One of the primary sources of infidelity is ignorance. And what’s the source of this ignorance?
Well, one major source of liberal ignorance is the fact that books are expensive. Unless you live within easy commuting distance of a major Evangelical research facility, you have to buy your own books.
Now, why would an unbeliever sink thousands of dollars into commentaries, introductions, reference works, journals, lexicons, and so on and so forth, if he already thinks that the Bible is bunk and Christianity is myth?
Short answer: he doesn’t.
In addition, most scholarly works are not what you’d call page-turners. You have to have a sense of duty to plow through this material.
An unbeliever has no such incentive.
And to the extent that he does do any investing, he’s only buys liberal literature. He’ll only read one side of the argument—the side he already agrees with.
The rule of thumb is that even though conservatives read liberals, liberals don’t read conservatives.
There are exceptions, but that’s the norm.
So we end up with a self-fulfilling form of scepticism. He’s a sceptic because he doesn’t know, and he doesn’t know because he’s a sceptic.
We run across this all the time at Triablogue. Apostates and other unbelievers who raise old objections as though they were new objections. Raising them as if these had never been answered before.
They are only new to them because they don’t know any better, and they don’t know any better because they have no motive to buy Evangelical commentaries, reference works, and so on in order to acquaint themselves with the answers.
So it’s a vicious cycle of unbelief. Unbelief feeds prejudice while prejudice feeds unbelief—like using one credit card to pay off another.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
The firmament
John W. Loftus said:
“ Did you guys even bother to read the links I offered here? You couldn't possibly have read them. Keep spouting off if you want to, but go to those links and read. “
Okay, if we go to the links, what do we find?
i) Regarding Babinski, we do, indeed, discovery something quite revealing.
In his original post, Loftus said the following:
“For an Evangelical scholar who agrees that what the ancients believed about the days of creation and the shape of the cosmos was indeed based on pre-scientific modes of thought, see Genesis by Dr. John H. Walton (NIV Application Commentary, 2002). [See also the Anchor Bible Dictionary entry “Cosmogony, Cosmology”].
Do you notice anything missing from these citations? That’s right—pagination.
If Loftus had actually read Walton’s commentary, and if he was referring the reader to Walton’s commentary, wouldn’t it make sense to give the reader the page number so he will know where to look?
Now, in going to Babinski’s article, lo and behold what we find:
“Seely's research and conclusions were also cited favorably in the The NIV Application Commentary on Genesis (2002) by John Walton, a professor at Wheaton University (Billy Graham's alma mater).”
Hmm. Could it be that Loftus lifted this reference straight from Babinski?
Apparently, Loftus never read Walton’s commentary. Thus, by his own criterion, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
John, when you issue a challenge, be very careful what you ask for since somebody may actually call your bluff.
BTW, notice the absence of pagination in his reference to the ABD article.
ii) For his own part, Seely’s a well-known quantity. For an online critique, cf.
http://www.reformed-theology.org/ice/newslet/bc/bc.98.04.htm
Then there’s the article by Hyers. It’s just a rehash of the usual chestnuts: the Documentary Hypothesis, parallelomania (e.g. the Enuma Elish), the alleged discrepancy between Gen 1 and Gen 2, the Sabbatarian background of Gen 1, as well as an attack on Henry Morris.
This is only convincing if you subscribe to his examples and authorities (e.g. Freud, Gunkel).
I don’t believe in the Documentary Hypothesis. I regard the putative parallels between Gen 1 and the Enuma Elish as labored and specious.
As to the alleged discrepancies between Gen 1 and Gen 2, it’s the difference between a global creation account (Gen 1) and a local creation account with respect to the Garden of Eden. No real conflict.
Everyone knows about the Sabbatarian allusions in Gen 1-2. That doesn’t prove the account was modeled on the Sabbath. Rather, the Sabbath was modeled on the creation account.
All these links also concentrate a fair amount of their fire on Henry Morris. How is that relevant to my position—or Jason’s?
I don’t go to Morris for my exegesis. Jason doesn’t either.
Jason is noncommittal on the YEC/OEC debate, while I’m a scientific antirealist.
I’d add that Morris represents an older generation of YEC. If you want to target YEC, you need to go after the next generation, represented by the likes of Kurt Wise, viz. Faith, Form, & Time; Something from Nothing: Understanding What You Believe About Creation and Why; Understanding the Pattern of Life: Origins and Organization of the Species.
BTW, I’ve already read the anticreationist literature referenced in the article, viz. Eldredge, Futuyma, Godfrey, Kitcher, Ruse, D. Young.
Greenspahn is just more of the same.
As to the “firmament,” there’s more than one school of thought:
i) There are commentators like Waltke (62) and Sailhammer (28-29) who regard the usage in Gen 1:6 as synonymous with the atmosphere.
ii) Hamilton (1:22) takes the meaning of the noun from the verb, which, for him, simply means to spread out or stretch out.
iii) Ross (109) draws attention to a variety of celestial images: “a tent curtain” (Ps 104:2), “a veil” (Isa 40:22), “clear pavement like sapphire (Exod 24:10), and “molten glass” (Job 37:18).
iv) Even if you think that a solid dome is depicted, that doesn’t settle the issue, for the question remains whether the metallic imagery is literal or figurative.
Currid (1:65) opts for figurative metallic imagery, while Wenham (1:19-20) leaves that exegetical option open as well.
v) We also have to ask about the source of the imagery. Is it based on generic ANE cosmology?
a) Was there a generic ANE cosmology? Isn’t the liberal creating a synthetic cosmology by merging Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and other ANE sources to “create” a cosmology that never existed in any particular time and place?
b) What about the role of dead metaphors? The mere presence of mythopoetic imagery would not, of itself, implicate a mythological worldview.
vi) Or is the source of the imagery more specific to the religious life of Israel?
As I already explained, it has its actual background in the cultic symbolism of the temple, the tabernacle, and the garden as a prototypal temple, which is, in turn, an ectype of heaven as the archetypal temple.
This is worked out in great detail by Meredith Kline. It’s also explored by a number of other scholars, viz. Beale, Currid, Levenson, and Poythress.
In fact, one of its advocates just so happens to be—guess who?— John Walton, in the aforesaid commentary, p148!
BTW, Walton’s commentary was published in 2001, not 2002—something that Loftus would know if he hadn’t cribbed the erroneous reference from Babinski.
Moving along:
“Also, the best single book that shows what I'm talking about is by Howard J. Van Till, The Fourth Day (Eerdmans, 1986). This is not an atheist publication, but a Christian one, so surely an informed Christian should not be afraid of buying it or in reading it. Do so, then let me know. Otherwise, you do not know what you're talking about.”
i) I read this when it came out 20 years ago.
ii) Even if I hadn’t ever read it, Van Till is a professor of physics, not OT or ANE literature. So how would he be an authority on Hebrew cosmology?
iii) Van Till is one of the men responsible for liberalizing Calvin College and the CRC. He’s a functional Deist.
iv) Van Till has not gone unchallenged. See:
http://www.asa3.org/asa/dialogues/Faith-reason/CRS9-91Plantinga1.html
http://www.asa3.org/asa/dialogues/Faith-reason/CRS9-91Plantinga2.html
As well as:
Three Views On Creation and Evolution, J. Moreland & J. Reynolds, eds. (Zondervan 1999), 219-39.
All that Loftus has accomplished is to draw attention to his dated and slipshod scholarship.
Moving along:
“Let's see then, Joshua never asked God to ‘stop’ the sun in it's path in the sky, and the ‘floodgates’ of heaven didn't open up for the rain to flood the earth. Sheeesh.”
Triablogue already did Joshua’s Long Day. Remember?
Keep up the good work, John. With foes like you, who needs friends?
“ Did you guys even bother to read the links I offered here? You couldn't possibly have read them. Keep spouting off if you want to, but go to those links and read. “
Okay, if we go to the links, what do we find?
i) Regarding Babinski, we do, indeed, discovery something quite revealing.
In his original post, Loftus said the following:
“For an Evangelical scholar who agrees that what the ancients believed about the days of creation and the shape of the cosmos was indeed based on pre-scientific modes of thought, see Genesis by Dr. John H. Walton (NIV Application Commentary, 2002). [See also the Anchor Bible Dictionary entry “Cosmogony, Cosmology”].
Do you notice anything missing from these citations? That’s right—pagination.
If Loftus had actually read Walton’s commentary, and if he was referring the reader to Walton’s commentary, wouldn’t it make sense to give the reader the page number so he will know where to look?
Now, in going to Babinski’s article, lo and behold what we find:
“Seely's research and conclusions were also cited favorably in the The NIV Application Commentary on Genesis (2002) by John Walton, a professor at Wheaton University (Billy Graham's alma mater).”
Hmm. Could it be that Loftus lifted this reference straight from Babinski?
Apparently, Loftus never read Walton’s commentary. Thus, by his own criterion, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
John, when you issue a challenge, be very careful what you ask for since somebody may actually call your bluff.
BTW, notice the absence of pagination in his reference to the ABD article.
ii) For his own part, Seely’s a well-known quantity. For an online critique, cf.
http://www.reformed-theology.org/ice/newslet/bc/bc.98.04.htm
Then there’s the article by Hyers. It’s just a rehash of the usual chestnuts: the Documentary Hypothesis, parallelomania (e.g. the Enuma Elish), the alleged discrepancy between Gen 1 and Gen 2, the Sabbatarian background of Gen 1, as well as an attack on Henry Morris.
This is only convincing if you subscribe to his examples and authorities (e.g. Freud, Gunkel).
I don’t believe in the Documentary Hypothesis. I regard the putative parallels between Gen 1 and the Enuma Elish as labored and specious.
As to the alleged discrepancies between Gen 1 and Gen 2, it’s the difference between a global creation account (Gen 1) and a local creation account with respect to the Garden of Eden. No real conflict.
Everyone knows about the Sabbatarian allusions in Gen 1-2. That doesn’t prove the account was modeled on the Sabbath. Rather, the Sabbath was modeled on the creation account.
All these links also concentrate a fair amount of their fire on Henry Morris. How is that relevant to my position—or Jason’s?
I don’t go to Morris for my exegesis. Jason doesn’t either.
Jason is noncommittal on the YEC/OEC debate, while I’m a scientific antirealist.
I’d add that Morris represents an older generation of YEC. If you want to target YEC, you need to go after the next generation, represented by the likes of Kurt Wise, viz. Faith, Form, & Time; Something from Nothing: Understanding What You Believe About Creation and Why; Understanding the Pattern of Life: Origins and Organization of the Species.
BTW, I’ve already read the anticreationist literature referenced in the article, viz. Eldredge, Futuyma, Godfrey, Kitcher, Ruse, D. Young.
Greenspahn is just more of the same.
As to the “firmament,” there’s more than one school of thought:
i) There are commentators like Waltke (62) and Sailhammer (28-29) who regard the usage in Gen 1:6 as synonymous with the atmosphere.
ii) Hamilton (1:22) takes the meaning of the noun from the verb, which, for him, simply means to spread out or stretch out.
iii) Ross (109) draws attention to a variety of celestial images: “a tent curtain” (Ps 104:2), “a veil” (Isa 40:22), “clear pavement like sapphire (Exod 24:10), and “molten glass” (Job 37:18).
iv) Even if you think that a solid dome is depicted, that doesn’t settle the issue, for the question remains whether the metallic imagery is literal or figurative.
Currid (1:65) opts for figurative metallic imagery, while Wenham (1:19-20) leaves that exegetical option open as well.
v) We also have to ask about the source of the imagery. Is it based on generic ANE cosmology?
a) Was there a generic ANE cosmology? Isn’t the liberal creating a synthetic cosmology by merging Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and other ANE sources to “create” a cosmology that never existed in any particular time and place?
b) What about the role of dead metaphors? The mere presence of mythopoetic imagery would not, of itself, implicate a mythological worldview.
vi) Or is the source of the imagery more specific to the religious life of Israel?
As I already explained, it has its actual background in the cultic symbolism of the temple, the tabernacle, and the garden as a prototypal temple, which is, in turn, an ectype of heaven as the archetypal temple.
This is worked out in great detail by Meredith Kline. It’s also explored by a number of other scholars, viz. Beale, Currid, Levenson, and Poythress.
In fact, one of its advocates just so happens to be—guess who?— John Walton, in the aforesaid commentary, p148!
BTW, Walton’s commentary was published in 2001, not 2002—something that Loftus would know if he hadn’t cribbed the erroneous reference from Babinski.
Moving along:
“Also, the best single book that shows what I'm talking about is by Howard J. Van Till, The Fourth Day (Eerdmans, 1986). This is not an atheist publication, but a Christian one, so surely an informed Christian should not be afraid of buying it or in reading it. Do so, then let me know. Otherwise, you do not know what you're talking about.”
i) I read this when it came out 20 years ago.
ii) Even if I hadn’t ever read it, Van Till is a professor of physics, not OT or ANE literature. So how would he be an authority on Hebrew cosmology?
iii) Van Till is one of the men responsible for liberalizing Calvin College and the CRC. He’s a functional Deist.
iv) Van Till has not gone unchallenged. See:
http://www.asa3.org/asa/dialogues/Faith-reason/CRS9-91Plantinga1.html
http://www.asa3.org/asa/dialogues/Faith-reason/CRS9-91Plantinga2.html
As well as:
Three Views On Creation and Evolution, J. Moreland & J. Reynolds, eds. (Zondervan 1999), 219-39.
All that Loftus has accomplished is to draw attention to his dated and slipshod scholarship.
Moving along:
“Let's see then, Joshua never asked God to ‘stop’ the sun in it's path in the sky, and the ‘floodgates’ of heaven didn't open up for the rain to flood the earth. Sheeesh.”
Triablogue already did Joshua’s Long Day. Remember?
Keep up the good work, John. With foes like you, who needs friends?
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Hallquist easily refuted
***QUOTE***
Triablogue easily refuted
Triablogue has responded to my previous critique of them. (I won't link, because it seems that linking to opponents is contrary to Triablogue policy.) I'm replying immediately, becuase it's so easy to refute. They are admirably clear on micro/macro-evolution:
“After Darwin, the first phenomenon (changes within an existing species or gene pool) was named "microevolution." There is abundant evidence that changes can occur within existing species, both domestic and wild, so microevolution is uncontroversial.
The second phenomenon (large-scale changes over geological time) was named "macroevolution," and Darwin's theory that the processes of the former can account for the latter was controversial right from the start. Many biologists during and after Darwin's lifetime have questioned whether the natural counterpart of domestic breeding could do what domestic breeding has never done—namely, produce new species, organs, and body plans.”
As noted in my original post, new species can be produced. Ergo, macroevolution happens.
Then they complain I act as if the universe has been designed for man. Nope. I just think that if, as far as we can tell, a scientific procedure works, then we should use it. That's the only way to deal with the empirical world.
http://uncrediblehallq.blogspot.com/
***END-QUOTE***
This “refutation” falls flat in several respects:
i) Hallquist acts as if speciation were an indisputable phenomenon. Linking to a popularizer hardly cinches the argument.
ii) Even if it were an established fact, there is more at issue than speciation. There is also the question of evidence, or lack thereof, for the macroevolutionary development of new organs and body plans. Hallquist is glossing over major transitions.
iii) Again, even if we were to observe speciation in nature, that is not a defeater for Gen 1 given the semantic range of a natural “kind” in Pentateuchal usage.
iv) Likewise, the question at issue is not whether the scientific method works, but its scope. Many things work. That doesn’t make them relevant to the question at hand.
v) Hallquist seems to be assuming that the empirical world is all there is. If so, he will need to account for consciousness and abstract objects consistent with his materialism.
Triablogue easily refuted
Triablogue has responded to my previous critique of them. (I won't link, because it seems that linking to opponents is contrary to Triablogue policy.) I'm replying immediately, becuase it's so easy to refute. They are admirably clear on micro/macro-evolution:
“After Darwin, the first phenomenon (changes within an existing species or gene pool) was named "microevolution." There is abundant evidence that changes can occur within existing species, both domestic and wild, so microevolution is uncontroversial.
The second phenomenon (large-scale changes over geological time) was named "macroevolution," and Darwin's theory that the processes of the former can account for the latter was controversial right from the start. Many biologists during and after Darwin's lifetime have questioned whether the natural counterpart of domestic breeding could do what domestic breeding has never done—namely, produce new species, organs, and body plans.”
As noted in my original post, new species can be produced. Ergo, macroevolution happens.
Then they complain I act as if the universe has been designed for man. Nope. I just think that if, as far as we can tell, a scientific procedure works, then we should use it. That's the only way to deal with the empirical world.
http://uncrediblehallq.blogspot.com/
***END-QUOTE***
This “refutation” falls flat in several respects:
i) Hallquist acts as if speciation were an indisputable phenomenon. Linking to a popularizer hardly cinches the argument.
ii) Even if it were an established fact, there is more at issue than speciation. There is also the question of evidence, or lack thereof, for the macroevolutionary development of new organs and body plans. Hallquist is glossing over major transitions.
iii) Again, even if we were to observe speciation in nature, that is not a defeater for Gen 1 given the semantic range of a natural “kind” in Pentateuchal usage.
iv) Likewise, the question at issue is not whether the scientific method works, but its scope. Many things work. That doesn’t make them relevant to the question at hand.
v) Hallquist seems to be assuming that the empirical world is all there is. If so, he will need to account for consciousness and abstract objects consistent with his materialism.
Cultic imagery
As is his wont in rummaging through the trash can for crumpled criticisms the Christian faith, Loftus has posted a diagram of the three-decker universe.
There are a couple of elementary problems with his analysis:
1.The picture of the three-decker universe is cobbled together by gleaning isolated verses all over the OT without respect to genre, and then fusing them as if they were ever meant to be Gerry rigged in such a wooden and arbitrary fashion.
2. It disregards the use of cultic symbolism, wherein the world is figuratively depicted as a cosmic temple or tabernacle.
As James Jordan points out:
***QUOTE***
We have to realize that the Bible pictures the earth as a house, as in Job 38:4-6. Moreover, the Bible pictures the earth as an altar, with four corners, in Revelation 7:1; 9:13-21. All of this goes back to the Garden of Eden, which had four rivers flowing out of it to water the whole earth, headed for the "four corners." The word for ‘corner’ in Hebrew is kanaf, which literally means ‘wings.’ The cherubim have four wings (Ezekiel 1). The garment worn by each Hebrew male was to have four wings or corners, so that his garment was analogous to a house or tent that he carried with him at all times (Numbers 15:38; Deuteronomy 22:12; Haggai 2:12).
What this gives us is a series of analogous models: The Garden of Eden is like a house, and they are like an altar, and they are analogous to the human person (who is the temple of the Spirit), etc. For an extended treatment of this subject, see the discussions in my book Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World.
So, when the Bible uses language that indicates that the earth is flat, that it has ends, and that it has corners, we are to understand such language in its Biblical context. And that Biblical context is the house-model of the world, seen in the glory cloud, the Garden of Eden, the Tabernacle, the Temple, the holy land, the entire earth, the human body, the clothing of the human body, the cherubim, etc. We are not to try to stretch this language to answer cosmological questions that it was not intended to address.
http://www.biblicalhorizons.com/ob/ob046.htm
***END-QUOTE***
This is also explored in some detail by Meredith Kline in his Kingdom Prologue. Free copies are available online. Cf.
http://www.twoagepress.org/books.htm
There are a couple of elementary problems with his analysis:
1.The picture of the three-decker universe is cobbled together by gleaning isolated verses all over the OT without respect to genre, and then fusing them as if they were ever meant to be Gerry rigged in such a wooden and arbitrary fashion.
2. It disregards the use of cultic symbolism, wherein the world is figuratively depicted as a cosmic temple or tabernacle.
As James Jordan points out:
***QUOTE***
We have to realize that the Bible pictures the earth as a house, as in Job 38:4-6. Moreover, the Bible pictures the earth as an altar, with four corners, in Revelation 7:1; 9:13-21. All of this goes back to the Garden of Eden, which had four rivers flowing out of it to water the whole earth, headed for the "four corners." The word for ‘corner’ in Hebrew is kanaf, which literally means ‘wings.’ The cherubim have four wings (Ezekiel 1). The garment worn by each Hebrew male was to have four wings or corners, so that his garment was analogous to a house or tent that he carried with him at all times (Numbers 15:38; Deuteronomy 22:12; Haggai 2:12).
What this gives us is a series of analogous models: The Garden of Eden is like a house, and they are like an altar, and they are analogous to the human person (who is the temple of the Spirit), etc. For an extended treatment of this subject, see the discussions in my book Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World.
So, when the Bible uses language that indicates that the earth is flat, that it has ends, and that it has corners, we are to understand such language in its Biblical context. And that Biblical context is the house-model of the world, seen in the glory cloud, the Garden of Eden, the Tabernacle, the Temple, the holy land, the entire earth, the human body, the clothing of the human body, the cherubim, etc. We are not to try to stretch this language to answer cosmological questions that it was not intended to address.
http://www.biblicalhorizons.com/ob/ob046.htm
***END-QUOTE***
This is also explored in some detail by Meredith Kline in his Kingdom Prologue. Free copies are available online. Cf.
http://www.twoagepress.org/books.htm
Dawson's broken record
Dawson Bethrick continues his valiant efforts to resuscitate his cartoon analogy (“See, I told you so!”). Unfortunately for him, a crash cart has little effect on a cadaver.
There’s nothing new in his latest post. Bethrick likes to repeat himself. I do not.
All he’s done this time around, which is all he ever does, is—on the one hand—to hustle his trademark equivocations while—on the other hand—ignoring my nuanced position.
So it’s another strawman argument. He reiterates the same equivocations regarding his own position while disregarding the qualifications I’ve built into my own.
Dawson is a man with a bad idea. But because it’s the only idea he has, he’s very proud of his bad idea. It may be a bad idea, but it’s his bad idea, and that makes all the difference.
There’s nothing new in his latest post. Bethrick likes to repeat himself. I do not.
All he’s done this time around, which is all he ever does, is—on the one hand—to hustle his trademark equivocations while—on the other hand—ignoring my nuanced position.
So it’s another strawman argument. He reiterates the same equivocations regarding his own position while disregarding the qualifications I’ve built into my own.
Dawson is a man with a bad idea. But because it’s the only idea he has, he’s very proud of his bad idea. It may be a bad idea, but it’s his bad idea, and that makes all the difference.
Legitimating papal elections
Fred Neissen has written a perceptive post on the insurmountable obstacles in the way of legitimating papal elections:
http://geocities.com/frneissen/blog.html
http://geocities.com/frneissen/blog.html
Did The Resurrection Accounts Develop Over Time?
In the comment section of a thread started by Matthew Green at Debunking Christianity, Ed Babinski writes:
The sort of approach Ed is taking has recently been refuted at length by David Wood. I recommend reading Wood's article. And I'll add the following.
The material Paul cites when discussing the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 predates the gospels. That material, part of which comes from an early, pre-Pauline creed, has more resurrection appearances than any of the gospels (six). It also has Jesus appearing to more people than He appears to in any of the gospels (more than 500 people in 1 Corinthians 15:6). Does 1 Corinthians 15 have less than the gospels in some contexts? Yes. Ed Babinski cites the example of how many words the resurrected Christ spoke. Since 1 Corinthians 15 is part of a letter discussing a creed, it isn't going to have the sort of dialogue we would find in a Greco-Roman biography. But why only consider how many words the resurrected Jesus speaks? If you take other factors into account, such as the number of resurrection appearances and the number of people involved, 1 Corinthians 15 has more than the gospels in some contexts.
Mark's gospel ends with the empty tomb and a reference to upcoming resurrection appearances. We don't know how many words the resurrected Jesus would have spoken if Mark had decided to include resurrection appearances. How can Ed claim to know that a gradual development occurred? And how does Ed know that Matthew was written before Luke? What if Matthew's resurrection material is so brief because he was coming to the end of his scroll, as some scholars believe? Is the difference in word count between Luke and John significant? If so, then if John's gospel is written by an eyewitness, wouldn't we expect its author to have more knowledge of what Jesus spoke than Luke would have had? There are explanations of the data other than Ed's proposed explanation, and he isn't giving us any reason to prefer his.
Why did Mark end his gospel where he did? We don't know. One possibility that's been suggested is that he wanted to keep a lot of emphasis on the cross while not leaving out the resurrection, so he only mentioned a small amount about the resurrection. Another possibility is that he wanted the readers to get the impression that they're in the same position as the women at the tomb. The reader, like the women, has a responsibility to go and tell others about the resurrection. Whatever Mark's reasons for ending his gospel where he did, we know that he had a lot more material he could have included. Mark knew that resurrection appearances followed the empty tomb. He refers to them in Mark 16:7. And the resurrection appearances mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15 had been widely known long before Mark's gospel was written. What we have, then, is a situation in which Mark chose not to include information he had. If he chose not to include it, then the fact that it appeared in later documents, but not in Mark's gospel, doesn't prove that some source after Mark fabricated it. Ed is making assumptions that are unproveable and unlikely.
In addition to the example of Mark's deliberately not using some information he had, we know that the other gospel writers did the same. Jesus' brother James was one of the most prominent of the early church leaders, and it was widely known that he had seen the risen Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:7). Yet, none of the gospels include an appearance to James.
Ed tells us that the gospels of Luke and John "take pains to convince them he [the resurrected Jesus] was 'not a spirit.'". Actually, Luke's gospel has only one brief section on Jesus' comments about His not being a spirit. How does that one brief section prove that Luke was "at pains" on the subject? All four gospel authors refer to physical evidence produced by the resurrection (Matthew 28:9, Mark 16:4-6, Luke 24:42-43, John 21:9-13, etc.). They were writing in the context of first century Israel, a context in which there was a physical concept of resurrection. When people are told that a physical resurrection has occurred, a desire for physical evidence will be present all along. It's not something that wouldn't arise until the gospels were written. The concern for physical evidence that we see in the gospels is what we would expect to have occurred if there was a resurrection. Jesus' comment in Luke 24 about His not being a spirit would be a response to the possibility that the disciples were seeing a ghost. It had nothing to do with responding to a belief in spiritual resurrection. Physical resurrection was the mainstream Jewish view, and the Christian belief in resurrection was of a physical nature from the start (see here and here). The gospels' concern for physical evidence is what we would expect to see if they were giving historically reliable accounts. The suggestion that such a concern for physical evidence is evidence of inauthenticity rather than authenticity is absurd.
Ed comments that "Luke doesn't even bother to have the apostles run off to Galilee". The sequence of resurrection appearances mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15 would require that a lot of time passed. Peter seems to have been present during at least three of the appearances Paul mentions, so there had to have been time for Peter to repeatedly leave one place and go to another, where other people joined him. Similarly, John refers to significant time passing (John 20:26). Luke mentions that Jesus appeared to people over a period of 40 days (Acts 1:3). A lot could have happened during that much time, and surely a lot did happen. There's far too much time involved and too many people involved for the reasonable reader to conclude anything other than that an author like Luke would be summarizing events, compressing things, and leaving out some information that could have been included. We see such compression, leaving out of details, etc. frequently in both ancient and modern literature, in both Christian and non-Christian sources. See J.P. Holding's examples here and Glenn Miller's discussion here. And it's worth noting that Miller's article gives several examples of proposed harmonizations of the resurrection narratives. It's not a matter of our not being able to harmonize them. Rather, it's a matter of many plausible harmonizations being available, and we don't have enough information to answer every question.
In other comments Ed makes, which I don't quote above, he raises some common objections that have already been answered by Christians (and sometimes by non-Christian scholars) many times and in many places. It would be easy for Ed to find credible answers to his objections in the scholarly literature, as well as online.
In closing, I want to respond to one other comment Ed made. He wrote:
Psychological studies also show that hallucinations and other psychological disorders occur under conditions different from those of the resurrection witnesses. See, for example, here, here, here, and here. And the early Christians didn't just make claims about "invisible holy realms". They made claims about a physical resurrection that involved a physical empty tomb, physical eyewitnesses who were named, etc. And I doubt that skeptics like James, Paul, and Paul's travel companions were desiring to see a risen Jesus.
As far as Ed's speculative appeal to "cognitive dissonance" is concerned, the research has already been done. N.T. Wright, after studying religious movements in Israel around the time of Jesus' death, commented:
"So far as we know, all the followers of these first-century messianic movements were fanatically committed to the cause. They, if anybody, might be expected to suffer from this blessed twentieth century disease called 'cognitive dissonance' when their expectations failed to materialize. But in no case, right across the century before Jesus and the century after him, do we hear of any Jewish group saying that their executed leader had been raised from the dead and he really was the Messiah after all." (cited in Paul Copan and Ronald Tacelli, editors, Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment? [Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2000], p. 183)
It seems that the problem here is the cognitive dissonance of Ed Babinski.
So the stories of the Christian miracle of the resurrection originated with partisan believers (and even their stories of the "words" allegedly spoken by the resurrected Jesus kept growing numerically over time). The earliest tale of the empty tomb [Mark] ends with a mere promise of seeing Jesus. The next earliest tale of the empty tomb [Mat.] adds a handful of so-called post-resurrection words, a mere brief early creedal statement easily put into Jesus's mouth, and even adds, "but some doubted."
By the time the later written Luke/Acts and John came about, they had the resurrected Jesus speaking HUNDREDS of words, and in both cases they added stories that made sure the raised Jesus would not be confused with a "spirit" at all, having Jesus in both their late Gospels take pains to convince them he was "not a spirit." (There must have been some doubt somewhere for them to protest to much in the last written Gospels!)
So the story grew in stages. (Luke doesn't even bother to have the apostles run off to Galilee where Mark and Matthew claimed the raised Jesus first went and where the apostles had to go to first see him. Instead, Luke changes the message at the tomb. I invite all to go read how Luke changes the so-called sacrosanct "word of God" as found in Mark and Matthew.)
The sort of approach Ed is taking has recently been refuted at length by David Wood. I recommend reading Wood's article. And I'll add the following.
The material Paul cites when discussing the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 predates the gospels. That material, part of which comes from an early, pre-Pauline creed, has more resurrection appearances than any of the gospels (six). It also has Jesus appearing to more people than He appears to in any of the gospels (more than 500 people in 1 Corinthians 15:6). Does 1 Corinthians 15 have less than the gospels in some contexts? Yes. Ed Babinski cites the example of how many words the resurrected Christ spoke. Since 1 Corinthians 15 is part of a letter discussing a creed, it isn't going to have the sort of dialogue we would find in a Greco-Roman biography. But why only consider how many words the resurrected Jesus speaks? If you take other factors into account, such as the number of resurrection appearances and the number of people involved, 1 Corinthians 15 has more than the gospels in some contexts.
Mark's gospel ends with the empty tomb and a reference to upcoming resurrection appearances. We don't know how many words the resurrected Jesus would have spoken if Mark had decided to include resurrection appearances. How can Ed claim to know that a gradual development occurred? And how does Ed know that Matthew was written before Luke? What if Matthew's resurrection material is so brief because he was coming to the end of his scroll, as some scholars believe? Is the difference in word count between Luke and John significant? If so, then if John's gospel is written by an eyewitness, wouldn't we expect its author to have more knowledge of what Jesus spoke than Luke would have had? There are explanations of the data other than Ed's proposed explanation, and he isn't giving us any reason to prefer his.
Why did Mark end his gospel where he did? We don't know. One possibility that's been suggested is that he wanted to keep a lot of emphasis on the cross while not leaving out the resurrection, so he only mentioned a small amount about the resurrection. Another possibility is that he wanted the readers to get the impression that they're in the same position as the women at the tomb. The reader, like the women, has a responsibility to go and tell others about the resurrection. Whatever Mark's reasons for ending his gospel where he did, we know that he had a lot more material he could have included. Mark knew that resurrection appearances followed the empty tomb. He refers to them in Mark 16:7. And the resurrection appearances mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15 had been widely known long before Mark's gospel was written. What we have, then, is a situation in which Mark chose not to include information he had. If he chose not to include it, then the fact that it appeared in later documents, but not in Mark's gospel, doesn't prove that some source after Mark fabricated it. Ed is making assumptions that are unproveable and unlikely.
In addition to the example of Mark's deliberately not using some information he had, we know that the other gospel writers did the same. Jesus' brother James was one of the most prominent of the early church leaders, and it was widely known that he had seen the risen Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:7). Yet, none of the gospels include an appearance to James.
Ed tells us that the gospels of Luke and John "take pains to convince them he [the resurrected Jesus] was 'not a spirit.'". Actually, Luke's gospel has only one brief section on Jesus' comments about His not being a spirit. How does that one brief section prove that Luke was "at pains" on the subject? All four gospel authors refer to physical evidence produced by the resurrection (Matthew 28:9, Mark 16:4-6, Luke 24:42-43, John 21:9-13, etc.). They were writing in the context of first century Israel, a context in which there was a physical concept of resurrection. When people are told that a physical resurrection has occurred, a desire for physical evidence will be present all along. It's not something that wouldn't arise until the gospels were written. The concern for physical evidence that we see in the gospels is what we would expect to have occurred if there was a resurrection. Jesus' comment in Luke 24 about His not being a spirit would be a response to the possibility that the disciples were seeing a ghost. It had nothing to do with responding to a belief in spiritual resurrection. Physical resurrection was the mainstream Jewish view, and the Christian belief in resurrection was of a physical nature from the start (see here and here). The gospels' concern for physical evidence is what we would expect to see if they were giving historically reliable accounts. The suggestion that such a concern for physical evidence is evidence of inauthenticity rather than authenticity is absurd.
Ed comments that "Luke doesn't even bother to have the apostles run off to Galilee". The sequence of resurrection appearances mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15 would require that a lot of time passed. Peter seems to have been present during at least three of the appearances Paul mentions, so there had to have been time for Peter to repeatedly leave one place and go to another, where other people joined him. Similarly, John refers to significant time passing (John 20:26). Luke mentions that Jesus appeared to people over a period of 40 days (Acts 1:3). A lot could have happened during that much time, and surely a lot did happen. There's far too much time involved and too many people involved for the reasonable reader to conclude anything other than that an author like Luke would be summarizing events, compressing things, and leaving out some information that could have been included. We see such compression, leaving out of details, etc. frequently in both ancient and modern literature, in both Christian and non-Christian sources. See J.P. Holding's examples here and Glenn Miller's discussion here. And it's worth noting that Miller's article gives several examples of proposed harmonizations of the resurrection narratives. It's not a matter of our not being able to harmonize them. Rather, it's a matter of many plausible harmonizations being available, and we don't have enough information to answer every question.
In other comments Ed makes, which I don't quote above, he raises some common objections that have already been answered by Christians (and sometimes by non-Christian scholars) many times and in many places. It would be easy for Ed to find credible answers to his objections in the scholarly literature, as well as online.
In closing, I want to respond to one other comment Ed made. He wrote:
Psychological studies of people in other religions that wound up at dead ends prove that in such cases some give up, but others take their beliefs to a new level of insistance and persistance, raising the stakes in invisible holy realms, and in spite of all earthly disappointments. That appears to be what the apostles did to solve their problem of cognitive dissonance.
Psychological studies also show that hallucinations and other psychological disorders occur under conditions different from those of the resurrection witnesses. See, for example, here, here, here, and here. And the early Christians didn't just make claims about "invisible holy realms". They made claims about a physical resurrection that involved a physical empty tomb, physical eyewitnesses who were named, etc. And I doubt that skeptics like James, Paul, and Paul's travel companions were desiring to see a risen Jesus.
As far as Ed's speculative appeal to "cognitive dissonance" is concerned, the research has already been done. N.T. Wright, after studying religious movements in Israel around the time of Jesus' death, commented:
"So far as we know, all the followers of these first-century messianic movements were fanatically committed to the cause. They, if anybody, might be expected to suffer from this blessed twentieth century disease called 'cognitive dissonance' when their expectations failed to materialize. But in no case, right across the century before Jesus and the century after him, do we hear of any Jewish group saying that their executed leader had been raised from the dead and he really was the Messiah after all." (cited in Paul Copan and Ronald Tacelli, editors, Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment? [Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2000], p. 183)
It seems that the problem here is the cognitive dissonance of Ed Babinski.
Slave of one
***QUOTE***
slaveofone said...
I take it as given that if a man can do no spiritual good, he can do no other good either. The reason for that is simple: because good is defined by whether a person's being is aligned with Yahweh's or not. Yahweh is the only measurement of good because only a universal can define a particular and only Yahweh is a universal.
A person who saves another person from drowning cannot be doing good unless he/she is spiritually conformed to Yahweh. If someone is depraved beyond all hope spiritually, he/she can do nothing good in the human sphere either. To say otherwise is to create a universal out of a particular that is not Yahweh--and that is idolatry.
As for "regeneration", I find the Calvinistic concept of it to be powerless pragmatically and empirically and nonsensical rationally according to the ancient Jewish world-view. Therefore I have no reason to believe any Calvinist is "regenerated". And even if I did, I have no way to know whether their total depravity has been regenerated at any point in time since that regeneration is spiritual, not physical. Thus, all I know about someone who says they're Calvinist is that they believe there is nothing good they can say or do either spiritually or physically and as a consequence their position is self-defeating.
***END-QUOTE***
To argue that a position is “self-defeating,” you must mount an internal critique. You try to show that the position in question is inconsistent on its own grounds. That, indeed, is the point of slaveofone’s syllogism.
Now, however, he is switching to an external reference point. He is at liberty to shift grounds, but in so doing he needs to withdraw his original objection. He is no longer mounting an internal critique, but an external critique.
And why would he shift grounds unless the original argument was flawed? So he needs to retract his original allegation.
We are simply taking him at his word. Does he not want to be taken at his word? Should everyone assume that he’s not a serious thinker with serious ideas?
If he is going to argue that Calvinism is self-defeating, then he needs to use Reformed usage according to Reformed usage.
If he’s going to empty Reformed usage of Reformed content and pour in his own definitions, then whatever else his argument may prove, it can never prove that Calvinism is self-defeating.
I made this point. Gene made this point. And Peter Nelson made this point.
Continuing:
***QUOTE***
I haven't defined my view (as you define it "scripturally") because I operate according to a Jewish world-view, not a Pagan Greek system like "proof-texting".
***END-QUOTE***
i) Is prooftexting a Greco-pagan system? Jesus and the Apostles often cite Scripture to prove a point. Are they complicit in a Greco-pagan system?
Perhaps Slaveonone can give us some examples of heathen Greeks who quote the Bible to prove a point.
ii) I’d add that there’s more to the Reformed doctrine of depravity than a set of prooftexts. We have the exegesis to back it up.
***QUOTE***
Of course I've laid my definition... why wouldn't I say what I believe? Why would I back up definitions I don't believe? It's no strawman, it's laying bare the facts as I see them--you can't expect me to lay bare the facts that I don't see.
***END-QUOTE***
It’s a strawman argument if you say the Reformed doctrine of total depravity is self-defeating, even casting that claim in syllogistic form, only to redefine the key terms by evacuating Reformed usage of Reformed meaning and plugging in whatever definition you please.
Continuing:
***QUOTE***
My blog isn't an apologetic blog--I'm not here to argue and debate others or bring long lists of scriptural references which *prove* my point [shakes head in sadness I'm here to state my opinions and views and thoughts and anyone is welcome to see them.
***END-QUOTE***
Is honesty part of his Jewish worldview? Or is honestly part of a Greco-pagan system?
Is he here to state demonstrably false opinions? To misrepresent the position he’s opposing.
Does he think he’s immune to correction? Is that part of his Jewish worldview?
It's certainly no part of the OT worldview or the NT worldview.
slaveofone said...
I take it as given that if a man can do no spiritual good, he can do no other good either. The reason for that is simple: because good is defined by whether a person's being is aligned with Yahweh's or not. Yahweh is the only measurement of good because only a universal can define a particular and only Yahweh is a universal.
A person who saves another person from drowning cannot be doing good unless he/she is spiritually conformed to Yahweh. If someone is depraved beyond all hope spiritually, he/she can do nothing good in the human sphere either. To say otherwise is to create a universal out of a particular that is not Yahweh--and that is idolatry.
As for "regeneration", I find the Calvinistic concept of it to be powerless pragmatically and empirically and nonsensical rationally according to the ancient Jewish world-view. Therefore I have no reason to believe any Calvinist is "regenerated". And even if I did, I have no way to know whether their total depravity has been regenerated at any point in time since that regeneration is spiritual, not physical. Thus, all I know about someone who says they're Calvinist is that they believe there is nothing good they can say or do either spiritually or physically and as a consequence their position is self-defeating.
***END-QUOTE***
To argue that a position is “self-defeating,” you must mount an internal critique. You try to show that the position in question is inconsistent on its own grounds. That, indeed, is the point of slaveofone’s syllogism.
Now, however, he is switching to an external reference point. He is at liberty to shift grounds, but in so doing he needs to withdraw his original objection. He is no longer mounting an internal critique, but an external critique.
And why would he shift grounds unless the original argument was flawed? So he needs to retract his original allegation.
We are simply taking him at his word. Does he not want to be taken at his word? Should everyone assume that he’s not a serious thinker with serious ideas?
If he is going to argue that Calvinism is self-defeating, then he needs to use Reformed usage according to Reformed usage.
If he’s going to empty Reformed usage of Reformed content and pour in his own definitions, then whatever else his argument may prove, it can never prove that Calvinism is self-defeating.
I made this point. Gene made this point. And Peter Nelson made this point.
Continuing:
***QUOTE***
I haven't defined my view (as you define it "scripturally") because I operate according to a Jewish world-view, not a Pagan Greek system like "proof-texting".
***END-QUOTE***
i) Is prooftexting a Greco-pagan system? Jesus and the Apostles often cite Scripture to prove a point. Are they complicit in a Greco-pagan system?
Perhaps Slaveonone can give us some examples of heathen Greeks who quote the Bible to prove a point.
ii) I’d add that there’s more to the Reformed doctrine of depravity than a set of prooftexts. We have the exegesis to back it up.
***QUOTE***
Of course I've laid my definition... why wouldn't I say what I believe? Why would I back up definitions I don't believe? It's no strawman, it's laying bare the facts as I see them--you can't expect me to lay bare the facts that I don't see.
***END-QUOTE***
It’s a strawman argument if you say the Reformed doctrine of total depravity is self-defeating, even casting that claim in syllogistic form, only to redefine the key terms by evacuating Reformed usage of Reformed meaning and plugging in whatever definition you please.
Continuing:
***QUOTE***
My blog isn't an apologetic blog--I'm not here to argue and debate others or bring long lists of scriptural references which *prove* my point [shakes head in sadness I'm here to state my opinions and views and thoughts and anyone is welcome to see them.
***END-QUOTE***
Is honesty part of his Jewish worldview? Or is honestly part of a Greco-pagan system?
Is he here to state demonstrably false opinions? To misrepresent the position he’s opposing.
Does he think he’s immune to correction? Is that part of his Jewish worldview?
It's certainly no part of the OT worldview or the NT worldview.
Philosophy of science 101 for Hallquist
***QUOTE***
Science 101 for Triablogue
Over on Triablogue, there's some fairly standard creationist nonsense in response to a comment from Daniel Morgan on one of their posts.
First, Daniel asked "Were the species all created ex nihilo?" In response, he was told it's a question of "kinds," not species.
This leads quickly to another question: what in the world is a "kind"? Creationists talk about it a lot, but never explain it.
http://uncrediblehallq.blogspot.com/
***END-QUOTE***
Actually, I did explain it, but I’ll go into more detail:
***QUOTE***
There is no evidence in these texts [Gen 1:11-12,20-21,24-25] for taking min [“kind”] as a technical term corresponding wit precision to family, genus, or species. (b) Min is used to indicate that the world is not a disorganized mass but a well-ordered subdivided whole, each individual plant and animal fitting into its own “kind” which in turn fits into a larger group. Min is a key term used for articulating the theme of order through separation. (c) This biblical taxonomy, of which min is a part, does not reflect a modern taxonomic perspective, but uses “the language of visual appearance.” While modern taxonomy separates birds from bees, the biblical perspective groups them together as “winged creatures” (Gen 1:20-21). Both are legitimate perspectives.
Of interest is Lev 11:16=Deut 144:15, which list nes among unclean birds. Nes has been identified as “Falco (Genus) peregrinus (species),” yet has subdivisions called min (apparently varieties within species), offering further evidence for the defiance of min to be correlated with a single modern category such as genus or species.
New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology & Exegesis 2:934.
***END-QUOTE***
Continuing with Hallquist:
***QUOTE***
A useful contrast is the Biological Species Concept--the idea that two populations are the same species if they can mate and procude fertile offspring. Because we know, among other things, that new species can evolve, creationists can't use "species" as "kind," but how do they propose to test whether two populations are the same "kind."
***END-QUOTE***
The identification of a natural “kind” in Scripture is an exegetical question, not a scientific question. What’s the semantic range and domain of Biblical usage in this respect? That’s the question.
And whether or not that allows for speciation is likewise a semantic question.
Continuing:
***QUOTE***
In a similar vein, in response to the question of "Are the biologists lying about the descent with modification of species from common ancestors?", Daniel was told that the "It fails to distinguish between evidence for microevolution and evidence for macroevolution." Again, what is macro/microevolution? Mircoevolution has to include speciation. On the other had, the evidence for evolution at the level of taxonomic families is much the same as the evidence at the level of phyla. We're talking about things like the nested hierarchy, which most scientists think works at all levels. Do the Triabloggers think it works for families but not phyla? If so, what's their evidence?
***END-QUOTE***
i) Here’s one way of unpacking the micro/macroevolutionary distinction:
***QUOTE***
After Darwin, the first phenomenon (changes within an existing species or gene pool) was named "microevolution." There is abundant evidence that changes can occur within existing species, both domestic and wild, so microevolution is uncontroversial.
The second phenomenon (large-scale changes over geological time) was named "macroevolution," and Darwin's theory that the processes of the former can account for the latter was controversial right from the start. Many biologists during and after Darwin's lifetime have questioned whether the natural counterpart of domestic breeding could do what domestic breeding has never done—namely, produce new species, organs, and body plans.
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?id=118
***END-QUOTE***
ii) The nested hierarchy is one of the phenomena specifically addressed by Kurt Wise, which I already referred the reader to. Cf. J. Moreland, ed. The Creation Hypothesis (IVP 1994), 217-21.
Moving along:
***QUOTE***
The section on the age of the earth is rather confused. It's major points are something about resetting clocks, and "that radiometric decay rates are not designed to tell the time. That is not their natural function." For not recognizing these things, scientists are called "terribly gauche, which, in some ways, is worse" than being liars. Sorry guys, scientists are going to try to figure out how the world works, and they're going to do so without worringy about untestable hypotheticals. They will use electron mircroscopes to investigate matter even if Zeus didn't design electrons for that purose. They will use light to try to figure out the chemical composition of distant stars, even if Ra might be holding up a big mirror to confuse them. That's how science works. Deal with it.
***END-QUOTE***
i) How is what I said rather confused?
ii) Dating the age of the earth by linear extrapolation from radiometric decay rates is, itself, an untestable hypothetical.
iii) Once again, Hallquist resorts to an androcentric defense of his untestable assumptions: this is the way a human scientist goes about his work: deal with it!
a) This is quite ironic coming from a secularist. His position is more androcentric than the anthropic principle.
He doesn’t believe that the universe was fine-tuned for human life, but he acts as if the universe, even though it wasn’t fine-tuned for human life, was fine-tuned for human science.
He doesn’t believe that it was actually fine-tuned for human science, but he acts as if the universe can be treated as though it were fine-tuned for human science, even though it wasn’t.
Isn’t secular faith beautiful to behold?
b) My point is that a radiometric process is not a clock. To equate it with a clock fails to distinguish between its natural function, and our anthropomorphic analogy.
Hallquist is a secular version of Paley. He’s mounting an argument from analogy between a clock and a natural process which he equates with a timepiece.
Once again, this is all very ironic coming from a secularist.
c) I don’t object to a scientist using a periodic process as if it were a chronometer.
But my point is that unless we are going to delude ourselves with anthropomorphic projections onto the natural world, we need to draw an elementary distinction between what things are, in and of themselves, and how we use them—then make allowance for the fact that if we put a natural process to an unnatural use, it may let us down.
Hallquist is an Oreo atheist. He’s an atheist on the outside. But on the inside he acts as if the natural world were a set of artifacts, like an abandoned clock shop, designed by the divine watchmaker to tell him the time.
Science 101 for Triablogue
Over on Triablogue, there's some fairly standard creationist nonsense in response to a comment from Daniel Morgan on one of their posts.
First, Daniel asked "Were the species all created ex nihilo?" In response, he was told it's a question of "kinds," not species.
This leads quickly to another question: what in the world is a "kind"? Creationists talk about it a lot, but never explain it.
http://uncrediblehallq.blogspot.com/
***END-QUOTE***
Actually, I did explain it, but I’ll go into more detail:
***QUOTE***
There is no evidence in these texts [Gen 1:11-12,20-21,24-25] for taking min [“kind”] as a technical term corresponding wit precision to family, genus, or species. (b) Min is used to indicate that the world is not a disorganized mass but a well-ordered subdivided whole, each individual plant and animal fitting into its own “kind” which in turn fits into a larger group. Min is a key term used for articulating the theme of order through separation. (c) This biblical taxonomy, of which min is a part, does not reflect a modern taxonomic perspective, but uses “the language of visual appearance.” While modern taxonomy separates birds from bees, the biblical perspective groups them together as “winged creatures” (Gen 1:20-21). Both are legitimate perspectives.
Of interest is Lev 11:16=Deut 144:15, which list nes among unclean birds. Nes has been identified as “Falco (Genus) peregrinus (species),” yet has subdivisions called min (apparently varieties within species), offering further evidence for the defiance of min to be correlated with a single modern category such as genus or species.
New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology & Exegesis 2:934.
***END-QUOTE***
Continuing with Hallquist:
***QUOTE***
A useful contrast is the Biological Species Concept--the idea that two populations are the same species if they can mate and procude fertile offspring. Because we know, among other things, that new species can evolve, creationists can't use "species" as "kind," but how do they propose to test whether two populations are the same "kind."
***END-QUOTE***
The identification of a natural “kind” in Scripture is an exegetical question, not a scientific question. What’s the semantic range and domain of Biblical usage in this respect? That’s the question.
And whether or not that allows for speciation is likewise a semantic question.
Continuing:
***QUOTE***
In a similar vein, in response to the question of "Are the biologists lying about the descent with modification of species from common ancestors?", Daniel was told that the "It fails to distinguish between evidence for microevolution and evidence for macroevolution." Again, what is macro/microevolution? Mircoevolution has to include speciation. On the other had, the evidence for evolution at the level of taxonomic families is much the same as the evidence at the level of phyla. We're talking about things like the nested hierarchy, which most scientists think works at all levels. Do the Triabloggers think it works for families but not phyla? If so, what's their evidence?
***END-QUOTE***
i) Here’s one way of unpacking the micro/macroevolutionary distinction:
***QUOTE***
After Darwin, the first phenomenon (changes within an existing species or gene pool) was named "microevolution." There is abundant evidence that changes can occur within existing species, both domestic and wild, so microevolution is uncontroversial.
The second phenomenon (large-scale changes over geological time) was named "macroevolution," and Darwin's theory that the processes of the former can account for the latter was controversial right from the start. Many biologists during and after Darwin's lifetime have questioned whether the natural counterpart of domestic breeding could do what domestic breeding has never done—namely, produce new species, organs, and body plans.
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?id=118
***END-QUOTE***
ii) The nested hierarchy is one of the phenomena specifically addressed by Kurt Wise, which I already referred the reader to. Cf. J. Moreland, ed. The Creation Hypothesis (IVP 1994), 217-21.
Moving along:
***QUOTE***
The section on the age of the earth is rather confused. It's major points are something about resetting clocks, and "that radiometric decay rates are not designed to tell the time. That is not their natural function." For not recognizing these things, scientists are called "terribly gauche, which, in some ways, is worse" than being liars. Sorry guys, scientists are going to try to figure out how the world works, and they're going to do so without worringy about untestable hypotheticals. They will use electron mircroscopes to investigate matter even if Zeus didn't design electrons for that purose. They will use light to try to figure out the chemical composition of distant stars, even if Ra might be holding up a big mirror to confuse them. That's how science works. Deal with it.
***END-QUOTE***
i) How is what I said rather confused?
ii) Dating the age of the earth by linear extrapolation from radiometric decay rates is, itself, an untestable hypothetical.
iii) Once again, Hallquist resorts to an androcentric defense of his untestable assumptions: this is the way a human scientist goes about his work: deal with it!
a) This is quite ironic coming from a secularist. His position is more androcentric than the anthropic principle.
He doesn’t believe that the universe was fine-tuned for human life, but he acts as if the universe, even though it wasn’t fine-tuned for human life, was fine-tuned for human science.
He doesn’t believe that it was actually fine-tuned for human science, but he acts as if the universe can be treated as though it were fine-tuned for human science, even though it wasn’t.
Isn’t secular faith beautiful to behold?
b) My point is that a radiometric process is not a clock. To equate it with a clock fails to distinguish between its natural function, and our anthropomorphic analogy.
Hallquist is a secular version of Paley. He’s mounting an argument from analogy between a clock and a natural process which he equates with a timepiece.
Once again, this is all very ironic coming from a secularist.
c) I don’t object to a scientist using a periodic process as if it were a chronometer.
But my point is that unless we are going to delude ourselves with anthropomorphic projections onto the natural world, we need to draw an elementary distinction between what things are, in and of themselves, and how we use them—then make allowance for the fact that if we put a natural process to an unnatural use, it may let us down.
Hallquist is an Oreo atheist. He’s an atheist on the outside. But on the inside he acts as if the natural world were a set of artifacts, like an abandoned clock shop, designed by the divine watchmaker to tell him the time.
Monday, July 03, 2006
A Pseudo-Calvinistic Syllogism
***QUOTE***
A Calvinistic Syllogism
1. You should not trust or believe what a totally depraved person says.
2. If it is true that a Calvinist is totally depraved...
3. You should not trust or believe what a Calvinist says.
If this one point of Calvinism is true (total depravity), then you cannot trust or believe Calvinism. Calvinism is, therefore, self-defeating.
In order to deny this logical syllogism, you have to either 1. believe that you should trust or believe what a totally depraved person says (i.e., go to the local looney bin for advice and information), which is self-evidently absurd, or 2. believe that depravity is not total, which denies one of the key tenants of Calvinism and is therefore self-defeating of Calvinism anyway.
http://slaveofone.blogspot.com/
***END-QUOTE***
You know, it really wouldn’t hurt if just occasionally the critic of Calvinism were to actually acquaint himself with the system of doctrine he’s about to critique before he launches into a public attack.
This isn’t doing us a favor. This is doing himself a favor.
It’s as if slaveonone looked up “depravity” in Webster’s dictionary, then looked up “total,” then deduced the content of the doctrine from these dictionary definitions, then knocked off this cute little syllogism to disprove Calvinism in one fell swoop.
But theological terms are terms of art. Here are some representative statements of what total depravity means in Reformed theology”
“This phrase is often misunderstood, and therefore calls for careful discrimination. Negatively, it does not imply: (1) that every man is as thoroughly depraved as he can possible become; (2) that the sinner has no innate knowledge of the will of God, nor a conscience that discriminates between good and evil; (3) that sinful man does not often admire virtuous character and actions in others, or is incapable of disinterested affections and actions in his relations with his fellow-men; nor (4) that every unregenerate man, will, in virtue of his inherent sinfulness, indulge in every from of sin; it often happens that one form exclusive the other. Positively, it does indicate: (1) that the inherent corruption extends to every part of man’s nature, to all the faculties and powers of both soul and body; and (2) that there is no spiritual good, that is, good in relation to God, in the sinner at all, but only perversion,” L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 246-47.
“If human depravity is thought of as being only partial—that is, if fallen man is conceived of as still having the ability to turn to God in faith apart from a special working of the Holy Spirit—regeneration will be understood in a way quite different than if ‘natural’ (or unregenerate) human nature be though of as totally depraved. If, however, human beings are seen as being totally or pervasively deprived—that is, as totally unable to turn to God in faith apart from a special working of the Spirit—one’s understanding of the nature of regeneration will be different still,” A. Hoekema, Saved by Grace (Eerdmans 1989), 94.
“Negatively…inability does not deny the possibility of justitia civilis, that is natural and social virtue. Positively…it is inability to discern, love, or choose the things that are well pleasing to God,” J. Murray, Collected Writings 2:83.
“Does total depravity of nature mean that an unsaved person cannot do anything good? No. The unsaved person, by God’s common grace (or restraining power), can do things that are good within the civil or human sphere. For example, an unsaved person may save another from drowning, at the risk of his own life. But the unsaved person can do nothing that is spiritually good, that is, nothing truly good and pleasing in God’s sight. He may do things that are good in themselves, but he never does them with the right motive, namely, to love, serve, and please God; therefore even the ‘good' works of the unsaved person are spoiled and corrupted by sin,” J. Vos, The Westminster Larger Catechism: A Commentary (P&R 2002), 61.
So there are two fundamental errors in slaveofone’s syllogism:
1.The major premise is flatly false.
Total depravity does not imply that the reprobate or unregenerate are either invariably or ordinarily untrustworthy.
2.Even if the major premise were true, the minor premise is flatly false. A Calvinist is regenerate, not unregenerate. And the noetic effects of sin are not the same for regenerate and unregenerate alike.
In particular, spiritual inability does not obtain in a state of grace.
Hence, slaveofone’s syllogism, even if it were formally valid, yields a false conclusion due to a false major syllogism and a false minor syllogism.
But such paltry defects aside, it’s a masterpiece of logical deduction!
A Calvinistic Syllogism
1. You should not trust or believe what a totally depraved person says.
2. If it is true that a Calvinist is totally depraved...
3. You should not trust or believe what a Calvinist says.
If this one point of Calvinism is true (total depravity), then you cannot trust or believe Calvinism. Calvinism is, therefore, self-defeating.
In order to deny this logical syllogism, you have to either 1. believe that you should trust or believe what a totally depraved person says (i.e., go to the local looney bin for advice and information), which is self-evidently absurd, or 2. believe that depravity is not total, which denies one of the key tenants of Calvinism and is therefore self-defeating of Calvinism anyway.
http://slaveofone.blogspot.com/
***END-QUOTE***
You know, it really wouldn’t hurt if just occasionally the critic of Calvinism were to actually acquaint himself with the system of doctrine he’s about to critique before he launches into a public attack.
This isn’t doing us a favor. This is doing himself a favor.
It’s as if slaveonone looked up “depravity” in Webster’s dictionary, then looked up “total,” then deduced the content of the doctrine from these dictionary definitions, then knocked off this cute little syllogism to disprove Calvinism in one fell swoop.
But theological terms are terms of art. Here are some representative statements of what total depravity means in Reformed theology”
“This phrase is often misunderstood, and therefore calls for careful discrimination. Negatively, it does not imply: (1) that every man is as thoroughly depraved as he can possible become; (2) that the sinner has no innate knowledge of the will of God, nor a conscience that discriminates between good and evil; (3) that sinful man does not often admire virtuous character and actions in others, or is incapable of disinterested affections and actions in his relations with his fellow-men; nor (4) that every unregenerate man, will, in virtue of his inherent sinfulness, indulge in every from of sin; it often happens that one form exclusive the other. Positively, it does indicate: (1) that the inherent corruption extends to every part of man’s nature, to all the faculties and powers of both soul and body; and (2) that there is no spiritual good, that is, good in relation to God, in the sinner at all, but only perversion,” L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 246-47.
“If human depravity is thought of as being only partial—that is, if fallen man is conceived of as still having the ability to turn to God in faith apart from a special working of the Holy Spirit—regeneration will be understood in a way quite different than if ‘natural’ (or unregenerate) human nature be though of as totally depraved. If, however, human beings are seen as being totally or pervasively deprived—that is, as totally unable to turn to God in faith apart from a special working of the Spirit—one’s understanding of the nature of regeneration will be different still,” A. Hoekema, Saved by Grace (Eerdmans 1989), 94.
“Negatively…inability does not deny the possibility of justitia civilis, that is natural and social virtue. Positively…it is inability to discern, love, or choose the things that are well pleasing to God,” J. Murray, Collected Writings 2:83.
“Does total depravity of nature mean that an unsaved person cannot do anything good? No. The unsaved person, by God’s common grace (or restraining power), can do things that are good within the civil or human sphere. For example, an unsaved person may save another from drowning, at the risk of his own life. But the unsaved person can do nothing that is spiritually good, that is, nothing truly good and pleasing in God’s sight. He may do things that are good in themselves, but he never does them with the right motive, namely, to love, serve, and please God; therefore even the ‘good' works of the unsaved person are spoiled and corrupted by sin,” J. Vos, The Westminster Larger Catechism: A Commentary (P&R 2002), 61.
So there are two fundamental errors in slaveofone’s syllogism:
1.The major premise is flatly false.
Total depravity does not imply that the reprobate or unregenerate are either invariably or ordinarily untrustworthy.
2.Even if the major premise were true, the minor premise is flatly false. A Calvinist is regenerate, not unregenerate. And the noetic effects of sin are not the same for regenerate and unregenerate alike.
In particular, spiritual inability does not obtain in a state of grace.
Hence, slaveofone’s syllogism, even if it were formally valid, yields a false conclusion due to a false major syllogism and a false minor syllogism.
But such paltry defects aside, it’s a masterpiece of logical deduction!
Jumping From Pillar to Post
Daniel Morgan just can't seem to keep his thoughts and arguments straight. I'll try to help out...
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i. No, Daniel, you're jumping from pillar to post.
ii. Notice that you *start* the argument by arguing that I would be had pressed to prove my point, *from the Bible.* Then notice that you *end* the argument by claiming that I would be hard pressed to prove my point, *from ethics.*
iii. The one is an internal critique, the other is external.
iv. There are two arguments going on here and you can't seem to sit still long enough to follow one of them through. Here's the state of the debate:
One argument [A1] is that Christians should murder infants since it ensures that they go to heaven. The response here is that they should not because, [1] it ensures no such thing, only the elect go to heaven and, if all infants who die in infancy were elect then, counterfactually, if they had not been killed they *still* would have entered glory. And, [2] Christians (indeed, anyone) does not have the right to murder. Now, this first argument can be directed at the Christian *internally.* That is, is the Christian inconsistent, or morally failing, given his system of thought, if he does not murder infants? My response here is to show that there is no *internal* inconsistency within Christian doctrine. That is, given what the Christians say about the world, man, and God's revelation, we *should not* murder infants to ensure they get to heaven. Therefore this fails as an internal critique against Christianity.
The second argument [A2] is different than the first. [A2] claims that despite what the Bible says, it is morally repugnant to think of children as coming into the world already defiled. This argument *does not* assume a biblical code of ethics but rather a non-biblical and humanistic code of ethics. This is an external critique. Whereas [A1] exonerates Christianity by appeal to its internal consistency, my approach to [A2] has been to show that [1] the arguments have not been valid, [2] the arguments beg the question, and [3]the arguments have no weight given the worldview of the one offering the argument, i.e., if his worldview were true he could not even make such an argument.
If I am correct on [A1] then the Christian should not murder infants. In Daniel is correct on [A2] the Christian should not murder infants (since Christianity would be false and therefore no one will be going to heaven). Thus the only way for Daniel to prove his *original* argument, i.e., that we should murder infants, is to meet me head on over at [A1]. Now, I can deal with [A2] and show that he cannot use it, but [A2] will not prove that we should murder children. [A2] is *only* external. Now, Daniel might think [A2] proves his original point but that is because he imposes his theory of ethics onto the Bible. For him to prove his original point, i.e., Christians should murder infants to ensure the enter glory he *must* engage in an internal critique. But he doesn't want to do this. Fine. But let's note that he has *failed* to prove his original point.
V. Why does it seem that I'd be hard pressed to prove my point from *the Bible* and then when he notes that I do prove it from *the Bible* he then says, "well, forget the Bible, original sin is a nasty idea?"
vi. Daniel is the one who wanted to get into flawed morality but then balks when I try to see if he can account for morality given his physicalism and view of man as a meat machine. If he has no absolute, perfect, universal standard of ethics then he cannot say what is *flawed* now can he? Daniel cannot say that a line is crooked if he doesn't have a picture of a straight line. Daniel cannot say that there are flaws on students math test if he does not have the perfect template by which all the answers are judged.
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But Danny *must* argue against this since this is the defense! I mean, look at the pillar-to-post mentality here. Above he says I'd be "hard pressed" to argue for original sin but when I do he says, "Well, I don't want to get into that." Then he hedges his bets by posting links, as if that is his rebuttal to my claim but since he doesn't claim allegiance to it then if I spend my time refuting it he'll just say, "But I didn't want to get into it, I just pointed out that critiques exist." But we already knew they existed, didn't we?
Now, I've claimed victory on this point and Daniel said I could if I'd like. Thus [A1] has been granted and therefore the Christian has no problem with the argument.
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i. Again, the original debate was about post-natal INFANTS, not fetuses. Danny wants to move it to fetuses since he knows he has a problem proving the original argument. Daniel's whole point with bringing up fetuses is to claim that they might not be persons and, therefore, not part of "mankind." But this is an external argument. According to the Bible the unborn was considered a person.
ii. Notice that he brings up "interpretation" while also saying that he doesn't "have the time" to get into a "exegetical/theological debate." This is pillar-to-post mentality folks. Actually, its a bit underhanded. If we wants to get into interpretation then we can do so, but when I do he says, "you can have it, I'm not into debating exegetical/theological issues."
iii. He points out that original sin may be irrelevant to God's judgment! Well now we've shifted again! Has he admitted original sin but now wants to argue that people are not judged by it? Who knows. If I try to argue then will I get the response, "but I don't care about theology?" Who knows. Debating pillar-to-post atheists is a mind-numbing experience.
iv. Those "theologians" assume that the reatus culpae was not imputed. Furthermore, I've argued that you cannot have your cake and eat it too. You can't deny Adam's imputed unrighteousness while wanting to grab hold of Christ's imputed righteousness!
v. The first sin was not simply "eating the fruit." It was a denial of God and his authoritative Word. Man determined what he would be metaphysically and how he would knew epistemologically and how he would behave ethically. It was an usurping of the Creator/creature distinction. Indeed, Adam and Eve would have sinned if they had *not* eaten the fruit but for reasons such as, say, they were watching calories. Therefore, if you admit that original sin was imputed then it could not have been just that they would keep eating the apple, nay, it was a God-hating and self-serving nature, dead to all things Spiritual, that was imputed. This type of person does not enter glory.
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There you go hiding behind "other theologians" again. Why don't *you* put your money where your mouth is. I've offered refutations of those "other theologians" but yet you keep posting them. You're like a child who thinks his blanket will protect him from the monsters. And, it does matter what *you* and *I* have to say and the matter since it is *you and *I* who are debating!
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i. The question is the interpretation biblically sound and warranted.
ii. Get "read in???" What, you think "all men" just means "all people who have penises?" So why don't you tell me that all women go to heaven since only "men" sin?
iii. You can't play the part of the annoying fan in the bleachers, unless that's what you want to be, is it? If not, then *engage* in the interpretations and arguments. Don't just sit in the stands and yell "you stink, my grandma could hit better than you." If you think you're all that then step up to the plate and face the 100 mph fastball.
iv. You think that pureness can come from impure parents. Job 14:4 "Who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one!" Job 15:14 "14 "What is man, that he could be pure, or one born of woman, that he could be righteous?"
v. If you don't care if it can be supported then why ask me to support it? Pillar-to-post mentality at large. If you don't care then you've *lost* the debate. I present argument showing Christianity is consistent in denying that it should murder infants, and you let me have it. Thus [A1] has been established.
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i. Notice that he now acts that he *could* engage in exegesis and theological debate if he so chooses to lower himself. He does a little study, finds out Augustine was involved, name dropps, and pretends to be learned on this subject. We all know, though, that he's not and so he covers his tracks by saying it's such a bothersome trifle to get involved with.
ii. He *could* use other scriptures and exegete them? But earlier he said, "I'm not an exegete, the pay stinks." Inconsistency is a mark of irrationality, irrationality is an effect of the fall.
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i. It leads back to our presuppositions, you admit I'm presupposing the Bible, but you don't want to argue the Bible??? Boy, you're all over the map.
ii. You're afraid to deal with my presuppositions, but I'm not afraid of yours. That's usually what happens when you have the truth on your side.
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i. It can't be because he's arguing from an illogical position, he just didn't have the time to put into putting forth a cogent argument, yeah, and I'm a pink elephant circling the earth. ;-)
ii. You offered a modus ponens, you don't need more than 30 seconds to write it out. It's simple, if p then q; p; therefore q. All you had to do was copy what you had for q.
iii. Notice his *a priori* commitment against my position. He's so sure that I'm wrong that, even though he's not put forth a good argument, he's going to go look up some "better ones" in a book.
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i. Morality does not = God's commands. God commands are moral though.
ii. People *use* moral notions *to* evaluate, but some impersonal moral imperatives that you've made up don't "evaluate" anything. People evaluate.
iii. If you're going to bring up the Bible then you must also add the concept of representation and covenant solidarity.
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i. Let's not get into physicalism? But you said you wanted to deal with "presuppositions." Pillar-to-post, I tell ya.
ii. I will bring physicalism up, since you're offering a moral argument against original sin I want to know how morality is even possible given your worldview.
iii. I don't see how responsibility is cogent within a phsyicalist's determinative worldview.
iv. I know you talk about making society all nice n fluffy, but that's not what we're referring to when we talk about morality. All you have are the strongest enforcing their rules, if the pedophiles win the day then they'll be enforcing their rules.
v. It makes no sense to tell a zombie that he *should* not have killed that kid.
vi. If the laws of physics determined your thoughts, then why believe them and why believe that they are geared for truth? Evolution only requires that they're geared towards survival, not truth. Hear fellow physicalist Pat Churchland:
"Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four F's: feeding, fleeing, fighting and reproducing. The principle chore of nervous systems is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive...Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing is advantageous so long as it is geared to the organism's way of life and enhances the organism's chances of survival. Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost."
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"Yeah and the Bible has a few other "concepts" that are just as ridiculous. How does one inherit "guilt"? Is it inside the atoms of your sperm? Is there some spirit magic, tainted with sin, that rides on the back of the sperm? I'm sorry, but the concept is silly."
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i. But the point of my rebuttal was to show that your premise begged the question, not that Christianity wasn't "silly."
ii. By "inherit" I mean that we are born with our sinful condition because of our connection with Adam. Anyway, on this point I'm a trauducianist.
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"Perhaps you missed it, but twice now, you've switched from arguing against original sin to arguing against materialism. Self-awareness is a part of our subjective individual experience, whether it can be objectively described, studied, whatever, using physics or not [whether it is an illusion or not]. Arguing that a fetus is self-aware is like arguing that a rat is. They have probably around the same mental capacities at some point in development."
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i. Perhaps you missed it, but I was arguing against your external critique and attempting to show that you cannot raise a moral objection to my worldview since in your worldview universal, non-arbitrary, objective morality is not possible.
ii. You said consciousness was required for morality, I pointed out that consciousness doesn't exist on your worldview, unless it's redefined or eliminated, if so, it doesn't exist! :-) You're such a folk psychologist.
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i. Well, it was an egregious logical blunder. You need to connect your conclusion to your premises. If your conclusion uses terms not used in your premises then you conclusion goes beyond your premises and hence it's a non-sequitur.
ii. I don't know what you mean by "if you're not moral you can't be held to a moral standard." Not-moral could mean, "immoral." Some people are "not moral" in this sense, but yet we hold them accountable. Or, do you mean by someone not being moral that, by nature, their not moral? Well then on physicalist assumptions where is your morality, between your toes? So, you're still confused here.
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And I pointed out that original sin is not talking about actual transgressions. Furthermore, I refuted the naive "eat fruit" argument.
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Thanks for admitting that the concept of representation is not an unfamiliar notion. Thus I think we've now defeated your external argument while at the same time buttressing my internal argument.
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Apropos your external argument: materialism. Furthermore, you're not arguing against original sin since you're failing to engage in exegesis. All you're doing is saying it's wrong based on your presuppositions. Well, you're a materialist and so if you're going to do that I'm going to attack materialism. I'll lay off if you want to engage in exegesis. This was I'll still prove you wrong but you wont have your worldview smashed. You choose.
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Doesn't matter internally. Externally, I know that's you opinion. So you believe we came from ape-like ancestors, big whoop.
"With me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind...?" — Charles Darwin, Letter to William Graham, Down, July 3rd, 1881
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It is an issue since you don't want to debate the Bible but want to bring an external moral complaint against original sin. If that's your approach then I'm going to take morality from you, beat you with your own stick, and send you home. So, it doesn't make original sin true, it defeats your argument against it, though.
Anyway, this is enough of this....
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So far, I'll paraphrase the dialogue, skeptics bold, apologists italicized:
Fetuses/infants can be spared an eternal agony by committing a temporal murder/killing
Not necessarily, only the elect go to heaven, and there are some texts in the Bible that suggest that some babies/fetuses may not be elect
It would seem you are hard-pressed to show any verse that speaks of the fate of the unborn in the afterlife, since they cannot commit willful sin
Original sin taints all mankind, and we assume it taints from conception, not birth, nor at an arbitrary age "of accountability"
Original sin is an intrinsically flawed concept of justice/morality -- you cannot claim to justly hold one person accountable for actions committed completely beyond their control or influence by another
The logical basis is the idea of federal headship, or representation.
Now, if you feel I haven't fairly represented the dialogue, feel free to rewrite this.
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i. No, Daniel, you're jumping from pillar to post.
ii. Notice that you *start* the argument by arguing that I would be had pressed to prove my point, *from the Bible.* Then notice that you *end* the argument by claiming that I would be hard pressed to prove my point, *from ethics.*
iii. The one is an internal critique, the other is external.
iv. There are two arguments going on here and you can't seem to sit still long enough to follow one of them through. Here's the state of the debate:
One argument [A1] is that Christians should murder infants since it ensures that they go to heaven. The response here is that they should not because, [1] it ensures no such thing, only the elect go to heaven and, if all infants who die in infancy were elect then, counterfactually, if they had not been killed they *still* would have entered glory. And, [2] Christians (indeed, anyone) does not have the right to murder. Now, this first argument can be directed at the Christian *internally.* That is, is the Christian inconsistent, or morally failing, given his system of thought, if he does not murder infants? My response here is to show that there is no *internal* inconsistency within Christian doctrine. That is, given what the Christians say about the world, man, and God's revelation, we *should not* murder infants to ensure they get to heaven. Therefore this fails as an internal critique against Christianity.
The second argument [A2] is different than the first. [A2] claims that despite what the Bible says, it is morally repugnant to think of children as coming into the world already defiled. This argument *does not* assume a biblical code of ethics but rather a non-biblical and humanistic code of ethics. This is an external critique. Whereas [A1] exonerates Christianity by appeal to its internal consistency, my approach to [A2] has been to show that [1] the arguments have not been valid, [2] the arguments beg the question, and [3]the arguments have no weight given the worldview of the one offering the argument, i.e., if his worldview were true he could not even make such an argument.
If I am correct on [A1] then the Christian should not murder infants. In Daniel is correct on [A2] the Christian should not murder infants (since Christianity would be false and therefore no one will be going to heaven). Thus the only way for Daniel to prove his *original* argument, i.e., that we should murder infants, is to meet me head on over at [A1]. Now, I can deal with [A2] and show that he cannot use it, but [A2] will not prove that we should murder children. [A2] is *only* external. Now, Daniel might think [A2] proves his original point but that is because he imposes his theory of ethics onto the Bible. For him to prove his original point, i.e., Christians should murder infants to ensure the enter glory he *must* engage in an internal critique. But he doesn't want to do this. Fine. But let's note that he has *failed* to prove his original point.
V. Why does it seem that I'd be hard pressed to prove my point from *the Bible* and then when he notes that I do prove it from *the Bible* he then says, "well, forget the Bible, original sin is a nasty idea?"
vi. Daniel is the one who wanted to get into flawed morality but then balks when I try to see if he can account for morality given his physicalism and view of man as a meat machine. If he has no absolute, perfect, universal standard of ethics then he cannot say what is *flawed* now can he? Daniel cannot say that a line is crooked if he doesn't have a picture of a straight line. Daniel cannot say that there are flaws on students math test if he does not have the perfect template by which all the answers are judged.
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If you like. Suffice it to say that I do not have the time nor interest to use resources like this one to attempt to argue against original from an exegetical/theological standpoint, or this one, but they obviously exist.
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But Danny *must* argue against this since this is the defense! I mean, look at the pillar-to-post mentality here. Above he says I'd be "hard pressed" to argue for original sin but when I do he says, "Well, I don't want to get into that." Then he hedges his bets by posting links, as if that is his rebuttal to my claim but since he doesn't claim allegiance to it then if I spend my time refuting it he'll just say, "But I didn't want to get into it, I just pointed out that critiques exist." But we already knew they existed, didn't we?
Now, I've claimed victory on this point and Daniel said I could if I'd like. Thus [A1] has been granted and therefore the Christian has no problem with the argument.
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Not really. As I pointed out above, many things can be drawn from the Bible, and have been. That whole "interpretation" thing is where it all gets pretty fuzzy, like with "all mankind" including fetuses. As I said, other Christians and theologians would argue with you that "Adam's imputed unrighteousness" is irrelevant in the face of "the individual's own unrighteousness", and that the latter is the basis of God's judgment, because the former is just the intrinsic propensity of humans [as conscious moral agents] to keep eating the apple that brought the universe to its knees.
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i. Again, the original debate was about post-natal INFANTS, not fetuses. Danny wants to move it to fetuses since he knows he has a problem proving the original argument. Daniel's whole point with bringing up fetuses is to claim that they might not be persons and, therefore, not part of "mankind." But this is an external argument. According to the Bible the unborn was considered a person.
ii. Notice that he brings up "interpretation" while also saying that he doesn't "have the time" to get into a "exegetical/theological debate." This is pillar-to-post mentality folks. Actually, its a bit underhanded. If we wants to get into interpretation then we can do so, but when I do he says, "you can have it, I'm not into debating exegetical/theological issues."
iii. He points out that original sin may be irrelevant to God's judgment! Well now we've shifted again! Has he admitted original sin but now wants to argue that people are not judged by it? Who knows. If I try to argue then will I get the response, "but I don't care about theology?" Who knows. Debating pillar-to-post atheists is a mind-numbing experience.
iv. Those "theologians" assume that the reatus culpae was not imputed. Furthermore, I've argued that you cannot have your cake and eat it too. You can't deny Adam's imputed unrighteousness while wanting to grab hold of Christ's imputed righteousness!
v. The first sin was not simply "eating the fruit." It was a denial of God and his authoritative Word. Man determined what he would be metaphysically and how he would knew epistemologically and how he would behave ethically. It was an usurping of the Creator/creature distinction. Indeed, Adam and Eve would have sinned if they had *not* eaten the fruit but for reasons such as, say, they were watching calories. Therefore, if you admit that original sin was imputed then it could not have been just that they would keep eating the apple, nay, it was a God-hating and self-serving nature, dead to all things Spiritual, that was imputed. This type of person does not enter glory.
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"Simply put, I didn't say, "oh yeah, you're right" and even if I did, it isn't whether I, non-theologian that I am, say it or not, now is it? It's whether the other theologians take you to task for inferring fetuses can be held to judgment by God for sins they "inherit".
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There you go hiding behind "other theologians" again. Why don't *you* put your money where your mouth is. I've offered refutations of those "other theologians" but yet you keep posting them. You're like a child who thinks his blanket will protect him from the monsters. And, it does matter what *you* and *I* have to say and the matter since it is *you and *I* who are debating!
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"I grant to you that it can be supported exegetically, hinging on specific interpretations where "fetus/infant" get "read in"...and I further admit that I really don't care if it can be supported or not, neither whether human sacrifice or slavery or anything else can be."
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i. The question is the interpretation biblically sound and warranted.
ii. Get "read in???" What, you think "all men" just means "all people who have penises?" So why don't you tell me that all women go to heaven since only "men" sin?
iii. You can't play the part of the annoying fan in the bleachers, unless that's what you want to be, is it? If not, then *engage* in the interpretations and arguments. Don't just sit in the stands and yell "you stink, my grandma could hit better than you." If you think you're all that then step up to the plate and face the 100 mph fastball.
iv. You think that pureness can come from impure parents. Job 14:4 "Who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one!" Job 15:14 "14 "What is man, that he could be pure, or one born of woman, that he could be righteous?"
v. If you don't care if it can be supported then why ask me to support it? Pillar-to-post mentality at large. If you don't care then you've *lost* the debate. I present argument showing Christianity is consistent in denying that it should murder infants, and you let me have it. Thus [A1] has been established.
****
"Admission of defeat if you like, but I could waste my time in trying to trash the illogical doctrine of Augustine being extrapolated to the unborn using other scriptures, if I held them as authoritative, as this person has."
****
i. Notice that he now acts that he *could* engage in exegesis and theological debate if he so chooses to lower himself. He does a little study, finds out Augustine was involved, name dropps, and pretends to be learned on this subject. We all know, though, that he's not and so he covers his tracks by saying it's such a bothersome trifle to get involved with.
ii. He *could* use other scriptures and exegete them? But earlier he said, "I'm not an exegete, the pay stinks." Inconsistency is a mark of irrationality, irrationality is an effect of the fall.
****
"Thus, in the end, the direction of the conversation does leads back to our presuppositions. Call me a pud if you want, whatever. I am tired of using the Bible to argue the Bible, as if that matters."
****
i. It leads back to our presuppositions, you admit I'm presupposing the Bible, but you don't want to argue the Bible??? Boy, you're all over the map.
ii. You're afraid to deal with my presuppositions, but I'm not afraid of yours. That's usually what happens when you have the truth on your side.
****
"Consider that my arguments were invented in about 3 minutes' time. I will take the time to look up something on the web which is a little less hastily written for you in my response post."
****
i. It can't be because he's arguing from an illogical position, he just didn't have the time to put into putting forth a cogent argument, yeah, and I'm a pink elephant circling the earth. ;-)
ii. You offered a modus ponens, you don't need more than 30 seconds to write it out. It's simple, if p then q; p; therefore q. All you had to do was copy what you had for q.
iii. Notice his *a priori* commitment against my position. He's so sure that I'm wrong that, even though he's not put forth a good argument, he's going to go look up some "better ones" in a book.
****
"I think my premise isn't clear. I am attempting to say "what does morality evaluate?" not "what determines the morality of thoughts, choices, and actions?" I'm pointing out that morality, which to you = God's commands, always involve human actions, thoughts, and choices. Have I clarified?"
****
i. Morality does not = God's commands. God commands are moral though.
ii. People *use* moral notions *to* evaluate, but some impersonal moral imperatives that you've made up don't "evaluate" anything. People evaluate.
iii. If you're going to bring up the Bible then you must also add the concept of representation and covenant solidarity.
****
"Let's not get sidetracked onto physicalism. The laws of physics, chemistry, and biology certainly do determine our thoughts, choices, and actions. So? Do you disagree with this? Can you somehow think something, or act something out, that violates them? Using moral responsibility in a deterministic worldview is not illogical. Not when you consider that people are a product of the physical world and their social environment, and that enforcing rules falls into the latter camp, and that the social environment does indeed correct and train behaviors. I doubt you disagree that our environment shapes our choices and behaviors."
****
i. Let's not get into physicalism? But you said you wanted to deal with "presuppositions." Pillar-to-post, I tell ya.
ii. I will bring physicalism up, since you're offering a moral argument against original sin I want to know how morality is even possible given your worldview.
iii. I don't see how responsibility is cogent within a phsyicalist's determinative worldview.
iv. I know you talk about making society all nice n fluffy, but that's not what we're referring to when we talk about morality. All you have are the strongest enforcing their rules, if the pedophiles win the day then they'll be enforcing their rules.
v. It makes no sense to tell a zombie that he *should* not have killed that kid.
vi. If the laws of physics determined your thoughts, then why believe them and why believe that they are geared for truth? Evolution only requires that they're geared towards survival, not truth. Hear fellow physicalist Pat Churchland:
"Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four F's: feeding, fleeing, fighting and reproducing. The principle chore of nervous systems is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive...Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing is advantageous so long as it is geared to the organism's way of life and enhances the organism's chances of survival. Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost."
****
"Yeah and the Bible has a few other "concepts" that are just as ridiculous. How does one inherit "guilt"? Is it inside the atoms of your sperm? Is there some spirit magic, tainted with sin, that rides on the back of the sperm? I'm sorry, but the concept is silly."
****
i. But the point of my rebuttal was to show that your premise begged the question, not that Christianity wasn't "silly."
ii. By "inherit" I mean that we are born with our sinful condition because of our connection with Adam. Anyway, on this point I'm a trauducianist.
****
"Perhaps you missed it, but twice now, you've switched from arguing against original sin to arguing against materialism. Self-awareness is a part of our subjective individual experience, whether it can be objectively described, studied, whatever, using physics or not [whether it is an illusion or not]. Arguing that a fetus is self-aware is like arguing that a rat is. They have probably around the same mental capacities at some point in development."
****
i. Perhaps you missed it, but I was arguing against your external critique and attempting to show that you cannot raise a moral objection to my worldview since in your worldview universal, non-arbitrary, objective morality is not possible.
ii. You said consciousness was required for morality, I pointed out that consciousness doesn't exist on your worldview, unless it's redefined or eliminated, if so, it doesn't exist! :-) You're such a folk psychologist.
****
"Okay, my bad. I should have written it more carefully in those 20 seconds I was giving thought to each line. It doesn't seem such an egregious logical blunder though...I would have to say that one implies the other -- if you are not moral, can you be justly held to a moral standard?"
****
i. Well, it was an egregious logical blunder. You need to connect your conclusion to your premises. If your conclusion uses terms not used in your premises then you conclusion goes beyond your premises and hence it's a non-sequitur.
ii. I don't know what you mean by "if you're not moral you can't be held to a moral standard." Not-moral could mean, "immoral." Some people are "not moral" in this sense, but yet we hold them accountable. Or, do you mean by someone not being moral that, by nature, their not moral? Well then on physicalist assumptions where is your morality, between your toes? So, you're still confused here.
****
"Fine. Did the fetus eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Nope. Okay, then, it is sin-free."
****
And I pointed out that original sin is not talking about actual transgressions. Furthermore, I refuted the naive "eat fruit" argument.
****
"You can be held responsible by the state for something over which you are given custodial privelage. This only means you are held liable for your son's actions in repairing the consequences of those actions, but you can't have the morality of his action magically "imputed" to you, so that your son's wrong choice = your wrong choice. If your kid killed someone, they wouldn't put you in jail for it, would they?"
****
Thanks for admitting that the concept of representation is not an unfamiliar notion. Thus I think we've now defeated your external argument while at the same time buttressing my internal argument.
****
"Is materialism on trial, or "original sin"?"
****
Apropos your external argument: materialism. Furthermore, you're not arguing against original sin since you're failing to engage in exegesis. All you're doing is saying it's wrong based on your presuppositions. Well, you're a materialist and so if you're going to do that I'm going to attack materialism. I'll lay off if you want to engage in exegesis. This was I'll still prove you wrong but you wont have your worldview smashed. You choose.
****
"And "Adam" is a fictitious character in a creation myth. There is not only an absence of evidence for your Edenic paradise and 6,000 year old ancestor, but a plethora of evidence against the existence of both."
****
Doesn't matter internally. Externally, I know that's you opinion. So you believe we came from ape-like ancestors, big whoop.
"With me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind...?" — Charles Darwin, Letter to William Graham, Down, July 3rd, 1881
****
"vi. Daniel cannot even account for morality.
What? First, is that at issue, here? Let's say he can't, or let's say that there is no morality at all. Does that make original sin "true"? Hardly."
****
It is an issue since you don't want to debate the Bible but want to bring an external moral complaint against original sin. If that's your approach then I'm going to take morality from you, beat you with your own stick, and send you home. So, it doesn't make original sin true, it defeats your argument against it, though.
Anyway, this is enough of this....
"A tiny minority"
John W. Loftus said:
“Steve, I never said philosophers don't discuss dualism. And there are still a small minority who defend it. [JP Moreland's substance dualism is simply laughed at].”
If he bothered to follow the links, he’d see that it’s discussed as a live option with heavy-duty philosophical patronage.
And whether it’s a “tiny” minority position depends, I guess, on your definition of minority and majority.
Also, is popularity a philosophical criterion?
Finally, according to David Chalmers:
***QUOTE***
Jaegwon Kim comes out
Jaegwon Kim's new book, Physicalism, or Something Near Enough, was recently published. This book is full of interesting arguments about the mind-body problem. But it is especially notable for the fact that Kim, often seen as an arch-reductionist, comes out of the closet as a dualist. In the last couple of pages of the book, he embraces epiphenomenalist property dualism about qualia, combined with functionalist reductionism about intentional states. The position is not too far from a view that is often attributed to The Conscious Mind, though as a matter of fact I'm much less confident about both the epiphenomenalism (about the phenomenal) and the functionalism (about the intentional) than Kim is. Here's a review of the book by Andrew Melnyk, and here's a sample chapter.
As the title suggests, Kim softpedals his debut as a dualist a little. Here's the last paragraph of the book:
“The position is, as we might say, a slightly defective physicalism -- physicalism manque but not by much. I believe that this is as much physicalism as we can have, and that there is no credible alternative to physicalism as a general worldview. Physicalism is not the whole truth, but it is the truth near enough, and near enough should be good enough.”
(As someone suggested, this calls to mind a counterfactual book called Straight, Or Something Near Enough. With subtitle: I Just Fool Around With Guys on Weekends. "The position is, as we might say, a slightly defective heterosexuality -- heterosexuality manque but not by much. Near enough should be good enough.")
Tone aside, this makes at least three prominent materialists who have abandoned the view in the last few years. Apart from Kim, there's Terry Horgan and Stephen White (balanced, of course, by Frank Jackson moving the other way). One still sometimes sees the claim that almost everyone these days is a materialist (e.g. in Peter Carruthers' new book, p. 5: "Just about everyone now working in this area is an ontological physicalist, with the exception of Chalmers (1996) and perhaps a few others"). I don't think one can get away with saying this any more. Apart from the four counterexamples just mentioned, here are a few other contemporary anti-materialists about consciousness who come quickly to mind: Joseph Almog, Torin Alter, George Bealer, Laurence BonJour, Paul Boghossian, Tyler Burge, Tim Crane, John Foster, Brie Gertler, George Graham, W.D. Hart, Ted Honderich, Steven Horst, Saul Kripke, Harold Langsam, E.J. Lowe, Kirk Ludwig, Trenton Merricks, Martine Nida-Rumelin, Adam Pautz, David Pitt, Alvin Plantinga, Howard Robinson, William Robinson, Gregg Rosenberg, A.D. Smith, and Richard Swinburne. There are plenty of others, and then at least as many again agnostics. If I had to guess, I'd guess that the numbers within philosophy of mind are 50% materialist, 25% agnostic, 25% dualist.
Of course, sociology isn't the important thing here. Philosophy is. So as philosophy, let me recommend Kim's book as a thoughtful and insightful treatment of the mind-body problem that's well worth reading.
http://fragments.consc.net/djc/2005/09/jaegwon_kim_com.html#trackback
***END-QUOTE***
“Steve, I never said philosophers don't discuss dualism. And there are still a small minority who defend it. [JP Moreland's substance dualism is simply laughed at].”
If he bothered to follow the links, he’d see that it’s discussed as a live option with heavy-duty philosophical patronage.
And whether it’s a “tiny” minority position depends, I guess, on your definition of minority and majority.
Also, is popularity a philosophical criterion?
Finally, according to David Chalmers:
***QUOTE***
Jaegwon Kim comes out
Jaegwon Kim's new book, Physicalism, or Something Near Enough, was recently published. This book is full of interesting arguments about the mind-body problem. But it is especially notable for the fact that Kim, often seen as an arch-reductionist, comes out of the closet as a dualist. In the last couple of pages of the book, he embraces epiphenomenalist property dualism about qualia, combined with functionalist reductionism about intentional states. The position is not too far from a view that is often attributed to The Conscious Mind, though as a matter of fact I'm much less confident about both the epiphenomenalism (about the phenomenal) and the functionalism (about the intentional) than Kim is. Here's a review of the book by Andrew Melnyk, and here's a sample chapter.
As the title suggests, Kim softpedals his debut as a dualist a little. Here's the last paragraph of the book:
“The position is, as we might say, a slightly defective physicalism -- physicalism manque but not by much. I believe that this is as much physicalism as we can have, and that there is no credible alternative to physicalism as a general worldview. Physicalism is not the whole truth, but it is the truth near enough, and near enough should be good enough.”
(As someone suggested, this calls to mind a counterfactual book called Straight, Or Something Near Enough. With subtitle: I Just Fool Around With Guys on Weekends. "The position is, as we might say, a slightly defective heterosexuality -- heterosexuality manque but not by much. Near enough should be good enough.")
Tone aside, this makes at least three prominent materialists who have abandoned the view in the last few years. Apart from Kim, there's Terry Horgan and Stephen White (balanced, of course, by Frank Jackson moving the other way). One still sometimes sees the claim that almost everyone these days is a materialist (e.g. in Peter Carruthers' new book, p. 5: "Just about everyone now working in this area is an ontological physicalist, with the exception of Chalmers (1996) and perhaps a few others"). I don't think one can get away with saying this any more. Apart from the four counterexamples just mentioned, here are a few other contemporary anti-materialists about consciousness who come quickly to mind: Joseph Almog, Torin Alter, George Bealer, Laurence BonJour, Paul Boghossian, Tyler Burge, Tim Crane, John Foster, Brie Gertler, George Graham, W.D. Hart, Ted Honderich, Steven Horst, Saul Kripke, Harold Langsam, E.J. Lowe, Kirk Ludwig, Trenton Merricks, Martine Nida-Rumelin, Adam Pautz, David Pitt, Alvin Plantinga, Howard Robinson, William Robinson, Gregg Rosenberg, A.D. Smith, and Richard Swinburne. There are plenty of others, and then at least as many again agnostics. If I had to guess, I'd guess that the numbers within philosophy of mind are 50% materialist, 25% agnostic, 25% dualist.
Of course, sociology isn't the important thing here. Philosophy is. So as philosophy, let me recommend Kim's book as a thoughtful and insightful treatment of the mind-body problem that's well worth reading.
http://fragments.consc.net/djc/2005/09/jaegwon_kim_com.html#trackback
***END-QUOTE***
Thirty years and counting
This month marks an anniversary. More than one. For one thing, my father died seven years ago this month.
For better or worse, the father/son relationship is a defining bond. The passing of a father is not something a son will ever get over or outgrow.
For many years you had that wall to lean against or push against.
And then it’s gone, as if the wall were blown out by a twister. Where the wall used to be is empty space. And it remains empty space.
As social creatures our identity is, in some measure, delineated by the shared surface of a few friends and family.
We are not entirely self-contained. Rather, we form mutual boundaries, with common walls.
Once that person is gone, the counter-pressure is gone. Your personality oozes out into the void.
As, one-by-one, death dismantles the walls of your ancestral home, it’s easy to lose self-definition. The center may remain, but you either retract into a core personality or diffuse into a fuzzy circumference.
To some extent, marriage and children raise up new retaining walls. But, of course, certain people are irreplaceable.
It was also around this time, 30 years ago, that the Lord called me out of darkness into his wonderful light.
Christians often speak of faith as strong or weak. Becoming stronger or weaker over the years.
There’s some value in isolating one’s faith in that detached fashion, as if it were an arm or a leg.
But the attempt to objectify one’s faith is also more than a bit artificial.
A Christian is not a person with faith, as if his faith were an ancillary belief or incidental property, like being a businessman or a football player. Rather, a Christian is a believer. He is not merely a person with a set of beliefs, not merely a man of faith—but one of the faithful.
His faith is his eyes and ears, heart and head. It’s not something he has, but something he is.
It is not our faith that changes, but we who change.
Looking back over my shoulder, I can’t say that my faith is any stronger or weaker than it was twenty years ago—or ten, or thirty. It’s been a very stable, effortless, unquestioning faith.
Of course, my faith is not my own. And every Christian has his own experience.
But if my faith is unchanged, I am not.
Like everyone else, I have changed, due to the inexorable seasons of life, along with the wear-and-tear of existence in a fallen world.
One might suppose the pilgrimage levels off after several years of strenuous ascent—that it hits a plateau, from which point one can coast for the remainder of the journey. Yet the way frequently grows steeper all the way to the end.
As Martyn Lloyd-Jones once said, this is:
“The danger of the middle period…it is something we all have to face sooner or later as we grow older…the most difficult period of all in life is the middle period. There are compensations in youth and there are compensations in old age which seem to be entirely lacking in this middle period,” Spiritual Depression (Eerdmans 1992), 192.
And yet the very exertion makes the muscles strong, so that it feels much the same, even if the incline is more acute.
As the body atrophies, the spirit amplifies. The outer man decays, but the inner man renews—like a butterfly—to spread his wings when the chrysalis at last is dead.
A newborn Christian may feel stronger because his body is vigorous, with the weightless, spring-action step of the young. And, in many cases, he has also suffered no irreparable loss to weigh him down.
And yet an older Christian may surmount challenges that would sink a younger Christian. He may be battle-weary, but he is battle-hardened.
And his way is lit with one opportune providence after another—an emerging pattern which we can only see in retrospect—often occurring when we need it the most, but expect it the least.
Not a steady light, but shooting stars to keep us from falling into the ditch.
“Sometimes a light surprises the Christian while he sings. It is the Lord, who rises with healing in his wings” (William Cowper).
My faith is much the same, but it’s differently situated. More internalized. Less on the outside, more on the inside.
A young believer has no spiritual experience, no past to look back on.
But for a Christian with a fair amount of mileage on the odometer of faith, we see the present through the filtered lens of the past, and the past through the filtered lens of the presence.
As T. S. Eliot said,
“Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment.”
I’ve only been a believer for 30 years. My grandmother was a believer for over 80 years.
And just imagine the walk of faith for Methuselah!
There were precious few apologetic resources when I first became a Christian. Apologetics has exploded since the Seventies.
My answers are much better at 46 pushing 47 than they were at 16 pushing 17.
And yet, as the answers get better, they mean much less to me.
Or perhaps I should say, they mean less to me as answers to objections, and more to me as living truths.
A Christian can greet every day with expectation, for every day is a new adventure that God has planned from all eternity. Whatever the day may bring, it comes from the hand of God’s good providence.
Every day is a treasure hunt. Around every corner is a Valentine from God.
The experience may at times be painful, but these are growing pains. Even when we grieve, we grieve in hope of a better tomorrow.
As we age, ever more of our life lies either in the past or the future. Out of reach and out of touch.
But if tomorrow is bleak, eternity is bright. And the brightness of the destination casts a backward light to illumine the darkened path below.
For better or worse, the father/son relationship is a defining bond. The passing of a father is not something a son will ever get over or outgrow.
For many years you had that wall to lean against or push against.
And then it’s gone, as if the wall were blown out by a twister. Where the wall used to be is empty space. And it remains empty space.
As social creatures our identity is, in some measure, delineated by the shared surface of a few friends and family.
We are not entirely self-contained. Rather, we form mutual boundaries, with common walls.
Once that person is gone, the counter-pressure is gone. Your personality oozes out into the void.
As, one-by-one, death dismantles the walls of your ancestral home, it’s easy to lose self-definition. The center may remain, but you either retract into a core personality or diffuse into a fuzzy circumference.
To some extent, marriage and children raise up new retaining walls. But, of course, certain people are irreplaceable.
It was also around this time, 30 years ago, that the Lord called me out of darkness into his wonderful light.
Christians often speak of faith as strong or weak. Becoming stronger or weaker over the years.
There’s some value in isolating one’s faith in that detached fashion, as if it were an arm or a leg.
But the attempt to objectify one’s faith is also more than a bit artificial.
A Christian is not a person with faith, as if his faith were an ancillary belief or incidental property, like being a businessman or a football player. Rather, a Christian is a believer. He is not merely a person with a set of beliefs, not merely a man of faith—but one of the faithful.
His faith is his eyes and ears, heart and head. It’s not something he has, but something he is.
It is not our faith that changes, but we who change.
Looking back over my shoulder, I can’t say that my faith is any stronger or weaker than it was twenty years ago—or ten, or thirty. It’s been a very stable, effortless, unquestioning faith.
Of course, my faith is not my own. And every Christian has his own experience.
But if my faith is unchanged, I am not.
Like everyone else, I have changed, due to the inexorable seasons of life, along with the wear-and-tear of existence in a fallen world.
One might suppose the pilgrimage levels off after several years of strenuous ascent—that it hits a plateau, from which point one can coast for the remainder of the journey. Yet the way frequently grows steeper all the way to the end.
As Martyn Lloyd-Jones once said, this is:
“The danger of the middle period…it is something we all have to face sooner or later as we grow older…the most difficult period of all in life is the middle period. There are compensations in youth and there are compensations in old age which seem to be entirely lacking in this middle period,” Spiritual Depression (Eerdmans 1992), 192.
And yet the very exertion makes the muscles strong, so that it feels much the same, even if the incline is more acute.
As the body atrophies, the spirit amplifies. The outer man decays, but the inner man renews—like a butterfly—to spread his wings when the chrysalis at last is dead.
A newborn Christian may feel stronger because his body is vigorous, with the weightless, spring-action step of the young. And, in many cases, he has also suffered no irreparable loss to weigh him down.
And yet an older Christian may surmount challenges that would sink a younger Christian. He may be battle-weary, but he is battle-hardened.
And his way is lit with one opportune providence after another—an emerging pattern which we can only see in retrospect—often occurring when we need it the most, but expect it the least.
Not a steady light, but shooting stars to keep us from falling into the ditch.
“Sometimes a light surprises the Christian while he sings. It is the Lord, who rises with healing in his wings” (William Cowper).
My faith is much the same, but it’s differently situated. More internalized. Less on the outside, more on the inside.
A young believer has no spiritual experience, no past to look back on.
But for a Christian with a fair amount of mileage on the odometer of faith, we see the present through the filtered lens of the past, and the past through the filtered lens of the presence.
As T. S. Eliot said,
“Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment.”
I’ve only been a believer for 30 years. My grandmother was a believer for over 80 years.
And just imagine the walk of faith for Methuselah!
There were precious few apologetic resources when I first became a Christian. Apologetics has exploded since the Seventies.
My answers are much better at 46 pushing 47 than they were at 16 pushing 17.
And yet, as the answers get better, they mean much less to me.
Or perhaps I should say, they mean less to me as answers to objections, and more to me as living truths.
A Christian can greet every day with expectation, for every day is a new adventure that God has planned from all eternity. Whatever the day may bring, it comes from the hand of God’s good providence.
Every day is a treasure hunt. Around every corner is a Valentine from God.
The experience may at times be painful, but these are growing pains. Even when we grieve, we grieve in hope of a better tomorrow.
As we age, ever more of our life lies either in the past or the future. Out of reach and out of touch.
But if tomorrow is bleak, eternity is bright. And the brightness of the destination casts a backward light to illumine the darkened path below.
Monism, dualism, & freewill
Calvinism denies freewill, right? Everyone knows that Calvinism denies freewill. If they know nothing else about Calvinism, they know that much. Indeed, there’s nothing else to know, is there? That’s all there is to Calvinism, right? The denial of freewill? Nothing less and nothing more.
Of course, it’s not that simple. Historically, the question swirls around the Calvinist/Arminian debate, which, in turn, goes back to the Pelagian controversy.
But there’s another way of approaching this question. And that is in terms of the debate between monism and dualism. By “monism” I mean materialism. By “dualism” I mean Cartesian dualism.
Daniel Dennett is a militant monist and archenemy of dualism. He likes to talk about the Cartesian theater. His criticism is actually aimed at what he calls Cartesian materialism, which he regards as a remnant of Cartesian dualism.
In the Cartesian theater, the soul plays the role of a homunculus who scans sensory input projected onto a big screen, makes decisions on the basis of this input, and directs the body to act accordingly.
It’s like the scene in Men in Black where what looks like a human body is really a space ship piloted by miniature alien. The skull is the “bridge, the eyes the view screen, and so on.
Because these illustrations are humorous, they are meant to ridicule the very idea of dualism.
But let’s give this a second thought. On the one hand, traditional Christian anthropology is, indeed, dualistic.
The soul is the seat of personality. The soul does, indeed, process information coming in from the senses. The soul does, indeed, direct the body to do certain things in response to this sensory input.
And this is the real basis of freewill. It isn’t the freedom to do otherwise. Rather, it’s a faculty for moral and rational deliberation.
Choice does not involve freedom of opportunity, for, as a practical matter, we can only make one choice at a time.
But it does demand an ability to entertain various alternatives, whichever of these bare possibilities turns out to be a live option.
Due to dualism, a person is a self-conscious being. He is able to objectify his own awareness. To see himself apart from his surroundings. He has a capacity for imagining hypothetical scenarios.
In physicalism, by contrast, such detachment is impossible. The brain is it. There is no antecedent observer to inspect the input and choose the best course of action.
Rather, mind and brain are identical, and the brain is governed by the laws of physics. The person cannot step outside of his brain. He can’t step away from his neuroprocessing center to review the input with critical detachment, or direct the body accordingly.
He doesn’t have a body. He is a body. So he can’t put any distance between his mind and his brain.
There’s nothing behind the eyes except a data processing machine, mindlessly registering external stimuli—like a security camera, voice-activated tape recorder, or seismograph.
In place of a homunculus we have a zombie. If physicalism is true, then moral or rational deliberation is illusory.
Of course, it’s not that simple. Historically, the question swirls around the Calvinist/Arminian debate, which, in turn, goes back to the Pelagian controversy.
But there’s another way of approaching this question. And that is in terms of the debate between monism and dualism. By “monism” I mean materialism. By “dualism” I mean Cartesian dualism.
Daniel Dennett is a militant monist and archenemy of dualism. He likes to talk about the Cartesian theater. His criticism is actually aimed at what he calls Cartesian materialism, which he regards as a remnant of Cartesian dualism.
In the Cartesian theater, the soul plays the role of a homunculus who scans sensory input projected onto a big screen, makes decisions on the basis of this input, and directs the body to act accordingly.
It’s like the scene in Men in Black where what looks like a human body is really a space ship piloted by miniature alien. The skull is the “bridge, the eyes the view screen, and so on.
Because these illustrations are humorous, they are meant to ridicule the very idea of dualism.
But let’s give this a second thought. On the one hand, traditional Christian anthropology is, indeed, dualistic.
The soul is the seat of personality. The soul does, indeed, process information coming in from the senses. The soul does, indeed, direct the body to do certain things in response to this sensory input.
And this is the real basis of freewill. It isn’t the freedom to do otherwise. Rather, it’s a faculty for moral and rational deliberation.
Choice does not involve freedom of opportunity, for, as a practical matter, we can only make one choice at a time.
But it does demand an ability to entertain various alternatives, whichever of these bare possibilities turns out to be a live option.
Due to dualism, a person is a self-conscious being. He is able to objectify his own awareness. To see himself apart from his surroundings. He has a capacity for imagining hypothetical scenarios.
In physicalism, by contrast, such detachment is impossible. The brain is it. There is no antecedent observer to inspect the input and choose the best course of action.
Rather, mind and brain are identical, and the brain is governed by the laws of physics. The person cannot step outside of his brain. He can’t step away from his neuroprocessing center to review the input with critical detachment, or direct the body accordingly.
He doesn’t have a body. He is a body. So he can’t put any distance between his mind and his brain.
There’s nothing behind the eyes except a data processing machine, mindlessly registering external stimuli—like a security camera, voice-activated tape recorder, or seismograph.
In place of a homunculus we have a zombie. If physicalism is true, then moral or rational deliberation is illusory.
Is this the God I worship?
John W. Loftus said:
“Steve, this is the God YOU worship?”
Yes, this is the God I worship.
The basic point of disagreement between you and me is not over surface phenomena.
No, it runs much deeper. You and I are not on the same wavelength.
Most of the time I suppose I sound a lot like an evidentialist. That’s because most of the time it’s sufficient for me to answer the unbeliever on his own shallow grounds.
I never need to play my high cards. I can keep my deeper reasons to myself.
But really, John, you might as well be a Martian for all we have in common.
You keep acting as if my faith were optional. As if I go to bed a believer, never knowing if I’ll wake up an unbeliever.
As if I get out of bed every morning, open my Christian safe, and peer inside to see if my faith is still there.
You act as if I need to review the state of the evidence every day before breakfast to see if the scales have tipped the other way while I slept—if a piece of Christian evidence was removed from one side of the scales or a piece of anti-Christian evidence was added to the other side of the scales.
Now, this balancing act can be relevant in terms of weighing the options within Christianity. Should I be Catholic or Protestant? Lutheran or Baptist.
But it’s not what makes a Christian qua Christian tick.
It may seem that way to you because you lost your faith.
And you may say it could happen to me. Well, that’s a hypothetical that can’t be verified or falsified at this juncture, now can it?
I can only speak from my theology and my experience. From a lived-in theology.
You’re like a man who steps into a painting and then denies the existence of the painter because you can’t find the painter in the painting.
From within the painting, you can’t see anything outside the painting.
I’m like a man who steps into a painting and cannot deny the existence of the painter since he is evident in every brushstroke.
You only see absence. You see everything except the painter, so you conclude that the painter does not exist.
I don’t need to see the painter when I have the painting.
What is more, the painter painted himself into his own painting 2000 years ago.
God is hidden in plain sight. But we become insensible to God the way we become insensible to airplanes and barking dogs—not because it’s all so elusive, but because it’s so all-pervasive. There’s nothing to contrast it with when it is all around us and within us.
“He damns me for his glory?”
As Gene and I have each explained, this is simplistic.
“Can you step back from this and see this belief for what it really is? A God like that isn't worthy of worship.”
According to you, an atheist.
“A God like that makes atheists out of those of us who see it for what it really is.”
Yes, that’s true. There are nominal Christians who see God through a tinted window, but when the tinted window is replaced with a clear pane of glass, and they see who God actually is for the very first time, then they turn their back on God.
Truth is either a unitive force and a divisive force. Some men are drawn to the light while others are blinded by the light and prefer to live as creatures of the night.
You have a way of turning truth-claims into a bluff: “I dare you to tell me that this is what God is really like, for if, indeed, that’s what God is really like, then I refuse to believe in a God like that!”
What makes you think that I’m bothered by that consequence? You’re the one who suffers the consequence, not me.
In Calvinism, the gospel is intended to have that affect on the reprobate. It’s intended to drive them away from God (Jn 9:39)—not because God is bad and they are good, but because they are bad and God is good (Jn 3:19-20).
It’s really rather childish of you to suppose that we should cut and tailor our theology under the standing threat that unless we redesign the creed to meet your personal specifications, you will take your business elsewhere.
There’s no correlation between what you like and what God is like. That’s not how existential truths operate.
A God who’s made to order according to your personal specifications is a make-believe God, an imaginary deity.
“But who are we to answer back to God, you'll say. You explain everything...and nothing.”
Actually, that’s not the answer I’ve given.
That’s the answer Paul gave to a hypothetical Jewish opponent. He’s answering his opponent on his own grounds. His opponent believes in God as well as the Scriptures.
Is this a persuasive answer for someone who doesn’t believe in God or God’s revelation in Scripture? No. But that was not the target audience.
And it’s a perfectly good answer in its own right. If there is a God, and he has the attributes of the Biblical God, then he does indeed know better than I what is for the best.
But that’s not the only answer Paul gave, and it’s not the answer I gave in the course of this discussion.
“Now tell me this Steve, does God also make me desire to reject him so that I will go to hell? Where exactly is this thing called secondary causation?”
Gene gave a good answer.
“And what do you think of the ethical principle of the means justifying the ends? I'll suppose you reject it. Yet, your God does this with us.”
This is simplistic. Does any end justify any means whatsoever? No. Does the end never justify the means? No. We need to avoid two extremes.
I don’t regard teleological ethics as the sum of ethics, but teleological considerations are a necessary, if insufficient, feature of moral deliberation and moral valuation.
We build hospitals for sick people. Caring for the sick justifies the construction of hospitals. If there were no sick people, it would be a waste of time and money to build hospitals. Hence, the end justifies the means.
We raise armies and pay policemen. The right of self-defense justifies an army as well as a police force. If we had no enemies or criminals, the outlay would be unjustified. Hence, the end justifies the means.
John Loftus is a secular blogger. He has written in defense of why he is blogging for the cause of atheism. If you read his defense, it’s an exercise in teleological reasoning.
“Kant argued that we should never use people as a means to an end.”
What is this? An argument from authority? Why should I regard Immanuel Kant as a moral authority? Much less regard him as my moral authority?
i) If you want to give me an argument from Kant, then we’ll have something to take about, but to use Kant himself as an argument is a question-begging appeal to authority. Kant’s person opinion does not amount to a reasoned argument for or against anything in general or anything in particular.
ii) We all use people as means to an end. When you go to the grocery store you are using the grocer as a means to an end. And he is using the customer as a means to an end.
When you buy gasoline, you are using the gas station attendant as a means to an end, and he’s using the customer as a means to an end.
A man marries a woman because he has an emotional need for a woman in his life, as well as children. He is using her as a means to an end.
A woman marries a man because she has an emotional need for a man in her life, as well as children. She is using him as a means to an end.
We are needy, dependent, contingent creatures. So, yes, we use each other to supply our material and emotional needs.
Now, there’s a right way and a wrong way to use a person. But there’s nothing intrinsically evil about using another person to satisfy our natural needs. To the contrary, that can be intrinsically good.
“Using people like this is done around the globe by regimes who imprison and torture political prisoners for the good of the regime.”
All this goes to show is that an unworthy end can never justify the means. A worthy end is a minimal precondition of teleological ethics.
“Your God is entitled to have a diametrically opposed ethical system because he's God, right? You explain everything...and nothing.”
That’s a misleading way of putting things. Whatever God does is right.
But mainstream Calvinism does not regard the law of God as a morally arbitrary fiat, so that whatever is right today could be wrong tomorrow, or vice versa.
Certain injunctions are grounded God’s own character, while other injunctions are grounded in the nature he has given us.
“God's goodness is judged by a totally different standard than our standard of goodness. What then does it mean to say God is good, when you say it? You explain everything...and nothing.”
You have a lordly habit of using the editorial “we,” as if your moral intuitions were self-evidently true and universally true.
Kantian ethics does not represent everyone’s standard of goodness.
“Steve, this is the God YOU worship?”
Yes, this is the God I worship.
The basic point of disagreement between you and me is not over surface phenomena.
No, it runs much deeper. You and I are not on the same wavelength.
Most of the time I suppose I sound a lot like an evidentialist. That’s because most of the time it’s sufficient for me to answer the unbeliever on his own shallow grounds.
I never need to play my high cards. I can keep my deeper reasons to myself.
But really, John, you might as well be a Martian for all we have in common.
You keep acting as if my faith were optional. As if I go to bed a believer, never knowing if I’ll wake up an unbeliever.
As if I get out of bed every morning, open my Christian safe, and peer inside to see if my faith is still there.
You act as if I need to review the state of the evidence every day before breakfast to see if the scales have tipped the other way while I slept—if a piece of Christian evidence was removed from one side of the scales or a piece of anti-Christian evidence was added to the other side of the scales.
Now, this balancing act can be relevant in terms of weighing the options within Christianity. Should I be Catholic or Protestant? Lutheran or Baptist.
But it’s not what makes a Christian qua Christian tick.
It may seem that way to you because you lost your faith.
And you may say it could happen to me. Well, that’s a hypothetical that can’t be verified or falsified at this juncture, now can it?
I can only speak from my theology and my experience. From a lived-in theology.
You’re like a man who steps into a painting and then denies the existence of the painter because you can’t find the painter in the painting.
From within the painting, you can’t see anything outside the painting.
I’m like a man who steps into a painting and cannot deny the existence of the painter since he is evident in every brushstroke.
You only see absence. You see everything except the painter, so you conclude that the painter does not exist.
I don’t need to see the painter when I have the painting.
What is more, the painter painted himself into his own painting 2000 years ago.
God is hidden in plain sight. But we become insensible to God the way we become insensible to airplanes and barking dogs—not because it’s all so elusive, but because it’s so all-pervasive. There’s nothing to contrast it with when it is all around us and within us.
“He damns me for his glory?”
As Gene and I have each explained, this is simplistic.
“Can you step back from this and see this belief for what it really is? A God like that isn't worthy of worship.”
According to you, an atheist.
“A God like that makes atheists out of those of us who see it for what it really is.”
Yes, that’s true. There are nominal Christians who see God through a tinted window, but when the tinted window is replaced with a clear pane of glass, and they see who God actually is for the very first time, then they turn their back on God.
Truth is either a unitive force and a divisive force. Some men are drawn to the light while others are blinded by the light and prefer to live as creatures of the night.
You have a way of turning truth-claims into a bluff: “I dare you to tell me that this is what God is really like, for if, indeed, that’s what God is really like, then I refuse to believe in a God like that!”
What makes you think that I’m bothered by that consequence? You’re the one who suffers the consequence, not me.
In Calvinism, the gospel is intended to have that affect on the reprobate. It’s intended to drive them away from God (Jn 9:39)—not because God is bad and they are good, but because they are bad and God is good (Jn 3:19-20).
It’s really rather childish of you to suppose that we should cut and tailor our theology under the standing threat that unless we redesign the creed to meet your personal specifications, you will take your business elsewhere.
There’s no correlation between what you like and what God is like. That’s not how existential truths operate.
A God who’s made to order according to your personal specifications is a make-believe God, an imaginary deity.
“But who are we to answer back to God, you'll say. You explain everything...and nothing.”
Actually, that’s not the answer I’ve given.
That’s the answer Paul gave to a hypothetical Jewish opponent. He’s answering his opponent on his own grounds. His opponent believes in God as well as the Scriptures.
Is this a persuasive answer for someone who doesn’t believe in God or God’s revelation in Scripture? No. But that was not the target audience.
And it’s a perfectly good answer in its own right. If there is a God, and he has the attributes of the Biblical God, then he does indeed know better than I what is for the best.
But that’s not the only answer Paul gave, and it’s not the answer I gave in the course of this discussion.
“Now tell me this Steve, does God also make me desire to reject him so that I will go to hell? Where exactly is this thing called secondary causation?”
Gene gave a good answer.
“And what do you think of the ethical principle of the means justifying the ends? I'll suppose you reject it. Yet, your God does this with us.”
This is simplistic. Does any end justify any means whatsoever? No. Does the end never justify the means? No. We need to avoid two extremes.
I don’t regard teleological ethics as the sum of ethics, but teleological considerations are a necessary, if insufficient, feature of moral deliberation and moral valuation.
We build hospitals for sick people. Caring for the sick justifies the construction of hospitals. If there were no sick people, it would be a waste of time and money to build hospitals. Hence, the end justifies the means.
We raise armies and pay policemen. The right of self-defense justifies an army as well as a police force. If we had no enemies or criminals, the outlay would be unjustified. Hence, the end justifies the means.
John Loftus is a secular blogger. He has written in defense of why he is blogging for the cause of atheism. If you read his defense, it’s an exercise in teleological reasoning.
“Kant argued that we should never use people as a means to an end.”
What is this? An argument from authority? Why should I regard Immanuel Kant as a moral authority? Much less regard him as my moral authority?
i) If you want to give me an argument from Kant, then we’ll have something to take about, but to use Kant himself as an argument is a question-begging appeal to authority. Kant’s person opinion does not amount to a reasoned argument for or against anything in general or anything in particular.
ii) We all use people as means to an end. When you go to the grocery store you are using the grocer as a means to an end. And he is using the customer as a means to an end.
When you buy gasoline, you are using the gas station attendant as a means to an end, and he’s using the customer as a means to an end.
A man marries a woman because he has an emotional need for a woman in his life, as well as children. He is using her as a means to an end.
A woman marries a man because she has an emotional need for a man in her life, as well as children. She is using him as a means to an end.
We are needy, dependent, contingent creatures. So, yes, we use each other to supply our material and emotional needs.
Now, there’s a right way and a wrong way to use a person. But there’s nothing intrinsically evil about using another person to satisfy our natural needs. To the contrary, that can be intrinsically good.
“Using people like this is done around the globe by regimes who imprison and torture political prisoners for the good of the regime.”
All this goes to show is that an unworthy end can never justify the means. A worthy end is a minimal precondition of teleological ethics.
“Your God is entitled to have a diametrically opposed ethical system because he's God, right? You explain everything...and nothing.”
That’s a misleading way of putting things. Whatever God does is right.
But mainstream Calvinism does not regard the law of God as a morally arbitrary fiat, so that whatever is right today could be wrong tomorrow, or vice versa.
Certain injunctions are grounded God’s own character, while other injunctions are grounded in the nature he has given us.
“God's goodness is judged by a totally different standard than our standard of goodness. What then does it mean to say God is good, when you say it? You explain everything...and nothing.”
You have a lordly habit of using the editorial “we,” as if your moral intuitions were self-evidently true and universally true.
Kantian ethics does not represent everyone’s standard of goodness.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Tightening the Noose
How do you stop an atheist's argument from drowning? Take your foot off its head!
Today, I don't think I'll do that. Instead I'll continue to press my foot down on the argument, submerge it, and watch it's lifeless body float away.
It all started with THIS POST, which prompted THIS RESPONSE, which generated yet ANOTHER RESPONSE.
At this juncture we have yet another response by Daniel Morgan. His latest response is a telling commentary on the state of the debate, and how he, at least sub-consciously, views it. It's to his latest that I now turn.
Fine, and I take this as a tacit admission that all the other points I've been arguing for are counted in our favor.
Yes, I'm sadly aware of this. Of course this has absolutely ZERO logical weight in the argument at hand. Furthermore, the problem with these arguments is that these people cannot turn around and now claim the imputed righteousness of Christ on their behalf! If they want to deny Adam's imputed unrighteousness then they don't get the imputation of the second Adam either.
Is this how Morgan handles the arguments I gave for original sin in my second post? The question is *does* the Bible support this.
Secondly, notice the red herring brought into the discussion (i.e., slavery).
Notice below that he will not at all show how the "logic" of original sin is faulty.
The logical basis is the idea of federal headship, or representation. But Daniel Morgan failed to bring this up. Therefore it appears that Daniel Morgan didn't know what the "logical basis" of the argument was. If he didn't know what the logical basis was, then why say he has a problem with said basis? If he did know what the basis was, then why not mention or critique the basis.
Notice the tacit admition of defeat. The original question was: "does the BIBLE teach original sin." Daniel previously had challenged me to prove this idea from the Bible. Morgan had originally postured this way:
See, he challenged me to prove this doctrine from the Bible. At this point what he now is doing is saying, "well forget what the Bible says about it, let's just look at it from an ethical perspective and see if it holds (as we'll note he does below).
Originally the hub-bub started when I critiqued the view that we should shoot infants to get them to heaven. I argued from a biblical basis and showed how this argument cannot be given if biblical premises are assumed. Thus the argument attacks a straw man. The first counter was to try and show that I could not show the Bible supported my argument. Whence I did we don't here an "oh yeah, you're right, well, let's move on to something else; I have other criticisms to give." What we see is a sneaky and underhanded attempt to shift the ground of the debate.
Second, I don't see how this comes down to a matter of premises? I don't even know what that means. What it comes down to is exegesis, and Daniel Morgan is out gunned in this fight. That being the case, he tries to retreat to his outlaw hide out and fight on more familiar turf.
But the problem is that back in town he was shot. He is bleeding all the way to the hide out. He can try to go down in a blaze of glory, and the law can oblige, but we already know he's been shot and his last little outburst is an attempt to go down in the history books as at least having done something. This is all fine, as long as we know that the real fight happened back in town and the kid (as they call him) lost there. Let's now turn to his last hoorah.
"I will argue original sin is false on the basis of the following premises, while you presuppose the Bible is true [which entails a million necessary other premises and explanations and interpretations] and argue it is true:"
And let's remember all that originally mattered was if the Bible taught said doctrine. I already knew you disagreed with it. You didn't need to wait three posts to let us know that.
Let's now look at his argument (against original sin, remember):
This argument fails for many reasons:
i. I deny P1 and so does Christianity, thus it cannot be leveled against the doctrine of original sin since that doctrine cannot be taken out of the system which it's found in.
ii. This premise (1) leads to moral relativism.
iii. P1 allows no moral utterances to ever be the same. When Tom and Pete say that murder is wrong what's happening is that Tom thinks it's wrong because it's based on *his* thoughts and Pete thinks it's wrong because it's based on *his* thoughts.
iv. What is meant by "choices" here? Is Daniel not a physicalist who believes the laws of physics, biology, chemistry, etc determine our thoughts, choices, and actions? If so, then Daniel cannot believe is own P1 for what sense does it make to say that moral prescriptions are based on descriptive laws of physics and such.
v. P2 does not argue against original sin, and thus Daniel can't use this argument against original sin. P2 assumes actual transgressions committed by an agent and not the imputed guilt "inherited" by all of his. This comes nowhere close to dealing with the concept of representation and corporate solidarity taught in the Bible.
vi. P3 is unproven, and, originally, we were talking about all children before the age of accountability. Furthermore, what is "consciousness" on Daniel's materialist point of view? It may be that consciousness is a myth given materialism, and thus no one is a conscious moral agent on Daniel's view. So, his argument does not even follow.
vii. The worst here is the conclusion. Notice that he affirms the antecedent which would bring the conclusion "they cannot be moral." But notice that Daniel changes his conclusion to "they cannot be held to a moral standard." But this was not the consequent of his modus ponens! An egregious logical blunder.
viii. On a representationalist view all men can be held accountable to the moral standard that Adam was under.
ix. Thus since Daniel didn't even come close to touching the biblical doctrine of original sin, his argument totally fails. Furthermore, his conclusion goes beyond the premise, he uses vague and ambiguous terms and, prima facie, uses terms inconsistent with his materialism.
His second argument is more to the point:
i. Note that p1 differs from p1 above. Which one is morality "based" on? Responsibility or thoughts, choices and actions.
ii. P2 is denied by the concept of federal headship. There's no *argument* against original sin here, just an assertion against it.
iii. P2 is demonstrably false. People, schools, and nations are constantly "held accountable" for the moral choices of others. For example, if the football team cheats then the whole school gets blacked-out. If my son smashes my neighbors window and kills her dog, I'm held responsible. These examples can be multiplied ad nauseum.
iv. P2 assumes a freedom that Daniel's materialism doesn't allow for. If we are all determined by the laws of physics how can we have "control" over those actions."
v. Adam did what we all would have done.
vi. Daniel cannot even account for morality.
vii. The conclusion goes beyond the premises.
viii. I deny that "original sin" is "the basis" for morality, so this is no argument against Christianity.
ix. Thus we're justified in rejecting this argument as well.
So much for going down in a blaze of glory, Daniel's firing blanks.
Is this the point where I insert one of these: LOL?
Well,
i. You'd actually have to *show* how it's illogical.
ii. There is nothing "illogical" about a "purple elephant circling the earth as a satellite." It may be false, impossible (physically), etc., but it's not "illogical" since there is no law of logic violated in saying such a thing.
iii. Holding a person morally accountable for something the laws of physics determined he'd do is about as silly as believing that purple elephants orbit the earth as satellites.
iv. Your doctrine is intrinsically flawed.
v. Hint: I'm not scared by tough talk and mere assertions that we have all these supposed problems in our system. One could say that Triablogue is very Missourian about grand assertions, i.e., "show me."
Today, I don't think I'll do that. Instead I'll continue to press my foot down on the argument, submerge it, and watch it's lifeless body float away.
It all started with THIS POST, which prompted THIS RESPONSE, which generated yet ANOTHER RESPONSE.
At this juncture we have yet another response by Daniel Morgan. His latest response is a telling commentary on the state of the debate, and how he, at least sub-consciously, views it. It's to his latest that I now turn.
"This whole matter boils down to two important concepts, original sin and "election"."
Fine, and I take this as a tacit admission that all the other points I've been arguing for are counted in our favor.
"Original sin has been argued against by fellow Christians and by heretics for years."
Yes, I'm sadly aware of this. Of course this has absolutely ZERO logical weight in the argument at hand. Furthermore, the problem with these arguments is that these people cannot turn around and now claim the imputed righteousness of Christ on their behalf! If they want to deny Adam's imputed unrighteousness then they don't get the imputation of the second Adam either.
"It is a foundational doctrine, against which I will not argue that it can be supported from the present Christian Bible (just as slavery can be)."
Is this how Morgan handles the arguments I gave for original sin in my second post? The question is *does* the Bible support this.
Secondly, notice the red herring brought into the discussion (i.e., slavery).
"That said, I strongly disagree with the logical basis of such a doctrine."
Notice below that he will not at all show how the "logic" of original sin is faulty.
The logical basis is the idea of federal headship, or representation. But Daniel Morgan failed to bring this up. Therefore it appears that Daniel Morgan didn't know what the "logical basis" of the argument was. If he didn't know what the logical basis was, then why say he has a problem with said basis? If he did know what the basis was, then why not mention or critique the basis.
"Because you presuppose the Bible as true, and I do not, as has often been pointed out, this comes down to a matter of premises."
Notice the tacit admition of defeat. The original question was: "does the BIBLE teach original sin." Daniel previously had challenged me to prove this idea from the Bible. Morgan had originally postured this way:
"Of course, the way to resolve this is to explain how "original sin" is attached to election of a fetus, how it has some kind of intrinsic sin value which is justly met with the wrath of God. Personally, I see you descending into some pretty obscure interpretations to support your contention. The idea that fetuses and infants have some sort of willful sin is obvious nonsense. So, original sin is then all you have to go on, and aside from poetic references to David's "i was conceived in sin" I challenge you to substantiate your P2."
See, he challenged me to prove this doctrine from the Bible. At this point what he now is doing is saying, "well forget what the Bible says about it, let's just look at it from an ethical perspective and see if it holds (as we'll note he does below).
Originally the hub-bub started when I critiqued the view that we should shoot infants to get them to heaven. I argued from a biblical basis and showed how this argument cannot be given if biblical premises are assumed. Thus the argument attacks a straw man. The first counter was to try and show that I could not show the Bible supported my argument. Whence I did we don't here an "oh yeah, you're right, well, let's move on to something else; I have other criticisms to give." What we see is a sneaky and underhanded attempt to shift the ground of the debate.
Second, I don't see how this comes down to a matter of premises? I don't even know what that means. What it comes down to is exegesis, and Daniel Morgan is out gunned in this fight. That being the case, he tries to retreat to his outlaw hide out and fight on more familiar turf.
But the problem is that back in town he was shot. He is bleeding all the way to the hide out. He can try to go down in a blaze of glory, and the law can oblige, but we already know he's been shot and his last little outburst is an attempt to go down in the history books as at least having done something. This is all fine, as long as we know that the real fight happened back in town and the kid (as they call him) lost there. Let's now turn to his last hoorah.
"I will argue original sin is false on the basis of the following premises, while you presuppose the Bible is true [which entails a million necessary other premises and explanations and interpretations] and argue it is true:"
And let's remember all that originally mattered was if the Bible taught said doctrine. I already knew you disagreed with it. You didn't need to wait three posts to let us know that.
Let's now look at his argument (against original sin, remember):
1. Morality is based upon the thoughts, choices and actions belonging to a conscious agent
2. If agents are not conscious, they cannot be moral [at any particular moment in question - don't be silly and say that sleep negates this premise]
3. Fetuses are not conscious moral agents
C2. Therefore, fetuses cannot be held to any standard of morality.
This argument fails for many reasons:
i. I deny P1 and so does Christianity, thus it cannot be leveled against the doctrine of original sin since that doctrine cannot be taken out of the system which it's found in.
ii. This premise (1) leads to moral relativism.
iii. P1 allows no moral utterances to ever be the same. When Tom and Pete say that murder is wrong what's happening is that Tom thinks it's wrong because it's based on *his* thoughts and Pete thinks it's wrong because it's based on *his* thoughts.
iv. What is meant by "choices" here? Is Daniel not a physicalist who believes the laws of physics, biology, chemistry, etc determine our thoughts, choices, and actions? If so, then Daniel cannot believe is own P1 for what sense does it make to say that moral prescriptions are based on descriptive laws of physics and such.
v. P2 does not argue against original sin, and thus Daniel can't use this argument against original sin. P2 assumes actual transgressions committed by an agent and not the imputed guilt "inherited" by all of his. This comes nowhere close to dealing with the concept of representation and corporate solidarity taught in the Bible.
vi. P3 is unproven, and, originally, we were talking about all children before the age of accountability. Furthermore, what is "consciousness" on Daniel's materialist point of view? It may be that consciousness is a myth given materialism, and thus no one is a conscious moral agent on Daniel's view. So, his argument does not even follow.
vii. The worst here is the conclusion. Notice that he affirms the antecedent which would bring the conclusion "they cannot be moral." But notice that Daniel changes his conclusion to "they cannot be held to a moral standard." But this was not the consequent of his modus ponens! An egregious logical blunder.
viii. On a representationalist view all men can be held accountable to the moral standard that Adam was under.
ix. Thus since Daniel didn't even come close to touching the biblical doctrine of original sin, his argument totally fails. Furthermore, his conclusion goes beyond the premise, he uses vague and ambiguous terms and, prima facie, uses terms inconsistent with his materialism.
His second argument is more to the point:
1. Individual morality is based upon personal responsibility
2. For justice to occur, moral agents are held responsible for their own choices and not for the choices of others, nor actions over which they have no control
3. "Original sin" implies that individuals are responsible for the choices of other conscious agents
4. Therefore, "original sin" cannot be the basis of a just and logical moral philosophy
i. Note that p1 differs from p1 above. Which one is morality "based" on? Responsibility or thoughts, choices and actions.
ii. P2 is denied by the concept of federal headship. There's no *argument* against original sin here, just an assertion against it.
iii. P2 is demonstrably false. People, schools, and nations are constantly "held accountable" for the moral choices of others. For example, if the football team cheats then the whole school gets blacked-out. If my son smashes my neighbors window and kills her dog, I'm held responsible. These examples can be multiplied ad nauseum.
iv. P2 assumes a freedom that Daniel's materialism doesn't allow for. If we are all determined by the laws of physics how can we have "control" over those actions."
v. Adam did what we all would have done.
vi. Daniel cannot even account for morality.
vii. The conclusion goes beyond the premises.
viii. I deny that "original sin" is "the basis" for morality, so this is no argument against Christianity.
ix. Thus we're justified in rejecting this argument as well.
So much for going down in a blaze of glory, Daniel's firing blanks.
We can go on all day, and I am far from a philosopher, but I can dredge up far better arguments than mine from a text on ethics, I am sure.
Is this the point where I insert one of these: LOL?
The point remains crystal clear -- to hold a fetus morally accountable for something its great-great-great grandfather chose is as logical as a purple elephant circling the earth as a satellite. Your doctrine is intrinsically flawed.
Well,
i. You'd actually have to *show* how it's illogical.
ii. There is nothing "illogical" about a "purple elephant circling the earth as a satellite." It may be false, impossible (physically), etc., but it's not "illogical" since there is no law of logic violated in saying such a thing.
iii. Holding a person morally accountable for something the laws of physics determined he'd do is about as silly as believing that purple elephants orbit the earth as satellites.
iv. Your doctrine is intrinsically flawed.
v. Hint: I'm not scared by tough talk and mere assertions that we have all these supposed problems in our system. One could say that Triablogue is very Missourian about grand assertions, i.e., "show me."
Calvinism explains everything
Loftus seems to think he has a knockdown argument against Calvinism:
“Too much explanatory power? No observation or fact which it cannot explain? What does this mean when applied to Calvinism?”
Given a choice, I prefer a worldview with “too much” explanatory power to a worldview with either too little explanatory power or none at all (atheism).
“Take for instance their whole notion of a completely sovereign God. God does everything…everything. There is no room for human causation…none.”
Demonstrably false. Confessional Calvinism subscribes to a doctrine of primary and secondary causality. Cf. WCF 3:1; 5:2-3.
“Now what reason does God have for punishing human beings on earth in hurricanes, and fires, and diseases like the Spanish Influenza which killed millions of people, and then later sending us to hell when we die? Well, the offered reason is because we have sinned.”
A palpable overstatement. Calvinism does not say that every victim of natural disaster was being punished for his sins. A natural disaster does not represent divine judgment on every individual victim. The pious as well as the impious are swept away in natural disasters.
“This Calvinistic God also has two wills, one revealed in the Bible and a secretive one…the real one…that decrees the things we actually do. But both wills cannot be true at the same time.”
i) Partly true, but trivial, since Loftus is trading on an equivocation of terms. God does not literally have two different wills. The distinction between his decretive will and his preceptive will, while conceptually sound, is a linguistic convention.
His preceptive “will” is simply a synonym for the law of God.
ii) Partly false. Both the decretive and the preceptive will of God are revealed in Scripture. That’s how we know about them in the first place.
Scripture reveals the existence of his decretive will, as well as disclosing the general content of his decretive will.
“If the Bible says, ‘thou shalt not kill,’ and then God secretively decrees both the desire to kill and actually takes a man’s hand and causes the arm to swing an ax to split another man’s head, there is a contradiction in what God actually wants us to do. Does God want this man to kill or not? The contradiction is resolved for the Calvinist because she will say that God’s secretive will is his true will. But this means that, on Calvinistic grounds, the Bible is full of lies and cannot be trusted when it tells us what God wants us to do.”
i) This fails, as before, to distinguish between primary and secondary agency.
ii) It also fails to distinguish between ends and means.
The law of God serves more than one purpose. In some cases is restrains sin. In other cases, it exposes the inexcusable character of sin.
God wills both results, but he doesn’t will both results for one and the same party at one and the same time.
God does not will things in isolation, as if his attitude towards the means is irrespective of his attitude towards the end which they subserve.
Since the reprobate don’t believe in either his preceptive or decretive will, they have no trust which can be betrayed.
Conversely, the believer can never go wrong by trusting in either the preceptive or the decretive will of God.
“If we say that such a God does not care for us and is only interested in himself, the Calvinist will respond that he has a moral right to be concerned with his own glory over anyone else's since he alone deserves all the glory.”
This is simplistic. The elect are glorified in the glory of God. They glory in God, and they are the beneficiaries of his manifest mercy.
“As far as the Calvinist knows, God’s secretive will may be that they should be deceived about Calvinism. Based on their own theology they have no reason to trust God…none. God may be leading them astray, based upon his secretive will, only to cast them in hell for his own glory, and he may turn around and reward those of us who are atheists, simply because he secretively decreed us into unbelief.”
This builds on Loftus’ false antithesis between what is revealed in Scripture and what is concealed.
God’s decretive will is, itself, a revealed truth. For God to consign the elect to hell and the reprobate to heaven would contract the revelation of his decretive will.
For example, God has revealed that “whoever endures to the end will be saved.” This is a promise that God has both revealed and decreed.
“The Calvinist answer is that everything God does is good, even if we cannot understand it. So every instance of human suffering that any human being has ever experienced was and is good.”
This is simplistic on a couple of grounds:
i) We do know in general why God foreordained the fall (e.g. Rom 11:32; Gal 3:22).
So it’s not as if we’re completely in the dark. It’s not an utter enigma.
What we don’t know is why God decrees any particular evil.
ii) As for every instance of suffering being good, that’s ambiguous. Good for whom? Good for what? It’s not always good for the victim. Suffering is not intended to be beneficial for the reprobate.
But it is good for the elect. It is good in the furtherance of a higher good.
“Why does a Calvinist think anyone...anyone...should trust their God? Why? What reasons are there for trusting such a God? There are none…none…not on Calvinistic grounds, for reasons I just specified.”
The unspoken assumption in every attack leveled by Loftus on the Christian faith is that Christian faith is simply a matter of opinion. We believe, but we don’t know.
So it’s always a matter of weighing the evidence and the counterevidence in the balance. If he can muster just enough atheological arguments, then that will tip the scales in the direction of unbelief.
But this confuses experience with apologetics. In doing apologetics, a Christian apologist cannot use the argument from experience since he is addressing an outsider.
So he limits himself to common ground arguments. And that’s part of his own reason for being a believer.
Yet this is not the only reason. It’s merely the only publicly accessible reason available to believer and unbeliever alike.
But, for a true believer, the reality of God is an undeniable datum of consciousness. It is something that he intuitively apprehends, which is further confirmed by God’s providence in his life.
For him, the existence of God is one thing, and the problem of evil is another. No doubt they’re related in some way. But the existence of evil no more disproves the existence of God than one existential truth disproves another existential truth.
I might as well try to deny my belief in other minds, or my personal memories, or the tree I see outside my bedroom window.
The belief is spontaneous and irrepressible. My awareness of God is inseparable from my self-awareness.
Even if that stood in a state of intellectual tension with something else I equally believe, both beliefs would retain their steadfast hold on my instinctual and indubitable perception of the world.
“So, since this is the case, I can look at the amount of suffering in this world and reasonably conclude there is no good God.”
Not only is this a fallacious inference from Calvinism, it’s an equally fallacious inference from atheism:
i) Loftus needs to come up with a version of secular ethics that can justify his moral repugnance.
ii) And even if he succeeded in (i), he also needs to come up with a secular anthropology that can ascribe sufficient dignity or even mentality to human beings to justify his moral repugnance.
I have never seen him attempt to discharge either burden of proof. But maybe he can refer us to something he’s posted on the subject.
“Too much explanatory power? No observation or fact which it cannot explain? What does this mean when applied to Calvinism?”
Given a choice, I prefer a worldview with “too much” explanatory power to a worldview with either too little explanatory power or none at all (atheism).
“Take for instance their whole notion of a completely sovereign God. God does everything…everything. There is no room for human causation…none.”
Demonstrably false. Confessional Calvinism subscribes to a doctrine of primary and secondary causality. Cf. WCF 3:1; 5:2-3.
“Now what reason does God have for punishing human beings on earth in hurricanes, and fires, and diseases like the Spanish Influenza which killed millions of people, and then later sending us to hell when we die? Well, the offered reason is because we have sinned.”
A palpable overstatement. Calvinism does not say that every victim of natural disaster was being punished for his sins. A natural disaster does not represent divine judgment on every individual victim. The pious as well as the impious are swept away in natural disasters.
“This Calvinistic God also has two wills, one revealed in the Bible and a secretive one…the real one…that decrees the things we actually do. But both wills cannot be true at the same time.”
i) Partly true, but trivial, since Loftus is trading on an equivocation of terms. God does not literally have two different wills. The distinction between his decretive will and his preceptive will, while conceptually sound, is a linguistic convention.
His preceptive “will” is simply a synonym for the law of God.
ii) Partly false. Both the decretive and the preceptive will of God are revealed in Scripture. That’s how we know about them in the first place.
Scripture reveals the existence of his decretive will, as well as disclosing the general content of his decretive will.
“If the Bible says, ‘thou shalt not kill,’ and then God secretively decrees both the desire to kill and actually takes a man’s hand and causes the arm to swing an ax to split another man’s head, there is a contradiction in what God actually wants us to do. Does God want this man to kill or not? The contradiction is resolved for the Calvinist because she will say that God’s secretive will is his true will. But this means that, on Calvinistic grounds, the Bible is full of lies and cannot be trusted when it tells us what God wants us to do.”
i) This fails, as before, to distinguish between primary and secondary agency.
ii) It also fails to distinguish between ends and means.
The law of God serves more than one purpose. In some cases is restrains sin. In other cases, it exposes the inexcusable character of sin.
God wills both results, but he doesn’t will both results for one and the same party at one and the same time.
God does not will things in isolation, as if his attitude towards the means is irrespective of his attitude towards the end which they subserve.
Since the reprobate don’t believe in either his preceptive or decretive will, they have no trust which can be betrayed.
Conversely, the believer can never go wrong by trusting in either the preceptive or the decretive will of God.
“If we say that such a God does not care for us and is only interested in himself, the Calvinist will respond that he has a moral right to be concerned with his own glory over anyone else's since he alone deserves all the glory.”
This is simplistic. The elect are glorified in the glory of God. They glory in God, and they are the beneficiaries of his manifest mercy.
“As far as the Calvinist knows, God’s secretive will may be that they should be deceived about Calvinism. Based on their own theology they have no reason to trust God…none. God may be leading them astray, based upon his secretive will, only to cast them in hell for his own glory, and he may turn around and reward those of us who are atheists, simply because he secretively decreed us into unbelief.”
This builds on Loftus’ false antithesis between what is revealed in Scripture and what is concealed.
God’s decretive will is, itself, a revealed truth. For God to consign the elect to hell and the reprobate to heaven would contract the revelation of his decretive will.
For example, God has revealed that “whoever endures to the end will be saved.” This is a promise that God has both revealed and decreed.
“The Calvinist answer is that everything God does is good, even if we cannot understand it. So every instance of human suffering that any human being has ever experienced was and is good.”
This is simplistic on a couple of grounds:
i) We do know in general why God foreordained the fall (e.g. Rom 11:32; Gal 3:22).
So it’s not as if we’re completely in the dark. It’s not an utter enigma.
What we don’t know is why God decrees any particular evil.
ii) As for every instance of suffering being good, that’s ambiguous. Good for whom? Good for what? It’s not always good for the victim. Suffering is not intended to be beneficial for the reprobate.
But it is good for the elect. It is good in the furtherance of a higher good.
“Why does a Calvinist think anyone...anyone...should trust their God? Why? What reasons are there for trusting such a God? There are none…none…not on Calvinistic grounds, for reasons I just specified.”
The unspoken assumption in every attack leveled by Loftus on the Christian faith is that Christian faith is simply a matter of opinion. We believe, but we don’t know.
So it’s always a matter of weighing the evidence and the counterevidence in the balance. If he can muster just enough atheological arguments, then that will tip the scales in the direction of unbelief.
But this confuses experience with apologetics. In doing apologetics, a Christian apologist cannot use the argument from experience since he is addressing an outsider.
So he limits himself to common ground arguments. And that’s part of his own reason for being a believer.
Yet this is not the only reason. It’s merely the only publicly accessible reason available to believer and unbeliever alike.
But, for a true believer, the reality of God is an undeniable datum of consciousness. It is something that he intuitively apprehends, which is further confirmed by God’s providence in his life.
For him, the existence of God is one thing, and the problem of evil is another. No doubt they’re related in some way. But the existence of evil no more disproves the existence of God than one existential truth disproves another existential truth.
I might as well try to deny my belief in other minds, or my personal memories, or the tree I see outside my bedroom window.
The belief is spontaneous and irrepressible. My awareness of God is inseparable from my self-awareness.
Even if that stood in a state of intellectual tension with something else I equally believe, both beliefs would retain their steadfast hold on my instinctual and indubitable perception of the world.
“So, since this is the case, I can look at the amount of suffering in this world and reasonably conclude there is no good God.”
Not only is this a fallacious inference from Calvinism, it’s an equally fallacious inference from atheism:
i) Loftus needs to come up with a version of secular ethics that can justify his moral repugnance.
ii) And even if he succeeded in (i), he also needs to come up with a secular anthropology that can ascribe sufficient dignity or even mentality to human beings to justify his moral repugnance.
I have never seen him attempt to discharge either burden of proof. But maybe he can refer us to something he’s posted on the subject.
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