Dueling politicians

Alexander Hamilton vs. Aaron Burr.

John Randolph vs. Henry Clay.

Abraham Lincoln vs. James Shields.

Sam Houston vs. William White.

Andrew Jackson vs. everyone, though most famously Charles Dickinson.

As Americans, we used to have a fine tradition of duels among our political leaders. Regrettably, that no longer exists today.

That's why I propose we bring back dueling among politicians!

It'd help clean the moral morass that is DC. It'd save taxpayers money if politicians eliminated themselves.

At the very least, let's start with a test run: the current crop of Democratic presidential candidates. After all, they've already exchanged heated words, but I'm sure they'd love to exchange more than mere words. And it'd be a benefit for them inasmuch as it'd help narrow their crowded field.

Of course, I realize the Democrats are anti-guns. In that case, we could hand each of them an alternate weapon of their choice. For example, it'd seem appropriate to give Warren a tomahawk. Beto a broken alcohol bottle. Kamala Harris already has shooting daggers for eyes. Perhaps a jian or katana for Andrew Yang? Pete Buttigieg might wish to call in a real man to fight in his stead. Marianne Williamson will undoubtedly harness happy thoughts. Bernie can bring a nanny. And Biden? Biden doesn't need a weapon because he's creepy enough on his own, at least as long as he's dueling a female.

If this works out, I don't necessarily have any objections to moving onto Republicans like Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell, Chris Christie, John Boehner, James Comey, Bill Weld, etc.

The right to self-defense

Alyssa Milano asks:

Can someone cite which passage of the Bible God states it is a god-given right to own a gun? This guy is unbelievable and is clearly owned by the gun lobby. #NoRA https://t.co/PxVV1RoV2Z

— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) September 1, 2019

Ted Cruz answers:

An excellent Q, worth considering carefully w/o the snark of Twitter. It is of course not the right to a modern-day firearm that is God-give but rather the right to Life & the right to Liberty. Essential to that right to life is the right to DEFEND your life & your family. 1/x https://t.co/8pjstMGrGB

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 1, 2019

3/x The Declaration of Independence acknowledges our rights thusly: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 2, 2019

5/x Stephen Willeford exercised that fundamental right when he risked his own life to stop the Sutherland Springs murderer, saving countless others as a result.

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 2, 2019

7/x “...in most govts it has been the study of rulers to confine this right w/in the narrowest limits possible. Wherever...the right...to keep & bear arms is, under any...pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 2, 2019

9/x I’m a Texan. What happened in Midland-Odessa—and El Paso, Santa Fe & Sutherland Springs—was sick, deranged & horrifying. We need to do MUCH more to stop violent criminals & those w/ dangerous mental illness BEFORE they murder & I’m leading the fight in the Senate to do so.

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 2, 2019

10/x Playing politics w/ these deranged crimes—and trying to use them as an excuse to violate the constl rights of law-abiding citizens—won’t make anybody safer. Forcible gun confiscation (as some 2020 Dems urge) won’t prevent mass-murders. But it would weaken our self-defense.

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 2, 2019

The transmission of original sin

1. Original sin has two sides: (i) the condemnation of Adam's sin and (ii) moral corruption/spiritual inability. (i) seems unfair. I've discussed that on multiple occasions. In this post I'd like to focus in (ii).

2. One question is whether the Bible teaches original sin. Considered in isolation, Gen 3 doesn't seem to teach original sin. However, that's followed by a drastic escalation in evil, leading up to the flood. And it continues after the flood. OT history is a record of pervasive depravity, both in pagan cultures as well as Israel. The extent and intensity of human evil is hard to explain unless there's a predisposition to evil.

In the NT, two classic passages are Rom 5:12-21 & 1 Cor 15:21-22. The text in 1 Cor 15 is about death, while the text in Rom 5 is about condemnation as well as death. 

Over and above that are Pauline texts about the moral and spiritual blindness, hardness, and deadness of the lost. About their captivity to raw destructive passions. Again, it's hard to explain that if humans are born moral blank slates. 

Finally, a theme of John's Gospel and 1 John is how the mission of Christ exposes the preexisting animus towards God and good. That dovetails with the Pauline picture.

3. A difficult issue in Christian theology is the transmission of original sin. In terms of guilt and condemnation for Adam's sin, that gave rise to debates over immediate and immediate imputation in Reformed theology. I think proponents of immediate imputation have the better of the argument. Again, that raises questions of fairness, but I've addressed that elsewhere.

4. But what about the transmission of moral corruption? What's the metaphysics or mechanics of original sin in that respect? That's something else theologians struggle with. Different models are proposed. 

Let's take a comparison: from what I've read, feral children are psychological inhuman. For normal psychological maturation to occur, humans require socialization during their formative years. There's a narrow window of opportunity that closes. If humans don't receive the necessary socialization during that period, no amount of remedial socialization will fix the deficit. The tragedy of feral children is the fact that they already passed the threshold where it's possible for them to develop a normal psychological makeup. No matter how much affection and attention they receive, it's too late for them to become psychologically human. It would take a miracle (which God may provide in the afterlife.)

Nothing was done to them that directly caused that deficient. They weren't physically, verbally, and psychologically abused. Rather, their condition is the result of severe neglect.  Humans aren't like Jem'Hadar babies programed to automatically mature psychologically as soon as they pop out of the incubation chambers. Our psychological makeup isn't purely internal and self-contained, waiting to unfold like clockwork. To be psychologically complete and mature requires something from the outside.  

By analogy, the transmission of original sin needn't be caused by some positive factor or determinant, but by the absence of some external factor that's necessary to complete our moral formation. Something lost in the Fall. 

Moral without God

Many notable atheists thinkers are avowed moral relativists or nihilists. However, there are atheists, especially pop atheists, who say we can be moral without God. Indeed, we can be more virtuous without God because Christian ethics is so deplorable.

Christian philosophers and apologists usually counter that atheists who say we can be moral miss the point. They concede that people can be moral without believing in God. The point, rather, is that morality can't be justified apart from divine creation and revelation. 

That's true, but it lets atheists off the hook too easily. From a Christian standpoint, the examples of virtuous atheists are typically atheists raised in a culturally Christian nation. Even though they repudiated Christianity, their social mores were conditioned by Christian values. When, however, we look at social ethics in pre-Christian cultures or secular regimes, or the modern Democrat party, we witness massive cruelty. 

"Record" hurricanes

Global warming alarmists point to "record" hurricanes to demonstrate the reality and existential danger of global warming. A few observations:

i) We've only had the technology to clock hurricane speeds for what–a few decades? But haven't hurricanes been occuring since the last Ice age ended, about 12,000 years ago? Likewise, how far back do our records extend regarding the frequency and severity of Atlantic hurricanes? Our chronological sample is hardly representative.

ii) Suppose global warming is real, but a natural cyclical variation, like ice ages?

iii) Suppose the environmentalists were right and we ignored them at our peril. Now it's too late. We're doomed!

They will try to blame us, but even if they were right-or especially if they were right–they are to blame because they burned their credibility by resorting to hyperbolic warnings, manipulating and destroying data. Perhaps they think the threat is so great that it justified their mendacity: the noble lie. If so, the tactic backfired. If you use deception to make your case, and your deception is exposed, then you lose credibility. Like crying wolf, people tune you out so that even when it turns out to be true, no one believes you because your reputation as a liar preceded you. 

The True Anti-Catholic Agenda Moves Forward as “Pope Francis” Names More Cardinals

“Pope Francis” is continuing to follow up on his program to “clean house” within “the Church”.

Recall that in one of his first interviews, he promised to change things in a big way:

“Vatican II, inspired by Pope Paul VI and John, decided to look to the future with a modern spirit and to be open to modern culture. The Council Fathers knew that being open to modern culture meant religious ecumenism and dialogue with non-believers. But afterwards very little was done in that direction. I have the humility and ambition to want to do something.

“… providence has placed me at the head of the Church and the Diocese of Peter. I will do what I can to fulfill the mandate that has been entrusted to me” (Interview published October 1, 2013).

He has announced that he will be creating 10 new voting Cardinals in a consistory to be held October 5 this year. This is important because only Cardinals under the age of 80 can vote for the next pope – a vote which, I can assure you, conservative Roman Catholics will be watching for and sweating about. The longer “Pope Francis” lives, (a) the more he will be able to mess up conservative Roman Catholic ideals, and (b) the greater the odds that he will be able to shape the voting for a “successor” who will continue those kinds of policies.

Coming from North America, Central America, Africa, Europe, and Asia, Pope Francis said Sept. 1 that "their origin expresses the missionary vocation of the Church, which continues to proclaim the merciful love of God to all people on earth."

Among those to be elevated to cardinal is Canadian Jesuit Fr. Michael Czerny, the head of the Migrants and Refugees section of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

Two other red hat recipients also work inside the Vatican. They are: Spanish Archbishop Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, prefect of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue; and Portuguese Archbishop José Tolentino Mendonca, librarian of the Holy Roman Church.

From Africa are Archbishop Fridolin Ambongo Besungu of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Archbishop Cristobal Lopez Romero of Rabat in Morocco.

There is Archbishop Ignatius Suharyo Hardjoatmodjo of Jakarta in Indonesia and Bishop Alvaro Ramazzini of Huehuetenango, Guatemala. North America is represented only by Archbishop Juan de la Caridad Garcia Rodriguez of Havana, Cuba.

Archbishops Jean Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg and Matteo Zuppi of Bologna represent Europe.

These 10 voting Cardinals will replace those who are getting older and falling off the voting list. I’m not sure who these individuals are, but there is at least one Jesuit (and the Jesuit order has been given up for lost by the conservatives) and an Archbishop from Cuba, who is certain to be a Bergoglio fan.

So far Pope Bergoglio has named 73 new Cardinals of voting age. I’m not sure how many have passed the magic number 80 in the interim, so that will affect the total number of voting Cardinals he can claim at the moment. It’s a number that’s always changing.

The October 2019 consistory will bring the number of electors to 128. Assuming that none of these old guys dies during the year, the number of voting Cardinals will fall again to 120 again in November 2020, when Donald Wuerl turns 80.

Previous Articles:

Bergoglio’s Gig: Opposing Ratzinger (We knew that “Pope Francis” was going to oppose “Pope Benedict” from the start).

Killing Pope Francis (May 24, 2017 – outlining conservative Catholic hopes).

Betting on Dead Papal Politics (May 25, 2017).

Killing Pope Ratzinger" (February 8, 2018 – how the “Francis” party is outwitting the “Benedict” party).

Bipedal apes

The cranium, known as MRD, is noticeably different from known A. afarensis skulls.  MRD is smaller with a much more projecting face.  Down the center of the skull runs a sagittal crest for attachment of jaw muscles.  The skull is longer and narrower than A. afarensis skulls.  To my eye, MRD looks more like a living ape like a gorilla than A. afarensis does.

The existence of bipedal animals that look so similar to us raises many questions about God’s design and their relationships to each other.  How many created kinds of upright apes are there?  In past analyses, Paranthropus seems well-separated from other australopiths, and A. afarensis and A. africanus are also very distinct.  Are these patterns merely the result of a sparse sample of species?  Will we eventually find that all bipedal apes belong to one created kind, distinct from humans?  What can this new skull tell us about even less well-known fossils like Ardipithecus or Sahelanthropus?

https://humangenesis.org/2019/08/28/a-face-for-australopithecus-anamensis/

i) I'm not quite sure what Todd means by bipedal animals that look so similar to us given what he says about MRD. However, that may be tangential to his main point. 

ii) To consider the question in general, Darwinians and atheists will take this to be yet another example of how science continues to put the squeeze on Christianity. There's increasingly less that makes human beings unique. Science keeps chipping away at human exceptionalism. One theological outpost after another falls to the invincible march of evolutionary biology. Christians are constantly in retreat. Constantly ceding ground to evolution. At least that's how it looks to Darwinians and atheists.

iii) But is that the case? Even in Gen 1-2, it's clear that humans share much in common with the animal world. That's because we're embodied agents and earthlings. Ancient Jews and Christians could see that humans have animals bodies. Physically, our bodies function like other animals. It's not as if modern science provides a revolutionary perspective in that regard. Prescientific observers could see that just fine. 

iv) I don't see that bipedal apes pose any greater threat to human exceptionalism than animals with forward-facing eyes. It's my impression that different body designs maximize an organism's ability to exploit a particular niche. Obviously we've never seen bipedal apes in action, but that presumably enables them to take advantage of certain opportunities their environment presents that quadrupedal apes cannot exploit. 

But there are tradeoffs in any body design. Gains in one respect are offset by losses in other respects. Leopards lack the power of lions, but that's offset by their superior tree-climbing ability. Cheetahs can outrun prey that's too fast for leopards and lions, but that's offset by weaker jaws and lack of razor-sharp claws. 

v) There's the question of what makes something unique. It is a single unique feature or a unique combination of ordinary features? 

vi) What makes humans unique isn't primarily our bodies but our minds. Suppose a wolf had a human body. That wouldn't make it human. A lupine mind in a human body would be a disastrous mismatch. It wouldn't survive. It has the wrong kind of intelligence to operate with a human body. 

vii) This doesn't mean human bodies are unimportant to human identity. But they are secondary in the sense that human bodies are instruments of human minds. A human mind requires a body that enables it to do human things. A human mind in the body of a dolphin would be stultifying and maddening. 

If you hand a mediocre tennis player the racket of a world-class tennis player, that doesn't make him a world-class tennis player. Conversely, a world-class tennis player can beat a mediocre player with an off-the-shelf racket–no matter how good the racket the mediocre player has. Same thing with pool. It isn't the cue or the balls that make the difference. Although Heifetz plays better with a Guarneri or Stradivarius, handing that violin to a mediocre violinist doesn't transform him into Heifetz. Imagine what Newton could do with a computer. 

A body is just a medium. It's generally a necessary medium for humans to develop their potential and exercise their humanity, but it's what the operator does with it that's special, and not the medium in itself. 

Like animals, we produce offspring and raise offspring, but human parents and their offspring both get far more out of the experience than animals because we have more complex minds. Lower animals may not even have minds. If they do have minds, they have very simple minds. Like animals, humans engage in sex, but we get far more out of the experience because we have more complex minds. There's so much more we can take in. 

viii) It's like science fiction stories about extraterrestrials. What kind of bodies does the writer give them? If they rely on advanced technology, they need body parts that enable them to build and operate fancy gadgets. They require bodies suitable to their alien intelligence and alien proclivities. 

The bachelorette

1. I hesitate to even comment on this. For one thing, I find shows like The Bachelorette too worldly. There are far better things to consider in life.

For another, I just don't care for these sorts of shows. I have never watched The Bachelorette or The Bachelor. Nor do I plan to. Not unless the bachelorettes and bachelors featured involve space aliens shooting space lasers at each other in space wars!

And even if these shows were valuable (which I'd say they're not), they're so ephemeral. Who's going to remember any of the contestants a generation from now? Rather the contestants would do well to heed Ecclesiastes' message: hebel. Life is a vapor. A mere breath. A chasing after the wind. Fleeting. Or as James puts it: "What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes" (4:14).

2. That said, the latest season apparently starred a professing Christian bachelorette named Hannah Brown along with another professing Christian bachelor named Luke Parker. I saw a few clips of them. Evidently the most talked (gossiped?) about moment on the show was when Hannah kicked Luke off the show for (according to Hannah) "slut shaming" her for having had premarital sex multiple times, which she all but boasted about. Indeed she gave him the middle finger. And she insisted and continues to insist "Jesus still loves me".

3. I made comments about how either Hannah needs to repent of her sexual sin and live like a Christian or stop professing to be a Christian if she wishes to continue in her sexual sin. Hannah's legions of "sisters" came to her defense against me. All of them were likewise professing Christians. They seemed to take what I said quite personally and criticized me for what I said about Hannah.

4. All of them told me how judgmental I was (or words to that effect). Ironic how these women judge me for being judgmental...but Hannah gets a free pass, their sympathy, forgiveness, love, and acceptance from them. Of course, the Bible doesn't say we should never judge anyone, period. Rather the Bible teaches us we should "judge with right judgment" (Jn 7:24).

This and other things the professing Christian women said to me illustrated how biblically illiterate they are. That seems to be a growing trend. Christians should be a people of the Book.

5. The kind of Christianity espoused by Hannah and her sisters is more akin to moralistic therapeutic deism than biblical Christianity.

6. It's interesting how so many women often idolize other people. Take women at concerts. Jumping up and down, tearing their hair out, in a state of frenzy. I mean, men go to concerts too, but we don't go gaga over rockstars like women do.

As such, I suspect what's partly happening with these professing Christian women defending Hannah is that she's an idol for them. They identify with her. Or at the very least she's a heroine to them. A professing Christian like they are, trying to find true love. And criticism against Hannah is tantamount to criticism against them.

If so, I'd say these women need better heroines. Why settle for someone like The Bachelorette's Hannah rather than (say) the Bible's Hannah? Or the Bible's Sarah, Zipporah, Deborah, Jael, Rahab, Ruth, Esther, Anna, Elizabeth, Mary, the Samaritan woman at the well, Martha and her sister Mary, Lydia, etc. Or women like Anne Bradstreet, Christina Rossetti, Selina Countess of Huntingdon, Ann Judson, Amy Carmichael, Helen Roseveare, Corrie ten Boom, Bethan Lloyd-Jones, Susanna Wesley, Sarah Edwards, etc.

These are the sorts of women of whom the world was not worthy. By contrast, at this point in her life Hannah Brown strikes me as a woman indistinguishable from the world.

Seven is your lucky number!

In his new commentary on Genesis, Andrew Steinmann says: 

The crafting of the table can be seen in the fondness of its use of the number seven and its multiples... (122). 

In correspondence, I asked him if he could be more specific. He responded:

The table contains 70 names listed as “sons” of Ham, Shem, Japheth or their descendants. (The Philistines are different, since they are not said to be “son,” but are part of the Casluhim “from whom came the Philippines.”) Japheth has 7 sons and 7 grandsons. Mizraim has 7 “sons.” Shem has 21 grandsons/ great-grandsons.

That septunarian pattern could be produced by starting with real, albeit larger figures, then omitting certain links or individuals to get it down to groups of seven or multiples of seven. The result of editorial selectivity. 

In the past I've noted how the seven motif is embedded in the flood account:

Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate (Gen 7:2)

and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth (Gen 7:3)

Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made” (Gen 7:4)

And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth (Gen 7:10)

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened (Gen 7:11)

and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat (Gen 8:4)

He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark (Gen 8:10)

He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him (Gen 8:12)

By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry (Gen 8:14)

If Noah's flood is a real event, then it has a certain natural rhythm. So we wouldn't expect it to be so repetitively septunarian. As such, the seven motif in the flood account seems to be a stock number, just like forty is a stock number in Scripture. In some cases is might be due to rounding up or rounding down to seven of something. And in some cases there's no natural interval, so the interval will be stipulative. But the frequency appears to be artificial by design. 

So it's interesting to see the same motif in the Table of Nations. That kind of numerology suggests the narratives are somewhat stylized to highlight artificial septunarian patterns. Nature in the raw isn't that symmetrical. It doesn't normally operate in cycles of seven. 

There's nothing deceptive about that so long as the numbers were understood to be stock numbers, sometimes used for their symbolic connotations. It may be code language for God's control over events. Septunarian iterations clue the reader to the hidden hand of providence. Too coincidental to be sheer coincidence.  

Since we see this in the flood account as well as the Table of Nations, it has backward casting implications for the creation account. By analogy with the flood account and the Table of Nations, is the number of days in Gen 1 a stock number, too? 

The authority conundrum

There are Catholics who love love love love ecclesiastical authority…until they find themselves on the wrong end of the authority whip they profess to love. They taunt evangelicals with formulaic questions like, "What's your authority for that interpretation? and "What's your authority for the canon?" (BTW, there's nothing wrong with asking how Protestants justify the canon or justify their theology, but casting the issue in terms of ecclesiastical authority begs the question.)

So long as ecclesiastical authority is on their side, they can never speak too highly of the pope's authority or "the Church's" authority. When, however, the ground shifts under their feet and they find themselves on the losing side of ecclesiastical authority, their love affair with papal authority or the Magisterium cools to temperatures approaching absolute zero. 

Watching RadTrads and avant-garde Catholics duke it out is kinda like watching the fight between fundamentalist Mormon polygamists and mainstream Mormons. Within the Mormon paradigm, both sides are right and both sides are wrong. Outside the Mormon paradigm, both sides are hopelessly wrong.

With pardonable hyperbole, we might say that for RadTrads, tradition ends with Pius X, but for avant-garde Catholics, tradition begins with Pius XII. RadTrads have the past while their adversaries have the future. But the team with a lock on the future is unbeatable. Living leaders have a decisive advantage over dead leaders. The living can overrule the dead while the dead are poorly positioned to overrule the living. 

It's especially ironic to see converts to Rome attempt to school cradle Catholics and even bishops, cardinals, and popes on true Catholicism. They're like slumlords who buy an apartment complex, then discover that they bought a dog. It's falling apart. The roof needs to be replaced. The plumbing needs to be replaced. The electrical wiring needs to be replaced. The complex is infested with rats and termites.

1960s Mississippi

Between roughly minutes 4-9, Baptist church historian Tom Nettles has a personal testimony about race relations in his youth:

https://founders.org/interviews/tstt-dr-tom-nettles-1960s-in-mississippi-resigning-over-inerrancy-baptist-life-history/

Ravi in the dock

Accusations swirl around Ravi. These are usually from critics with an ax to grind. Here's a list of allegations from a more reputable source:

https://virtueonline.org/duplicitous-world-christian-apologist-ravi-zacharias

That said, I don't know if Virtue has any independent knowledge, or if he relies on the sources he cites at the end of the article.

Flood traditions

1. One argument for the Noah's flood, in particular for the global scope of the flood, is appeal to flood traditions scattered worldwide. While that's a tantalizing line of evidence, what's been lacking in my experience is primary source documentation. I haven't seen young-earth creationists point reader to collections of flood traditions from around the world. Instead, there's just a vague reference to their existence. But that's a poor substitute for reading actual accounts.

I recently read Bernhard Lang “Non-Semitic Deluge Stories and the Book of Genesis a Bibliographical and Critical Survey.” Anthropos, vol. 80, no. 4/6, 1985, pp605–616.

Over the decades, anthropologists have collected flood traditions. Lang reviews a large number of collections. He himself regards Noah's flood as a myth, so his survey reflects that bias. It is, however, useful in sifting many collections, some in foreign languages.

2. There are multiple complications in attempting to correlate an extrabiblical flood tradition with Noah's flood. The best-known examples are Mesopotamian flood traditions. And these have some unmistakable parallels. If Noah's flood was a regional flood, centered in the Middle East, then it's not surprising that there are independent traditions of that catastrophe from the same area. And I do think those count as extrabiblical corroboration for Noah's flood.

3. What about other traditions? Lang mentions "some patristic references relating to Armenian flood stories." It would be interesting to read those.

4. In addition, he says that "when the New World was discovered, Christian missionaries and travelers reported that natives had their own stories of the flood." Again, it would be interesting to read the accounts of missionaries who first made contact with indigenous peoples and recorded their flood traditions.

5. One difficulty with correlating extrabiblical flood traditions with Noah's flood is that many examples come from oral cultures. That makes it hard to determine the antiquity of the flood traditions. In the case of the Mesopotamian traditions, we know that these were committed to writing thousands of years ago. But in the case of oral cultures, one issue is how long authentic flood traditions could be transmitted orally. Even on a young-earth creationist timeline, Noah's flood happened thousands of years ago.

6. Another issue is the interval between the time missionaries make contact and anthropologists collect flood traditions. There's the danger of cultural "contamination," where the flood tradition the anthropologist records from some indigenous people-group is not in fact an independent flood tradition, but something they absorbed from Christian missionaries long before the anthropologist arrived on the scene. Lang mentions:

A map of the world indicates where the author was able to locate elaborate flood stories, traces of them, and versions which refer to the rainbow. According to his map, flood traditions are most common in Asia and on the islands immediately south of Asia, and on the North American continent. Though found in Africa, they are not nearly as common as on other continents (cf. map 1).

One issue is whether those cultures were deeply impacted by Christian missionaries. If Christian contact was superficial or negligible, then I assume that indicates the independence of their flood traditions.

7. In addition to missionary diffusion, it's necessary to rule out other factors. One theory is that some flood traditions are etiologies to explain petrified seashells on mountaintops.

However, I have questions about that theory. Did observers have a penchant for inventing tales to provide a backstory for that phenomenon? And even if individual observers did that, would it catch on and become part of the canonical lore of that people-group?

8. Another consideration is whether the area from which the flood tradition is found is subject to disastrous coastal or fluvial flooding. If so, then while it may be an independent flood tradition, it probably memorializes an indigenous deluge.

9. Here's a further question: suppose some of Noah's descendants carry the flood tradition with them as they migrate to another part of the world. But in the absence of written records, and separated from the original landmarks (e.g. the landing zone for Noah's ark), would the original setting of the flood tradition begin to blend with the fauna, flora, landscape, and climate of the new environment? The description might reflect the local conditions of the new environment. At this distance in time, is it possible to untangle the two and recover the underlying original?

10. A final question is whether it's possible to distinguish a local flood tradition from a global flood tradition. Consider two scenarios:

i) The flood was universal. Descendants of Noah who migrated to far-flung corners of the world carried flood traditions with them.

ii) The flood was regional, centered in the Middle East. Descendants of Noah who migrated to far-flung corners of the world carried flood traditions with them.

Are these distinguishable? Can someone on the ground gauge the scale of the disaster? It's not like they have a bird's-eye view. They only take in as much as they can see, from their limited vantage-point.

Suppose you're living in a village. You know about the existence of other tribes or villages. But those are the only other humans you know about. You have no idea how many human beings there are in general. Suppose a flood devastates your homeland. For you, that's the known world. From an outsider perspective, it's a local flood, but from your perspective, it's worldwide.

When we see news reports of massive flooding, the natural disaster is put on a map. We have an aerial view. Satellite photography. And we place it in the context of world geography. But a ground-based observer lacks that larger frame of reference.

11. Even if the narrator was shown the deluge in a vision, would he be in a position to tell if it was regional or global in scope? What was his geographical frame of reference? Would he recognize the Rockies, Andes, or Hindu Kush if he saw them in a vision? Modern people are able recognize landmarks from parts of the world they never visited. But prescientific observers on the ground lack that context, and even direct revelation doesn't automatically provide it.

Red New Deal

Fixed that for you. pic.twitter.com/1D4g9XEMMC

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) August 30, 2019

1. Good to see the Democrats are going with full-blown socialism. That'll definitely go over well for them in the crucial Midwest swing states. /s

2. Democrats alleged Trump has been in cahoots with Russia. Of course that turned out to be false. However, I wouldn't be surprised if communist China is truly funding our social progressives via various middlemen and avenues difficult to trace back to the CCP. At least that seems far more realistic than Putin and Trump.

3. Victor Davis Hanson has a good article: "Why are so many young people calling themselves socialists?".

Wrestling with God

24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

27 The man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he answered.

28 Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

29 Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”

But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.

30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

(Gen 32:24-30). 

One of the striking features of this encounter is how the Angel of the Lord lets Jacob imagine that the patriarch has a winning chance. And even if he can't win, he can hold his own against the stranger. The Angel of the Lord strings Jacob along until daybreak, then defeats him with a sudden show of overwhelming force, thereby revealing that Jacob was no match for his enigmatic opponent. The opponent effortlessly subdues  him. It was never close. 

The ruse might shed some light on God's providence in our lives. Things are not always what they seem. Preliminary impressions may be misleading. There's a plot twist at the end

Freewill theism and evil

The problem of evil is often locked into two-sided debate between Calvinists and freewill theists. The freewill theists are confident that evil is a particular, indeed intractable problem for Calvinism–from which freewill theism is luckily exempt. There are, however, outside observers who think freewill theism operates within the same flawed framework:

One thing I noticed that many of the contributors had in common is a dissatisfaction with the very structure of typical defenses or theodicies, because (the thought goes) the very idea that God allows evil for the sake of some good (even one, as the skeptical theists might say, that we should not expect to be able to identify) would put God into an immoral relationship with those who suffer, because he'd be trading off their suffering for some other good, which would be an immoral way to treat someone. Those who endorsed some version of this line of thought reacted to it in a variety of ways: some wanted to rethink the personality of God in order to deny that he is part of our moral community, while others wanted to rethink the perfection of God so that we can think of him as an imperfect parent. I do think that this line of thought reflects a general turn in the literature on the problem of evil, from arguing about whether we can identify goods that outweigh and require evils, to discussing the ethical principles that would apply to God himself. I myself have most often encountered this turn in some critiques leveled by Abrahamic theists against other Abrahamic theists: the common argument against theological determinism, namely, that it entails that God bears some morally objectionable relation to evil and suffering, even if there is a great good that requires him to allow the evil.[3] The fact that so many in this volume see the problem as applying not just to theological determinists but to any standard theist is striking, and seems to me correct: everyone needs to address the question of God's own ethics. Unfortunately, none of the contribution addresses that question in any real depth, certainly not coming even close to the depth of Mark Murphy's God's Own Ethics.[4] So one useful lesson of this book is that we should try to explore the issue of what ethical principles should apply to God. However, we'll need to look elsewhere for a deep and thorough exploration of that subject.

https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/the-problem-of-evil-eight-views-in-dialogue/

Evil is a problem for atheism

The problem of evil is usually treated as a problem for Christianity. But is it actually a greater problem for atheism?

Nagasawa gives an argument from evil against atheism -- or, more precisely, against what he calls "existentially optimistic" atheism, the sort of atheism which regards the world as a place worth being happy and grateful to be alive in. He argues that the fact that the world's evil and suffering seems embedded in basic systems (like evolution) is a problem for these existentially optimistic atheists, and so in a sense the problem of evil applies just as much to (existentially optimistic) atheism as to theism. Theists actually have an advantage in replying to the problem of evil, because of their view that there is so much more to the world than material reality that might factor into the balance of evil and good in the world.  

https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/the-problem-of-evil-eight-views-in-dialogue/

Puppets and pink unicorns

Freewill theists who compare Calvinism to puppets and robots are the intellectual counterpart to village atheists who compare the Christian faith to sky fairies, invisible pink unicorns, bronze age goatherds, the flying spaghetti monster, cosmic zombie Jesus, &c. It isn't possible to have a rational conversation with either group. They're incapable of moving beyond childish, simpleminded metaphors and caricatures. They don't seek understanding. 

Ad uxorem

1. Psychologically speaking, it seems women tend to be more flexible in shaping themselves into what the men whom they love and respect in their lives want. In fact, women are often more than happy to please the men they love and respect.

As an aside, maybe this is part of what it means for the woman to have been a "helper" fit for Adam, to have been taken from his "rib", to have been his "bone" and his "flesh". It's as if wives naturally wish to mold themselves into their husbands' vision in life.

2. However, it wouldn't seem quite right if the husband shapes himself into what his wife wants. In fact, whenever that happens, it seems to me both husband and wife end up miserable.

Most girlfriends or wives don't respect a boyfriend or husband who does whatever she wants him to do, who looks to her for guidance, who looks to her to make the big decisions in life, who looks to her to lead the family.

They may say they do, but they don't. Their attitudes and behavior put the lie to that.

At best, a wife might enjoy wielding that kind of power over her husband, but she won't respect him. She may wear the pants in the family, but she'll begrudge it - and him.

3. Today many women seem inflexible. They don't wish to change or adapt to the men in their lives. They don't wish to follow any man. Rather they expect men to change to accommodate them. They expect men to heed them.

At the same time, these women don't typically respect men who follow their lead all the time. Not when it comes to the men in their own lives.

Of course, they're fine with getting men in general to support what they want. Such as hyperfeminism, the #MeToo movement, abortion. But I'm primarily referring to a wife and her husband.

In any case, these women are caught in a catch-22 of their own making. On the one hand, they refuse to follow their man, but expect him to follow her. On the other hand, they don't respect men who are wrapped around their finger. As such, these women make themselves miserable.

4. Sadly, there seem to be ever more women like this in our society and culture. I suppose that's largely owing to second and third wave feminism.

5. Of course, none of this is to deny men or husbands have problems. That's a separate topic.

At the same time, even this needs to be kept in context. For one thing, there's an ongoing war against men and masculinity in our culture.

6. By contrast, there's Christian marriage. For instance, perhaps we can draw some inspiration from Tertullian, even if it's too idealistic and idealized:

How shall we ever be able adequately to describe the happiness of that marriage which the church arranges, the sacrifice strengthens, upon which the blessing sets a seal, at which angels are present as witnesses, and to which the Father gives his consent? For not even on earth do children marry properly and legally without their fathers' permission.

How beautiful, then, the marriage of two Christians, two who are one in hope, one in desire, one in the way of life they follow, one in the religion they practice. They are as brother and sister, both servants of the same Master. Nothing divides them, either in flesh or in spirit. They are, in very truth, two in one flesh; and where there is but one flesh there is also but one spirit. They pray together, they worship together, they fast together; instructing one another, encouraging one another, strengthening one another. Side by side they visit God's church and partake of God's banquet; side by side they face difficulties and persecution, share their consolations. They have no secrets from one another; they never shun each other's company; they never bring sorrow to each other's hearts. Unembarrassed they visit the sick and assist the needy. They give alms without anxiety; they attend the sacrifice without difficulty; they perform their daily exercises of piety without hindrance. They need not be furtive about making the sign of the cross, nor timorous in greeting the brethren, nor silent in asking a blessing of God. Psalms and hymns they sing to one another, striving to see which one of them will chant more beautifully the praises of their Lord. Hearing and seeing this, Christ rejoices. To such as these he gives his peace. Where there are two together, there also he is present; and where he is, there evil is not.

These, then, are the thoughts which the apostle in that brief expression of his has left for our consideration. Recall them to your mind, if ever there should be need to do so. Use them to strengthen yourself against the bad example which certain women give you. In no other way than this are Christians permitted to marry - and, even if they were, it would not be the prudent thing to do.

The moods of faith

1. Sometimes the question is asked, How sure are you that Christianity is true? Are you 100% certain? 90%? Above 50%? Below 50%?

i) That's not altogether wrong. There are lifelong churchgoers, yet the message never takes.

Or consider the cliche question of the revivalist: "If you died tonight, are you absolutely sure that you'd go straight to heaven?"

Although that suffers from a mechanical view of conversion (the altar call), it poses the question: are you ready to die? And there's no more important question than that.

ii) There's also a sense in which there are degrees of certainty. We are more confident about some beliefs than others. I'm 100% certain that I exist. I suppose it's possible to doubt your own existence if you're mentally ill. But insanity is a poor yardstick.

For that matter, I'm 100% certain that my late grandmother existed. Yes, we can float thought-experiments about how that might be a simulated experience, but imaginary conjectures like that don't lower my confidence in the slightest.

2. Having said all that, we might question whether assigning percentiles is the best framework to understand faith. Is a quantitative model the best model?

Isn't it artificial to assign numbers to faith? Why suppose a mathematical model is the right way to model faith? Where does that even come from?

I wonder if it doesn't go back to gambling. What are the odds that the next card dealt will give the player a full-house? And laying odds in gambling is then extended to other things. What are the odds that a particular candidate will win? And by how many percentage points? What are the odds that it will rain tomorrow? What are the odds that a hurricane will make landfall at a particular location? What are the odds that it will be a category 4 (or whatever)? What are the odds that if you undergo cancer treatment, you will be cured? What are the odds that if you undergo cancer treatment, you will live another 5 years?

What these examples share in common is the attempt to quantify future outcomes. But is that the right way to model faith?

3. The basic challenge to Christian faith is twofold:

i) As a rule, God is distant. Normally, we don't experience God directly in our lives. We don't normally have two-way conversations with God. Jesus doesn't appear to us once a week. Faith is about not seeing.

ii) Combine that with the aggravations of life. The frustrations, disappointments, setbacks, betrayals, and failures. The daily grind. Dashed hopes. Tedium.

4. A danger of the mathematical model is how the model in itself can be a source of doubt. If you use the wrong model, if you think faith should be quantified, then that may lead to uncertainty or doubt if faith can't hit 100%. But is that due to inadequate faith, or to filtering faith through the wrong kind of grid?

5. Instead of viewing faith in mathematical terms, suppose we view it in qualitative terms. But what does that mean?

i) Take the metaphor of seasons, and apply it to friendship. There's springtime friendship and summertime friendship.

But sometimes friends, even best friends, having a falling out. That's the wintertide of friendship. It seems to be dead. Like denuded trees. The warmth is gone. The color is gone.

Yet they may renew the friendship later on. But at that stage of life it's too late to revert to the springtime or summertime friendship. Instead, it's autumnal friendship. Maturer. More self-conscious. An undertone of sadness-along with gratitude for small blessings.

Sometimes, at the end of summer, you can go outside and just feel the season turning. There's something in the air. A certain kind of breeze. A hint of rain. Different from a summer breeze or summer rain. You can physically sense that summer is behind you. That won't come around again until the next cycle. Not until next year.

Or take the related metaphor of a dry season. Friendships may pass through dry seasons. So faith is akin to the seasons of friendship.

ii) Consider a different metaphor: faith is like music. Faith in a major key. Faith in a minor key. Fast music and slow music. Dance music or a dirge.

We generally like fast music, but sometimes we're just not in the mood for fast music. Sometimes we want to hear music that changes our mood, and sometimes we want to hear music that matches our mood. Sometimes faith is like hearing the patter of light raindrops on a window. Or trees twisting in the wind. Faith has musical variations.

iii) Or we might compare faith to light and color. Sometimes faith is bright, like golden sunshine. Sometimes faith is like a gray day. Sometimes faith is like sunrise. Sometimes faith is like sunset or dusk. Sometimes faith is like nightfall. Pitch black. Clouds curtain the stars. The moon lies hidden below the horizon.

Sometimes fine weather mocks our mood. There's a mismatch between how we feel in the inside and what we see on the outside.

6. We can foster artificial doubt by simplistic, abstract models of faith. Reducing it to percentiles, as if faith ranges along a mathematical continuum. But faith is a living thing that expands and contacts. We should enrich and replenish our concept of faith with suitable analogies.

7. Finally, it's quite possible to exaggerate the importance of certainty or certitude. Take a grown child who's the caregiver for an elderly parent. The parent is becoming feebleminded. Suppose paranoia is a symptom of the parent's dementia. The parent is suspicious of the caregiver's benevolence.

But while that may make it harder to care for the parent, because the parent is uncooperative, what's ultimately important is not whether the parent trusts the caregiver, but whether the caregiver is trustworthy, regardless of the parent's misgivings. The child continues to care for the parent, acting in their best interests, despite the parent's paranoia. It's because the parent is growing senile that he (or she) requires the caregiver to protect and look out for an increasingly helpless father or mother. By the same token, what ultimately matters is not how much we trust God, but whether God is trustworthy.

Free Will and Sovereignty: Responding to a Facebook Analogy

A friend of mine on Facebook posted a conundrum that had been shared with him (note: he disagreed with what the original poster was trying to imply, but was interested in my opinion too).  The post was simple: 

There are no tracks. There are no people. There is no trolley.

The Conductor lays the tracks, builds the trolley, and creates six androids.

He ties five of the androids to one track and one to other.

He drives the trolley and runs over the five.

He unties to sixth and says "I saved you from being run over!"

The sixth one is grateful, as he was programmed to be.

(Calvinist trolley problem)

Of course, my first reaction to this was “Great, another tired puppet metaphor dragged out by those who don’t understand anything about Calvinism.”  And it’s true.  Calvinists have been hearing variations of this for centuries.  It’s nothing but an analogy absent an argument, all intended to make you ignore what the Bible has actually said.

Furthermore, the above analogy does not represent Calvinist beliefs at all.  Calvinism does not argue that men are puppets, robots, androids, or marionettes, because the Bible does not say that.  Calvinists do say that God is sovereign over all things, because the Bible does say that.  Calvinists also typically are compatibilists (I know I am, as are most Calvinists I dialogue with), which means that we stipulate that there is compatibility between sovereignty and free will—again, because that’s what the Bible says.

Now it would be trivially easy to respond to the Arminian with another analogy.  Just take the fact that Colossians 1:16 - 17 tells us that “all things were created through” Christ, and furthermore that in Him “all things hold together.”  With that in mind: 

There are no tracks.  There are no people.  There is no trolley.

The Conductor lays the tracks, builds the trolley, and creates the people, giving them Libertarian Free Will.

One person the Conductor is holding together gets onto the trolley that the Conductor is holding together and runs it over the rails that the Conductor is holding together and runs over the other five that the Conductor is...um...no longer holding together.

The sixth one is happy that his will was not challenged.

(Arminian trolley problem)

So much for the persuasive power of analogies.  But again, that would just be an analogy minus an argument and I would never leave it at that.

The fact of the matter is that if we can show just one occurrence of God overriding the freedom of an individual without there being any moral qualms, then Libertarian Free Will has no leg to stand on.  So let me show two just from the book of Genesis. 

Look at Genesis 20, specifically verses 3-6, when Abraham lied about Sarah saying she wasn’t his wife but his sister so Abimelech took her to be his wife: 

But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, “Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man's wife.” Now Abimelech had not approached her. So he said, “Lord, will you kill an innocent people? Did he not himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this.” Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her.”

Notice that Abimelech’s actions are described as being from “the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands.”  And furthermore, God concurred by saying “Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart.”  This is Abimelech’s genuine mental disposition, his genuine decision—this is what he chose to do.  And yet: “It was I who kept you from sinning against me” says the LORD.  “Therefore I did not let you touch her.”

God did not let Abimelech touch Sarah.  Yet Abimelech also says he did not touch her from his own integrity, and God agreed with that assessment.  Libertarian Free Will can make no sense of this statement without concluding God is simply lying.

And what of the second illustration? Later on we read Joseph’s own declaration that he was sold into slavery because of the evil of his brothers, and yet also because God intended it.  “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:20).

Even as clear as that statement is, there is a lot packed into it that may be unobserved.  Consider what “it” was in the statement “God meant it for good.”  This is Joseph’s being sold into slavery.  Why did the brothers hate Joseph enough to sell him into slavery?  Genesis 37 tells us that too.  Joseph had a dream that his father and brothers would bow down to him, and Genesis 37:19 tells us what they had in mind: “Here comes this dreamer.”

And we know the rest of the story: The brothers sold him into slavery, and he was brought to Egypt.  Joseph worked for Potipher.  His wife then claimed Joseph had attacked her, and Joseph was thrown into jail.  And then, Joseph interpreted the dreams for two criminals, one who was killed and the other who was restored.  Then Pharaoh had dreams and the cup-bearer who was restored told him about Joseph.  And Joseph interpreted those dreams, such that when the famine came they had plenty of food, so that Joseph’s father and brothers were forced to visit Egypt and, seeing Joseph but not recognizing him, they bowed down to him exactly as Joseph’s original dream had foretold.

But wait, there’s even more.  Why was the famine coming?  When Pharaoh had his dream, he had two dreams.  Joseph interprets it by saying: “God has revealed to Pharaoh what he is about to do. … God has shown to Pharaoh what he is about to do. …And the doubling of Pharaoh’s dream means that the thing is fixed by God, and God will shortly bring it about” (Genesis 41:25, 28, 32).

The famine itself is something that God did.  It is not a random famine that came out of nowhere.  It was God’s intention to bring about a famine.

One could obviously ask the question, then: if God sent it, then He was in control the whole time. He could decide who it would affect, when, and why. So, why did God go through the rather convoluted process of giving Joseph dreams that would cause his brothers to hate him so much that they would sell him into slavery where he would then be falsely accused of attempted rape and thrown in jail, so that he would be in the place where two officials of Egypt would be sent in order for Joseph to interpret their dreams, so that years later when Pharaoh had a dream Joseph would be brought out of prison, become the second in command of Egypt, save countless people, and finally to have his brothers and father bow down to him just as his dream had predicted at the very beginning?  I mean, have you thought about this yet?  If any single one of those items doesn't go exactly as it did, the whole thing collapses.

Yet even given all that, Joseph concludes that while his brothers meant it for evil, God meant it for good.  His brothers still intended evil—they chose to do evil.  And they knew it.  For instance, before this we read:

Then they said to one another, “In truth we are guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he begged us and we did not listen. That is why this distress has come upon us.” And Reuben answered them, “Did I not tell you not to sin against the boy? But you did not listen. So now there comes a reckoning for his blood.” They did not know that Joseph understood them, for there was an interpreter between them (Genesis 42:21-23).

They admit they are guilty of what they did, and Reuben goes so far as to acknowledge what they did was a sin.  They knew they were responsible for all they had done and yet Joseph would still say: 

And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt (Genesis 45:5-8).

What they did in sending Joseph to Egypt was evil; yet God sent him to Egypt.  “It was not you who sent me here, but God.”  How is this possible if Libertarian Free Will is correct?  But it makes perfect sense if one is a compatibilist and recognizes that men are morally responsible for their choices even when God is sovereign over them.

The passages could be increased exponentially throughout the rest of the Bible too, from the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart to God’s actions during the trials of Job, to the statements of Paul outright saying in Romans 9:16 “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy” illustrating that with the previously mentioned example of Pharaoh too.  The Bible is consistent and clear throughout that God is sovereign and does as He pleases even in circumstances where those who God uses for His own good purposes face moral judgment for the evil they have committed.

You might not like that that’s what the Bible says, but you’re not going to overturn those clear passages with a simplistic, inaccurate analogy.

Ecclesiastical coverup

The task [Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster] Heenan gave me, however, was an embarrassing one. He had heard that the Nazis in Germany had ransacked the archives of dioceses to find papers that could be published to discredit the Church. He was anxious to prevent anything of the kind happening in England, so he asked me to go through the records and get rid of any stories of clerical misdeed that were capable of being used for propaganda purposes. I could not refuse point blank an order from my archbishop, but it seemed to me wrong for an archivist to destroy, on such a partisan basis, material of historical interest. I compromised by separating embarrassing material into a special section which could, in the unlikely event of a hostile raid on the archives by some anti-clerical group, easily be destroyed.

The Second Vatican Council was a turning point in Heenan's life. Forever loyal to successive popes, he found uncongenial the direction in which many of the Council fathers wished to take the Church. His distaste for academic theology found expression in speeches attacking the experts, or periti, who came from monasteries, seminaries or universities: he saw them as ignorant of "the real world". For him, theology consisted in an unquestioning acceptance of Vatican dictates, even if that meant–as in the case of the morality of contraception–a reversal of his own considered opinion on the topic. And for him, the worst sin was "giving scandal"–that meant doing anything that showed the Church in a bad light, even if it was a true light. A. Kenny, Brief Encounters (SPCI 2018), 30, 32.