and against capital punishment, some embracing retribution, others mercy and rehabilitation; for and against the divine right of kings, slavery, and patriarchy; for and against the emancipation of women; for and against the absolute prohibition of contraception, euthanasia, and abortion; for and against sexual and gender equality; for and against freedom of scientific research; for and against the libertarian ideals of a free society.”
i) In general, this fails to distinguish between liberals and conservative.
ii) Moreover, you can also find unbelievers on every conceivable side of an issue. So does that render secular ethics “highly suspect” as well?
“True believers have in the past often found little room for human autonomy, individual freedom, or self-reliance. They have emphasized submission to the word of God instead of self-determination, faith over reason, credulity over doubt. All too often they have had little confidence in the ability of humans to solve problems and create a better future by drawing on their own resources. In the face of tragedy, they supplicate to God through prayer instead of summoning the courage to overcome adversity and build a better future. The skeptic concludes, ‘No deity will save us; if we are to be saved it must be by our own efforts.’"
To cast the alternatives as a choice between faith and reason, credulity and doubt is tendentious. For the rest, all he’s done is to take the moral superiority of his humanistic values for granted.
“The traditional religions have too often waged wars of intolerance not only against other religions or ideologies that dispute the legitimacy of their divine revelations but even against sects that are mere variants of the same religion (e.g., Catholic versus Protestant, Shiite versus Sunni). Religions claim to speak in the name of God, yet bloodshed, tyranny, and untold horrors have often been justified on behalf of holy creeds. True believers have all too often opposed human progress: the abolition of slavery, the liberation of women, the extension of equal rights to transgendered people and gays, the expansion of democracy and human rights.”
Several flaws:
i) Only a shameless partisan like Kurtz would mention all the blood spilt in the name of religion while conveniently failing to mention all the blood spilt in the name of atheism. If this disqualifies religion, it equally disqualifies atheism.
ii) Equally unscrupulous is the lumping together of all religions so that any atrocity committed by any religion is laid at the doorstep of every other.
This comes just a few sentences after Kurtz condemned the principle of collective guilt.
iii) There is no necessary contradiction between bloodshed and a particular religion. It all depends on the creed. Bloodshed is quite consistent with Aztec religion. Bloodshed is quite consistent with Islam.
iv) The civil wars between Catholic and Protestant were instigated by monarchs attempting to impose a uniform faith on their subjects. This doesn’t represent a spontaneous, grass-roots altercation. One faction was conscripted to attack another faction, which was forced to defend itself.
v) Although Kurtz pays lavish lip-service to science, notice how he will instantly sacrifice hard science on the altar of political correctitude.
What is the scientific case for homosexual rights? What is the scientific case for transgender rights? Is there any solid scientific basis for these conditions?
And assuming, for the sake of argument, that there is, why would that not be treated as a genetic defect, subject to eugenic abortion or infanticide? Wouldn’t that be the consistent position for a secular ethicist to take?
“I realize that liberal religionists generally have rejected the absolutist creeds of fundamentalism. Fortunately, they have been influenced by modern democratic and humanistic values, which mitigate fundamentalism's inherent intolerance.”
Actually, covenant theology was invoked by men like Samuel Rutherford as an argument against absolute monarchy (Lex Rex). Under the OT, the king was a constitutional monarch who could be deposed if he proved to be a covenant-breaker. And in that same vein, let us not forget the role played by Presbyterians in the Revolutionary War, which was an extension of this principle.
“We are driven to ask: will those who believe in God actually achieve immortality of the soul and eternal salvation as promised?
The first objection of the skeptic to this claim is that the forms of salvation being offered are highly sectarian. The Hebrew Bible promises salvation for the chosen people; the New Testament, the Rapture to those who have faith in Jesus Christ; the Qur'an, heaven to those who accept the will of Allah as transmitted by Muhammad.
In general, these promises are not universal but apply only to those who acquiesce to a specific creed, as interpreted by priests, ministers, rabbis, or mullahs. Bloody wars have been waged to establish the legitimacy of the papacy (between Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy), the priority of Muhammad and the Qur'an, or the authenticity of the Old Testament.”
He has stated this as an objection without bothering to state what makes it objectionable. How does its sectarian character render it untrue?
“A second objection is that there is insufficient scientific evidence for the claim that the "soul" can exist separate from the body and that it can survive death as a ‘discarnate’ being, and much less for the claim that it can persist throughout eternity. Science points to the fact that the ‘mind’ or ‘consciousness’ is a function of the brain and nervous system and that with the physical death of the body, the ‘self’ or ‘person’ disappears. Thus, the claim that a person's soul can endure forever is supported by no evidence whatever, only by pious hope.”
Several problems:
i) Once again, Kurtz acts as though science is the only source and standard of truth. If that’s what he thinks, then why is he a philosopher instead of a scientist?
ii) Why not treat the mind/body problem as a metaphysical question rather than a physical question? Why not treat the soul as analogous to an abstract object rather than an empirical object?
iii) Kurtz disregards, without benefit of argument, all of the philosophical and scientific arguments for dualism.
iv) Christians do not maintain that the soul is naturally immortal, but that God preserves the soul through all eternity. As always, Kurtz is too lazy to engage the actual argument.
“Along the same line, believers have never succeeded in demonstrating the existence of the disembodied souls of any of the billions who went before us.”
Even if this were true, we don’t need direct evidence for everything we believe. Somethings we accept on authority as long as we can validate our authority-source.
Kurtz’ appeal to science is, itself, an appeal to authority. He’s not an experimental scientist.
“All efforts to communicate with such discarnate entities have been fruitless. Sightings of alleged ghosts have not been corroborated by reliable eyewitness testimony.”
This disregards, without benefit of argument, the whole of the parapsychological literature. A genuine critical thinker would sift through the case-studies.
“The appeal to near-death experiences simply reports the phenomenological experiences of persons who undergo part of the dying process but ultimately do not die. Of course, we never hear from anyone who has truly died by any clinical standard, gone to "the other side" and returned. In any case, these subjective experiences can be explained in terms of natural, psychological, and physiological causes.”
Are they all explainable in terms of natural, psychological, and physiological causes? Or does the secularist merely postulate some generic, hypothetical explanation as to how there might possibly be a natural mechanism to account for this experience?
“Fifth, theists maintain that one cannot be good unless one believes in God.
Skepticism about God's existence and divine plan does not imply pessimism, nihilism, the collapse of all values, or the implication that ‘anything goes.’ It has been demonstrated time and again, by countless human beings, that it is possible to be morally concerned with the needs of others, to be a good citizen, and to lead a life of nobility and excellence-all without religion. Thus, anyone can be righteous and altruistic, compassionate and benevolent, without belief in a deity. A person can develop the common moral virtues and express a goodwill toward others without devotion to God. It is possible to be empathetic toward others and at the same time be concerned with one's own well-being.”
He is conflating distinct issues:
i) The question is not, in the first instance, whether an unbeliever can exhibit common decency, but whether moral absolutes are consistent with, or implicit in, a secular worldview.
ii) In the nature of the case, what is considered to be moral is indexed to a particular value system, so there comes a point where Christian ethics and secular ethics are incommensurable. For example, in a secular value-system like National Socialism, eugenics and genocide, as well as involuntary medical experimentation, are morally licit.
“Secular ethical principles and values thus can be supported by evidence and reason, the cultivation of moral growth and development, the finding of common ground that brings people together.”
What kind of evidence would count as evidence of moral norms? Empirical evidence? Scientific evidence? Are moral norms tangible properties?
“Our principles and values can be vindicated as we examine the consequences of our choices and modify them in light of experience.”
Two problems:
i) This assumes, without benefit of argument, that teleological ethics is the way to go.
ii) It also assumes, without benefit of argument, that teleological ethics is consistent with, or implicit in, a secular worldview.
“Skeptics who are humanists focus on the good life here and now. They exhort us to live creatively, seeking a life full of happiness, even joyful exuberance. They urge us to face life's tragedies with equanimity, to marshal the courage and stoic forbearance to live meaningfully in spite of adversity, and to take satisfaction in our achievements. Life can be relished and is intrinsically worthwhile for its own sake, without any need for external support.”
How does this hortatory bromide flow from a secular outlook? Sounds more like the pep talk a commander would give to foot soldiers on a suicide mission:
“Even though you sorry, ill-fated grunts are only such much canon fodder in a losing battle, never forget that your futile efforts are for a noble cause, so buck up and make the old man proud!”
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
You know, I’d just love to be a sceptic. Really I would. Cross my heart—unless, of course, that might offend someone.
But I’m too sceptical to be a sceptic. I haven’t the faith to be an unbeliever.
I cannot crucify my intellect to become a blind disciple of eliminative materialism.
I cannot make myself believe that all these nested and interlocking complexities inched their way into existence.
I cannot convince myself that living and dying in the trenches of materialism is a noble cause.
To become an atheist I’d have to commit intellectual suicide, and whatever the fringe benefits of membership in the secular suicide cult, the severance package leaves a mite to be desired.
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=pkurtz_26_4
“Why do skeptics doubt the existence of God? First, because the skeptical inquirer does not find the traditional concept of God as "transcendent," "omnipotent," "omnipresent," or "omnibeneficent" to be coherent, intelligible, or meaningful. To postulate a transcendent being who is incomprehensible to the human mind (as theologians maintain) does not explain the world that we encounter. How can we say that such an indefinable being exists, if we do not know in what sense that being is said to exist? How are we to understand a God that exists outside space and time and that transcends our capacity to comprehend his essence? Theists have postulated an unknowable "X." But if his content is unfathomable, then he is little more than an empty, speculative abstraction. Thus, the skeptic in religion presents semantic objections to God language, charging that it is unintelligible and lacks any clear referent.”
i) This would be an impressive objection if only it didn’t suffer from the minor liability of being wrong. Theologians do not generally maintain that God is unknowable or indefinable. That’s merely the extreme apophatic tradition.
ii) How is something that subsists outside of space and time not an object of knowledge? Are abstract objects unknowable or indefinable?
If he’s going to deny the existence of abstract objects, he will need a supporting argument.
“A popular argument adduced for the existence of this unknowable entity is that he is the first cause, but we can ask of anyone who postulates this, "What is the cause of this first cause?" To say that he is uncaused only pushes our ignorance back one step.”
i) Kurtz is treating the first cause as if it were the first member of a temporal series. That is not what Aquinas had in mind.
ii) There is more than one version of the cosmological argument. This is not about a linear series of cause-and-effect. The depiction of a causal series as “chain” of events with sequential links is just a picturesque metaphor, especially in connection to the cosmological argument.
The true relation is not one of temporal priority. Rather, cause is to exemplar as effect is to exemplum. God actualizes a concrete property-instance of an abstract universal.
“To step outside the physical universe is to assume an answer by a leap of faith.”
This is an assertion, not an argument. It assumes that the physical universe is all there is. There’s nothing outside the box.
What’s that if not a leap of faith?
“Nor does the claim that the universe manifests Intelligent Design (ID) explain the facts of conflict, the struggle for survival, and the inescapable tragedy, evil, pain, and suffering that is encountered in the world of sentient beings.”
i) This is a very dense objection. Dysteleology presupposes teleology. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the items in question are natural (or even moral) evils, they are only evil in relation to some ideal standard.
But once you deny design, there can be no declension from an ideal state of affairs. Kurtz is denying in his conclusion what he must affirm in his premise.
Also, how is “pain” or the “struggle for survival” inconsistent with teleology? Doesn’t pain serve a biological purpose? Doesn’t the predatory/prey cycle represent a balancing act in the ecosystem? How are these features dysteleological?
“Regularities and chaos do not necessarily indicate design.”
By definition, “chaos” does not indicate design. But about “regularities”?
“The argument from design is reminiscent of Aristotle's teleological argument that there are purposes or ends in nature. But we can find no evidence for purpose in nature.”
Another orphaned assertion.
“Even if we were to find what appears to be design in the universe, this does not imply a designer for whose existence there is insufficient evidence.”
An odd statement for a couple of reasons:
i)”If we can find no evidence for purpose in nature,” then why does Kurtz feel the need to bring in this backup argument to take up the rear? Sounds like he not so confident of his original claim after all.
ii) How would the evidence for a designer’s existence be insufficient if he were to find what appeared to be evidence?
Wouldn’t that be, of itself, evidence for a designer?
Is Kurtz saying that since there is insufficient evidence for the existence of God, apparent evidence of design would be insufficient to overcome this insufficiency?
But if there is apparent evidence of design, then what we took to be insufficient evidence of God’s existence would be less insufficient than we took it to be apart from such additional evidence.
And how does inevidence negate evidence? The only evidence for something is evidence.
Inevidence is not a bar to evidence. Kurtz is acting as if inevidence were the same thing as contrary evidence, so that any new evidence would have to overcome counter-evidence.
But inevidence is just that—the lack of evidence. All you need to counter the negative, to counter the absence of evidence, is evidence.
If I have no evidence for the existence of four-leaf clovers, and I discover a four-leaf clover, that’s all the evidence I need.
I wouldn’t say that even if a found a four-leaf clover, this does not imply a four-leaf clover for whose existence there is insufficient evidence, would I?
Or does it all turn on the distinction between evidence and “apparent” evidence?
But that distinction is equally unclear. The only evidence of evidence is apparent evidence.
What’s the alternative to apparent evidence? Inevident evidence?
Or does he mean that the evidence is only “apparent” evidence because it could be deceptively evidentiary when, in fact, it is not real evidence after all?
But couldn’t we say that about any kind of evidence—such as scientific or historical evidence?
Real evidence is apparently real, but deceptive evidence is apparently real as well.
It looks like Kurtz is trying to arbitrarily cordon off evidence of natural design, as if it were in a class apart from other types of evidence.
“The evolutionary hypothesis provides a more parsimonious explanation of the origins of species.”
There are two or three basic problems with this appeal:
i) There is frequently a tradeoff between a simple explanation and a simple ontology. The reason that a scientist or logician or metaphysician may postulate hypothetical entities is that a more complex ontology will simplify his explanation, just as a more Spartan ontology may complicate the explanation. So there’s often an inverse ratio between one type of parsimony and another.
ii) In addition, if you knew what reality was like, you wouldn’t need Occam’s razor, for you’d already know how simple or complex the world is.
If you need Occam’s razor, then you don’t know what reality is like, in which case you don’t know if it’s simple or complex, or to what degree, in which case the principle of parsimony is either prejudicial or otiose.
iii) Why should parsimony enjoy any ontological presumption over plenitude?
“The changes in species through time are better accounted for by chance mutations, differential reproduction, natural selection, and adaptation, rather than by design.”
Yet another wailing assertion left on the doorstep. We will have to open a foundling hospital to feed and house all of Kurtz’s deserted assertions.
“Moreover, vestigial features such as the human appendix, tailbone, and male breasts and nipples hardly suggest adequate design; the same is true for vestigial organs in other species. Thus, the doctrine of creation is hardly supported in empirical terms.”
Are male beasts and nipples vestigial features? What is Kurtz saying, here? That hominids were originally female, and males evolved out of female hominids, which is why they retain these vestigial secondary sexual characteristics?
i) One little question: in the absence of male hominids, how did the females reproduce? How were they impregnated?
ii) Actually, the male breast is more than vestigial. It is potentially functional, and, in some situations, men are able to lactate.
Why treat this as an evolutionary relic rather than an adaptable survival mechanism or inbuilt backup system in the event of environmental situations where the female cannot nurse enough of the offspring?
“Another version of the Intelligent Design argument is the so-called fine-tuning argument. Its proponents maintain that there is a unique combination of "physical constants" in the universe that possess the only values capable of sustaining life, especially sentient organic systems. This they attribute to a designer God. But this, too, is inadequate. First because millions of species are extinct; the alleged "fine-tuning" did nothing to ensure their survival. Second, great numbers of human beings have been extinguished by natural causes such as diseases and disasters. The Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 that suddenly killed over two hundred thousand innocent men, women, and children was due to a shift in tectonic plates. This hardly indicates fine tuning-after all, this tragedy could have been avoided had a supposed fine tuner troubled to correct defects in the surface strata of the planet.”
This is a non sequitur. The fine-tuning argument is an argument for the possibility of life. Having the preconditions in place. It is not an argument for the actual existence of life, much less the survival of any particular species or individual members thereof.
“A close variant of the fine-tuning argument is the so-called anthropic principle, which is simply a form of anthropomorphism; that is, it reads into nature the fondest hopes and wishes of believers, which are then imposed upon the universe. But if we are to do this, should we not also attribute the errors and mistakes encountered in nature to the designer?”
That is not the anthropic principle:
i) To begin with, there is more than one version of the anthropic principle.
ii) Far from being “anthropomorphic,” critics object to the principle, not because it isn’t true, but because it’s a truism or tautology.
iii) Of itself, the anthropic principle is not a theistic proof.
“Related to this, of course, is the classical problem of evil. If an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnibeneficent God is responsible for the world as we know it, then how to explain evil? Surely, humans cannot be held responsible for a massive flood or plague, for example; we can explain such calamities only by inferring that God is malevolent, because he knew of, yet permitted, terrible destructive events to occur-or by suggesting that God is impotent to prevent evil. This would also suggest an unintelligent, deficient, or faulty designer.”
i) Other issues aside, natural disasters are natural goods which only seem like natural evils when human beings get in the way. There is nothing dysteleological about a hydrological system or bacteria. These have a natural function in the ecosystem.
ii) In addition, how does Kurtz define a human being? Does he agree with the secular scientific definition of Richard Dawkins? If so, what’s so bad about blindly programmed survival machines perishing in a flood or dying from a plague?
Does he agree with the secular scientific definition of Paul Churchland, according to which “pain” and “suffering” are folk psychological archaisms which ought to be expunged from the materialistic lexicon? If so, then the problem of pain is an illusion. We don’t suffer.
“The historic religions maintain that God has revealed himself in history and that he has manifested his presence to selected humans. These revelations are not corroborated by independent, objective observers.”
How does he define “independent” or “objective”? If an observer were to corroborate a revelation, he would presumably believe in it. How could he corroborate a revelation he didn’t believe in?
“They are disclosed, rather, to privileged prophets or mystics, whose claims have not been adequately verified: there is insufficient circumstantial evidence to confirm their authenticity.”
i) Another stranded assertion.
ii) In addition, one cannot intelligently evaluate religion in general. Rather, this must be done on a case-by-case basis.
“To attribute inexplicable events to miracles performed by God, as declared in the so-called sacred literature, is often a substitute for finding their true causes scientifically. Scientific inquiry is generally able to explain alleged "miracles" by discovering natural causes.”
A straw man argument. In Scripture, a miracle is not a stopgap to explain an otherwise inexplicable event. Bible writers are not attributing otherwise inexplicable events to divine agency, as if they were floating a theory or postulating a hypothetical entity.
“The Bible, Qur'an, and other classical documents are full of contradictions and factual errors. They were written by human beings in ancient civilizations, expressing the scientific and moral speculations of their day. They do not convey the eternal word of God, but rather the yearnings of ancient tribes based on oral legends and received doctrines; as such, they are hardly relevant to all cultures and times.”
i) Another lonely assertion in search of a warm-bodied supporting argument.
ii) Notice how he jumbles together very different “scriptures,” as if he could dispatch all revelatory claimants with one stroke. This is simple-minded and anti-intellectual. A mental short-cut.
“The Old and New Testaments are not accurate accounts of historical events.”
Another groundless assertion.
“The reliability of the Old Testament is highly questionable in the events and personages it depicts; Moses, Abraham, Joseph, etc. are largely uncorroborated by historical evidence.”
i) Lack of corroboration doesn’t imply either inaccuracy or unreliability. For that you would need contrary evidence, not the absence of evidence.
ii) Given the fact so little evidence has survived, or been excavated, even partial corroboration is mighty impressive—especially when the world at large took so little interest in ancient Israel or 1C Christians.
“As for the New Testament, scholarship has shown that none of its authors knew Jesus directly.”
A one-sided remark which disregards, without benefit of argument, a broad and deep body of conservative scholarship.
“The four Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses but are products of oral tradition and hearsay.”
Why assume they were the products of oral tradition? Didn’t 1C Jews know how to read and write?
“There is but flimsy and contradictory evidence for the virgin birth, the healings of Jesus, and the Resurrection.”
Another naked assertion, shivering in the cold.
“Some claim to believe in God because they say that God has entered into their personal lives and has imbued them with new meaning. This is a psychological or phenomenological account of a person's inner experience. It is hardly adequate evidence for the existence of a divine being independent of human beings' internal soliloquies. Appeals to mystical experiences or private subjective states hardly suffice as evidential support that some external being or force caused such altered states of consciousness; skeptical inquirers have a legitimate basis for doubt, unless or until such claims of interior experience can somehow be independently corroborated. Experiences of God or gods, or angels or demons, talking to one may disturb or entrance those persons who undergo such experiences, but the question is whether these internal subjective states have external veracity. This especially applies to those individuals who claim some sort of special revelation from on high, such as the hearing of commandments.”
Another couple of problems:
i) It’s true that my subjective experience, all by itself, cannot count as evidence for a second-party. That’s a built-in limit to the argument from experience. But it’s a limit, not a defeater, or even an undercutter.
ii) Interior experience is our only port of entry to the external world. The human mind does not enjoy direct access to the world “out there.” We only know the external world via our internal experience of the external world. So subjectivity is the only gateway to objectivity.
iii) Ironically, the only alternative would be divine revelation. Revelation can infuse our private, inner experience with information about the public world.
The only “independent” check on our perception of the sensible world is divine revelation. Apart from that, we have no intersubjectival source or standard of knowledge regarding extramental events.
“Second, is God a person?”
God is personal. Indeed, he’s three persons in one!
“Does he take on human form?”
In theophanies and especially the Incarnation.
“Has he communicated in discernible form, say, as the Holy Spirit, to Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Muhammad, or other prophets?”
Yes, he spoke to Moses, Abraham, and Jesus. Indeed, Jesus is God speaking.
No, he never spoke to Muhammad.
“These claims again are uncorroborated by objective eyewitnesses. They are rather promulgated by propagandists of the various faith traditions that have been inflicted on societies and enforced by entrenched ecclesiastical authorities and political powers.”
i) NT Christians were a persecuted minority group. They had no entrenched ecclesiastical authorities. And the political powers are arrayed against them.
ii) Secular propagandists like Kurtz inflict their faithless traditions on society, enforced by entrenched media and academic authorities as well as political powers.
“They are supported by customs and traditions buried for millennia by the sands of time and institutional inertia. They are simply assumed to be true without question.”
There is a vast body of literature in the field of Christian apologetics, natural theology, and philosophical theology which gives the lie to this sweeping assertion.
“The ancient documents alleging God's existence are preliterate, prephilosophical, and, in any case, unconfirmed by scientific inquiry.”
i) The ANE world in which the OT was revealed was hardly preliterate. The Greco-Roman world in which the NT was revealed was hardly preliterate.
The problem is not with ancient illiteracy, but with Kurtz’ illiteracy.
ii) Science is not the only source of knowledge. Science is suited to empirical objects of knowledge, but unsuited to privileged mental states, abstract objects, and the like.
“They are often eloquent literary expressions of existential moral poetry, but they are unverified by archeological evidence or careful historical investigation.”
He simply disregards Biblical archeology and conservative scholarship.
“Moreover, they contradict each other in their claims for authenticity and legitimacy.”
It’s true that different religions contradict each other. So what?
“The ancient faith that God is a person has not been corroborated by the historical record.”
This is a very vague denial. What would such corroboration look like?
“Such conceptions of God are anthropomorphic and anthropocentric, reading into the universe human predilections and feelings. "If lions had gods they would be lionlike in character," said Xenophon. Thus, human Gods are an extrapolation of human hopes and aspirations, fanciful tales of imaginative fiction.”
i) This is an assumption, not an argument, and the reasoning is reversible. The properties of an artifact in some ways resemble the properties of an artificer. A da Vinci painting is a projection of da Vinci’s genius. But that hardly makes da Vinci a fictitious or imaginary painter.
God’s nature would be the template of what’s possible or actual. So we’d expect the creature to resemble the Creator in certain respects.
ii) Kurtz is contradicting himself. He earlier said the concept of God is “indefinable” and “unintelligible,” an “empty, speculative abstraction.”
Now, however, he says it’s “anthropomorphic” and “anthropocentric,” an “extrapolation” of human hopes, &c.
“Third, the claim that our ultimate moral values are derived from God is likewise highly suspect. The so-called sacred moral codes reflect the socio-historical cultures out of which they emerged. For example, the Old Testament commands that adulterers, blasphemers, disobedient sons, bastards, witches, and homosexuals be stoned to death. It threatens collective guilt: punishment is inflicted by Jehovah on the children's children of unbelievers. It defends patriarchy and the dominion of men over women. It condones slavery and genocide in the name of God.
The New Testament consigns "unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's"; it demands that women be obedient to their husbands; it accepts faith healing, exorcisms, and miracles; it exalts obedience over independence, fear and trembling over courage, and piety over self-determination. “
Setting aside his simplistic, acontextual summary of the evidence, all that his comparison amounts to is a contrast between secular ethics, on the one hand, and Biblical ethics, on the other.
But to compare and contrast the two is hardly an argument for the superiority of secular ethics. All that Kurtz has done is to take secular ethics as his presumptive standard. Is begging the question the best he can do?
“From the fatherhood of God, contradictory moral commandments have been derived; theists have often lined up on opposite sides of moral issues. Believers have stood for and against war; for and against slavery; for and against capital punishment, some embracing retribution, others mercy and rehabilitation; for and against the divine right of kings, slavery, and patriarchy; for and against the emancipation of women; for and against the absolute prohibition of contraception, euthanasia, and abortion; for and against sexual and gender equality; for and against freedom of scientific research; for and against the libertarian ideals of a free society.”
i) In general, this fails to distinguish between liberals and conservative.
ii) Moreover, you can also find unbelievers on every conceivable side of an issue. So does that render secular ethics “highly suspect” as well?
“True believers have in the past often found little room for human autonomy, individual freedom, or self-reliance. They have emphasized submission to the word of God instead of self-determination, faith over reason, credulity over doubt. All too often they have had little confidence in the ability of humans to solve problems and create a better future by drawing on their own resources. In the face of tragedy, they supplicate to God through prayer instead of summoning the courage to overcome adversity and build a better future. The skeptic concludes, ‘No deity will save us; if we are to be saved it must be by our own efforts.’"
To cast the alternatives as a choice between faith and reason, credulity and doubt is tendentious. For the rest, all he’s done is to take the moral superiority of his humanistic values for granted.
“The traditional religions have too often waged wars of intolerance not only against other religions or ideologies that dispute the legitimacy of their divine revelations but even against sects that are mere variants of the same religion (e.g., Catholic versus Protestant, Shiite versus Sunni). Religions claim to speak in the name of God, yet bloodshed, tyranny, and untold horrors have often been justified on behalf of holy creeds. True believers have all too often opposed human progress: the abolition of slavery, the liberation of women, the extension of equal rights to transgendered people and gays, the expansion of democracy and human rights.”
Several flaws:
i) Only a shameless partisan like Kurtz would mention all the blood spilt in the name of religion while conveniently failing to mention all the blood spilt in the name of atheism. If this disqualifies religion, it equally disqualifies atheism.
ii) Equally unscrupulous is the lumping together of all religions so that any atrocity committed by any religion is laid at the doorstep of every other.
This comes just a few sentences after Kurtz condemned the principle of collective guilt.
iii) There is no necessary contradiction between bloodshed and a particular religion. It all depends on the creed. Bloodshed is quite consistent with Aztec religion. Bloodshed is quite consistent with Islam.
iv) The civil wars between Catholic and Protestant were instigated by monarchs attempting to impose a uniform faith on their subjects. This doesn’t represent a spontaneous, grass-roots altercation. One faction was conscripted to attack another faction, which was forced to defend itself.
v) Although Kurtz pays lavish lip-service to science, notice how he will instantly sacrifice hard science on the altar of political correctitude.
What is the scientific case for homosexual rights? What is the scientific case for transgender rights? Is there any solid scientific basis for these conditions?
And assuming, for the sake of argument, that there is, why would that not be treated as a genetic defect, subject to eugenic abortion or infanticide? Wouldn’t that be the consistent position for a secular ethicist to take?
“I realize that liberal religionists generally have rejected the absolutist creeds of fundamentalism. Fortunately, they have been influenced by modern democratic and humanistic values, which mitigate fundamentalism's inherent intolerance.”
Actually, covenant theology was invoked by men like Samuel Rutherford as an argument against absolute monarchy (Lex Rex). Under the OT, the king was a constitutional monarch who could be deposed if he proved to be a covenant-breaker. And in that same vein, let us not forget the role played by Presbyterians in the Revolutionary War, which was an extension of this principle.
“We are driven to ask: will those who believe in God actually achieve immortality of the soul and eternal salvation as promised?
The first objection of the skeptic to this claim is that the forms of salvation being offered are highly sectarian. The Hebrew Bible promises salvation for the chosen people; the New Testament, the Rapture to those who have faith in Jesus Christ; the Qur'an, heaven to those who accept the will of Allah as transmitted by Muhammad.
In general, these promises are not universal but apply only to those who acquiesce to a specific creed, as interpreted by priests, ministers, rabbis, or mullahs. Bloody wars have been waged to establish the legitimacy of the papacy (between Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy), the priority of Muhammad and the Qur'an, or the authenticity of the Old Testament.”
He has stated this as an objection without bothering to state what makes it objectionable. How does its sectarian character render it untrue?
“A second objection is that there is insufficient scientific evidence for the claim that the "soul" can exist separate from the body and that it can survive death as a ‘discarnate’ being, and much less for the claim that it can persist throughout eternity. Science points to the fact that the ‘mind’ or ‘consciousness’ is a function of the brain and nervous system and that with the physical death of the body, the ‘self’ or ‘person’ disappears. Thus, the claim that a person's soul can endure forever is supported by no evidence whatever, only by pious hope.”
Several problems:
i) Once again, Kurtz acts as though science is the only source and standard of truth. If that’s what he thinks, then why is he a philosopher instead of a scientist?
ii) Why not treat the mind/body problem as a metaphysical question rather than a physical question? Why not treat the soul as analogous to an abstract object rather than an empirical object?
iii) Kurtz disregards, without benefit of argument, all of the philosophical and scientific arguments for dualism.
iv) Christians do not maintain that the soul is naturally immortal, but that God preserves the soul through all eternity. As always, Kurtz is too lazy to engage the actual argument.
“Along the same line, believers have never succeeded in demonstrating the existence of the disembodied souls of any of the billions who went before us.”
Even if this were true, we don’t need direct evidence for everything we believe. Somethings we accept on authority as long as we can validate our authority-source.
Kurtz’ appeal to science is, itself, an appeal to authority. He’s not an experimental scientist.
“All efforts to communicate with such discarnate entities have been fruitless. Sightings of alleged ghosts have not been corroborated by reliable eyewitness testimony.”
This disregards, without benefit of argument, the whole of the parapsychological literature. A genuine critical thinker would sift through the case-studies.
“The appeal to near-death experiences simply reports the phenomenological experiences of persons who undergo part of the dying process but ultimately do not die. Of course, we never hear from anyone who has truly died by any clinical standard, gone to "the other side" and returned. In any case, these subjective experiences can be explained in terms of natural, psychological, and physiological causes.”
Are they all explainable in terms of natural, psychological, and physiological causes? Or does the secularist merely postulate some generic, hypothetical explanation as to how there might possibly be a natural mechanism to account for this experience?
“Fifth, theists maintain that one cannot be good unless one believes in God.
Skepticism about God's existence and divine plan does not imply pessimism, nihilism, the collapse of all values, or the implication that ‘anything goes.’ It has been demonstrated time and again, by countless human beings, that it is possible to be morally concerned with the needs of others, to be a good citizen, and to lead a life of nobility and excellence-all without religion. Thus, anyone can be righteous and altruistic, compassionate and benevolent, without belief in a deity. A person can develop the common moral virtues and express a goodwill toward others without devotion to God. It is possible to be empathetic toward others and at the same time be concerned with one's own well-being.”
He is conflating distinct issues:
i) The question is not, in the first instance, whether an unbeliever can exhibit common decency, but whether moral absolutes are consistent with, or implicit in, a secular worldview.
ii) In the nature of the case, what is considered to be moral is indexed to a particular value system, so there comes a point where Christian ethics and secular ethics are incommensurable. For example, in a secular value-system like National Socialism, eugenics and genocide, as well as involuntary medical experimentation, are morally licit.
“Secular ethical principles and values thus can be supported by evidence and reason, the cultivation of moral growth and development, the finding of common ground that brings people together.”
What kind of evidence would count as evidence of moral norms? Empirical evidence? Scientific evidence? Are moral norms tangible properties?
“Our principles and values can be vindicated as we examine the consequences of our choices and modify them in light of experience.”
Two problems:
i) This assumes, without benefit of argument, that teleological ethics is the way to go.
ii) It also assumes, without benefit of argument, that teleological ethics is consistent with, or implicit in, a secular worldview.
“Skeptics who are humanists focus on the good life here and now. They exhort us to live creatively, seeking a life full of happiness, even joyful exuberance. They urge us to face life's tragedies with equanimity, to marshal the courage and stoic forbearance to live meaningfully in spite of adversity, and to take satisfaction in our achievements. Life can be relished and is intrinsically worthwhile for its own sake, without any need for external support.”
How does this hortatory bromide flow from a secular outlook? Sounds more like the pep talk a commander would give to foot soldiers on a suicide mission:
“Even though you sorry, ill-fated grunts are only such much canon fodder in a losing battle, never forget that your futile efforts are for a noble cause, so buck up and make the old man proud!”
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
You know, I’d just love to be a sceptic. Really I would. Cross my heart—unless, of course, that might offend someone.
But I’m too sceptical to be a sceptic. I haven’t the faith to be an unbeliever.
I cannot crucify my intellect to become a blind disciple of eliminative materialism.
I cannot make myself believe that all these nested and interlocking complexities inched their way into existence.
I cannot convince myself that living and dying in the trenches of materialism is a noble cause.
To become an atheist I’d have to commit intellectual suicide, and whatever the fringe benefits of membership in the secular suicide cult, the severance package leaves a mite to be desired.
Friday, May 26, 2006
The SBC and Landmarkism-Part 5
Part 5-The Present Day is now available. This section ties the 19th century to the present day.
See here.
See here.
The presumption of piscianity
The fishbowl is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Life beyond the fishbowl is the opiate of the guppies.
A fishbowl is made of water and glass and bubbles—billions upon billions of bubbles.
The bottom of the tank is the shore of the cosmic aquarium. On this shore we’ve learned most of what we know. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can’t, because the aquarium is also within us. We’re "made" of starfishy stuff. We’re a way that a fishbowl can know itself.
The journey for each of us begins here. We’re going to explore the fishbowl in a ship of the imagination, unfettered by ordinary limits on glass and steel, drawn by the music of the cosmic bubbles.
A fishbowl is made of water and glass and bubbles—billions upon billions of bubbles.
The bottom of the tank is the shore of the cosmic aquarium. On this shore we’ve learned most of what we know. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can’t, because the aquarium is also within us. We’re "made" of starfishy stuff. We’re a way that a fishbowl can know itself.
The journey for each of us begins here. We’re going to explore the fishbowl in a ship of the imagination, unfettered by ordinary limits on glass and steel, drawn by the music of the cosmic bubbles.
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