Who missed the memo?

I'll comment on some statements today by revert to Catholicism Luis Dizon:

@LuisDizon

However, I read enough of the Reformers' writings to know that Protestantism was birthed in polemics and acerbic reactions against Rome. To the extent that you emphasize your confessional standards, you partake of those polemics (including the whole Pope-as-Antichrist bit). . .

I know you're embarrassed when the more populist members of your own tradition make absurd claims about Church History, and condemning all of Christendom pre-Reformation. However, as a former Reformed apologist who argued against Catholics, I understand why they do it. . . .

Basically, as a Protestant, you have to justify the existence of your confessions. You have to justify your founders' anti-Catholic polemics. Most of all, you have to justify why you're not part of the Catholic Church. These populists are attempting that justification . . .

In other words, you have to claim that the Church as a whole apostatized to justify your very existence. You have to claim a hermeneutic of discontinuity, rupture and reconstruction in your reading of church history. The alternative is to admit that the Reformation was a mistake.

Ultimately, Protestantism exists because of "reconstructionism" (the idea that the Church was ruined and needed to be rebuilt).

And yet somehow everyone from Iberia to Mesopotamia missed the memo for 1500 years. Imagine being Copt and keeping the faith for thousands of years in the face of Muslim oppression, only for some new sect tell you you're not Xian bc of some new idea you never heard of before.

1. Why should modern-day Protestants be embarrassed to own up to the fact that "Protestantism was birthed in polemics and acerbic reactions against Rome"? Given the state of Catholicism at the time, that was justified.

2. If you're a strict subscriptionist, then you must profess every jot and tittle of your confessional standards, including the pope as the Antichrist. However, it's not an all-or-nothing proposition. For instance, a Protestant can take the position that as Rome has mutated, the objections to Rome change. Many of the original objections may remain intact. But Catholicism is a moving target. Indeed, that's one of the problems with Catholicism. It's quite possible, even necessary, for modern-day Protestants to have some objections to modern-day Catholicism that our 16-17C forebears didn't have, because Catholicism is so fluid and unstable. It's not a case of just refighting all the same old battles, although some of those continue up to our own time.

3. Yes, Protestants have a burden of proof. We must justify our confessions, we must justify not belonging to the Roman Catholic sect. But we don't shoulder a unilateral burden of proof. Both sides have a burden of proof to justify their respective positions. The onus lies on Luis just as much as us. 

4. Actually, we don't have to have a theory about church history. We can just compare biblical teaching to Roman Catholicism, to see how little they have in common, and conclude that something went terribly wrong with Roman Catholicism. That doesn't require us to postulate that "the whole church apostatized". For one thing, we don't think the church apostatized. Roman Catholicism never was "the Church". From our standpoint, "the church" never apostatized.

5. In addition, it isn't necessary to have an alternative interpretation of church history to know that something went wrong. For instance, Newtonian physics was consistent with all the observational data at the time it was formulated. But as instrumentation improved, discrepancies emerged between Newtonian predictions and the observational data. At that juncture it become evident that something was off with Newtonian physics. You could know that just by comparing the theory to the observational data. You didn't have to have the theory of Relativity to explain why it went awry to know it needed to be replaced. 

Likewise, it's not incumbent on Protestants to explain how the discrepancy between biblical revelation and Roman Catholicism came about to recognize irreconcilable discrepancies. It's not incumbent on us to propose a reading of church history to account for that development. The historical explanation is separate from what it's designed to explain. 

6. Furthermore, there have always been divisions. Which side was right in the dispute between Cyprian and the pope? Who missed the memo? Which side was right in the dispute between Novatian, Donatus, and Rome? Who missed the memo? What about Tertullian? Did he miss the memo, too? Or consider the traditional post-schism view of Eastern Orthodoxy by Catholic representatives:

https://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraErrGraecorum.htm

Including the axiom that submission to the pope is necessary for salvation. Hence, the Eastern Orthodox are damned. I guess they missed the memo:

https://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraErrGraecorum.htm#b38

If Luis is going to cast the issue in terms of apostasy, then there have been many "apostasies" in the course of church history, starting with the ancient church. Pick a side. Which side was apostate? Luis operates with a traditional Catholic hermeneutic of discontinuity. He has his own list of "apostate" movements. A hermeneutic of discontinuity runs through the length and breadth of Catholic history. There was no 1500 year-old memo. That's a historical fantasy. 

7. His appeal to the Copts is counterproductive to his aims. According to traditional Catholicism, the Copts are heretics. 

8. The ironic thing about his Catholicism is how conflicted it is. On the one hand, he's very hardline. It's very retrograde. Like he's trapped in the wrong century. A throwback to Counter-Reformation apologists. On the other hand, he's cool with Pope Francis. He's a team-player. He's not a RadTrad. So he suffers from split-personalty Catholicism. 

Were OT Jews indwelt by the Spirit?

This is a hard question to answer. Different theological traditions give different answers. It raises trickily questions of theological method. Why is it hard to answer? 

1. There's the issue of how the jargon of systematic theology maps back onto biblical usage. In systematic theology, the designations are technical terms with a uniform meaning whereas biblical usage isn't standardized.

2. Scripture often uses metaphors to depict the work of the Spirit, viz. filling, indwelling, falling upon, new birth, new creation. In order to know what that means, we must be able to translate the metaphor into a literal concept. 

3. There's also the question of whether the Bible sometimes uses different picturesque metaphors to describe the same experience. 

4. Regeneration is an essentially Johannine category. 1 Pet 1:23 and James 1:18 are apparently exceptions, but not really. In those passages, the word of God is instrumental to rebirth whereas in Johannine usage, the Spirit is instrumental in rebirth. Likewise, in Titus 3:5, rebirth is connected with the metaphor of water. 

John speaks of "purification" (1:9; cf. 3:3), but in context, that seems to be about the remission of sin rather than spiritual renewal. 

5. Conversely, sanctification is more of a Pauline category (in NT theology). In addition, Paul uses related metaphors (new creation, new man/Adam) for spiritual renewal (2 Cor 5:17; Eph 2:5,10; 4:24; Col 2:13).

Although John uses "sanctification" terminology (Jn 17:17, 19), in context it denotes something like consecration rather than sanctification in the sense of spiritual renewal. 

So this raises the question of how to collate Johannine regeneration with Pauline sanctification.  If they were both Johannine categories or Pauline categories, they might represent distinct stages, so that we could arrange them sequentially, where regeneration precedes sanctification, but since regeneration is John's preferred category for spiritual renewal while sanctification is Paul's preferred category, they may be overlapping categories. Two different metaphors that coincide or cover much of the same ground. 

6. In OT usage, "sanctity" typically denotes cultic holiness or ritual purity rather than spiritual renewal. And that carries over into the usage of Hebrews. 

7. However, the OT also refers to circumcision of the heart (Deut 30:6; Jer 6:10), which seems to be a metaphor for spiritual renewal, equivalent to Johannine regeneration and Pauline sanctification. 

8. We need to distinguish between OT Jews generally and the remnant in particular.

9. In the OT, the action of the Spirit in relation to human agents usually concerns supernatural enablement. Conferring supernatural foresight, insight, skill, or even physical strength–rather than spiritual rebirth. 

And that's paralleled in Acts, where the agency of the Spirit has reference to the charismata (e.g. revelatory dreams and visions, xenoglossy, exorcism, miraculous healing or hexing) rather than spiritual rebirth. The main difference between that kind of empowerment and OT counterparts is that it's more widely experienced among Christians than OT Jews. 

10 Finally, there's the argument from analogy. If, in the NT, certain virtues are the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23), and OT saints exhibit the same virtues, then by parity of argument, the same effect implies the same cause. The Spirit is the source or agent of both. That seems to be equivalent to "circumcision of the heart". 

La Virgen Morena

1. As many know, the Lady of Guadalupe is a vision of a woman that an Aztec peasant named Cuauhtlatoatzin (Christianized name: Juan Diego) claimed appeared to him on four separate occassions. All the visions occurred in the month of December 1531. All the visions appeared to him near or on the hill of Tepeyac. This hill was outside Mexico City back then, but today it's within Mexico City.

There's a fifth vision, but Juan Diego didn't see it. Rather it was Juan Diego's uncle Juan Bernardino who claimed to have seen the Lady of Guadalupe at his bedside.

2. Triabloggers have discussed the Lady of Guadalupe:

• The Virgin of Guadalupe
• "Our Lady of Guadalupe"
• Apocalyptic Guadalupe
• 'Cause in a sky full of stars, I think I saw you

3. Who or what could the Lady of Guadalupe be? Some possibilities:

Gun-grabbers

https://stream.org/red-flag-laws-deserve-a-hammer-and-sickle-too/

House of mirrors

Recently I was asked to comment on a Facebook post by a convert to Eastern Orthodoxy. The dilemma is that his post is not for public consumption. At the time I didn't know that. I read it and had some preliminary thoughts.

I'm a little too far along in the thought process to just drop it. In addition, I generally like to post my answers to theological questions. That's a better stewardship of my time. 

So I'll try to make my analysis as anonymous as possible, summarizing the argument. The original post attempts to link Mariology to the Eucharist (and the Trinity) in John's Gospel. 

1. The Beloved Disciple represents all Christians. All Christians are commanded to take Mary home. Mary is the mother of all Christians. 

2. The Gospel has a "dwelling" motif. The mutual indwelling of the Trinitarian persons. God dwelling in Christians. Dwellings in the Father's house for the saints. The Beloved Disciple taking Mary home.

3. In the marriage at Cana, Mary is the new Eve. The new "woman". The new bride. 

The wedding symbolizes Christ as the bridegroom. Likewise, the wine symbolizes the eucharist. Indeed, the transformation of water into wine symbolizes the real presence. 

4. The sour wine offered to Jesus on the cross is a eucharistic symbol. The hyssop is a eucharistic symbol. The Bread of Life discourse has a Passover setting, making it eucharistic.

5. The blood and water from the crucified Christ is a eucharistic symbol. It links to John 7, which is eucharistic. The river/water of life represents Christ's blood. Piercing Christ in the "side" evokes the creation of Eve from Adam. 

6. The True Vine parable is eucharistic. 

"'Cause in a sky full of stars, I think I saw you"

Bishop Robert Barron writes in his book Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith, pp 108-111:

On December 9, 1531, just about ten years after the Spaniards had first brought the faith to Mexico, an Indian man named Juan Diego, a recent convert to Christianity, was making his way along the hill of Tepeyac, just outside the city of Tenochtitlan, which would later evolve into Mexico City. He was heading to morning Mass. He heard a burst of birdsong and turned to see where it was coming from. What he saw took his breath away, for standing before him was a woman clothed in celestial light. The Lady announced herself as the “Mother of the Most High God,” and she had a request for Juan Diego: “Would you ask the bishop to construct a temple here in my honor?” Being a simple man, Juan Diego obeyed. He was ushered into the presence of Bishop Juan Zumárraga, a Franciscan friar and a good man, the builder of the first hospital and university in the Americas, and a protector of the native population. Bishop Zumárraga listened patiently to Juan Diego’s story, but, understandably enough, he asked Juan Diego for a confirming sign from the heavenly Lady. On December 12, Juan Diego went once again to Tepeyac and found the Virgin there. She invited him to remove his tilma, the simple, coarse poncho-like garment he was wearing, and then, with her help, he gathered up a bunch of roses that were, despite the lateness of the year, in bloom. This, she said, would be a sign for the bishop. Juan Diego hurried with his bundle to the bishop’s office, but he was made to wait. It is said that officious aides of Zumárraga’s tried, without success, to find out what the Indian was carrying in his tilma. Finally Juan Diego was brought into the bishop’s presence. He opened his cloak and the roses spilled out, but then, to Juan Diego’s amazement, the bishop and his assistants were kneeling, for on the inside of the tilma was something extraordinary: an image of the woman clothed in light. On the spot, Zumárraga vowed to build the temple the Lady had asked for, and it still stands near the hill of Tepeyac.

Red flag laws

https://www.thediplomad.com/2019/08/toxic-culture-and-red-flags.html

A wakeup call for Catholics

1. In this video, Bishop Barron, who's far and away the most popular Catholic apologist of his generation, is tearing his hair out over the fact that 75% of American Catholics don't believe in transubstantiation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yTGlYCIvks&app=desktop

In addition, the figure rises to 80% for the younger generation–and that's the future of his sect. 

2. He quotes Flannery O'Connor's exclamation that if the eucharist is only a symbol, then "I say: to hell with it"–adding (in his own words), "why bother?".

That's a revealing reaction. Imagine an OT Jew exclaiming, "If Passover is just a symbol, then I say: to hell with it! Why bother?"

3. It's especially ironic because a large part of his apologetic for Catholicism trades heavily on aesthetic symbolism. Catholic art and architecture. The rose windows of Notre-Dame de Paris are a favorite theme of his. Why doesn't he exclaim: "If the rose windows are only symbolic, to hell with them!"

4. He goes on to say the eucharist is "tied to divinity of Jesus, the Incarnation, the sacraments, the church, and everything else". 

i) In part, that's an allusion to his view that the real presence is a prolongation of the Incarnation.

ii) In addition, the real presence is a presupposition of the priesthood. It takes a priest to change the communion elements into the "true body and blood of Christ". If you deny the real presence, that eliminates a key rationale for the priesthood. 

To be sure, priests have other sacramental functions like the rite of penance. Yet a major reason for penance is to prepare communicants to receive the eucharist. 

If you deny the real presence, it tugs a thread that unravels the entire tapestry of Catholic theology. That's because Catholic theology is a package deal. Not only are some dogmas logically and internally linked to other dogmas, but all the dogmas rely on the authority of the Magisterium. 

5. The Catholic church is in a state of crisis, on multiple fronts, in multiple countries. And we should be thankful for that.

The problem with his wakeup call is that many Catholic priests, bishops, and cardinals have a highly secularized outlook. They no longer believe in Catholic dogmas. They no longer believe in Catholic supernaturalism. So they don't share his sense of alarm. 

Mind you, evangelicalism has its own challenges. Its own attrition rate. Nominal piety. 

Apocalyptic Guadalupe

Here's a sequel to my recent post on Guadalupe:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/07/our-lady-of-guadalupe.html

According to the story, Mary commanded the local bishop, via Juan Diego, to build a shrine in her honor. Now the location of the shrine is striking. The shrine is situated in what became Greater Mexico City–one of the largest metropolitan population centers in the world.

Why do I say that's striking? Because the Valley of Mexico is a naturally hazardous location for a major population center. Mexico City lies on an ancient lake bed, which makes it unstable. The region is prone to devastating earthquakes. And it sits in the shadow of an active volcano (Popocatépetl).

If the apparition is authentic, and Mary has the preternatural knowledge that Catholic Mariology ascribes to her, why did she command the bishop to build a Marian shrine in a deathtrap? Why not warn the inhabitants to evacuate the area and relocate to a safer region? Why not point them to a safer region?

Back in 1531, people didn't have the knowledge of geology, seismology, or vulcanology to appreciate what a reckless location that would be for a massive urban center. If Mary warned the inhabitants of the danger zone and redirected them to safer location, the prescient wisdom of the admonition would provide corroborative evidence for the apparition. That's something we could recognize in retrospect, with our scientific knowledge. That would be harder to explain naturalistically, for people who didn't have our scientific awareness. 

Rebutting Objections to the Pro-Life Position

https://tabletalkmagazine.com/article/2019/08/rebutting-objections-to-the-pro-life-position/

God, guns, and tipping-points

1. Every time there's a mass shooting in the USA, the anti-gun lobby tries to make political capital out of that tragedy. In my experience, those opposing private ownership of guns suffer from self-reinforcing ignorance. They have no idea what the gun-right arguments are because they don't study the other side of the argument. Indeed, they think it's inconceivable that there ever could be good arguments for private ownership of guns. So their incredulity is circular. 

Someone might object that I'm burning a straw man. They don't oppose private ownership of guns. Rather, they advocate "sensible gun control". But that's just a euphemism. A ruse for an incremental strategy that terminates in a total gun ban and mandatory confiscation of guns in the possession of private citizens. They think that ultimately the only people who should have guns are agents of the gov't. 

2. When anti-gun opponents make political capital out of the latest mass shooting, the assumption is that this issue ought to have a tipping-point. How many mass shootings does it take before gun-right advocates change their minds? 

Keep in mind that any figure for what constitutes a mass shooting is arbitrary. That will be a stipulative definition.

I think for many gun-right supporters, the answer is: there is no tipping-point. That's why each new "mass shooting" doesn't move the needle. Each new shooting doesn't change their minds because their support for private gun ownership was never a quantitative calculation. 

Of course, it's easy to posit extreme hypotheticals that put a strain on that position, but hypotheticals cut both ways. It's just as easy to posit hypotheticals that put a strain on the anti-gun position. So that philosophical strategy is self-canceling. 

4. I'll comment on the gun-right position directly in a moment, but first I'd like to draw a comparison. Every time there's a natural disaster that kills lots of people, atheists try to capitalize on that tragedy by asking, "What's the tipping-point?" How many more natural disasters does it take before you change your mind about God? And the answer for sophisticated Christians is: there is no tipping-point. 

Whether it's one more natural disaster or one less natural disaster makes no difference, since the position wasn't quantitative to begin with. Rather, it's a matter of principle. If we have adequate theodicies to cover one natural disaster, then the same theodices are adequate to cover more than one. There's no logical cutoff. 

It's really not about the number of examples, but the kind of examples. One more example or one less example doesn't affect the kind of example. If God's existence and benevolence are compatible with certain kinds of evil, then it's not a question of percentages. 

The only tipping-point would be a hypothetical world containing sheer evil with no redeeming values. But that's irrelevant to the actual situation.

Moreover, the objection cuts both ways. If it's a question of how much evil is permissible, then by the same token it's a question of how little evil is permissible. You can go from the horrific end of the continuum to the slight end of the continuum.  

5. To take another illustration, I think there's a tipping-point when it comes to "torturing" terrorists. Take the ticking timebomb scenario. I think it's possible for some people to forfeit their prima facie immunity not to be harmed. The rights of a terrorist don't supersede the rights of innocent victims.

However, some critics of the ticking timebomb scenario take it to the next step: if the terrorist doesn't break under torture, is it permissible to torture his 5-year-old son, in case he will break when he sees his son subjected to torture? In contrast to the first situation, my response in that situation is: there is no tipping-point. 

And the logic is the same. Protecting the innocent from harm was never a sufficient condition to torture someone for information. The individual had to do something to forfeit his prima facie immunity. And, of course, the 5-year-old hasn't done that. It would be morally contradictory to torture the innocent to spare the innocent. It was never a merely quantitative calculation. 

We could also use the thought-experiment from consequentialism: is it justifiable to harvest the organs of one healthy person to save five deathly ill patient? Most people balk. 

Sometimes there's a tipping-point and sometimes not. Adding more examples doesn't automatically shift the moral considerations.  

6. One reason cumulative mass shootings don't make a dent in the gun-right position is because the position is a matter of principle. A moral obligation. It's not primarily about gun rights but the right of self-defense. Guns are just a concrete means to enable that right. And I'm using "self-defense" in a broad sense: not just protecting yourself from harm but protecting others from harm. Protecting the innocent. That's a standing duty.

In addition, social obligations are concentric. I have a greater duty to protect my mother than your mother. 

Mass shootings can never abrogate the right of self-defense. They can't override the right of a woman to have a gun or carry a gun to protect herself from muggers, or rapists, or a homicidal ex-boyfriend. The common good doesn't obviate individual rights. While there may be a balance between the good of the one and the good of the many, individuals have certain inalienable rights.

Indeed, since the common good is just a collective, the common good presupposes a minimal threshold of individual rights. The common good is just a collection of individuals. You can't logically say individuals have no rights, while only collectives have rights. Group rights make no sense if no one in the group has rights. 

7. In addition to the argument from principle there's a pragmatic argument. Just as there's a pragmatic argument for banning and confiscating civilian guns, there's a pragmatic argument against it. 

i) To begin with, there's the deterrent value of private gun ownership. Although guns are used to commit crime, guns are used to deter crime.

ii) Furthermore, when it comes to curtailing or eliminating social evils, there are tradeoffs. Suppose, for argument's sake, that a blanket gun ban and mandatory confiscation drastically reduces the number of mass shootings. While that would eliminate one evil, the cost of eliminating some evils is to replace them with different or even worse evils. Gun opponents myopically focus on mass shootings, but giving gov't a monopoly on gun ownership creates an opening for a much more oppressive and pervasive evil than mass shootings, which–however horrifying–are statistically negligible. It creates a police state, a totalitarian regime that poses a far greater danger than mass shootings. It empowers the few, who use their unchecked power to engage in systematic abuse of authority. And this isn't hypothetical. There are many examples. That includes Communist regimes.

But to take a less overt example, consider modern-day England. It's a surveillance state with ubiquitous security cameras. Yet disarming the public hasn't made the public safer. The police don't protect the public. Crime spirals out of control while the police monitor and prosecute political dissent. 

It's very shortsighted to fixate on one social evil in particular without regard to how the means necessary to eradicate or curtail that evil is offset by evils on a far larger scale. You create a monster that can't be contained. 

Where does the Bible say that?

Sometimes, when I'm defending the Bible, my opponent will challenge me: "Where's that in the Bible?" Here's a recent example:

Hays

Regarding Gen 7:20, the text doesn't say the waters rose to a depth of 15 cubits above the mountains. The Hebrew text simply says the waters rose 15 cubits above, and the mountains were covered.

So "15 cubits above" may well have reference to ground level, which was sufficient to wash over the surrounding hillside. Think of a flood plain or river basin skirted by hills. Keep in mind that "mountain" isn't a technical term in Hebrew, but a synonym for "hill".

Kenton

Okay, if I accept that dubious definition then how come there weren’t survivors? Surely people could have headed toward higher ground that wasn’t covered or, more importantly, use their own boats? Pretty sure boats were a common thing back then.

Hays

Heading for higher ground may save you from drowning, but with contaminated drinking water, how long will you survive?

Kenton

I missed that part of the Bible. Which verse was that in? 

Hays

The account doesn't say they all died by drowning. It just says they all died in the flood. You do realize, do you not, that there's more than one way people may die as a result of flooding? Having a boat might prevent you from drowning, but it doesn't prevent you from death by starvation, exposure, or cholera.

1. Kenton's objection represents a misunderstanding of sola scriptura. When we interpret the Bible, we combine what the Bible says with extrabiblical background knowledge. To take a comparison, if I read a news report about a passenger plane crashing, I can mentally fill out certain details not included in the report. Indeed, the reporter expects me to know what airplanes are. 

At one level, my knowledge of the event is dependent on the report. Absent the report, I wouldn't know that a passenger plane crashed on that day in that place. However, I can mentally supplement the report with my general knowledge of airplanes and airplane crashes. 

So there's the direct information supplied by the report. It tells me that a particular kind of event occurred. But over and above the report, the nature of the event in itself is an additional source of information. It would be silly for someone to object: "Where did the report say that?"–if I'm making common sense assumptions or drawing reasonable inferences from the nature of the event. The report doesn't have to say that. Once the report says it happened, then the nature of the event is an implicit source of information, in addition to what the report explicitly mentions. An event of that kind may raise a number of possibilities. More than one possible explanation or reconstruction. 

If the Bible says King David was a man, we can infer certain things from that identification. He had hands and feet, fives senses, and male anatomy. To ask, "Where does the Bible say that?" is confused. For certain things follow from what the Bible says. That's understood. The reader is responsible for filling the gaps. If the Bible says King David was a man, that's both a direct source of information about David as well as an indirect source of information about David. There's what it specifically says. But based on what it says, we justifiable draw further conclusions. And the reader is supposed to do that.

If the Bible says people died in the flood, it needn't specify how, exactly, they died, as if they all had to die the same way. While it's possible that they all died the same way, that's not an implication of death by flooding. Death by drowning is a direct result of death by flooding, but that doesn't rule out death by "complications" caused by flooding. A massive deluge may well generate different causes of death. Some more immediate while others are more drawn out and roundabout. To take modern examples, consider people stranded on the roof of their house, waiting to be rescued. Although they survived death by drowning, that doesn't mean they survived death by flooding. Some of them still perish as they wait in vain to be rescued. 

You needn't agree with that interpretation of the flood account. I'm just using it to illustrate a hermeneutical principle. 

2. Of course, that's a question we frequently press against Catholics: "Where does the Bible say that?" But there's a difference. 

i) We wouldn't object to Catholic dogmas if those were implied by what Scripture does say. The problem with Catholicism isn't simply that they believe things we can't find in the Bible. Rather, they believe things when there's no good evidence anywhere! No good evidence in Scripture. No good evidence outside of Scripture. Indeed, they believe some things that run contrary to extrabiblical evidence (not to mention things contrary to the witness of Scripture). 

ii) In addition, they insist on a duty to believe or firmness of belief that goes beyond what the evidence warrants. Suppose there's some evidence that Peter ministered in Rome. Fine. But they turn that into a dogma. They make that belief obligatory. A sacred duty. Yet our late, spotty, even contradictory records of Peter's stay in Rome might be mistaken. We should be able to make allowance for the possibility of error. 

Transgenderism, Human Ontology, and the Metaphysics of Properties

https://www.epsociety.org/userfiles/Arbour%20and%20Gilhooly_Transgenderism%20(Final2019-1).pdf

Problems in the Amillennial Interpretation of the Binding of Satan

The following problems that J. Webb Mealy raise are never dealt adequately—or at all—in Amillennial literature.

“[Amillennialism believes since] Satan’s release from prison and destruction (Rev. 20:7–10) is connected with the parousia, then the time of his imprisonment “so that he should deceive the nations no longer” (20:3) seems to be coterminous with the career of the beast (which also ends at the parousia). But this is impossible, since the beast’s career is portrayed in Revelation as the time of Satan’s greatest success ever in deceiving the human race (fn. In Rev. 12:9, Satan is characterized as the one who “deceives the whole world.” In context, the events of ch. 13 graphically picture the full outworking of this deception, and by no means its limitation).

Further, it does no good for this view to over-interpret the report of Satan’s release from the abyss in Rev. 20:8 to mean that the only sense in which Satan had previous been bound was that he could not then deceive the nations in such a way as to “gather them together for the war.” For to do this is not only to ignore the explicit cosmological import of such passages as Rev. 12:9–17, but it is also to forget the fact that “Har-Magedon” is but the last episode in Satan’s “war”  with the saints. In Rev. 13:7 it was the beast himself who was given authority throughout his career and who was, in concert with Satan, to “make war with the saints and to overcome them.” The beast’s career, in other words, far from being the time of Satan’s binding in this regard, is undeniably the time of his power par excellence to deceive the nations into making war on the “camp” of the saints.” It is thus only at the parousia that the power to practice even this particular kind of deception is taken away from Satan.

What is taken away for the first time at the parousia is however, given back a thousand years later, when Satan is released from the abyss, and is permitted once again to instigate an attack on the people of God (Rev. 20:7–10). Thus a completely lucid and coherent sequence is established between Rev. 19:11—20:3 on the one hand, and 20:7–10 on the other: the power to deceive is first removed from Satan, and then subsequently restored. This means that the battle described in 20:7–10 can in no way be identified with the battle of Har-Margedon, since in spite of any similarities between the two scenes, what happens to Satan in the one manifestly precedes what happens to him in the other” (Mealy, After the Thousand Years, 20–21).

Grave of the fireflies

(Source)

Some people object to the U.S. dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the war with Imperial Japan:

1. If the U.S. hadn't dropped the atomic bomb, then arguably the U.S. would have continued firebombing Japan. This evidently would have been much worse for Japan than the two atomic bombs. Victor Davis Hanson explains in The Second World Wars:

The March 9–10, 1945, napalm firebombing of Tokyo remains the most destructive single twenty-four-hour period in military history, an event made even more eerie because even the architects of the raid were initially not sure whether the new B-29 tactics would have much effect on a previously resistant Tokyo. The postwar United States Strategic Bombing Survey—a huge project consisting of more than three hundred volumes compiled by a thousand military and civilian analysts—summed up the lethality of the raid in clinical terms: "Probably more persons lost their lives by fire at Tokyo in a 6-hour period than at any time in the history of man." Over one hundred thousand civilians likely died (far more than the number who perished in Hamburg and Dresden combined). Perhaps an equal number were wounded or missing. Sixteen square miles of the city were reduced to ashes. My father, who flew on that mission, recalled that the smell of burning human flesh and wood was detectable by his departing bombing crew. A half century later, he still related that the fireball was visible for nearly fifty miles at ten thousand feet and shuddered at what his squadron had unleashed...

Both atomic bombs were dropped from B-29s, the only American bomber capable of carrying the ten-thousand-pound weapons and reaching the Japanese mainland from the Mariana bases. Most controversy over the use of the two bombs centers on the moral question of whether lives were saved by avoiding an invasion of the mainland. The recent Okinawa campaign cost the Americans about twelve thousand immediate dead ground, naval, and air troops, and many more of the fifty thousand wounded who later succumbed, with another two hundred thousand Japanese and Okinawans likely lost. But after the bloodbaths on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, those daunting casualties might well have seemed minor in comparison to the cost of an American invasion of the Japanese mainland.

The ethical issues were far more complex and frightening than even these tragic numbers suggest. With the conquest of Okinawa, LeMay now would have had sites for additional bases far closer to the mainland, at a time when thousands of B-17 and B-24 heavy bombers, along with B-25 and B-26 medium bombers, were idled and available after the end of the European war. Dozens of new B-29s were arriving monthly—nearly four thousand were to be built by war’s end. The British were eager to commit Lancaster heavy bombers of a so-called envisioned Tiger Force (which might even in scaled-down plans have encompassed 22 bomber squadrons of over 260 Lancasters). In sum, the Allies could have been able to muster in aggregate a frightening number of over five thousand multi-engine bombers to the air war against Japan. Such a force would have been able to launch daily raids from the Mariana Islands as well as even more frequently from additional and more proximate Okinawa bases against a Japan whose major cities were already more than 50 percent obliterated.

A critical consequence of dropping two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have been not just precluding a costly American invasion of Japan, but also ending a nightmarish incineration of Japanese civilization. Otherwise, by 1946 American and British Commonwealth medium and heavy bombers might have been able to mass in numbers of at least two to three thousand planes per raid. Just two or three such huge operations could have dropped more tons of TNT-equivalent explosives than the two atomic bombs. Within a month, such an Allied air force might easily have dropped destructive tonnage equivalent to ten atomic bombs, following the precedent of the 334-plane March 9–10 fire raid of Tokyo that killed more Japanese than either the Hiroshima or Nagasaki nightmares.

"It seemed to me," Japanese prime minister Kantaro Suzuki remarked after the war, "unavoidable that, in the long run, Japan would be almost destroyed by air attack, so that, merely on the basis of the B-29s alone, I was convinced that Japan should sue for peace. On top of the B-29 raids came the atomic bomb, which was just one additional reason for giving in...I myself, on the basis of the B-29 raids, felt that the cause was hopeless."

2. In addition, the historian Gerhard Weinberg writes the following in his paper "Some Myths of World War II":

The other myth in need of another look is the controversy over the anticipated American and Allied casualties in the two planned invasions of the home islands of Japan of which Truman authorized the first in mid-June 1945. Invariably the likely casualties of the Chinese, Russians, British, and others are omitted from this discussion. Similarly the planned Japanese killing of all the prisoners of war they held is ignored.

Perhaps into the discussion one should also enter the anticipated casualties on the Japanese side about which there was no controversy within the Japanese leadership. It was accepted that there would be 20 million such casualties. This figure those in charge in Tokyo unanimously deemed acceptable until the second atomic bomb suggested to some of them that the Americans could drop an indefinite number and hence not have to invade at all.

In this connection, it may be worth noting that both the British government and Stalin had agreed to the use of the atomic bomb before Washington had asked them.

Now that the focus has turned to Japan, this may be an appropriate point to touch on Japanese war aims. These are all too often described as limited to resource-rich parts of Southeast Asia. The Japanese certainly wanted them, but the inclusion of India, Alaska, New Zealand, and Cuba in Japanese planning—to mention merely a few—hardly points to a modest program of annexations. One cannot help wondering what Fidel Castro would think of the inclusion of Cuba in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere—and of being rescued from this prospect by the Yankees.

We need the 2nd amendment

1. The photo is from a recent protest in Hong Kong.

1. Sadly, it's too late for Hongkongers to have a 2nd amendment.

   Too late for Hongkongers to use firearms to resist their own toady government, which was effectively handpicked by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

   Too late for Hongkongers to use firearms to resist their own lackey police force.

   Too late for Hongkongers to use firearms to resist the triads and other hired guns (not to mention communist spies across Hong Kong) who are in collusion with the CCP.

2. I'm not even necessarily suggesting Hongkongers should use firearms, though that's an option. Just possessing firearms may be a deterrence in and of itself. At least it'd make bullies think twice.

"Race-traitors"

I thought about doing a post on this epithet before the mass shootings over the weekend, so the timing is coincidental. The "race-traitor" epithet is used both by (some) whites and blacks. Is that ever a legitimate category?

1. According to the Urban Dictionary, it's sometimes used for sexual "race mixing". That's an illegitimate use of the designation.

2. In addition, it's applied to individuals accused of selling out the interests of their own race. That's more complicated:

i) I think there are cases where that designation is legitimate. For instance, there are black politicians who support policies detrimental to the black community. Because, historically, the Democrat party is majority white, you have black Democrats who kowtow to liberal white policies in order to be players in the Democrat party.

To take another example, Mainland China is assimilating Hong Kong. It has stooges in the Hong Kong government who betray the interests of the Hong Kong people. The same may be said for the Hong Kong police. Likewise, there are white Democrats who promote policies that discriminate against whites.

ii) That said, in my anecdotal experience, it's my impression that white racists have a white first ethic. You put your own race first. You should have greater solidarity with members of your own (white) race than other races or ethnicities. But that's absurd. By that logic, I have greater solidarity with Elizabeth Warren than Russell Wilson, Mayor Pete Buttboy than Sen. Tim Scott, "Caitlyn" Jenner than Bobby Jindal, Rosie O'Donnell than Francis Chan, Boy George than Izzy Folau, Elton John than Michael Nazir Ali, Richard Dawkins than Voddie Baucham–to name a few.

iii) Perhaps a less extreme version of (ii) would claim that all things being equal, you should have greater solidarity with members of your own race. That's the default position, but it can be overridden.

However, that's too abstract to be meaningful. Race is always one factor among many, and some factors are much more important to individual and social identity than biological race, such as religion, common interests, biological sex, and sexual orientation.

iv) Finally, race is fluid. Many individuals can't be classified as members of one biological race. Biological race is a spectrum, easier to sort out at the ends of the spectrum than in the blended middle. That's why racial purists abhor "miscegenation". They understand that racial categories are often rather arbitrary and unstable.

Declaring war on white nationalism

In the wake of the mass shootings over the weekend, some conservatives have said now's the time to declare a war on violent white supremacy/nationalism. That raises several issues:
i) I'd note in passing that pundits use "white racist," "white nationalist," and "white supremacist" as synonyms. It's possible that there are some conceptual distinctions here. Since, however, I think they're all bad, I won't bother to parse the usage. For simplicity, I'll say "racist".
ii) Warfare metaphors are just that–metaphors. So what does it actually mean to wage war on this phenomenon?
iii) White racist terrorism, like domestic terrorism generally, is a crime, and ought to be treated as such.
iv) However, white racist ideology or rhetoric is a different matter. Both liberal and conservative pundits denounce it, which is fine at one level. It merits denunciation.
However, that's not a way to "win a war". Indeed, that may harden white racists. I suspect many of them feel like a righteous remnant. To be reviled and marginalized by the "establishment" reinforces their victimology, their persecution complex. So while denouncing white racism is valid on the merits, if our only response is to hurl epithets at them, that's counterproductive. They expect that. To be hated by the "establishment" is a badge of honor.
v) There's the old strategy of fighting bad ideas with good ideas. Instead of just denouncing them, an effort should be made to engage their arguments (such as they were). Although rational persuasion won't change the minds of hardcore racists, you can reach some people by listening to them. If they are show enough respect to be listened to, it creates an opening to change minds.
For instance, I once wrote a critique of white nationalist Francis Nigel Lee.
I figured that he could make the best case for white nationalism, so he was a good foil.
vi) It's necessary to distinguish between perceived grievances and legitimate grievances. Likewise, it's necessary to distinguish between legitimate grievances and illegitimate outlets. Some are losers looking for an excuse–someone else to blame. Others may have real grievances, but if their grievances are demonized, that pushes them into fringe groups.
vii) Apropos (vi), how many white racists are primarily motivated by ideology? By contrast, how many white racists are motivated by something else, and the ideology is just a side-effect? Take a generation of alienated young men due to fatherlessness. That may put them at risk of falling into social media groups with young men who share the same experience, who look for scapegoats.
Take the crisis facing some rural or working-class communities, highlighted by Tucker Carlson. Likewise, I saw a presentation by Jordan Peterson about how, in a hitech society, there just aren't jobs for people below a certain IQ–whereas there used to be jobs for them.
viii) In addition, Democrats need to own up to the fact that the anti-white, anti-male, anti-Christian, anti-Jew, anti-straight, anti-rural, anti-working-class policies of the Obama administration made Trump a politically viable candidate.
ix) If the authorities crack down on white terrorism but turn a blind eye to other examples of domestic terrorism like Antifa, that will reinforce white racism. They will see that the authorities are singling out caucasians, which plays right into their narrative. And, indeed, it is racist to crack down on white terrorism while giving other domestic terrorist movements like Antifa a pass.
x) Moreover, the crackdown on violent white racism can easily provide cover for Democrats to go after their political opponents. In the wake of the shootings, we see Elizabeth Warren call Fox News a "hate-for-profit" machine.
Likewise, the NYT runs back-to-back stories smearing all conservatives as agents of white domestic terrorism:

So, we now have two separate NYT columnists arguing that all conservatives are basically violent white supremacists, but slightly more subtle. Let me put this gently: f*** yourselves. pic.twitter.com/aqJjZjfPra

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) August 5, 2019

So this is just a pretext to use the police powers of gov't to shut down political dissent. A Hunger Games scenario.
I just saw a tweet by homosexual pollster Nate Silver obliterating the distinction between domestic and international terrorism:

I don't see any good reason for the modifier "domestic" in "domestic terrorism".

Is it lesser than international terrorism, somehow? Is "domestic" meant to soften and make it sound less scary, like "racially charged" in lieu of racist?

Just call it terrorism if it's terrorism.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 5, 2019

But there's a crucial distinction. International terrorism properly falls under the laws of war. By contrast, domestic terrorism is a crime. The accused, especially citizens, enjoy full due process rights.
xi) Finally, there's the question of how seriously to take manifestos by contemporary domestic terrorists. As I recall, this custom goes back to the Unabomber. In the past you had domestic terrorists writing manifestoes to explain their intentions. These were like suicide notes.
But nowadays we need to be less credulous. It's possible for a domestic terrorist to cynically give reasons for his actions that are not his real reasons. From what I've read, some domestic terrorists want to spark a civil war. They bait the authorities into cracking down, in hopes that the oppressive measures will ignite a popular uprising.
They know how to push the buttons of the "news media" and the authorities. They are banking on the very predictable reaction of the establishment. So I don't think we can automatically take contemporary manifestos at face value. Some of them may be playing the establishment.

What happens when you disarm the public

But the real problem lies in the police, that vast body of men and women, largely absent from the streets we pay them to patrol. In the last week, I have not seen one police officer on foot, anywhere, and I have looked out for them.

They have become a closed society, quite Left-wing, pursuing their own politically correct agendas, uninterested in their main job of deterring crime by being present on the streets.

https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2019/07/peter-hitchens-dont-be-duped-by-cheery-boris-johnson-its-your-duty-to-be-glum.html

Let's ban everything!

https://armedacademic.org/2019/08/05/priorities/

Armed academic

Tim Hsiao's new website focuses on gun rights.

An Orthodox Perspective on Roman Catholicism

Unlike the stereotypical Catholic/Protestant debate, this attacks Catholicism from a different front:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6zXs_cUSjQ

Ironically, it reveals how legalistic Eastern Orthodoxy is, with its thicket of man-made rules and duties. The encounter between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism is a spectacle in mutual destruction. 

Woke Shooters

Just a couple of comments on the recent shooters.

i. This stresses the importance for law-abiding citizens to carry to protect themselves, families, and others.

ii. The El Paso Shooter's manifesto shows he subscribed to Democratic narratives (e.g. radical environmentalism, anti-corporate, zero-population-growth). He also carries the Democratic heritage of racism, in this case against Hispanics. The Ohio shooter was woke himself, a pro-Satanist leftist, hater of law enforcement, and a supporter of communist Elizabeth Warren, as it is being revealed.

iii. Those who blame "mental illness" are giving the shooters too much credit as it excuses their real impetus: evil.

Gott mit uns

I got into an impromptu debate with an apostate Christian who is now an atheist.

[How do you know drowning people is morally wrong?] I know drowning is a very unpleasant sensation and can lead to death. As I wouldn’t what it to happen to me I in turn don’t wish it on others. It’s called empathy.

1. So your morality is ultimately based on your intuition? Your sense or feelings? Such as feeling "a very unpleasant sensation". Such as feeling a sense of "empathy". However, you earlier condemned Hitler and the Holocaust. Yet Hitler felt no empathy for the Jewish people. Hence, by your logic, Hitler did not do anything morally wrong by killing Jews in the Holocaust, did he?

2. A person can also feel "a very unpleasant sensation" when they're undergoing euthanasia. Would you therefore argue euthanasia is morally illicit?

hitler was a Christian so....

1. Hitler came from a Catholic background, just like Stalin came from a Russian Orthodox background (Stalin became an atheist), but Hitler persecuted Christians and hated Christians. Philosophically speaking, one could argue Hitler often promoted the views of Friedrich Nietzsche who was an ardent atheist and nihilist.

2. In fact, Hitler considered Christianity weak. A religion only fit for "slaves". And even Joseph Goebbels, who knew Hitler closely, said: "The Führer is deeply religious, though completely anti-Christian. He views Christianity as a symptom of decay. Rightly so. It is a branch of the Jewish race. This can be seen in the similarity of their religious rites. Both [Judaism and Christianity] have no point of contact to the animal element, and thus, in the end they will be destroyed."

3. However you're missing the actual point. I'm responding to you on your own grounds. This isn't about Hitler, but about your argument. Hitler is simply one example among many. You argued for morality based on feelings like "empathy". Well, if morality is ultimately based on whether or not we have empathy toward another person, then someone who has no empathy toward a group of people - such as Hitler lacking empathy toward Jews, or such as ISIS lacking empathy toward non-Muslims including non-Sunni Muslims - then by your logic how have they wronged the other person?

Euthanasia is a complex issue that requires consent and extenuating circumstances. The right to die for example. Alleviate suffering as such.

1. Again, you missed the point. The point is, by your own logic, euthanasia would be wrong because the person would feel "a very unpleasant sensation and can lead to death".

2. You need to find a better argument if you want to ground objective moral values and duties on atheism. If you can't ground objective moral values and duties, then you have no basis by which to morally judge another person's morality. Such as by calling God a "sadistic jerk" as well as condemning ancient peoples like Israelites and early Christians. At best, it's just your own intuition or feelings or somesuch, but your own personal feelings aren't necessarily a reliable moral compass.

3. Given atheism, what happens to evil people who get away with their evil in this life? Hitler died the way he wanted to die, by suicide, without ever having to answer for his evils. Stalin and Mao got away in the end too. As Dawkins points out: "In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference."

Gott Mit Uns which is emblazoned on the SS emblem translates to God With Us. Strange thing for an atheist to attach to his death squads.

1. By that logic, we put "In God We Trust" on our money. Hence the United States is (or should be) a Christian nation. Is that what you're arguing?

2. Besides, as Goebbels points out, Hitler was "religious" but "anti-Christian" and anti-Jewish. So whatever "god" this was, it wasn't the God of the Bible.

3. Plus, the Nazis often co-opted religious symbols for their own propaganda. After all, the swastika was originally from Hinduism. Hence, by your logic, the Nazis were Hindu.

horrible people throughout history have co-opted religion to strengthen their power. It’s almost like political leaders understand that having a god around helps keep people in line. Any coincidence that ancient cultures often had church and government so closely entwined. Makes you think doesn’t it. Can’t get the peasants to listen, threaten them with a fate worse than death. A savvy political move.

1. Thanks for conceding my point. Yes, Hitler and the Nazis were "horrible people" who co-opted religion. They were not Christians like you've been ignorantly alleging.

2. If anything, Hitler was driven by a Nietzschean vision mixed with various myths and religious symbols. (This included Norse, Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, and related myths, which JRR Tolkien even criticized the Nazis for misunderstanding at the time.) If anything, Hitler was driven by an atheistic and nihilistic vision. God is dead. The will to power. The German and Aryan peoples are Übermensch. That's one reason why Hitler thought Germans could weather the freezing Russian winter wearing lighter and/or less clothing than the Russians since the Germans are Übermensch! That's one reason why Hitler refused to allow his troops to make strategic retreats to fight another day (such as at Stalingrad) since the Übermensch have the will to overcome their enemies and other obstacles. In short, if anything, Hitler was driven by atheistic and nihilistic philosophies.

3. How "kept in line" to Pharoah and the gods of Egypt were Moses and the Israelites? See John Currid's book Against the Gods: The Polemical Theology of the Old Testament for a start.

4. Most importantly, given atheism, why isn't nihilism the logical conclusion to your atheism? That's what many atheist philosophers even argue (e.g. Alex Rosenberg). Hence, the question is, given your atheism, how would you ground moral realism? Given your atheism, how would you ground objective moral values and duties? So far, you haven't been able to.

Edit: I added more of the debate below.

The last days of John Allen Chau

"The Last Days of John Allen Chau"

The flood waters

John Walton makes the following remarks in The NIV Application Commentary: Genesis:

The main questions, however, concern what is demanded by the language of the text. Four textual issues contribute to the discussion and require investigation: universal scope of the language (7:21–23), covering the mountains (7:19), fifteen cubits above (7:20), and the tops of the mountains becoming visible (8:5). If an interpreter maintains the support of the authority of the text but does not believe in a global flood, how can these four issues be handled?

Universal language. It may sound strange to say, but the word "all" is not always absolute in biblical usage. Look, for instance, at Deuteronomy 2:25, where the Lord says, "This very day I will begin to put the terror and fear of you on all the nations under heaven." This verse even uses "under heaven" in the same way that Genesis 7:19 does. Yet in context, few would contend that this refers to more than the nations of Canaan and perhaps a few others. In Genesis 41:57, Joseph opens the storehouses of Egypt and "all the countries came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe in all the world." I do not know of anyone who contends that therefore the Eskimos must have been included.

Similar use of language can be seen in Akkadian texts. Most instructional is a text called the Sargon Geography, which names the lands of the known world one by one and concludes that "Sargon, King of the Universe, conquered the totality of the land under heaven."³⁴ Based on such examples, it becomes clear that it was perfectly acceptable, and not at all deceptive, to use the word "all" to encompass all those of a more regionally delineated area. Such usage does not violate biblical authority because the Bible does not intend to claim more than regional impact.

Covering the mountains. When 7:19 refers to the mountains being covered, it uses the Pual form of the verb ksh. This verb is used for a wide variety of "covering" possibilities. A people or weeds can be so vast that it covers the land (Num. 22:11; Prov. 24:31); a blanket or clothing covers someone (Ex. 28:42; 1 Kings 1:1). Something can be covered in the sense of being overshadowed (cherubim wings covering the ark, 2 Chron. 5:8; clouds covering the sky, Ps. 147:8).

What about being covered with water? Aside from the two occurrences in 7:19–20, thirteen references have water as the explicit or implicit subject of this verb. Of those thirteen, five refer to the Red Sea covering the Egyptian army at the time of the Exodus (Ex. 14:28; 15:5, 10; Ps. 78:53; 106:11); four refer to the waters in creation and nature (Ps. 104:6, 9; Isa. 11:9; Hab. 2:14); one is metaphorical for judgment (Job 22:11). It is the remaining three that are of most significance to this discussion: Job 38:34; Jeremiah 46:8; and Malachi 2:13. In these three passages it appears that water does not cover by submerging as much as by drenching. Even today when someone walks in from a downpour we might say, "You’re covered with water!"

If Genesis 7:19 is taken the same way, it suggests that the mountains were drenched with water or coursing with flash floods, but it does not demand that they were totally submerged under water. One can certainly argue that the context does not favor this latter usage, and I am not inclined to adopt it. The point is that it is not as easy as sometimes imagined to claim that the Bible demands that all the mountains were submerged.

Fifteen cubits above. In 7:20 this phrase is difficult to decipher, largely because of the word that the NIV renders "depth." The Hebrew text says, "Fifteen cubits from above [milma'la] rose the waters, and the mountains were covered." It is therefore not at all clear that it is suggesting the waters rose fifteen cubits higher than the mountains.³⁵

The word under discussion occurs twenty-three times in a number of different syntactical situations. Its most common use is to delineate the position of one object relative to another. In this kind of context the preposition al is consistently attached to the one noun with milma'la connected to the object that is being located.³⁶ It can also mean "above" when it is used as an adjective (Jer. 31:37, "heavens above"). When it is used as an adverb without a preposition to relate it to another noun, translations such as "upward" (Ezek. 1:11, "spread upward") or "upstream" (Josh. 3:13, 16) are better choices. It is this last category to which Genesis 7:20 belongs. As an adverb modifying the verb "rose," it suggests that the water reached fifteen cubits upward from the plain, covering at least some part of the mountains.

Tops of the mountains visible. This is the most difficult statement to explain for those arguing that the text does not require a global flood. In saying that the tops of the mountains became visible, this verse conveys that the tops, not just the flanks of the mountains, had been obscured. This still leaves two possibilities: They have been obscured by the horizon and this represented the sighting of land,³⁷ or they have been obscured by (i.e., submerged under) water. The latter appears to be the necessary conclusion in that the ark stops moving in verse 4 on the seventeenth day of the seventh month and that the tops of the mountains do not become visible until two and a half months later, the first day of the tenth month.

Most interpreters have inferred that the ark became lodged on the tops of one of these mountains that was still under water and that the mountains did not become visible for ten more weeks. If this were a proper inference, the observation in the text would be a matter of experience, not perception. Noah did not just assume that all the mountains were under water; he was in the mountains and they were under water.

30,000 denominations redux

I'd like to revisit a mindless but ever-popular Catholic trope about the Protestant faith. And that's the claim that sola scriptura spawned "30,000" denominations. The figures varies depending on the Catholic apologist. This is related to the Catholic objection that Protestants can't agree on anything. 

Here's why I say that's a mindless trope: if you think the Protestant movement is so disunited that it doesn't stand for anything, then why classify all these groups as Protestant? Put another way, if you can't say what the opposing position represents, then you have no target to aim at. 

If there's no such thing as a core Protestant theology, then there's nothing to critique. At best, a Catholic apologist could say the basic problem with the Protestant faith is that there is not Protestant faith. That would be catchy, and you could put it in one pithy sentence. 

But of course, Catholic apologists offer detailed critiques of Protestant theology. They write whole books on the subject. And Catholic attacks on the Protestant faith bear an uncanny family resemblance. 

In practice, a Catholic apologist takes one of two approaches. One line of attack is to critique generic Protestant theology. He attacks typical, representative Protestant doctrines. But that's a roundabout admission that Protestant faith does have a common, identifiable core theology.

The other line of attack is to pick a particular expression of the Protestant movement like Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, or Calvinists. Although these have distinctive positions that distinguish them from one another, they are representative Protestant schools of thought. 

So both in principle and practice, Catholic apologists think there are recognizable Protestant doctrines. If they didn't think that, they couldn't write entire books attacking the Protestant faith. 

Institutional infidelity

1. Hypothetically, what would the magisterium have to do for devout Catholics (or Catholic apologists) to conclude that the Roman Catholic church never was the one true church founded by Jesus Christ? Can the magisterium ever do anything, in principle or practice, to discredit Roman Catholicism? 

Put another way, how do we distinguish between a faithful church and a faithless church? What's the standard of fidelity? 

2. In my observation, Catholics take the position that the pope can't change dogma. The pope can't change the deposit of faith. The pope can't elevate a heresy to the status of dogma. The pope can't make a moral teaching that contradicts natural law de fide doctrine. However, the hierarchy can say or do anything short of that without discrediting Roman Catholicism. 

So in theory, if the pope, speaking ex cathedra, were to change doctrine, change the deposit of faith, dogmatize heresy, teach contrary to natural law, his action would show that the Roman Catholic church was never the church founded by Jesus Christ.

However, that's paradoxical, and a tenacious Catholic apologist might find a loophole by saying that if a pope were to do that, it wouldn't disprove Catholicism; rather, it would disprove the claim that he was speaking ex cathedra. But there are two related problems with that defense:

i) If a pope cannot change dogma even when he intends to speak ex cathedra, even when he uses ex cathedra formulas, then it's impossible to verify when or if a pope is speaking ex cathedra. If papal intent and ex cathedra formulas are insufficient criteria, then there's no way to verify an ex cathedra pronouncement.

ii) It renders Catholicism unfalsifiable, which means that even if Catholicism is actually wrong, Catholics are never be in a position to know it's wrong. In that event, they have an unshakable commitment to a false religion.  

3. In addition, this defines fidelity or infidelity in exclusively abstract, impersonal terms. Fidelity or infidelity is restricted to propositions. The members of the magisterium can say or to anything consistent with institutional fidelity so long as the dogmatic statements are faithful to the deposit of faith. It reduces fidelity to verbal formulas.  If every pope taught heresy, but not formally or officially (i.e. dogma, de fide, ex cathedra), the Catholic church would still be a faithful church. If every pope, cardinal, bishop, and priest was an active sodomite, the Catholic church would still be a faithful church. 

But a fundamental problem with that restrictive concept of fidelity is that, of necessity, fidelity has a personal dimension. It isn't just words on a page. To be faithful is to be obedient in thought word and deed. Fidelity in what we believe as well as fidelity in how we live. Fidelity to God. A living relationship of life and mind between Christians and their God. If members of a church are overwhelmingly faithless in what they believe and how they act, then that's a faithless church. 

For instance, a creed is at best a standard of fidelity, not a substitute for fidelity. A benchmark for what to believe and how to behave. 

Assuming a creed is true, if a denomination refuses to enforce the creed, constantly teaches contrary to the creed, constantly disregards the creed in practice, then the creed is insufficient to make that a faithful denomination. There must be a living connection between what's on paper and what's in the heart. Otherwise, it's like saying a church is faithful so long as it has an infallible creed in a safe, that no one has ever read.