The Neglect Of Christmas Apologetics

Recent polling in England probably reflects where the United States is headed:

"Young people were particularly doubtful about the nativity, with 78 per cent of 16-24-year-olds saying they were not convinced of its historical reliability....Almost a quarter of those questioned who described themselves as Christians admitted they did not believe certain aspects of the Bible's teaching about Jesus....A separate study by Mothers' Union, a Christian charity, showed that more parents encourage their children to believe in Father Christmas than in the nativity."

And I suspect that most of those who affirm the historicity of the infancy narratives could be persuaded to abandon that belief without much difficulty. The church should be giving far more attention to Christmas apologetics.

Early this year, I participated in an email discussion about why Christians seem so uninterested in studying and arguing for the historicity of the infancy narratives. Here are a few points I made at the time:

- Many of the problems with Christmas apologetics don't seem to exist with Easter apologetics. There are far more books on Christ's resurrection than on the issues surrounding the infancy narratives. Arguments for the resurrection are much more advanced than the arguments for the infancy issues. Apologetic material seems to be included much more often in Easter sermons than in Christmas sermons. Etc. Any explanation for the lack of Christmas apologetics has to take into account the far larger amount of Easter apologetics that we've seen. Many of the problems you've mentioned either don't exist in the context of Easter or exist to a lesser degree. In some ways, that difference is justified. Scripture says more about the resurrection than it does about Jesus' infancy. Scripture often refers to the importance of the resurrection (every gospel concludes with it and the events surrounding it, Acts 17:31, 1 Corinthians 15:14, etc.). We have better evidence for Jesus' resurrection than we have for something like the virgin birth or the Bethlehem birthplace. And Easter focuses on Jesus' resurrection, one event, whereas Christmas involves more issues and, thus, more complexity. Still, the fact that it's understandable that there are more and better apologetics for Easter than for Christmas doesn't explain why the Christmas apologetic material is so poor. I think that Easter has in some ways been handled much better than Christmas by the Christian world. It's an example of what could be done with Christmas, but hasn't been done so far.

- I think that Christmas is so important to people in some non-apologetic contexts, such as emotional memories and relationships with relatives, that people often don't want to think about apologetic issues that seem disruptive to their enjoyment of the season. They don't want their family reunions and Christmas shopping disturbed by questions about the historicity of what the holiday celebrates. They want to keep the season highly emotional and positive, and thinking through issues like the historicity of the census and where Jesus was born seems disruptive. I don't think that people associate Easter with the sort of emotions, relationships, etc. that are associated with Christmas. People are more occupied with other things at Christmas than they are at Easter.

- Some of liberal scholarship's objections to the infancy narratives can appear more credible on the surface than they are upon closer scrutiny. For example, in both the scholarly literature and at lower levels, it seems that there's been widespread acceptance of the concept that the events of the infancy narratives are too distant from the people who wrote about those events in the gospels. If Matthew and Luke wrote in the second half of the first century, how much access would they have had to information surrounding events of several decades earlier? It seems to me that many people, even conservative scholars, underestimate the significance of the early church's access to sources like Mary and James. I've seen little acknowledgment, even among conservative scholars, of the fact that issues like where Jesus was born and other circumstances surrounding His birth would have been of interest to both the early Christians and their enemies long before the gospels were written. People would have been thinking about and discussing the issues long before the gospels came along. Just as Paul's relative silence about Jesus' public ministry shouldn't lead us to the conclusion that there wasn't much early interest in the subject, the same is true of silence about the infancy material in the earliest sources. My impression is that scholars often recognize this fact with regard to something like Jesus' public ministry, but rarely acknowledge it with regard to the infancy events. I find it hard to believe that an issue like where Jesus was born wasn't prominently discussed even before Jesus died. Yet, scholars often act as if there probably wasn't much consideration of the infancy events until around the time when the gospels were written. Even conservative scholars seem to often underestimate how much interest in the events of Jesus' infancy the earliest Christians would have had. It seems that much of what conservative scholars have recognized and argued with regard to Jesus' public ministry, the resurrection, the ministry of Paul, etc. hasn't been applied to the infancy narratives. The evidence for the infancy material isn't as good, but many of the same principles could be applied to a lesser extent. They aren't applied as much as they ought to be. I suspect that liberal scholarship's emphasis on the gap of time between Jesus' birth and the gospels has left a major impression even on many conservative scholars, so that even conservatives often view the infancy narratives as having little apologetic potential. They have difficulty moving beyond that false initial impression. I think the same occurs with many conservative Christians outside of scholarly circles. Some liberal arguments initially seem much more significant than they actually are, and many people don't get beyond that initial perception.

- One of the rare Christmas apologetics books I've seen in recent years is Lee Strobel's The Case For Christmas. It's a small book, and my understanding is that it does little more than reproduce some chapters from The Case For Christ. (Thus, I haven't read it.) Judging from amazon.com rankings, it seems that the Christmas book has been selling much less than Strobel's other Case books. I don't recall seeing Strobel interviewed for the Christmas book as much as he's been interviewed for the other Case books. The fact that he and Zondervan chose to reproduce chapters from an earlier book, as opposed to giving more space and more originality to a Christmas book, seems significant. If Lee Strobel can't sell Christmas apologetics, I wonder who could. I suspect that one of the reasons for the rarity of material on Christmas apologetics is that it's been tried by publishers from time to time and has largely failed.

I think we could cite some other reasons for the neglect of Christmas apologetics, but whatever the reasons for it, Borg and Crossan are right about the significance of Christmas and the Christmas season. It's a major lost opportunity.

A little more than thirty years ago, during the Christmas season of 1976, Raymond Brown wrote the foreword to the first edition of The Birth Of The Messiah (New York, New York: Doubleday, 1999). In that foreword, he noted that the infancy narratives were in some ways "the last frontiers" to be crossed in gospel scholarship, an area of neglect among both liberals and conservatives (p. 6). A few decades later, other scholars (recently Joseph Kelly, Geza Vermes, Marcus Borg, and John Crossan, for example) have joined Brown in advancing a liberal view of the infancy narratives, with much influence in academia and the media. Conservatives, within and outside of scholarship, have been more apathetic.

Once in Royal David's City

I thought this was beautiful:



Once in royal David's city
stood a lowly cattle shed,
where a mother laid her baby
in a manger for his bed:
Mary was that mother mild,
Jesus Christ her little child.

He came down to earth from heaven,
who is God and Lord of all,
and his shelter was a stable,
and his cradle was a stall;
with the poor, the scorned, the lowly,
lived on earth our Savior holy.

And, through all his wondrous childhood,
he would honor and obey,
love and watch the lowly maiden
in whose gentle arms he lay:
Christian children all must be
mild, obedient, good as he.

For he is our childhood's pattern,
day by day like us he grew;
he was little, weak and helpless,
tears and smiles like us he knew.
and he feeleth for our sadness,
and he shareth in our gladness.

And our eyes at last shall see him,
through his own redeeming love;
for that child who seemed so helpless
is our Lord in heaven above;
and he leads his children on
to the place where he is gone.

Not in that poor lowly stable,
with the oxen standing round,
we shall see him; but in heaven,
set at God's right hand on high;
when like stars his children crowned,
all in white shall wait around.

If you're interested in purchasing a CD of the same, you might consider this one. Or if you're interested in a related DVD, you might consider this one. Or if you'd simply like more info, see here.

HT: Nicole Starling.

On Election & Fatalism (A Response to Persiflage)

I’ve been having a discussion with a commenter named Persiflage on Steve’s post entitled Soul-murder. As is typical of internet discussions, we’ve quickly strayed from the original point of Steve’s post. Since Persiflage has expressed interest in continuing the discussion along the lines we’ve gone, I’m creating this post to help with that, as well as to bring the issue to light for those who do not read comments since, in my opinion, this is an area of Reformed thought that should be investigated more often.

I encourage any who are interested to read through the entirety of the comments in the previous post. For some background, however, I’ll start by quoting one of my original comments:

Persiflage said:
---
Precisely - most Calvinists are not fatalists in the sense that every single action on earth is predestined by God.
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Actually, that's not what I meant. Fatalism is actually closer akin to the typical Arminian view of God than the Calvinist view of God. This seems wrong to most people, but look at the logic of it and you'll see it's true:

Calvinists are not fatalists because we believe that God ordains the means as well as the ends. Furthermore, we hold that two moral agents can both will the same event for radically opposed reasons, such that for one moral agent the action is moral while for the other moral agent the action is immoral.

To give a Biblical example, when God used Assyria to punish Israel, it was God's sovereign decree that Assyria do such. Assyria willingly went along with this, because it was Assyrias desire to tear down nations and uplift themselves as pseudo-gods. The net result: God's will occured, and Assyria was later punished for it (cf. Isaiah 10).

So let me be clear. God predestines everything that occurs. Or as the Westminster Confession puts it: "God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established" (WCF III:1).

This is not fatalism because the will of the agents involved is not infringed. Another example are the Pharisees who killed Jesus. They did what God ordained they would do; yet they did so because they were wicked. They were not forced to do this, but rather it was what their wicked hearts desired to be done. God, however, willed it for good.

As I said above, the Arminian position is more closely related to fatalism. This is because the Arminian will typically say such things as "God ordains the ends but doesn't do the little details." The net result is that either God knows in advance what people will do (the foreknowledge argument Arminians use), which renders His ordaining of events as superfluous since they will happen regardless of His ordanation; or God does not know what people will do (a la Open Theism) and must work to fix things after the fact. Most Arminians reject Open Theism and state the first alternative, but really hold to something like Open Theism. Namely, God ordains the ends, and then knows what people will do and, because He is smarter then they are, can work what people do back to His own ends.

The problem with this idea is that that just is what fatalism is. Fatalism is the idea that no matter what you do, you cannot escape your fate. In the Arminian scheme, this cashes out as the fact that God's end will result no matter what you do; you cannot thwart Him because, like a superior chess player, He will always beat you.

Calvinists, on the other hand, do not hold to that position at all. It is not a case of "no matter what you do" but rather "this is why you do what you do." In other words, rather than having a fate you cannot avoid (Arminianism), God has an ending that is intended to include you as a means to that end.

In other words, under a fatalistic scheme, it would be like an engineer who builds an engine and takes a piece that doesn't fit but jams it in until the engine functions. No matter what the piece's shape is, it will be forced to do it's part. Calvinism teaches instead that God crafts the parts to the engine such that when a piston is needed for the engine to run, the piece is exactly what is needed. This isn't fatalism; rather it is a well-designed plan.

I shall now interact with Persiflage’s response to the above. Also, for the record, Persiflage has stated he intends to do a five point series on his website—when he does so, I encourage him to post a link to it, as he at least has shown himself to be a more reasonable opponent than certain other responders of late! (Yes, Mandalay, this means you.)

Persiflage said:

So a few major points -

- you quote from the Westminster Confession’s - “God ordains whatsoever comes to pass”, which then tries to qualify it with “but he’s not the author of sin” and “this doesn’t deny free will.” You say this is possible because “two moral agents can both will the same event for radically opposed reasons, such that for one moral agent the action is moral while for the other the action is immoral.” Assyria conquering Israel is an example. God put it into their heads to go down and conquer Israel in order to punish them for their disobedience.

So this argument is our biggest problem. I don’t see where in Scripture it says that “God ordains whatsoever comes to pass” or that everything is God’s will. The Confession then flat out contradicts itself by trying to make qualifications. Hey, either everything that happens is God’s will (including Adam and Eve eating of the tree in rebellion to God) or it’s not. The Bible is clear that God predestines the elect to salvation. It is not Biblically clear that God predestines the lost to hell, nor that God predestines “every single action on earth.”

Let’s start with the first part: “I don’t see where in Scripture it says that ‘God ordains whatsoever comes to pass’ or that everything is God’s will.” The WCF itself provides Scripture references for its claim. You can find these at http://www.reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/. Additionally, and in no particular order, from the ESV (unless otherwise noted):

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will… (Ephesians 1:11 – emphasis mine)

The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD (Proverbs 16:33).

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father (Matthew 10:29). “Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father” in NIV. “And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will” in NKJV.

Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps (Psalm 135:6).

… he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, "What have you done?" (Daniel 4:35b)

For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust (Matthew 5:45) Note: this shows God’s dominion over the natural realm; that is, God’s will extends even to the weather, etc.

And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place… (Acts 17:26, emphasis mine).

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." (James 4:13-15)

Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come? (Lamentations 3:37-38)

“‘See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.’” (Deuteronomy 32:39)

There are many more passages like this. But even with just the above, we can see that God is sovereign not only over election, but also over life and death; the minutia (sparrows that fall to the ground, and we are worth far more than sparrows, as the passage continues); the weather; the decision of lots (i.e. so called “random” events); nations and kings; good and evil. In short, God’s decrees cover every aspect of our lives on Earth, from our birth to our death.

Moving on to the second point, Persiflage states: “The Confession then flat out contradicts itself by trying to make qualifications.” The problem with this is that the qualifications are not contradictions at all, but rather clarifications. Indeed, the clarifications are necessary because simply saying “God foreordains whatsoever comes to pass” is not sufficient to distinguish between fatalism and the Calvinist’s compatiblistic view.

To give an analogy (albeit a rather contrived one) it would be like saying: “Football teams need to score to win, and by ‘football’ we mean European football rather than American football.” The clarification shows we are dealing with soccer, which everyone in the world other than the US calls “football”, and not the NFL; yet this clarification is not a contradiction of the original point, because both soccer and NFL have “football teams” that “need to score to win.”

Linking it back to the original point, it is true for both Calvinistic views and fatalistic views that “God ordains whatsoever comes to pass”, but it is only true of the Calvinist view that God’s ordaining does no violence to the will nor does it remove secondary causes (but rather establishes them).

Persiflage continues:

Forget about Adam and Eve’s free will for a moment. Sin is God’s will? How do we know God’s will? By his commands.

Actually, I disagree that it’s His commands that show what His will is (insofar as God's will = what God wants to actually happen). More on that later though. Persiflage finishes the above with:

Genesis 2:16 is a very clear command. From Genesis 2:16, couldn't you say that it was NOT God's will for them to eat of the tree? Could I believe that God commands his people to do one thing, while what he REALLY had ordained for them to do is the opposite? No - and nowhere do I see a God that tricky or underhanded in the Bible. Even if Adam and Eve remained free moral agents willing to disobey God for sinful reasons while at the same time God had ordained for them to disobey him - there was never any question whether they would sin simply because that was what God wanted them to do - that was His will.

Indeed, Genesis 2:16 is a very clear command. However, you also have the following command in Scripture:

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30).

Coupled with:

Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false (2 Thessalonians 2:11).

So God has in actuality commanded “people to do one thing, while he REALLY [has] ordained for them to do…the opposite.” Indeed, we also have to contend with the following passages:

And he said to them, "To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that ‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven’” (Mark 4:11-12).

As it is written, "God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day." (Romans 11:8)

But to this day the LORD has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear (Deuteronomy 29:4).

And he [Eli] said to them [Eli’s sons], "Why do you do such things? For I hear of your evil dealings from all the people. No, my sons; it is no good report that I hear the people of the LORD spreading abroad. If someone sins against a man, God will mediate for him, but if someone sins against the LORD, who can intercede for him?" But they would not listen to the voice of their father, for it was the will of the LORD to put them to death (1 Samuel 2:23-25).

Again, there are many more examples along these lines, but this is sufficient to start. It should be enough to show us that God’s commands are not equivalent with God’s ordaining of what comes to pass. If that were the case, there would be no sin ever. Instead, we see that often God does ordain that which is in direct opposition to His commands. The logic of this follows from the fact that God is a) sovereign over all aspects of our lives and b) God has stated that He does not will for certain things to occur even though they would be consistent with His commands.

What, then, are His commands for? They are first conditionals that, if satisfied, are true. In other words, it is the case that if you obey all the commands of God then you will, in fact, be a holy and righteous person. But the commands do not lead to righteousness. Instead, we see Paul say in Romans 7 that the law brings death; that is, the commands of God bring about sin.

“If it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin” (verse 7) and “apart from the law, sin lies dead” (verse 8). “I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment) that promised life proved to be death to me” (verses 9-10).

Yet despite this, the law itself is good: “So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good” (verse 12).

How is it possible for a “holy and righteous and good” command to bring about death? “It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure” (verse 13).

God’s commands therefore do not illustrate His will; they illustrate what is holy, righteous, and good. Because they illustrate these things, their very existence condemns us for not being holy, righteous, and good. They exist so that we may know we are sinners. But this is a temporary thing:

So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith (Galatians 3:24-26).

The commands of God expose our wickedness so that we turn to faith and are thereby saved. God’s commands, therefore, far from revealing the will of God (as it relates to what God ordains), are a tool by which God removes all the excuses of sinful men such that non-believers are condemned and believers turn to faith and are saved by Christ.

So to answer more specifically: was it God’s will for Adam and Eve to sin? Yes, for Christ was slain before the foundation of the Earth (Revelation 13:8), and we were chosen in Him before the creation of the world (Ephesians 1:4; 1 Peter 1:20). God’s plan preceded creation, and that plan included Adam and Eve’s sin (for how else could Christ be killed (another event foreordained by God (cf. Acts 2:23: “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men”))?).

Yet that doesn’t take away the truth of the conditional. If Adam and Eve had obeyed, they would have been blessed in Eden. Nor does it mean that Adam and Eve were righteous in their sinfulness for doing what God had ordained, for Adam and Eve did not intend what God intended. They sought evil; God sought good.

Continuing, Persiflage said:

If God ORDAINS everything that ever happens, then God ordained for sin, death, pain and suffering to enter the world because THAT was what would bring Him the most glory. I cannot believe that - and it’s one of the main reasons I’m not Reformed because of what that would mean about God’s character.

Unfortunately, what you state above is incomplete. It is not that God ordained sin because sin qua sin would bring Him the most glory; rather God ordained sin because “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). The depths of God’s love could not be demonstrated unless Christ died for sinners. God’s mercy could not be displayed if there were no objects for His mercy; nor His justice if there were no objects for His justice.

God does not ordain sin for the sake of sin. If this world was it—if God did not have a redemptive plan and if God did not have a future judgment—then you would be correct in pointing out that God’s character would be evil. But this world is but a necessary step to something greater, and that is what His word tells us.

That said, I fully understand why it would be difficult for many people to accept this. We all tend to have a myopic view of the world. We live as if history began this morning, and the future is only what will happen tomorrow. We have a very focused and limited view—indeed, we have only our own perspective, for we do not experience today the way that, say, someone in Ethiopia or Indonesia does. Because of that, it’s hard for us to focus on a big picture; but God is all about the big picture. And the things that are unfair to us in the here and now are taken care of by God in His big picture.

So if I may also get more personal, while it is the case that you are not Reformed because of how you view God’s character, it is exactly because of how I view God’s character that I am Reformed. Ironically, we both probably agree to a great extent as to what God’s character is. (This is why I have no doubt that you, and many other non-Reformed believers, are Christians too.) Our differences are on the big picture, and that colors our application of God’s character to real world events.

But I personally cannot believe in a God who is not in control of all events, who is more concerned with some philosophical notion of “freedom” than He is with ensuring His promises are kept. I cannot believe in a God who is scrambling to form Plan B because Adam and Eve didn’t do what He wanted them to do. Especially since all that seems alien to Scripture too.

Scripture tells me that God is in control of all things. It tells me that nothing happens apart from His will. It tells me He is sovereign even over evil. And it tells me that He is a good God, a righteous God, a just God, and a merciful God. All these things I find true in Reformed theology, and that is why I am Reformed.

He shall give his angels charge over thee

I’m going to pull some things out of the combox which are worth addressing on their own:

“[Heather MacDonald] An actress playing one of the three wise men tragically fell to her death while suspended over the stage during a Cincinnati Christmas pageant Wednesday night. According to my stepmother, God sends his angels to hold up the retaining wall of her Los Angeles house in answer to her prayers. Her angels couldn’t have gone out on loan?”

THE PURITAN SAID:

“How should one answer this common provocation from atheists about unanswered prayers and generally why didn't angels (or God or prayer) save this person if they saved that person and so on.”

Several issues:

i) MacDonald’s challenge is predicated on her stepmother’s superstitious believe that angels are propping up the retaining wall of her LA home. That premise is not a serious basis on which to build an argument, and MacDonald knows it. Her stepmother may be a wonderful person, but her stepmother is not a theologian or Bible scholar. This is a case of attacking Christianity by attacking its weakest representatives. It’s a straw man argument. Christian theology isn’t synonymous with what any particular Christian, however unqualified, happens to believe.

ii) You don’t have to read very far into the Bible to see that tragic things happen to God’s people. For example, Adam and Eve lost a child to murder. That’s every parent’s nightmare. What is even worse, he was murdered by his brother.

The Bible is full of stories about believers who suffer personal tragedies of one sort or another. Hence, the Bible doesn’t justify the expectation that bad things can’t happen to God’s people. Just the opposite.

iii) We also need to take reasonable precautions. You assume a certain risk when you allow yourself to be suspended over a stage. An unnecessary risk.

I’m not saying that’s wrong. Life isn’t risk free. It isn’t inherently wrong to take a calculated risk. That depends on the situation. On the level of risk.

But if you gamble, you may lose the bet. You need to be prepared to accept the foreseeable consequences of your actions. If you engage in risky behavior, you can’t blame anyone if things go wrong.

For example, many people enjoy water sports. Fine. Nothing wrong with that. But water sports involve an element of risk: a danger of drowning, or encountering a dangerous marine creature. You take a risk when you go boating or surfing or swimming.

iv) Natural evils are natural goods. What makes them “evil” is if you’re at the wrong place at the wrong time. Gravity is a natural good. Our life depends on gravity. It’s a medium we need to respect and exploit.

Imagine a gravity-free environment—like astronauts in outer space. While that might be fun for half an hour, it’s actually quite limiting. Quite impractical.

v) We live in a dangerous world because we live in a fallen world. That exposes us to various perils. In my opinion, even an unfallen world would have its share of natural hazards. But in an unfallen world, we would not be as vulnerable. God would protect us from catastrophic harm.

vi) Imagine a fallen world in which God doesn’t ever allow a sinner to hurt himself. What would be the consequences of that?

Too many sinners already take life for granted. In a harmless, risk-free world, they would be even more frivolous, even more indifferent, even more careless and callous and superficial.

vii) We naturally tend to focus on the disadvantages of living in a fallen world. But a fallen world also has one great advantage for you and me. We are products of a fallen world. We exist because sinners begat us. We exist, as the unique individuals we are, due to the unique circumstances of life in a fallen world.

If Adam and Eve had never sinned, they would still have children, but you and I would not exist. A whole difference set of people would take our place.

That would be a good outcome, but it wouldn’t be so good for you and me. So there are benefits to life in a fallen world: benefits to the fallen.

viii) We’ve all grown up with SF stories in which the main character suffers a personal tragedy. He loses someone he loves.

He goes back in time to prevent that tragedy. And he succeeds.

But his intervention has unseen consequences. In changing one thing, he changes many things. His action has a ripple effect.

Life is all about timing. Take procreation. Which sperm reaches the ovum. An hour earlier, an hour later, and you have a different person in the womb. You conceive Jim instead of John.

That’s not necessarily a bad outcome. A bad alternative.

But there’s a tradeoff. It comes at a cost. John pays the price. John will not exist. Jim took his place.

In this case, what’s good for Jim is bad for John, and vice versa. Each alternative may be equally good, but they’re not equally good for each of the interested parties.

ix) It’s a tragedy when a teenager dies. He had his whole life ahead of him. Now he’ll never marry, never have kids.

Either alternative has a branching series of consequences. Supposed he lived. His kids will make friends. His kids will have kids. That one action ripples out in many different directions which you and I can’t begin to predict. All the lives they touch—for better or worse.

“Also, they say when God restores an amputated limb, as a response to prayer, then they (the atheist) will believe. Etc.”

i) God doesn’t want everyone to believe in him.

ii) There is more to Biblical faith than the bare belief that God exists. Healing an amputee doesn’t make an amputee a true believer. It may simply make him regard God the way he views a politician: “What have you don’t for me lately?”

December 25 And Paganism

Valerie Tarico has written an article for Debunking Christianity on "Ancient Mythic Origins of the Christmas Story". The article consists mostly of an interview with Tony Nugent. I've already addressed much of what Nugent claims elsewhere. The interview ignores some of the most significant issues involved in judging the historicity of the infancy narratives, makes a lot of dubious assumptions and assertions with little or no supporting argumentation, and ignores many better counterarguments that have been circulating for a long time.

What I primarily want to do in this post is address some comments by Tarico. She writes:

"Most Americans know how Christmas came to be celebrated on December 25: The Emperor Constantine chose the date because it was winter solstice in the Julian Calendar, the birthday of dying and rising gods like Mithra and Sol. Some people also know that our delightful melange of Christmas festivities originated in ancient Norse, Sumerian, Roman and Druid traditions - or, in the case of Rudolph, on Madison Avenue."

In an article at The Huffington Post earlier this month, Tarico wrote:

"That said, the Catholic Church chose December 25th (Winter Solstice in the Julian Calendar) to honor the birthday of the Christ for a very specific reason: It was already a well loved holiday -- a time of revelry, gift giving, and yes, celebrating the birthdays of gods....The Fourth Century is our first record of a December Christ-mass celebration....Christmas appears to have its roots in two Roman holidays: Saturnalia (December 17-23) and Sol Invictus (December 25) Saturnalia , the feast of the god Saturn, is said to have been the most popular holiday of the Roman calendar....At the time of Constantine, the cult of Sol Invictus was the official religion of the Roman Empire. Small wonder, then, that he pronounced the 25th as the birthday of Jesus, center of the new official religion."

Elsewhere in her article at The Huffington Post, Tarico cites opposition to Christmas by groups like the Puritans and the Jehovah's Witnesses. I addressed Christian arguments against Christmas in an article I wrote a few years ago.

What about Tarico's claims concerning the date of Christmas? The December 25 date was chosen for multiple (and sometimes unknown) reasons, and it was adopted in different places at different times. It's misleading to claim that "the Emperor Constantine chose the date" or "the Catholic Church chose December 25th".

Joseph Kelly writes:

"In 274 Aurelian [a Roman emperor] instituted the cult of Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun....Aurelian made December 25, the winter solstice, the birthday of Sol Invictus and thus a major feast day throughout the Roman Empire....In 336 the local church at Rome proclaimed December 25 as the dies natalis Christi, 'the natal day of Christ,' that is, his birthday. The document which says this does not justify or explain it. It merely says that this is the day, that is, the date had been accepted by the Roman church some time before and since everyone knew about it, discussion of the date was not necessary. But how long before 336 was the date for Christmas accepted? Historians have wondered whether the Christians in the late third century had waged a propaganda war against Aurelian, promoting their Sun of Righteousness [Jesus in the context of Malachi 4:2], the Sol Iustitiae against his Unconquered Sun, the Sol Invictus....We should also recall that Sextus Julius Africanus [a Christian who wrote during the first half of the third century] had already proposed December 25 as the date of Christ's birth. Aurelian's opponents may have plausibly reasoned that if the date already existed [in Christian circles], why not use it against the imperial cult of the Sun?...The second piece of evidence for a third-century propaganda struggle is a work of art, a mosaic on the ceiling of a tomb of the family Julii and now preserved in the necropolis (Greek for 'city of the dead') under St. Peter's basilica in Rome. It portrays Christ driving a chariot through the heavens, just as the pagan sun god Helios did, and Jesus, like the god, has rays of light emanating from his head....They date the mosaic to the late third century, that is, at the time when the emperor Aurelian was promoting the cult of the Unconquered Sun. Significantly, this is the only ancient portrayal of Christ as the sun. Historians find it impossible to believe that this portrayal was just coincidentally produced in the city of Rome at the very time when the pagans were promoting the cult of their sun." (The Origins Of Christmas [Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2004], pp. 65-68)

William Tighe summarizes:

"Rather, the pagan festival of the 'Birth of the Unconquered Son' instituted by the Roman Emperor Aurelian on 25 December 274, was almost certainly an attempt to create a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance to Roman Christians. Thus the 'pagan origins of Christmas' is a myth without historical substance....Thus, December 25th as the date of the Christ’s birth appears to owe nothing whatsoever to pagan influences upon the practice of the Church during or after Constantine’s time. It is wholly unlikely to have been the actual date of Christ’s birth, but it arose entirely from the efforts of early Latin Christians to determine the historical date of Christ’s death. And the pagan feast which the Emperor Aurelian instituted on that date in the year 274 was not only an effort to use the winter solstice to make a political statement, but also almost certainly an attempt to give a pagan significance to a date already of importance to Roman Christians. The Christians, in turn, could at a later date re-appropriate the pagan 'Birth of the Unconquered Sun' to refer, on the occasion of the birth of Christ, to the rising of the 'Sun of Salvation' or the 'Sun of Justice.'"

Earlier this month, Tighe wrote the following in an online forum regarding another line of evidence not discussed in his article:

"St. Augustine observes somethere that the Donatists 'differ from us' in not observing the day [January 6], which was not the case with regard to 25 December, and which in turn implies that 25 December was a 'liturgically significant day' before the Catholic/Donatist split of 310 and onwards."

The Magi

“These verses [Matthew 2:1-12] show us that there may be true servants of God in places where we should not expect to find them. The Lord Jesus has many ‘hidden ones,’ like these wise men. Their story on earth may be as little known as that of Melchizedek, Jethro, and Job. But their names are in the book of life, and they will be found with Christ on the day of his appearing. It is well to remember this. We must not look round the earth and say hastily, ‘All is barren.’ The grace of God is not tied to places and families. The Holy Spirit can lead souls to Christ without the help of any outward means. Men may be born in dark places of the earth, like these wise men, and yet like them be made ‘wise for salvation.’ There are some traveling to heaven at this moment, of whom the church and the world know nothing. They flourish in secret places like the ‘lilly among thorns,’ and seem to ‘waste their sweetness on the desert air.’ But Christ loves them, and they love Christ.” (J.C. Ryle, cited in Nancy Guthrie, ed., Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2008], p. 110)

Mister Ed

I should state at the outset that this post is directed at Ed Babinski, and not his equine namesake. I don’t wish anyone to confuse Babinski with a horse—even a talking-horse—since such a comparison would be quite defamatory to the good name of the equine species, and I intend them no disrespect. Since Ed Babinski often resembles a certain portion of the horse’s anatomy, such confusion is understandable—which is why I hasten to preface my remarks with this disclaimer.

EDWARD T. BABINSKI SAID:

Steve wrote: "Ed, Care to document your sources?"

Sure, anytime, Steve. Just tell me which things I wrote about Calvin that you feel least comfortable considering, or most comfortable challening me on, and I'll supply the documentation. If you want we could write a joint article on the topic for your blog. I'll simply supply documentation and you rebut each piece I supply, piecemeal, since it's your blog. I just ask that you post the full documentation in context, nothing added or subtracted from what I send you for each question you challenge me on. Then you may reply to it at whatever length you choose. Whether or not people will accept that your explanations are all true and my documentation is all false or of absolutely no consequence, is something I'm willing to leave up to any reader of both sides.

i) I’d begin by noting that, to discredit Calvinism, Babinski must resort to a textbook fallacy. A purely ad hominem, guilt-by-association move. I like it when enemies of the faith must rely on textbook fallacies to attack the faith. That’s very reassuring.

ii) My query wasn’t a challenge to the truth or falsity of anything Babinski said. It’s simply a matter of adhering to some elementary standards of scholarship. If he’s going to make charges, he should document his charges so that we can examine the quality of his evidence.

iii) Babinski has no good reason to disapprove of Calvin’s tactics. Unless he believes in moral absolutes, Babinski is in no position to render a value-judgment on Calvin or Calvinism. How does Babinski’s worldview underwrite moral absolutes? Moreover, his evolutionary viewpoint entails such a reductionistic view of human nature that even if there were such a thing as moral absolutes, meat machines like you and me would have no rights.

I realize it may be tedious to keep harping on this point, but its fundamental, and as long as unbelievers presume to condemn Christians or Christian theology, I’ll remind them that they have no moral foundation for their condemnations.

iv) On a final point, did I ever indicate he said something about Calvin that made me “uncomfortable”? Can Babinski quote me on that? I don’t think so.

I have some news for Babinski: Calvin is not a relative of mine. He’s not my father or brother or son or uncle or nephew or cousin. In fact, I think we could safely say that Calvin was before my time. I wasn’t born in the 16C. Or even the 17C.

Calvin is a perfect stranger to me. Never met the man.

He’s just a famous person, like a lot of other famous people, living and dead. A celebrity. You know, the sort of folks we read about in history books. I don’t feel ashamed of what a perfect stranger does. If he does something wrong, why should I be embarrassed? I

The fact that Babinski thinks that anyone would feel uncomfortable about something a celebrity said or did is a revealing window into Babinski’s odd little mind. Evidently, Babinski is one of those Chris Crocker types who “bonds” with his favorite celebrity. Deeply identifies with the triumphs and tribulations of the bimbo du jour.

Babinski must cry a lot. Maybe there’s a YouTube video clip of his grief-stricken demeanor whenever his favorite celebrity is caught in some scandal. Babinski clearly needs professional counseling to overcome his intensive/compulsive feelings. Perhaps we can take up a PayPal collection.

I can, of course, understand how celebrity worship would fill the emotional void created by his apostasy. Rom 1 and all that good stuff.

~~~~~~~~

Steve also wrote: "While you're on the subject, would you also like to give us a historical overview of life in non-Christian/anti-Christian regimes, such as pagan Assyria, or Japan under the Shogun, or China under Mao, or Russia under Stalin, or Germany under Hitler, or Cambodia under Pol Pot (to cite a few examples)?"

Steve, for the record, Germay under Hitler was filled with Christians who had moved to the right in reaction to the previously more liberal Weimar Republic days of Germany. So the country was moving rightward when Hitler ran for office, and the votes of Christians living in the country was where Hitler scored his biggest gains in votes and that's what got him elected. (The votes in the cities were too close to call among the various candidates.)

If you want to talk about the alleged Christian/Nazi connection, I’ll call your bet and raise you by talking about the Darwinian/Nazi connection:

http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/6163

Also, concerning communism and Christianity we could discuss the affinities that religion has with absolutist political ideologies that promise paradise (a worker's paradise in Marx's case) and claims to have the inerrant truth concerning all of history's questions (dialetical materialsm in the case of Marxism). It's also probably no mere coincidence that Maoists varried little red books they had to memorize and carry around like Bibles. See also Eric Hoffer's little book, The True Believer, which relates the psychological affinities b/w people who join religious, fascist, and communist mass revolutionary movements.

In other words, Babinski is reduced to admitting that unbelievers are twisted believers. Their rebellion against the Bible is a just warped form of religiosity. I can go along with that, Ed. Sounds like the Biblical diagnosis of idolatry. Thanks, Ed, for corroborating the Bible.

Leaving such movements aside, let me point out that there are more examples than ever before from much of modern day Europe, Japan, and other first world countries that a high percentage of religious believers does not appear to be necessary for the health of such societies.

i) Of course, modern-day Japan was influenced by the American occupation of Japan. Notice how Babinski runs away from pre-Christian Japan.

ii) And have I ever said that religious believers are necessary for a healthy society? “Religious” as in what? Muslims? Hindus? Wiccans?

Because Babinski is irreligious, he treats one religion as interchangeable with another. I do not.

Such countries have low percentages of religious believers, but high levels of education and vital statistics that are better in many areas than vital stats in the U.S.

Notice that Ed offers no moral criteria for the quality of life. Just college degrees and high life expectancy.

Ted Kaczynski was Harvard-educated. Leni Reifenstahl died at 101. That’s Babinski’s definition of social progress.

(Isn't it a bit ironic that some Evangelical Christians type away tomes on why civilization can't survive without Christianity, on computers invented and manufactured by atheists, agnostics, and Buddhists?)

i) Isn’t it ironic that you know nothing about elementary Christian doctrines like common grace? No doubt your ignorance made it easier for you to commit apostasy.

ii) And did we say that civilization can’t survive without Christianity? Japan survived for a centuries as a vicious, brutal stratocracy.

iii) It’s comical of you to suggest that unbelievers have a monopoly on computer science. That’s really quite droll. You should join the circus.

I could also cite an example nearer Calvin's day, the case of what took place in the Netherlands after Calvin had died but before the Thirty Years War, when relatively liberal Christians (for their day and age) formed the first successful republic in Europe, a place that prospered immensely, with freedom of religion, people of all religions trading equally with one another, and each worshipping as they pleased rather than as a king demanded they all do, and it was even a center for controversial exciting new works to be published from Hobbes to Spinoza, that publishers in other parts of Europe were afraid to publish.

i) Up to a point, I don’t have a problem with freedom of religion. On the other hand, if a Muslim migrates to the West, bringing with him such pious customs as jihad, sharia, honor-killings, child marriage, female circumcision, &c., then there are limits to my tolerance.

ii) I also find it amusing to see you pose as a champion of religious freedom when so many of your cohorts try to persecute Christian expression.

But here's what happened to this first success republic in Europe, what happened was that conservative Calvinists despised the prosperity that their fellows were enjoying under this experiment in a republican form of government and these Calvinists plotted with Catholics to reinstall a kingship which they deemed more godly than a republic, because they thought it was more important for a nation to fear God than gain in prosperity, and they hated that the Dutch East India Trading Company was not striving to make Christian converts out of everyone they hired and met in Asia.

In other words, you attack “these Calvinists” because they’d rather save souls than guilders. If only they’d been more venal and materialistic, you’d commend them. But because they put evangelism ahead of filthy lucre, you disapprove.

Hence the first successful republic in Europe was undone by conservative Calvinists. Though of course the Netherlands is back to being liberal today, and a republic. Calvinism just doesn't last so far as governmental systems go. Geneva today is over 40% Catholic and they erected at least one (I've read more than one) statue to Servetus, even naming a local football team after him. And Calvin's Academy is likewise more liberal than it was when he founded it.

i) Considering the fact that secular Europe is committing demographic suicide, you might need to adjust your actuarial charts.

ii) I don’t care that much about process issues. What matters to me is not so much the political process, but the end-product. A process is just a means to an end, not an end in itself.

iii) You also ignore the role of Calvinists like Calvin, Knox, and Rutherford in challenging absolute monarchy.

Puritanism in Britain and in the U.S. likewise lost it vigor. Such systems just don't hold up.

Do you apply the same yardstick to secular systems like communism and socialism?

Human creativity, curiosity and questions undo them all. Harvard was quite conservative religiously, then the questions began entering there, and Yale was founded in reaction to Harvard's loosening of its conservative orthodox heritage. Now look at Yale.

This is so olde hatte. Do you think you’re telling me or anyone else something we haven’t heard before? In the meantime, you disregard the rise of new Christian institutions of higher learning.

Schools of the highest caliber attracting professors and students of the highest caliber for two centuries or more, do not remain as conservative in their religious beliefs as when they first began.

Actually, the Ivy Leagues are chockfull of politically correct quackery.

You know about Westminster Theological Seminary?

Gee, Ed, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that place. What do they sell? Lingerie? Fried chicken?

Van Til taught there.

Van Til? Doesn’t ring a bell. Is that a brand of cheese—like Gouda, Leerdammer, and Limburger?

Founded by Machen who left Princeton Theological Seminary (home of B.B. Warfield, but by Machen's day Princeton Theol. Sem. had grown too liberal, so the fundamentalists left Princeton to found Westminster Theological Seminary.

Thanks, Ed, for your first grader’s grasp of American Presbyterian history.

Today Westminster is having difficulties with professor Peter Enns and his book, Inspiration and Incarnation and the faculty's endorsement of him staying, but the administration told him to git gone because they don't approve of his broadening of the definition of inerrancy.

You know, Ed, for a computer savvy library, you’re remarkably ignorant of facts in the public record. If you bothered to mouse over to the website of WTS, and go to “Official Theological Documents,” you could learn in a hurry that opposition to Enns wasn’t limited to the administration. There was substantial opposition to Enns from his colleagues.

And there's Paul Seely, a graduate of Westminster Theol. Semn., and his book the inerrancy question that nearly destroyed Glenn Morton's Christian faith. Seely also expressed himself with such aplomb and conducted such massive research in a few papers that they were published in the journal of Westminster Theol. Seminary, papers outlining why the creation stories are those of a flat-earth believing culture, and that the tower of Babel story is likewise probably mythical.

Considering the fact that I personally debated Seely, your appeal leaves me less than overwhelmed. His performance was less aplomb and more of a bomb.

I'd chalk up Seely and Enns as having had too much contact with the full range and depth of bibilical scholarship in the outside world.

Once again, Ed, this is yet another illustration of your studied ignorance. There’s no dearth of evangelical seminaries out there committed to the inerrancy of Scripture—whose OT faculty is quite conversant with comparative Semitics. They’ve studied with the leading figures in the field.

So in future I'd expect Westminster to also be considered too "liberal" by some Calvinists who go off to try and found another little retreat from modern scholarship.

Ed, you’re the one, in your pitifully demonstrable ignorance of who’s who, that’s on a little retreat from modern scholarship. But thanks for making a public fool of yourself, and the cause you so disably represent.

Better Dead Than Red

In interest of full disclosure, I should say that I have had some private email conversations with Hays where I have disagreed with some of his critiques of David VanDrunen, natural law, and two kingdom theory. So, this post doesn't come from someone opposed to the above views. In fact, I've been trying to force myself to become convinced of them. And I've warmed up to them quite a bit. But it's hard trying to find much substantive material when it seems that many two kingdom advocates are either unable to, or don't care to, offer cogent arguments for their positions. Indeed, it's all become a little tiresome to read many of the online two kingdom advocates as it seems they're more skilled in rhetoric and maligning the opposition, than in arguing for the position in any relevant way. One has to try hard to stop the thought that people engage in maligning the opposition when they have no arguments from flying into their head. But analyzing why this is so, and I have some thoughts, is beyond the scope here. As an illustration, though, take this recent post from Jason Stellman:

*****

From Democracy Now:

Meanwhile, Obama is drawing criticism from gay and lesbian activists for his choice to deliver the invocation at next month’s inauguration. Obama has selected the Reverend Rick Warren, a leading evangelical opponent of abortion and same-sex marriage. Warren supported California’s recent gay marriage ban and has compared abortion to the Nazi Holocaust. He’s also backed the idea of assassinating US foes, including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In a letter to Obama, Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign said, “Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans.”

Wow, it sure is scary having such a pinko-progressive president, innit? With "liberals" like this, who needs conservatives?

*****

In intrest of full disclosure, I hasten to add that I'm not a fan Rick Warren or his praying at the White House. I am on board with the thoughts in, say, Christless Christianity.

Anyway...

Stellman's trying to persuade here. So it's an argument. It's obvious that he wants you to draw the conclusion that Obama is not going to fit into the categories that some in the "Christian right" said he would.

Apparently, the argument is something like this:

[1] The "Christian right" thought Obama was going to be a pinko-progressive president.

[2] If you invite a leader of a mega church who has affirms some conservative social values to offer a prayer at the White House, then you're not a pinko-progressive president.

[3] Obama invited Rick Warren to offer a prayer.

[4] Therefore, Obama is not a pinko-progressive president.

[5] Therefore, the "Christian right" was wrong.

But what justification is offered for [2]? Why think a thing like that? Can Warren appoint anyone to SCOTUS? Is having him pray at the White House a relevant premise that would undercut some Christians' or conservatives' concerns?

Furthermore, the cautious person, rather than the person looking for a cheap shot in advancing two kingdom via straw men, would take account all the relevant data when making such an argument, no?

Isn't it a fact that Obam is also inviting the Rev. Joseph Lowery to also offer a prayer? As one commentator writes,

Rev. Lowery is sort of an anti-Warren, actually. Warren threw his considerable church resources into ensuring the passage of Proposition 8, the California anti-gay ballot initiative that took away the civil right of gay people to marry. Lowery, by contrast, has courageously supported gay marriage. In 2004, Rev. Lowery told ABC News he supported same sex marriage. "When you talk about the law discriminating, the law granting a privilege here, and a right here and denying it there, that's a civil rights issue. And I can't take that away from anybody."

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/susan_brooks_thistlethwaite/2008/12/rev_joseph_lowery_the_anti-war.html

Thus, given's Stellman's logic, shouldn't also write a post denying the post I cite? If his Warren post leads to the unstated conclusion that was obviously in his mind, wouldn't a Lowery post lead to the opposite conclusion?

Why was this relevant information suppressed? it does not bode well for one's intellectual integrity to suppress this kind of information just so your soap box looks more sturdy than it really is.

If Stellman wants to undercut some of the statements made by some on the "Christian right", he's going to have to resort to more sturdy stuff than one-sided rhetoric that makes a point by being careless with all the relevant data. In fact, one might say that Obama's asking both Warren and Lowery to pray evidences his irrationalism. What would one think of asking (say) both Golda Meir and Joseph Goebbels to offer a prayer? Not that I'm equating either Warren or Lowery to these two, but I'm just illustrating that asking people who hold polar opposite positions on many moral questions could be seen as evidence of sloppy thinking rather than any support for the "Christian right" or the "Christian left," for that matter. It would seem that these two appointments cancel each other out. It could look to some like evidence of their concerns about Obama.

So I find Stellman's attempt to persuade one of his political insights grounded on two kingdom theology, ultimately unpersuasive. These kind of sophisms might actually have the opposite effect.

More on Secular Ethics

Continuing with Singer and Hauser...

"What was good for our ancestors may not be good today." (ibid)

So, they're simply relativists.

And all this bluster about a viable alternative to Christian ethics was just a bunch of hubbub, then.

If a moral principle was truly good, how can it not be good today?

Of course, they may mean that some applications of principles are not good today. But in that case what they've said is superfluous since every ethical tradition would agree with that. Thus, the comment can't do any relevant work in justifying a specifically secular ethic.

If they mean that an ethical principle can be good and then not good because some cultures regard them as such, then they're cultural relativists (as opposed to subjectivist).

But if they're cultural relativists, then problems follow. For example, Singer argues for rather counter-intuitary moral practices, e.g., infanticide. But of course since this is out of step with his larger culture, then he's actually being immoral. He may think himself some kind of moral reformer, but on cultural relativism, moral reform is actually an immoral usurping of the moral standard of the day. Hence someone like Martin Luther King was something like a moral monster. A moral reformer acts as if there is a standard that transcends culture by which culture can be judged. Unchanging standards. But then we've undermined the Singer-Hauser claim that moral standards can change.

But perhaps he means that what some particular people regarded as good is now regarded as "not good" by other particular people. And that this regarding is what makes the moral principle, x, true or false that x is good or not good. In this case he trades in a cultural relativism for a subjective relativism.

But if they're subjective relativists, then problems follow. For example, they've left the moral game altogether. All subjectivism boils down to is a description of a psychological state. So all the moral fact like:

[1] Torturing children for fun is wrong.

boils down to is a description about a particular subjects psychological state, like:

[1*] Peter thinks torturing children for fun is wrong.

But [1*] is a description and ethics have generally been concerned with prescriptions.

Other problems follow from this observation. For example, it seems clear that people can be wrong about their ethical claims

For example, say Peter believes [1]. All that is required for [1] to be true, is that Peter believes it. If he accurately reports his psychological states, then whatever he belies is right or wrong, is right or wrong, just in case he believes that it is. So, subjectivism entails infallibalism. But that seems clearly false.

There are other problems. Another is that moral disagreement is rendered moot. All the time arguing about who is right or wrong about (say) animal rights seems pointless.

To see this, let's look at another moral proposition:

[2] Torturing animals for fun is wrong.

Presumably Peter believes this. On subjectivism, then, we have:

[2*] Peter thinks torturing animals for fun is wrong.

Now take another person, call him Dahmer. He disagrees with Peter. So, we have

[2*] Peter thinks torturing animals for fun is wrong.

and

[2**] Dahmer thinks torturing animals for fun is not wrong.

So long as Dahmer really believes [2**], then it is not wrong.

But presumably Peter thinks Dahmer is wrong. So he engages in vociferous debate with him. Spills hundreds of gallons of ink writing about how wrong those like Dahmer are.

But what does that mean? On subjectivism, so long as Dahmer believes it is not wrong to torture animals, then it isn't. So long as he has accurately reported his internal psychological state, he right. Peter would have to argue that Dahmer doesn't believe that torturing animals for fun is wrong. But so long as he does, there's no need to disagree.

In an uninteresting way, for Peter to say that Dahmer is wrong, is just to recognize the truism that Peter disagrees with Dahmer. Neither of them can be mistaken, though. And to the extent that they're both telling the truth, they're both infallible. Thus, real moral disagreement presupposes the falsity of moral subjectivism. So as Shafer-Landau writes,

Right off the bat, we can see that moral skepticism is a doctrine of moral equivalence. If there are no right answers to ethical questions (nihilism), or what right answers there are are [sic] given by personal opinion (subjectivism), then any moral view is just as (im)plausible as any other. If relativists are right, then the basic views of all societies are morally on par with one another. On all skeptical theories, the basic moral views of any person, or society, are no better that those of any other. (Russ Shafer-Landau, Whatever Happened to Good and Evil?, Oxford, p.18)

And so it's hard to see that there's any serious moral theory left when Singer and Hauser say things like: "What was good for our ancestors may not be good today." On one view, it’s superfluous as to providing any muscle for a uniquely secular case for ethics; on another, it has serious metaethical problems.

Evolutionary Ethics

Steve already commented on the Singer and Hauser case for an ethic for secularism.

I'll lift one statement out of their paper and offer some further comments on it.

Introduction

In speaking of the origins of our "moral sense" they write,

Perhaps a divine creator handed us these universal elements at the moment of creation. But an alternative explanation, consistent with the facts of biology and geology, is that over millions of years we have evolved a moral faculty that generates intuitions about right and wrong.

Interaction

I'd like to make four brief points related to an evolutionary justification for moral realism:

1. Its speculatory

This statement gets a lot of its traction by hitching its wagon to a name. Whatever the merits of the biological theory of evolution, the above claim is not a biological theory. It's not a scientific at all. It's speculation.

2. Disputed even by evolutionists

Another evolutionist doesn't think this works as a justification for why x is right or wrong. So Mackie, "If there were objective values, then they would be entities or qualities or relations of a very strange sort, utterly different from anything else in the universe. Correspondingly, if we are aware of them, it would have to be by some special faculty or moral perception or intuition, utterly different from our ordinary ways of knowing anything else" (J.L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, 1977, p.38).


3. It fails to answer the deeper questions

When looking for an answer to metaethical questions, like what makes a moral fact a fact, this theory is wide of the mark. This theory, at its best, only provides a story for why we have certain moral feelings that we do. It doesn't explain moral facts. To explain a little further, take a non-moral fact:

(NF) Some Ball pythons eat mice.

Now, what makes (NF) true? Presumably, it is that what (NF) states is the case, is the case. (NF) is true because it corresponds to the way things are. It corresponds to some non-linguistic feature of the world. So (NF) is true if there is, in fact, some particular Ball python that eats some particular mouse. It matches up to a feature of the world. Without getting into theories of truth too much, the above account seems close to stating the matter correctly. We all can see, pretty easily, how a statement like (NF) would be true.

Now, let's look at a moral fact:

(MF) It is wrong to molest a child for fun.

On a naturalistic story, what would it mean for (MF) to be true? Presumably something like for what it was for (NF) to be true. But it is hard, to say the least, to see how this account would fit in with the naturalist story. I'll offer three reasons:

i) (MF) has moral properties, such as rightness or wrongness. What does it mean to say that rightness or wrongness is "part of the way the world is?" Unlike (NF), we cannot just "see" the wrongness of the act. And it would seem that the moral properties are necessary to explain the fact if one wants to hold to some kind of objectivism or realism.

But a non-realist naturalist could offer an account that did not refer to moral terms at all, just natural ones. For example:

Chester the molester was an extremely loving person. Because of various false beliefs about young children (most importantly, that they loved him), he found that 'molesting' children to be a satisfying way to release his love. His moral beliefs did not place any bounds or restraints on his expression of that love.

I borrowed this illustration, though changed the specifics, from Thomas Carson (Value and the Good Life, Notre Dame Press, p.194). Carson goes on to say that, "moral properties seem to be dispensible for explanatory purposes. Natural properties seem to be doing all the work in the explanations in question" (ibid, 198)).

So given the constant berating on behalf of the scientific naturalist about the principle of parsimony, it's hard to see why the don't just use "the razor" to "shave off" appeals to moral properties. For example, they feel that they can explain all mental properties naturalistically, so there is no need to appeal to some immaterial mind.

ii) If there were no Ball pythons or mice, then (NF) wouldn't be true. However, even of there were no molesters, or children, it would still be the case that it is wrong to molest a child for the fun of it. So (MF) seems to be different from (NF) in this regard too.

iii) (NF) is true because of the way some part of the world is. Conversely, (MF) is made true by the way things ought to be. (MF) is normative. It is not descriptive like (NF).
It carries with it an obligation (though, in a sense, from a Christian perspective, so does (NF), since it is true, we are obligated to believe it, cf. John Frame, DCL).

So, based on these reasons, (MF) facts seem to be very different, even "odd," as Mackie taught us to say, from (NF) facts. It is hard to see how (MF) facts are made true in a naturalistic worldview. And it is certainly the case that Singer and Hauser's evolutionary story do not offer us any help in this regard.

(Cf. Ganssle, Thinking about God, pp. 87-89, for points 3. i, ii, and iii above.)

4. It doesn't go far enough

Naturalists fail because they can't supply ontological foundations for what makes moral facts true, they offer a largely epistemological theory. But even here, Singer and Hauser are inadequate. They write, "over millions of years we have evolved a moral faculty that generates intuitions about right and wrong."

i) But for this "moral faculty" story to do any relevant work in ethical discussions about evolutionary justifications for moral realism, we must go farther. it is not enough that we have "a faculty," it must be a reliable faculty. If it unreliably generates intuitions, it is untrustworthy. So why believe that it is wrong rather than right to commit a holocaust? So, the faculty must be reliable.

ii) Not only must it be reliable, it must be functioning properly. Our "moral faculty" could reliably malfunction, and then what good would it be?

iii) Along with (i) and (ii), our faculty must be successfully aimed at producing true moral beliefs. It does no good if it functions properly and reliably at producing false moral beliefs.

(iv) Along with the above points, our faculty must also come equipped with a defeater system. See Sudduth.

But why think (i), (ii), (iii), and (iv) could plausibly have come about by way of natural selection?; a process, by the way, that keeps only what is needed for survival. Why think our "moral faculty" would be aimed at producing (mostly) true beliefs? Didn’t we learn from evolutionist Praticia Churchland that "truth, whatever that is, takes the hindmost" in these considerations? Didn't the evolutionist Francis Crick teach us that,

The Astonishing Hypothesis is that "You," your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associate molecules .... This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called "astonishing" (Crick, The Astonishing Hypothesis, 1994, 3).

Other evolutionists have also implicitly shed doubt on the idea that we can truth the product of natural selection to lead us into all truth. So Vizthum,

"A revised and modernized materialism concludes from all this that human thought and feeling is the product of a series of unthinking and unfeeling processes originated in the big bang.

"Materialism should no longer wink at such nonsense but insist that the foundations of all human thought and feeling are grossly irrational.

(Richard C Vitzthum, "Materialism: An Affirmative History and Definition," Prometheus Books, 1995, pp. 218-220.)

In conclusion

Of all these areas touched on, they fit much better in a Christian theistic worldview. Evolutionary moral theory doesn't seem to be scientifically grounded and is more speculatory than anything. It also doesn't seem to be able to explain how moral facts can be true. Indeed, it seems as if naturalistic anti-realists can "explain" facts without recourse to moral terms, and so it would seem simpler to do away with referring to moral terms. Singer and Hasuer at best tell us how we developed moral feelings. But, Singer and Hauser need to claim more for their "faculty," but once they do the further they get away from a naturalistic evolutionary worldview and the closer to a theistic one. A Christian theistic one I'd argue, but that's beyond the scope of the post. The above claim by Singer and Hauser is an oft repeated claim by atheists when called upon to account for morality. One analyzed a bit, it appears woefully inadequate.

Killing is My Business, and Business is Good

Steve's been blogging on bioethicist Peter Singer lately.

Of course Singer's well known for holding such positions that it may be morally permissible to kill hemophiliacs and babies born with down syndrome.

So Singer:

"Suppose a woman planning to have two children has one normal child, then gives birth to a haemophiliac child. The burden of caring for that child may make it impossible for her to cope with a third child; but if the disabled child were to die, she would have another... When the death of a disabled infant will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life, the total amount of happiness will be greater if the disabled infant is killed. The loss of happy life for the first infant is outweighed by the gainof a happier life for the second. Therefore, if killing the haemophiliac infant has no adverse effect on others, it would, according to the total view, be right to kill him." (Singer, Practical Ethics, p.186).

Of course Singer doesn't know whether the "total amount of happiness will be greater if the disabled infant is killed." I, for one, would like to see the math. Do the utilitarian calculations. Show us all. Identify all the possible courses of action. For each course identify all the persons affected (this includes future ones), identify every happiness or unhappiness that will result for each person, assign the happiness and unhappiness a numerical value, calculate the net gain and loss for each person, sum it up and arrive at a grand total, then tell us the action with the highest utility. Oh, by the way, there's sub points for each of the above points. How do we rate pleasures to accomplish the first task? Do we need to look at intensity, duration, etc.?

Of course Singer may resort here to rule utilitarianism to escape these kinds of challenges. But it's not clear that this position, rather than lowering the amount of calculations needed to be done, actually raises the number of calculations. Rule utilitarianism only gives us rules of thumb. There are exceptions. And sometimes we want to know if we may be justified in breaking the rule in this or that instance. So we've done the calculation to determine the rule, and then did all the other ones I mentioned above. So sometimes rule utilitarianism means one more calculation than what you would do by doing the particular calculations. Other ways of getting around the calculation problem are to accept tradition, claiming the calculations have been done for thousands of years. But this begs the question. Utilitarianism seems like something new. There's no guarantee that the moral decisions the people in the ancient Near East, for example, used utilitarianism to arrive at their ethical decisions. For all we know they followed some kind of DCT. Another way is to assume a fixed human nature. But obviously Singer can't accept that since he depends on its falsity for his abortion and euthanasia arguments.

So, the first problem is that Singer can't justify his claim that killing one infant so another "healthy" one can live will result in more happiness. After all, what would have been the answer to Helen Keller’s mother? How about to the Menendez brother's parents? The latter was born affluent, with a lot of "prospects" for a "happy" life. The former, not a lot of "prospects".

What is even meant by "prospects" for "happiness," anyway? Singer talks of the "clouded prospects" of down syndrome kids on page 213 of his book Rethinking Life and Death. And how are their prospects clouded? The may not be capable, says Singer, "to play the guitar, to develop an appreciation of science fiction, to learn a foreign language, to chat with us about the latest Woody Allen movie, or to be a respectable athlete, basketballer or tennis player."

And atheists lay all the blame for discrimination at the feet of "religion," but I digress... So, we can justifiably kill our down syndrome children because they can't enjoy a Woody Allen flick. One might claim that these movies increase suffering, but I digress... A question might be, who died and made Singer the "prospect granting fairy" anyway? And apparently participating in the Special Olympics is not being a "respectable athlete." But what if we included "respectable Special Olympian" on the list? If we add that, and then add that enjoying Allen flicks increases suffering, can we kill Singer? But I digress...

This all seems an odd criteria by which to establish what makes someone's human life valuable. But it fits with Singer's "having a past and future" criteria of what makes it "especially" wrong to murder such a person. This is similar to James Rachels' well-known distinction between biological and biographical life (it's beyond the scope of this post to interact with Rachels' distinction directly. One can read critiques of his view in Moral Choices, Scott Rae, pp. 191-196; also see J.P. Moreland's James Rachels and the Active Euthanasia Debate, in Clark and Rakestraw eds. Readings in Christian Ethics, vol. 2, pp. 102-108).

To see Singer's "past and future" criteria for what makes a killing "especially wrong" (it is important to note that Singer does admit that euthanasia and abortions are instances of killing), he writes,

Killing an autonomous being against that being's will is the most drastic possible violation of autonomy, and this makes it more seriously wrong than the killing of a sentient being not capable of autonomy.

Rachels focuses on whether the being can live a biographical, rather than a merely biological, life, which is similar to the emphasis given by Singer to the ability to see oneself as having a past and a future. To kill such a being, unless at the being's request, thwarts the preferences for the future that the being may have, and this makes the killing wrong in a way that is additional to any wrong that may be incurred by the killing of a sentient being unable to form any preferences for the future.

The effect of these arguments is to distinguish a class of beings whom it is especially wrong to kill.

Why is it "especially wrong" to kill these beings? Because there are other beings that it is wrong to kill. Wrong simpliciter? Perhaps, wrong Lite? These include those beings that can "feel pleasure and pain." Animals fall into this category, but not plants. (Not even ones that grow better when you play Vivaldi around them?) Of course it is not clear how Singer argues for the above. Apparently this kind of "pleasure and pain" is distinguishable from "enjoying science fiction" and "suffering through Annie Hall." It must mean something crass. Feeling pain and pleasure through one of your sense organs. And how he makes it fit in with his physicalism is another question. What is "pain or pleasure" on physicalist assumptions? And why think what we feel when stabbed with a knife is anything like what an animal feels?

These questions aside, we can note that Singer is arguing that "seeing yourself as having a past and a future" is what makes killing you wrong in specie, feeling pain and pleasure in a crass way is what makes killing you wrong Lite.

I propose to offer a thought experiment that gets around all these criteria, yet where it would still seem wrong in specie to kill the being.

First, note that you must see yourself as having a past and future. You don't actually need an actual past because, presumably, it would be wrong to kill someone who could play the guitar, had an appreciation of science fiction, learned a foreign language, could chat with us about the latest Woody Allen movie, and was a respectable athlete, basketballer or tennis player, who, like the rest of the universe, "popped" into existence, with all our memories included, 5 minutes ago. This person, call him Mozart in excelsis, would "see" himself as having a past, though he actually would't have one.

So, let's assume Mozart in excelsis gets hit by rays emanating from Alpha Centauri that cause him to blank out when he thinks about his past. Mozart in excelsis can still do all of those wonderful things, yet he doesn't "see himself" as having a past.

[1] So, Mozart in excelsis does not see himself as having a past.

For now we'll let slide that Singer constructs his criteria as a conjunction, so if one conjunct is false, the entire conjunction is false. We can move on to the future.

Say that the evil Alpha Centaurians hate earth with a passion. So, they manipulate asteroids and send hundreds of them hurling towards earth. The president is informed by NASA and goes on the news and lets the planet know that we have roughly 5 days to live, then we are guaranteed to die. We have no future. We cannot see ourselves as having one.

[2] Mozart in excelsis does not see himself as having a future.

Now, can I kill Mozart in excelsis and have it not be "especially wrong?" I don't see why not. On Singer's terms, at least. This is bad enough, but Singer would still say that it would be wrong Lite to kill Mozart in excelsis. So, let's add another proposition:

[3] Mozart in excelsis develops CIPA (congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis) and so cannot feel pain or pleasure in a crass way.

Apparently [1], [2], and [3] taken together mean that it's not wrong, at all, to kill Mozart in excelsis for no reason whatsoever.

So, we could kill someone who could play the guitar, had an appreciation of science fiction, learned a foreign language, could chat with us about the latest Woody Allen movie, and was a respectable athlete, basketballer or tennis player and it not be wrong at all.

Maybe Singer could come back with some other criteria. For example, he also, in other places, talks about how others (like parents) would feel about the death of their disabled child. He says we need to take their feelings into account to. But all we need to do is adjust our thought experiment accordingly. We could then kill Singer's paradigmatic "person" and have it not be wrong at all. But this was the very person, with the very characteristics (playing guitar (presumably not Metallica, though), enjoying sci-fi films, etc.), Singer put forth as the paradigmatic "off-limits" person!

Singer's problem lies in the fact that he denies any human nature, or substance, that grounds and is a necessary pre-condition for having, or potentially having, any of his particular qualitative hedonic characteristics. He denies, for example, that humans are image bearers of God, by nature. That nature grants prima facie sanctity to human life. The Christian ethic doesn't succumb to such absurdities. But, we would agree with this conditional (written in a short-hand way, i.e., qualifications omited): If morality, then God. No God. No morality.

Gossip Girl for Congress

Out of morbid curiosity, I spent a few minutes examining Caroline Kennedy’s much touted qualifications to be a US senator. Here’s her distinguished resume:

• Born in New York City
• Lived in Georgetown (DC)
• Lived in the White House
• Moved back to Georgetown
• Lived in penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue, on Upper Manhattan
• Dedicated the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy
• Did nine-month art course at the Sotheby's auction house in London
• Attended the private Brearley School on Upper Manhattan
• Attended Radcliffe College & Columbia Law School
• Interned with her uncle, Sen. Ted Kennedy
• Worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Married exhibit designer
• Lives on Park Avenue in Manhattan's Upper East Side
• Owns 375-acre estate on Martha's Vineyard
• Board member of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
• Fundraiser for NYC public school system
• Honorary chairman of the American Ballet Theatre

As a middle class American, who grew up among middle class Americans, I find her resume unintentionally comical. I might as well be reading the Curriculum Vitae of Marie Antoinette.

The boundaries of her worldview apparently extend from Upper Manhattan to a stretched limo to Harvard Yard to the Concord to Paris and London and back.

In a way, her cultural experience has all the diversity of a cowgirl who lived and died in a one-horse town.

Actually, that’s unfair to the cowgirl who, unlike Caroline, has many practical skills.

I also love the modern redefinition of noblesse oblige. This used to mean you gave your own money to charitable causes, not that you solicited money from others.

BTW, did she have to fill out an application form to intern with Uncle Ted?

Godless morality

Peter Singer and Marc Hauser have written a little brief in defense of secular ethics:

http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/200601--.htm

Let’s review their case:

Is religion necessary for morality?

Of course, that’s a straw man argument. A Christian ethicist is not going to argue that Hinduism or Islam is necessary for morality.

Singer and Hauser are trying to position the “religious” argument for an easy defeater by framing the question at an artificially high level of abstraction.

Yet problems abound for the view that morality comes from God. One problem is that we cannot, without lapsing into tautology, simultaneously say that God is good, and that he gave us our sense of good and bad. For then we are simply saying that God meets God’s standards.

That’s an allusion to the Euthyphro dilemma. The implication is that grounding morality in the will of God involves an arbitrary divine fiat. But that’s another straw man argument.

God is the Creator. He endows human beings with a specific nature. For example, the fact that human beings reproduce, which involves the mating of males and females, producing children who take years to mature, immediately generates a set of social obligations which would not obtain if human nature were different. So the Euthyphro dilemma is too simplistic to disqualify Christian ethics.

A second problem is that there are no moral principles that are shared by all religious people, regardless of their specific beliefs, but by no agnostics and atheists.

Of course, this phenomenon is by no means inconsistent with Christian ethics. The Bible furnishes a theological explanation for the origin of idolatry and infidelity.

Indeed, atheists and agnostics do not behave less morally than religious believers, even if their virtuous acts rest on different principles.

Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. More on that later.

Non-believers often have as strong and sound a sense of right and wrong as anyone.

Of course, that’s fatally equivocal. Having a strong sense of right and wrong doesn’t entail a sound sense of right and wrong. A Nazi has a strong sense of right and wrong.

And it begs the question to assert that unbelievers have a sound sense of right and wrong. Whether secular ethics can justify that claim is the very point in dispute.

The opposite is also true. Religion has led people to commit a long litany of horrendous crimes, from God’s command to Moses to slaughter the Midianites – men, women, boys, and non-virginal girls – through the Crusades, the Inquisition, innumerable conflicts between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, and suicide bombers convinced that martyrdom will lead them to paradise.

i) Once again, this begs the question. Singer and Hauser are offering a value-judgment on these actions. This presumes that they are entitled to offer a value-judgment. But, of course, they haven’t even begun to establish that presumption.

ii) They also insinuate that you can blame one religion for the misdeeds of another religion. But that’s a very sloppy inference. Should we also blame utilitarians for the misdeeds of deontologists or existentialists?

If you can blame it on religion in general, then why can’t you blame it on ethics in general.

iii) Christian ethics can easily account for the crimes of coreligionists. There’s a word for that: sin. That is hardly inconsistent with Christian ethics. To the contrary, that’s predicted by Christian ethics.

The third difficulty for the view that morality is rooted in religion is that some elements of morality seem to be universal, despite sharp doctrinal differences among the world’s major religions. In fact, these elements extend even to cultures like China, where religion is less significant than philosophical outlooks like Confucianism.

i) Once more, this poses no difficulty for Christian ethics. Have Singer and Hauser never heard of natural law or common grace?

One wonders in reading their caricature of the religious argument whether they are truly that ignorant of Christian ethics, or whether it simply suits their own political agenda to demagogue the issue.

ii) It’s also duplicitous for them to appeal to cultural universals when Singer, for one, has made a career of challenging conventional morality.

iii) Singer and Hauser are also cherry-picking the best of non-Christian civilizations. But even if we were to grant, for the sake of argument, that China was a morally upright civilization, what about ancient Assyria? Or Japan under the Shogun? Or the Aztecs? Or the Iroquois?

Perhaps a divine creator handed us these universal elements at the moment of creation. But an alternative explanation, consistent with the facts of biology and geology, is that over millions of years we have evolved a moral faculty that generates intuitions about right and wrong.

Of course, there are two problems with that alternative:

i) It commits the naturalistic fallacy.

ii) As soon as we become aware of our evolutionary conditioning, we’re in a position to override our evolutionary conditioning.

For the first time, research in the cognitive sciences, building on theoretical arguments emerging from moral philosophy, has made it possible to resolve the ancient dispute about the origin and nature of morality.

Grounding morality in cognitive science continues to commit the naturalistic fallacy. Unless nature has a teleological orientation, which naturalistic evolution denies, you can’t look to nature for moral guidance.

Consider the following three scenarios. For each, fill in the blank space with “obligatory,” “permissible,” or “forbidden.”
1. A runaway boxcar is about to run over five people walking on the tracks. A railroad worker is standing next to a switch that can turn the boxcar onto a side track, killing one person, but allowing the five to survive. Flipping the switch is.
2. You pass by a small child drowning in a shallow pond, and you are the only one around. If you pick up the child, she will survive and your pants will be ruined. Picking up the child is.
3. Five people have just been rushed into a hospital in critical condition, each requiring an organ to survive. There is not enough time to request organs from outside the hospital, but there is a healthy person in the hospital’s waiting room. If the surgeon takes this person’s organs, he will die, but the five in critical care will survive. Taking the healthy person’s organs is.
If you judged case 1 as permissible, case 2 as obligatory, and case 3 as forbidden, then you are like the 1,500 subjects around the world who responded to these dilemmas on our web-based moral sense test (http://moral.wjh.harvard.edu/). If morality is God’s word, atheists should judge these cases differently from religious people, and their responses should rely on different justifications.

There are three problems with this argument:

i) As I already pointed out, Christian ethics can explain the common decency of the unbeliever consistent with Christian ethical presuppositions (i.e. natural law, common grace).

ii) Choices like these fail to present a real challenge to morality since the respondent, projecting himself into a situation like this, has nothing to gain or lose.

The acid test of morality is when doing right would be personally disadvantageous while doing the wrong would be personally advantageous. Ruining a pair of pants is trivial. It doesn’t cost you anything of consequence.

iii) It’s duplicitous of Singer to invoke common sense moral intuition when Singer goes on of his way to question and deny common sense moral intuitions on a number of moral issues:

http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/200703--.htm

For example, because atheists supposedly lack a moral compass, they should be guided by pure self-interest and walk by the drowning child. But there were no statistically significant differences between subjects with or without religious backgrounds, with approximately 90% of subjects saying that it is permissible to flip the switch on the boxcar, 97% saying that it is obligatory to rescue the baby, and 97% saying that is forbidden to remove the healthy man’s organs.

I’ve already drawn attention to some of the problems with this straw man argument. Now I’ll point out another problem:

There’s a difference between what a morally prereflective unbeliever might do and what a morally reflective unbeliever might do. Singer himself is a case in point. Take his third scenario. From his utilitarian standpoint, would it not be justifiable to kill one person to save five others? How would he himself answer the question of involuntary organ harvesting? Would he agree with the 97% of respondents, or the 3% of respondents? What is he teaching his students at Princeton?

Likewise, I don’t think that public policy in 21C Holland is as virtuous as public policy in 19C Holland. The secularization of Holland (to take one example) has had morally deleterious consequences.

When asked to justify why some cases are permissible and others forbidden, subjects are either clueless or offer explanations that cannot account for the relevant differences. Importantly, those with a religious background are as clueless or incoherent as atheists.

Of course, what all this amounts to is that some respondents lack an adequate worldview while other respondents lack the sophistication to articulate their worldview.

These studies provide empirical support for the idea that, like other psychological faculties of the mind, including language and mathematics, we are endowed with a moral faculty that guides our intuitive judgments of right and wrong. These intuitions reflect the outcome of millions of years in which our ancestors have lived as social mammals, and are part of our common inheritance. Our evolved intuitions do not necessarily give us the right or consistent answers to moral dilemmas. What was good for our ancestors may not be good today.

So why even bother referring to evolution if evolutionary ethics is admittedly inadequate?

But insights into the changing moral landscape, in which issues like animal rights, abortion, euthanasia, and international aid have come to the fore, have not come from religion, but from careful reflection on humanity and what we consider a life well lived.

Of course, that sidesteps the question of whether the “changing moral landscape” is a change for better or worse. It’s clear that Singer and Hauser are writing for a sympathetic audience. There’s no effort to actually prove a single one of their basic claims. What they do, instead, is to pander to the ethnocentric prejudice of the modern, Western reader. Someone who identifies with contemporary Eurocentric values.

In this respect, it is important for us to be aware of the universal set of moral intuitions so that we can reflect on them and, if we choose, act contrary to them. We can do this without blasphemy, because it is our own nature, not God, that is the source of our morality.

But unless our nature is God-given, there’s nothing normative about our nature. What’s the natural distinction between gang-rape and consensual sex? What’s the natural distinction between murder and self-defense?