I’ve been asked to comment on Mt 7:1.
1.People usually quote this out of context. They only quote Mt 7:1. But that’s part of a larger literary unit or pericope, consisting of 7:1-6. What is more, it must also be supplemented by other passages in Matthew to get a balanced picture of Jesus’ teaching.
2.In context, this passage is not a prohibition against judging others, per se. Indeed, Christians are commanded to evaluate the conduct of others, such as church discipline (18:15-20), or false teachers (7:15-20; 24:23-26).
3.Rather, the passage is dealing with the sin of hypocrisy. An incapacity for self-criticism. The sort of thing which the Pharisees were often guilty of.
We have the same balanced position in Paul. On the one hand, avoid hypocritical judgmentalism (Rom 2:1f.), but on the other hand, exercise church discipline (1 Cor 5:9-13).
4.Apropos (3), the Pharisees were also guilty of legalism. Of inventing man-made prescriptions and proscriptions, then condemning fellow Jews for failing to live up to these unscriptural scruples.
Throughout church history, the church has of succumbed to the same error.
5.Paul draws another important distinction. On the one hand, he admonishes believers to avoid worldly entanglements (2 Cor 6:14-7:1). That clearly involves a value-judgment regarding pagan morality.
On the other hand, we are to hold believers to a higher standard than unbelievers (1 Cor 5:12-13). We expect unbelievers to act like unbelievers. To some extent, that’s none of our business—except when it intrudes into the community of faith.
6.Ironically, unbelievers are hypersensitive to what Christians think of them. They accuse us of being intolerant, judgmental, self-righteous, moralistic, and so on.
For unbelievers, it’s inconceivable that you could disapprove of someone without looking down on someone. Without feeling morally superior. Better than they are.
7.Another irony is that unbelievers can be quite judgmental and intolerant of fellow unbelievers. We see this in the cult of celebrity. The scandal-mongering. The love/hate cycle.
The world has a way of turning certain people into stars, then turning against them and tearing them down. Think of Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or Paris Hilton. Just now we see the same phenomenon with Barack Obama. Build him up, then tear him down. First they play favorites, then they go on the attack.
The world loves its own, but the world also loves to pick on certain people. You can also see this in school, with its pecking order. The boy who’s bullied by other boys. The girl who’s shunned by other girls. Pick them apart. Make their life a living hell.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
White brains & black brains
When Rev. Wright’s sermons first became a subject of public controversial, various members of the political left and religious left defended his statements. I wonder how many of them are still prepared to defend statements like the following:
***QUOTE***
European and European-American children have a left brained cognitive object oriented learning style and the entire educational learning system in the United States of America. Back in the early '70s, when Dr. Hale did her research was based on left brained cognitive object oriented learning style. Let me help you with fifty-cent words.
Left brain is logical and analytical. Object oriented means the student learns from an object. From the solitude of the cradle with objects being hung over his or her head to help them determine colors and shape to the solitude in a carol in a PhD program stuffed off somewhere in a corner in absolute quietness to absorb from the object. From a block to a book, an object. That is one way of learning, but it is only one way of learning.
African and African-American children have a different way of learning. They are right brained, subject oriented in their learning style. Right brain that means creative and intuitive. Subject oriented means they learn from a subject, not an object. They learn from a person.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/28/wright.transcript/index.html
***END-QUOTE***
If white brains are logical, then black brains must be illogical. Since Barak Obama is mixed race, he must be very disoriented. Does he have a time-sharing arrangement between left brain and right brain?
What about Indian brains and Asian brains? Are they right and left, or up and down? What about Arab brains and Eskimo brains? Maybe they’re forward and backward
Frankly, what’s the difference between Jeremiah Wright and David Duke? When the NAACA becomes indistinguishable from the KKK, isn’t it time for the civil rights establishment to go back to the drawing board?
***QUOTE***
European and European-American children have a left brained cognitive object oriented learning style and the entire educational learning system in the United States of America. Back in the early '70s, when Dr. Hale did her research was based on left brained cognitive object oriented learning style. Let me help you with fifty-cent words.
Left brain is logical and analytical. Object oriented means the student learns from an object. From the solitude of the cradle with objects being hung over his or her head to help them determine colors and shape to the solitude in a carol in a PhD program stuffed off somewhere in a corner in absolute quietness to absorb from the object. From a block to a book, an object. That is one way of learning, but it is only one way of learning.
African and African-American children have a different way of learning. They are right brained, subject oriented in their learning style. Right brain that means creative and intuitive. Subject oriented means they learn from a subject, not an object. They learn from a person.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/28/wright.transcript/index.html
***END-QUOTE***
If white brains are logical, then black brains must be illogical. Since Barak Obama is mixed race, he must be very disoriented. Does he have a time-sharing arrangement between left brain and right brain?
What about Indian brains and Asian brains? Are they right and left, or up and down? What about Arab brains and Eskimo brains? Maybe they’re forward and backward
Frankly, what’s the difference between Jeremiah Wright and David Duke? When the NAACA becomes indistinguishable from the KKK, isn’t it time for the civil rights establishment to go back to the drawing board?
Selective universalism
The most winsome argument for universalism goes something like this: Most Christians only believe in hell because they believe Scripture, and they believe the Bible teaches eternal punishment. So we believe in hell because it’s our Christian duty to believe in hell. It’s our duty to believe whatever the Bible says.
But that’s the only reason we believe in hell. Left to our own devices, we wouldn’t believe in hell. If we were in God’s place, we would save everyone.
That’s a wedge argument for hell. However, the emotional appeal of universalism is overextended by the universalist.
Mind you, I don’t think that feelings dictate doctrine. I’m merely addressing the universalist on his own turf.
1. At a purely emotional level, do I wish that everyone would be saved? No. At a purely emotional level, I only feel the loss of lost loved ones. Of people I know and love.
For example, thousands of people die every day. Do I mourn their death? No really. Most of the time we don’t give it a second thought.
And that’s because we never knew them. As a matter of personal experience, they don’t exist for you and me. Had they never been born, we wouldn’t register the difference.
We don’t grieve for their passing. We only grieve for our loved ones.
At a purely emotional level, I’m a selective universalist. I wish that all of my loved ones were saved. But, frankly, I don’t feel the same way about your loved ones. I don’t know them, and I don’t know you.
Suppose you’re the daughter of Genghis Khan. For all I know, he was a loving husband and father. Maybe he doted on his daughter.
So you’re broken up at the prospect that dear old dad went to hell when he died. But you’ll have to understand if I don’t feel the same way.
As I say, thousands of people die every day, but you and I don’t register the impact of their death the way we register the death of someone we know and love. We aren’t grief-stricken by the death of a perfect stranger.
I don’t mourn the death of an ancient Egyptian. I don’t mourn the death of a nameless peasant who lived in Medieval Provence.
I know, at an abstract level, that a great many human beings die every century. But I don’t know who they were. I don’t usually know that a particular individual, with a unique personal history, lived and died at that time and place. I only know that in the case of a few famous people who make it into the history books.
Everyone else is just an abstraction to me. I don’t miss them because they were never a part of my life. I don’t know enough to know what I’d be missing by not knowing them. There is no sense of personal loss.
2.Incidentally, one of the stock objections to hell is that we can’t be happy in heaven knowing that anyone is in hell. But when I get to heaven, will I notice who isn’t there?
I don’t know the vast majority of human beings who ever lived or died, or shall ever live or die. So I wouldn’t even be aware of their absence. For all I know, they never existed. I won’t compare the company of heaven against a missing persons list to see who didn’t make the cut. The Book of Life is classified.
The only people whose absence I’d notice are people I know, or knew about. Either celebrities or acquaintances of mine.
3. Each generation is like a chapter in a book. God puts certain characters in certain chapters. These are the people we know. The people we care about. The people we pray about. That’s how God made us.
4.But what about compassion? Even though you may be a perfect stranger to me, yet since you’re human, and I’m human, I can extrapolate from my experience to yours. I can imagine what it would be like to be in your situation.
And I think that’s wonderful. Compassion is both a cardinal virtue and a theological virtue.
But compassion is concentric. It comes in degrees. I may care about the mother of my best friend, but her death wouldn’t hit me as hard as the death of my own mother.
Then again, it’s possible that I can’t stand my best friend’s mother. The only reason I put up with her is that I can’t cut her out of my life without cutting him out of my life. So she’s the price I have to pay to maintain my friendship.
6. This brings me to the next point. There are people we positively dislike. Would it detract from our enjoyment of heaven if they didn’t join us there? No. And you know that’s true. Admit it. Spare me the mock pieties.
Now, someone might object that this reflects the wrong attitude towards the lost. Aren’t Christians supposed to love neighbors, enemies, and strangers?
True, but as soon as you introduce that consideration, which is a valid consideration in its own right, you’ve shifted from feelings to duties. And a duty is something we’re obligated to do despite how we feel about it.
The question I’m addressing is not how you ought to feel, but how you actually feel. For the appeal of universalism is ultimately emotional. Even sentimental.
Once you shift the issue from feelings to duties, universalism instantly loses its emotional pull. For that’s a completely different argument.
And while we have an obligation to care for the lost, we have no obligation to care for the damned.
7. But perhaps someone will say that once a disagreeable person gets to heaven, he will be agreeable. No doubt that’s true.
But, once again, that shifts the argument. The emotional appeal of universalism is that I supposedly can’t bear the thought of parting with someone.
But if it’s someone I actively dislike, then I can obviously bear the thought of spending eternity in his absence. And if he never makes it to heaven, I’ll never know what it was like to share his company in heaven. If he got to heaven, he would be a wonderful companion, and only at that point would I miss him were he to disappear.
8.Universalism has a certain undeniable appeal, but it also has a Mephistophelean catch to it. Like those horror shows in which a lover strikes a bargain with the dark side to get his beloved back.
Yes, he gets her back, but in exchange for something else. A two-for-one sale. She returns from the grave, but something else comes back from the dead as well. Something that should have stayed put. The lovers try to resume the blissful existence they had before her premature demise, but that other thing which came up from hell literally bedevils any attempt to turn back the clock.
If you prefer, let’s consider something more realistic. An armed man breaks into your home. He ties you up. Then he rapes, tortures, and murders your wife right before your eyes.
Your wife was not a believer, so you have no hope of ever seeing her again. That compounds the tragedy.
Although this is a hypothetical case, there are real life examples.
Suddenly a universalist appears on the scene, in his top hat and Van Dyke. He offers to reunite you with your wife, in the world to come—but only on condition that her tormenter and killer will also spend eternity in heaven.
In your inconsolable grief you might be tempted to accept the Faustian deal, but can anyone honestly say that’s an emotionally satisfying solution to the tragedy?
Will a universalist presume to tell you that you can’t be happy in heaven as long as your wife’s assailant is unhappy in hell?
Suppose the assailant would be a wonderful person in heaven. But you want to see him suffer for what he did. You want revenge. You want God to exact retribution.
And the Bible endorses that emotion. Even in heaven, the saints pray that God will punish the wicked. Empathy isn’t always a good thing. It’s evil to be equally empathetic with a child and a child rapist.
A vindictive emotion can be sinful. But a vindictive emotional can also be a sanctified emotion, or even a glorified emotion.
Universalism plays on the suggestion that every Christian is a universalist at heart, yet his head is at war with his heart. But that, at best, is a half-truth.
Emotionally speaking, a Christian is, at most, and only, a selective universalist. It’s his heart’s desire that all his loved ones are heaven-bound. And, all things being equal, he will extend that desire to your loved ones.
But all things considered, there are many people whom he would just as well receive their just deserts. There’s a point at which the friend of your friend transitions into the friend of your enemy—or the enemy of your friend. At that juncture, natural compassion loses its grip. Sympathy changes to antipathy.
For me, the joy of heaven isn’t dimmed by the prospect that Genghis Khan is wiling away the hours of eternity in the delightful company of Old Horny and Attila the Hun.
By trying to be too much of a good thing, universalism ends up being too much of a bad thing. Everyone gets what he wants, but at the cost of getting something he doesn’t want.
Rev 21:4 is a very precious promise. And I’m very curious to see how God will fulfill that promise. I know that universalism is the wrong answer. I look forward to the right answer.
But that’s the only reason we believe in hell. Left to our own devices, we wouldn’t believe in hell. If we were in God’s place, we would save everyone.
That’s a wedge argument for hell. However, the emotional appeal of universalism is overextended by the universalist.
Mind you, I don’t think that feelings dictate doctrine. I’m merely addressing the universalist on his own turf.
1. At a purely emotional level, do I wish that everyone would be saved? No. At a purely emotional level, I only feel the loss of lost loved ones. Of people I know and love.
For example, thousands of people die every day. Do I mourn their death? No really. Most of the time we don’t give it a second thought.
And that’s because we never knew them. As a matter of personal experience, they don’t exist for you and me. Had they never been born, we wouldn’t register the difference.
We don’t grieve for their passing. We only grieve for our loved ones.
At a purely emotional level, I’m a selective universalist. I wish that all of my loved ones were saved. But, frankly, I don’t feel the same way about your loved ones. I don’t know them, and I don’t know you.
Suppose you’re the daughter of Genghis Khan. For all I know, he was a loving husband and father. Maybe he doted on his daughter.
So you’re broken up at the prospect that dear old dad went to hell when he died. But you’ll have to understand if I don’t feel the same way.
As I say, thousands of people die every day, but you and I don’t register the impact of their death the way we register the death of someone we know and love. We aren’t grief-stricken by the death of a perfect stranger.
I don’t mourn the death of an ancient Egyptian. I don’t mourn the death of a nameless peasant who lived in Medieval Provence.
I know, at an abstract level, that a great many human beings die every century. But I don’t know who they were. I don’t usually know that a particular individual, with a unique personal history, lived and died at that time and place. I only know that in the case of a few famous people who make it into the history books.
Everyone else is just an abstraction to me. I don’t miss them because they were never a part of my life. I don’t know enough to know what I’d be missing by not knowing them. There is no sense of personal loss.
2.Incidentally, one of the stock objections to hell is that we can’t be happy in heaven knowing that anyone is in hell. But when I get to heaven, will I notice who isn’t there?
I don’t know the vast majority of human beings who ever lived or died, or shall ever live or die. So I wouldn’t even be aware of their absence. For all I know, they never existed. I won’t compare the company of heaven against a missing persons list to see who didn’t make the cut. The Book of Life is classified.
The only people whose absence I’d notice are people I know, or knew about. Either celebrities or acquaintances of mine.
3. Each generation is like a chapter in a book. God puts certain characters in certain chapters. These are the people we know. The people we care about. The people we pray about. That’s how God made us.
4.But what about compassion? Even though you may be a perfect stranger to me, yet since you’re human, and I’m human, I can extrapolate from my experience to yours. I can imagine what it would be like to be in your situation.
And I think that’s wonderful. Compassion is both a cardinal virtue and a theological virtue.
But compassion is concentric. It comes in degrees. I may care about the mother of my best friend, but her death wouldn’t hit me as hard as the death of my own mother.
Then again, it’s possible that I can’t stand my best friend’s mother. The only reason I put up with her is that I can’t cut her out of my life without cutting him out of my life. So she’s the price I have to pay to maintain my friendship.
6. This brings me to the next point. There are people we positively dislike. Would it detract from our enjoyment of heaven if they didn’t join us there? No. And you know that’s true. Admit it. Spare me the mock pieties.
Now, someone might object that this reflects the wrong attitude towards the lost. Aren’t Christians supposed to love neighbors, enemies, and strangers?
True, but as soon as you introduce that consideration, which is a valid consideration in its own right, you’ve shifted from feelings to duties. And a duty is something we’re obligated to do despite how we feel about it.
The question I’m addressing is not how you ought to feel, but how you actually feel. For the appeal of universalism is ultimately emotional. Even sentimental.
Once you shift the issue from feelings to duties, universalism instantly loses its emotional pull. For that’s a completely different argument.
And while we have an obligation to care for the lost, we have no obligation to care for the damned.
7. But perhaps someone will say that once a disagreeable person gets to heaven, he will be agreeable. No doubt that’s true.
But, once again, that shifts the argument. The emotional appeal of universalism is that I supposedly can’t bear the thought of parting with someone.
But if it’s someone I actively dislike, then I can obviously bear the thought of spending eternity in his absence. And if he never makes it to heaven, I’ll never know what it was like to share his company in heaven. If he got to heaven, he would be a wonderful companion, and only at that point would I miss him were he to disappear.
8.Universalism has a certain undeniable appeal, but it also has a Mephistophelean catch to it. Like those horror shows in which a lover strikes a bargain with the dark side to get his beloved back.
Yes, he gets her back, but in exchange for something else. A two-for-one sale. She returns from the grave, but something else comes back from the dead as well. Something that should have stayed put. The lovers try to resume the blissful existence they had before her premature demise, but that other thing which came up from hell literally bedevils any attempt to turn back the clock.
If you prefer, let’s consider something more realistic. An armed man breaks into your home. He ties you up. Then he rapes, tortures, and murders your wife right before your eyes.
Your wife was not a believer, so you have no hope of ever seeing her again. That compounds the tragedy.
Although this is a hypothetical case, there are real life examples.
Suddenly a universalist appears on the scene, in his top hat and Van Dyke. He offers to reunite you with your wife, in the world to come—but only on condition that her tormenter and killer will also spend eternity in heaven.
In your inconsolable grief you might be tempted to accept the Faustian deal, but can anyone honestly say that’s an emotionally satisfying solution to the tragedy?
Will a universalist presume to tell you that you can’t be happy in heaven as long as your wife’s assailant is unhappy in hell?
Suppose the assailant would be a wonderful person in heaven. But you want to see him suffer for what he did. You want revenge. You want God to exact retribution.
And the Bible endorses that emotion. Even in heaven, the saints pray that God will punish the wicked. Empathy isn’t always a good thing. It’s evil to be equally empathetic with a child and a child rapist.
A vindictive emotion can be sinful. But a vindictive emotional can also be a sanctified emotion, or even a glorified emotion.
Universalism plays on the suggestion that every Christian is a universalist at heart, yet his head is at war with his heart. But that, at best, is a half-truth.
Emotionally speaking, a Christian is, at most, and only, a selective universalist. It’s his heart’s desire that all his loved ones are heaven-bound. And, all things being equal, he will extend that desire to your loved ones.
But all things considered, there are many people whom he would just as well receive their just deserts. There’s a point at which the friend of your friend transitions into the friend of your enemy—or the enemy of your friend. At that juncture, natural compassion loses its grip. Sympathy changes to antipathy.
For me, the joy of heaven isn’t dimmed by the prospect that Genghis Khan is wiling away the hours of eternity in the delightful company of Old Horny and Attila the Hun.
By trying to be too much of a good thing, universalism ends up being too much of a bad thing. Everyone gets what he wants, but at the cost of getting something he doesn’t want.
Rev 21:4 is a very precious promise. And I’m very curious to see how God will fulfill that promise. I know that universalism is the wrong answer. I look forward to the right answer.
Monday, April 28, 2008
More From Reppert
I assume (hope?) this is Victor's parting shot. I want to group together our back-and-forth so that people can read the debate in chronological order. Make up their own minds. See both presentations. Hopefully, Reppert's latest post was his way of ending this current discussion.
His post is called Calvinism and the burden of proof.
Our whole discussion started off as an attempt to show that Calvinists can't solve the problem of evil. I have met that challenge. Not one of my points has been responded to. Yet the claims about Calvinism still sound out loud and clear.
i) Peter van Inwagen also notes problems with libertarian free will too.
ii) Appeal to Hasker also isn't without its problems. For if you take all of Hasker's thesis, then you'd become an open theist (this has problems if your a Talbottian Universalist, though). Is Reppert going to go on record now and endorse Open Theism? Does Reppert want to hold to Hasker's thesis:
"If God creates persons with libertarian freedom, he will not have exhaustive knowledge of the future..." (Hasker, Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion, p.221).
And:
And:
But, note Talbott:
On Talbott's view, we could rewind the tape 1 million times, and if we know that one choice has the strongest reasons for it, and the other apparently irrational reasons for it, we could predict the outcome.
Furthermore, it seems desire and motive and rationality are factors that predetermine what free, morally responsible choices will be made in these kind of situations. Since those things are something whatever, then Hasker's claim that "this means that there is nothing whatever that predetermines which choice will be made" is false. Or, perhaps Talbott's is.
At any rate, the libertarians aren't unified.
iii) Given the "nothing whatever" view of Hasker's, one could name drop like Reppert and appeal to Mele et al. in bringing up the luck objection. Oh, PvI brought up this objection too. So, Reppert seems to have some inconsistencies in his authorities that he used to show that he doesn't have the burden.
ii) Funny, the control argument is also made by indeterminists against libertarians. If correct, then if Victor is going to be consistent he must deny the moral responsibility of libertarian agents. Or, he can recognize that this is a weak way to argue that he doesn't have burden. Of course people think their side has the best arguments, especially when they don't study the other side.
iii) All this is, is a case of hand waving. Victor's denigrating a position rather than dealing with it.
So, this point can't serve to show that Calvinists have the burden.
And, let me quote Reppert, in headline lettering:
All I want to say is that the possibilities that occur to us humans from our own limited perspective probably do not exhaust all of God's options. -Victor Reppert
Apparently when it comes to this Calvinist situation, this particular finite human, with his limited perspective, has exhausted all of God's options!
And, Talbott has God "forcibly converting" people. Does Victor want to go on record as denying Tom Talbott's Universalism? he can't keep moving from pillar to post
Lastly, I guess we can deny Reppert's unjust God. That just doesn't sit well with my intuitions!
Or, if he is Universalist, why does Reppert pray for them? They're going to be saved no matter what. Reppert's position has the consequence that all the prayers for the lost are pointless. At the least, all the fretting over their eternal destiny is.
Is a prayer that I be the most wise man in the world a "holy thing?" Isn't more wisdom a good thing. Should I pray for God to make me the smartest man alive? I would use it for his glory. For his kingdom. To, among other things, confound the arguments of atheists. Why doesn't God answer my prayer!?
And, I love my goldfish too. Surly God will allow him into heaven. After all, heaven will be the place where there is no more sadness. And to be there without Nemo would make me one unhappy camper! God wouldn't frustrate those prayers.
The Apostle Paul prayed for the thorn in his flesh to be removed. Wasn't that a "holy prayer?" But God frustrated it.
In the end, we pray like Jesus, our Lord:
Matthew 26:39
And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will."
Furthermore, husbands are supposed to love their wives like Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Love of spouse is a discriminating love. Just like I don't go around cheating on my wife, Jesus doesn't cheat on those he died for. His bride.
The greatest love instantiated is that someone lay down his life for his friend. To do this for everyone makes this superfluous. That Jesus didn't die for some is actually a way that he could show the greatest love. If I buy my son a toy, he feels special and loved. If he finds out I did the same thing for all the children in the world, no so much anymore.
Thus, even when it comes to Victoir's favorite doctrine, Calvinists have it. We have a more loving world.
Again, Victor, you need to stop thinking that you have God and his infinite plan all figured out. That if God doesn't do things Victor's way, then he's less than God. You need to heed your own advice: All I want to say is that the possibilities that occur to us humans from our own limited perspective probably do not exhaust all of God's options. -Victor Reppert
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/arminian-counter-argument.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/answer-to-repperts-question-for.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/repperts-ruminations-on-reformed.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/stop-yer-blubbering.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/puzzled.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/repperts-latest-try-at-undermining.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/victor-reppert-on-anti-calvinism_17.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/intuitions.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-reppert-cant-unsolve-calvinists.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/reply-to-anti-calvinists.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/answering-back-to-reppert-or-is-it-god.html
The above starts with the latest and the last one is the earliest.
The initial claim that:
Calvinists cannot solve the problem of evil.
Has become:
Calvinists can't solve the problem of evil if you assume libertarian free will, PAP doctrine, Arminian exegesis. And if that's not enough: if you have moral intuition against Calvinism, and don't bother responding to the arguments in response to the moral intuitions, dig your heals in the sand, stick your fingers in your ears, perhaps stick your tongue out, and refuse to believe that that kind of God is good. Add to that massive misunderstandings of Calvinism. Admitted ignorance of the subject. Inability to represent their position. Then, couple that with the objector being "in the throes of doubt." A weakened view of, or denial of, inerrancy. Question the reliability of the Bible and its transmission through history. Deny laymen the ability to grasp the Bible are strongly believe any doctrine.
Yes, if you include all of that(!), then Calvinists can't solve the problem of evil . . . externally, at least.
Is this really what you want to claim?
ii) I have offered more than "exegesis." And, I invoked a theodicy that Arminians have employed, the skeptical theist theodicy. I also added some unproblematic notions to it. I also have shown that you ask people to believe things contrary to their "intuitions." So, your arguments seem clearly arbitrary. To keep harping on the exegesis point, even though I have defended it without a response from you, is to minimize and ignore probably 80-90% of all my arguments.
His post is called Calvinism and the burden of proof.
Our whole discussion started off as an attempt to show that Calvinists can't solve the problem of evil. I have met that challenge. Not one of my points has been responded to. Yet the claims about Calvinism still sound out loud and clear.
I think maybe some consideration of exactly what someone is claiming to prove is taken into consideration here.You claimed to show that "Calvinists cannot solve the problem of evil."
Suppose my goal is to show that it is reasonable for me to reject Calvinism.That wasn't your original goal. This isn't what you have been on record as stating. I take this statement of yours to be a tacit admission that your initial argument has not been defended or substantiated.
If I'm going for that, then I can make a few points. First, I can argue that compatiblism doesn't look good to me, pretty much for reasons given in Van Inwagen's Essay on Free Will 25 years ago, augmented by Bill Hasker's defense of LFW in The Emergent Self.Three problems (more, but I'll briefly mention three):
i) Peter van Inwagen also notes problems with libertarian free will too.
But if we know that we are free—indeed, if we are free and do not know it—, there is some defect in one or both of our two arguments. Either there is something wrong with our argument for the conclusion that metaphysical freedom is incompatible with determinism or there is something wrong with our argument for the conclusion that metaphysical freedom is incompatible with indeterminism—or there is something wrong with both arguments. But which argument is wrong, and why? (Or are they both wrong?) I do not know. I think no one knows. That is why my title is, ‘The Mystery of Metaphysical Freedom.’ I believe I know, as surely as I know anything, that at least one of the two arguments contains a mistake. And yet, having thought very hard about the two arguments for almost thirty years, I confess myself unable to identify even a possible candidate for such a mistake. My opinion is that the first argument (the argument for the incompatibility of freedom and determinism) is essentially sound, and that there is, therefore, something wrong with the second argument (the argument for the incompatibility of freedom and indeterminism). But if you ask me what it is, I have to say that I am, as current American slang has it, absolutely clueless. Indeed the problem seems to me to be so evidently impossible of solution that I find very attractive a suggestion that has been made by Noam Chomsky (and which was developed by Colin McGinn in his recent book The Problems of Philosophy) that there is something about our biology, something about the ways of thinking that are ‘hardwired’ into our brains, that renders it impossible for us human beings to dispel the mystery of metaphysical freedom. However this may be, I am certain that I cannot dispel the mystery, and I am certain that no one else has in fact done so.So the appeal to PvI has its problems for you.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/dfwvanInwagen1.htm
ii) Appeal to Hasker also isn't without its problems. For if you take all of Hasker's thesis, then you'd become an open theist (this has problems if your a Talbottian Universalist, though). Is Reppert going to go on record now and endorse Open Theism? Does Reppert want to hold to Hasker's thesis:
"If God creates persons with libertarian freedom, he will not have exhaustive knowledge of the future..." (Hasker, Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion, p.221).
And:
God takes risks if he makes decisions that depend for their outcomes on the responses of free creatures in which the decisions themselves are not informed by knowledge of the outcomes. For if he does this, the creatures' decisions may be contrary to God's wishes. And in this case God's intentions in making those decisions may be at least partly frustrated (ibid, 219).
And:
God is a risk-taker if he endows his creatures with libertarian freedom; otherwise not. Bu libertarian freedom is meant freedom such that the agent who makes a choice is really able, under exactly the same circumstances, to chose something different from the thing that is in fact chosen [...,] this means that there is nothing whatever that predetermines which choice will be made, until the creature is actually placed in the situation and makes that decision (ibid, 219, emphasis original).It should be obvious that there are some pretty massive problems for orthodox theism traditionally conceived.
But, note Talbott:
Because God is perfectly loving, it is his redemptive purposes for the world (and therefore his will) to redeem all sinners and to reconcile all of them to himself. Because God is almighty and sovereignly controls the final destiny of the created persons, it is within his power to achieve his redemptive purpose for the world. [...] God will eventually redeem all sinners and reconcile all of them to himself. (Talbott, ibid, 280)And:
. . . it is not enough merely to insist that a free choice requires indeterminism of a certain kind and then leave it at that - as if there were no other necessary conditions for a free choice, which there clearly are. One additional necessary condition is a minimal degree of rationality; and thus condition has the effect of limiting the range of possible free choice. For, as we have just seen, an utterly inexplicable and irrational choice - one for which there is no intelligible motive and the person making it has the strongest possible motive for choosing otherwise - will simply not qualify as a genuinely free choice for which one is morally responsible" (Talbott, idid, 282)The Talbott quote and the Hasker quote are obviously at odds.
On Talbott's view, we could rewind the tape 1 million times, and if we know that one choice has the strongest reasons for it, and the other apparently irrational reasons for it, we could predict the outcome.
Furthermore, it seems desire and motive and rationality are factors that predetermine what free, morally responsible choices will be made in these kind of situations. Since those things are something whatever, then Hasker's claim that "this means that there is nothing whatever that predetermines which choice will be made" is false. Or, perhaps Talbott's is.
At any rate, the libertarians aren't unified.
iii) Given the "nothing whatever" view of Hasker's, one could name drop like Reppert and appeal to Mele et al. in bringing up the luck objection. Oh, PvI brought up this objection too. So, Reppert seems to have some inconsistencies in his authorities that he used to show that he doesn't have the burden.
Kane's requirement that the causation of a choice that is an SFW [pm: self-forming wills] be nondeterministic has drawn the objection that indeterminism located here would diminish the agent's control over the making of the choice. The objection is often couched in terms of luck. (It is so developed by Almeida and Bernstein [2003], Ekstrom [2000: 105], Haji [1999a, 1999b, 2000a, 2000b, 2000c, and 2001], Mele [1998, 1999a, 1999b, and forthcoming], and Strawson [1994].) If the agent's effort of will nondeterministically causes her choice, then, whichever choice the agent makes, there was, until the occurrence of that choice, a chance that it would not occur. If the agent's effort to chose in accord with her moral judgment happens to succeed, the objection goes, then her choice is at least partly due to good luck. In another possible world with exactly the same laws of nature and exactly the same history up until the occurrence of the choice, the agent's (or her counterpart's) effort fails; there, but for good luck, goes she. And analogously, if, in the actual world, the agent's effort fails, then her choice is at least partly due to bad luck. Either way, the choice is to some degree due to luck. And to that degree, the objection concludes, the control that the agent exercises in making the choice is diminished.And:
Kane's claim that indeterminacy precludes exact sameness has been contested (see Clarke [1999 and 2003b: 86-87] and O'Connor [1996]). And Haji (1999a) and Mele (1999a and 1999b) contend that the argument from luck is just as effective if we consider an agent and her counterpart who are as similar as can be, given the indeterminacy of their efforts. Indeed, the argument might be advanced without any appeal to other worlds or counterparts: given that there is a chance that the effort will fail, the agent is lucky, it may be said, if it succeeds.
A further reply from Kane to the argument from luck appeals to the active nature of efforts of will. When an agent makes an effort to choose to do what she believes she ought to do, she actively tries to bring about a certain choice. When the agent makes that choice, she succeeds, despite the indeterminism, at doing what she was (actively) trying to do. And Kane points out that typically, when this is so, the indeterminism does not undermine responsibility (and hence it does not so diminish active control that there is not enough for responsibility). He describes a case (1999b: 227) in which a man hits a glass tabletop attempting to shatter it. Even though it is undetermined whether his effort will succeed, Kane notes, if the man does succeed, he may well be responsible for breaking the tabletop.
If left here, the reply would fail to address the problem of luck in a case where the agent chooses to do what she is tempted to do rather than what she believes she ought to do. In response to this shortcoming, Kane (1999a, 1999b, 2000b, 2000c, and 2002) has recently proposed a "doubling" of effort in cases of moral conflict. In such a case, he now holds, the agent makes two, simultaneous efforts of will, both indeterminate in strength. The agent tries to make the moral choice, and at the same time she tries to make the self-interested choice. Whichever choice she makes, then, she succeeds, despite the indeterminism, at doing something that she was actively trying to do.
This doubling of efforts of will introduces a troubling incoherence into cases of moral conflict. If an agent is actively trying, at one time, to make each of two obviously incompatible choices, that fact raises a serious question about the agent's rationality.
A final difficulty for agent-causal views accepts that all they require might be possible. The objection may still be raised that actions produced as required by such an account would be too subject to luck to be free actions. Van Inwagen has raised a similar objection to agent-causal accounts—though without referring to luck—on several occasions (see his 1983: 145 and 2000). Haji (2004) and Mele (forthcoming) present the objection in terms of luck as follows. Recall Leo's decision (section 3.1) to tell the truth. Until he makes the decision, there remains a chance that he will not decide to tell the truth, but will instead decide to lie. Likewise, until he makes the decision, there remains a chance that he will not cause a decision to tell the truth, but will instead cause a decision to lie. Then, in some possible world W with the same laws as those in the actual world, and with the same history up to the time of the decision, Leo decides at that time to lie, and he causes that decision to lie. The actual world, where Leo decides to tell the truth (and causes that decision), and world W, where he decides to lie (and causes that decision), do not differ in any respect until the time at which Leo makes the decision (which is also the time at which Leo causes the decision). There is, then, no difference between these two worlds to account for the difference in the decision, and likewise no difference to account for the difference in Leo's agent causings. Hence the difference between these two worlds is just a matter of luck. But if the difference between these two worlds is just a matter of luck, then Leo does not freely make his decision in the actual world.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-theories/
His philosophical task, then, is to show that a choice may be free, in the sense that it is something for which its agent is morally responsible, even though it was not guaranteed by antecedent mental processes. He must explain how the taking of a decision can be free while not the necessary outcome of the reasoning from which it issues. One might think, however, that I am responsible for choosing, e.g., to support a certain cause only if that mental act is secured by the exercise of my reasoning ability. Moreover, having weighed the cause’s pros and cons as I did, unless I was rationally bound to decide in its favor the outcome of this reasoning process seems inexplicable and, thus, not something for which I should be held accountable: praised or blamed. My decision must be rational if praiseworthy or blameworthy, but (unless I am in a situation like that of Buridan’s ass) how could it be rational if the reasons motivating it are consistent with the opposite choice? A mechanism that could take a set of reasons as the basis for more than one course of action appears erratic. Its exercise, thus, would fail to insure a rational result redounding to my credit or discredit.3 Kane, therefore, faces a dilemma: either some actions are undetermined, in which cases the control and rationality requirements of free agency are not satisfied, or a free agent’s conduct is always determined and explicable in terms of reasons that render irrational all but one course of action, in which case the alternative rational possibilities requirement of libertarian free agency can not be met.4 Alternatively, Kane must respond to the following chain argument:Moving along:
1. If an act is free, then its agent has control over its performance
2. If an act’s performance is controlled by its agent, then it is the product of a reliable mechanism.
3. If an act is free, then it is rational.
4. If an act is rational, then it is the product of a reliable mechanism.
5. If an act is the product of a reliable mechanism, then it is the necessary outcome of the mechanism’s processing of its antecedents (specifically, the reasons arising in its favor).
6. If an act is the necessary outcome of a mechanism’s processing of its antecedents, then it is produced deterministically.
7. Thus, if an act is free, it is produced deterministically.
- Robert Allen
http://www.class.uidaho.edu/inpc/4th-2001/Papers/kane.htm
In my view Frankfurt counterexamples are just better and more sophisticated devices for taking one's eyes of the fact that if determinism is true everyone's actions are the inevitable result of causes outside the agent's control, and that if this is so, it is unjust to treat agents as if they were responsible for those actions in the final analysis.i) What control? Guidance or regulative? Is Victor up-to-speed on what he's rejecting?
ii) Funny, the control argument is also made by indeterminists against libertarians. If correct, then if Victor is going to be consistent he must deny the moral responsibility of libertarian agents. Or, he can recognize that this is a weak way to argue that he doesn't have burden. Of course people think their side has the best arguments, especially when they don't study the other side.
iii) All this is, is a case of hand waving. Victor's denigrating a position rather than dealing with it.
Second, I can point out that as I see it, the glory that God receives in predestinating the lost to eternal punishment is obscure. "Glory" as I understand it, is an audience-relative term. God manifests has attributes, but to whom? To Himself? He is already aware of his own attributes. To the lost? The can't possibly appreciate it. To the saved? Surely, the saved can be brought to a realization that they are there by God's grace without having to damn anyone. So the "greater good" achieved in damning people strikes me as just obscure. Now obscure doesn't mean impossible.I've already responded to this ad nauseum. Victor hasn't bothered to rebut my defeaters. Steve Hays has corrected him on this point too. And so has Gene Bridges in Reppert's own combox.
So, this point can't serve to show that Calvinists have the burden.
And, let me quote Reppert, in headline lettering:
All I want to say is that the possibilities that occur to us humans from our own limited perspective probably do not exhaust all of God's options. -Victor Reppert
Apparently when it comes to this Calvinist situation, this particular finite human, with his limited perspective, has exhausted all of God's options!
Thirdly, while I do understand hell as a possible outcome so long as people continue to disobey and God, out of respect for their freedom, refuses to forcibly convert them, I do not understand hell as deserved retributive punishment for all sin. That is, I understand a "natural consequences" view of hell but not eternal retribution per se.So? What Victor "understands," especially minus attendant arguments, hardly constitute the Calvinist having the burden. And, in fact, since the majority of evangelical Christians hold to punishment view of hell, then this could hardly be used to show that Calvinism has the burden!
And, Talbott has God "forcibly converting" people. Does Victor want to go on record as denying Tom Talbott's Universalism? he can't keep moving from pillar to post
Lastly, I guess we can deny Reppert's unjust God. That just doesn't sit well with my intuitions!
Finally, Calvinism has the consequence that, for those whose loved ones are lost, God intended forever to frustrate the prayers of those who earnestly desire the salvation of their nearest and dearest. Desire for the salvation of others seems to be a holy thing, yet God intended from the foundation of the world to deny these earnest prayers? This just seems deeply puzzling.Is Reppert a Universalist? If not, then he prays to a God who is too weak to save those loved ones Reppert prays for. He "kept trying" but always failed. Jesus came down with the intention to save everyone, but failed. If Victor sets his mind to do something, he can do it. Not God. And, God would be means-end irrational, especially given foreknowledge of libertarian free agents. If one knows that his end cannot be acheived, to continue to use those means to bring about that end is agent irrational.
Or, if he is Universalist, why does Reppert pray for them? They're going to be saved no matter what. Reppert's position has the consequence that all the prayers for the lost are pointless. At the least, all the fretting over their eternal destiny is.
Is a prayer that I be the most wise man in the world a "holy thing?" Isn't more wisdom a good thing. Should I pray for God to make me the smartest man alive? I would use it for his glory. For his kingdom. To, among other things, confound the arguments of atheists. Why doesn't God answer my prayer!?
And, I love my goldfish too. Surly God will allow him into heaven. After all, heaven will be the place where there is no more sadness. And to be there without Nemo would make me one unhappy camper! God wouldn't frustrate those prayers.
The Apostle Paul prayed for the thorn in his flesh to be removed. Wasn't that a "holy prayer?" But God frustrated it.
In the end, we pray like Jesus, our Lord:
Matthew 26:39
And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will."
Furthermore, husbands are supposed to love their wives like Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Love of spouse is a discriminating love. Just like I don't go around cheating on my wife, Jesus doesn't cheat on those he died for. His bride.
The greatest love instantiated is that someone lay down his life for his friend. To do this for everyone makes this superfluous. That Jesus didn't die for some is actually a way that he could show the greatest love. If I buy my son a toy, he feels special and loved. If he finds out I did the same thing for all the children in the world, no so much anymore.
Thus, even when it comes to Victoir's favorite doctrine, Calvinists have it. We have a more loving world.
Again, Victor, you need to stop thinking that you have God and his infinite plan all figured out. That if God doesn't do things Victor's way, then he's less than God. You need to heed your own advice: All I want to say is that the possibilities that occur to us humans from our own limited perspective probably do not exhaust all of God's options. -Victor Reppert
All of these points require further defense, and I do know that the resident Calvinists have responded to them.I have responded, and you could actually take the timeto read my posts and respond to them:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/arminian-counter-argument.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/answer-to-repperts-question-for.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/repperts-ruminations-on-reformed.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/stop-yer-blubbering.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/puzzled.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/repperts-latest-try-at-undermining.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/victor-reppert-on-anti-calvinism_17.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/intuitions.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-reppert-cant-unsolve-calvinists.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/reply-to-anti-calvinists.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/answering-back-to-reppert-or-is-it-god.html
The above starts with the latest and the last one is the earliest.
But if we grant that at least some of us think in the above ways, we are left with what seems to me to be a heavy burden of proof to support a case for Calvinism. Does it meet that standard? If there were scholarly consensus on these matters, then perhaps it could, but there is no such consensus.Basically, at the end of the day, what started out as a fine brash hypothesis has died the death of a thousand qualifications.
The initial claim that:
Calvinists cannot solve the problem of evil.
Has become:
Calvinists can't solve the problem of evil if you assume libertarian free will, PAP doctrine, Arminian exegesis. And if that's not enough: if you have moral intuition against Calvinism, and don't bother responding to the arguments in response to the moral intuitions, dig your heals in the sand, stick your fingers in your ears, perhaps stick your tongue out, and refuse to believe that that kind of God is good. Add to that massive misunderstandings of Calvinism. Admitted ignorance of the subject. Inability to represent their position. Then, couple that with the objector being "in the throes of doubt." A weakened view of, or denial of, inerrancy. Question the reliability of the Bible and its transmission through history. Deny laymen the ability to grasp the Bible are strongly believe any doctrine.
Yes, if you include all of that(!), then Calvinists can't solve the problem of evil . . . externally, at least.
Is this really what you want to claim?
Arguing that an opposing view is irrational is always the hardest thing to do. But I think I have shown here that I have good reason to impose a high burden of proof on Calvinist exegesis here, at least so far as I am concerned.i) You can't just "deny" our exegesis. You actually have to put up some of your own. Has James White said to one interlocutor: "Some kind of meaningful argumentation from the text itself needs to be presented. As we have seen, none has been offered. Instead of positive, edifying exegesis, we get this kind of philosophical double-talk:" push out your lips and shake your head and say, "I just don't have those intuitions."
ii) I have offered more than "exegesis." And, I invoked a theodicy that Arminians have employed, the skeptical theist theodicy. I also added some unproblematic notions to it. I also have shown that you ask people to believe things contrary to their "intuitions." So, your arguments seem clearly arbitrary. To keep harping on the exegesis point, even though I have defended it without a response from you, is to minimize and ignore probably 80-90% of all my arguments.
Snookered for Jesus
Richard Dawkins is in a really bad mood. I’ve been reading his “Lying for Jesus,” as well as his ‘Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein’s lying propaganda.”
Dawkins’ problem is that he published a best selling slam against Christianity. Now, however, his bestseller may be eclipsed by a blockbuster documentary slamming the evolutionary establishment. In a competition between a book and a movie, the movie usually wins. Such is the pop cultural survival of the fittest.
Dawkins’ two reaction pieces are unintentionally revealing and entertaining. To begin with, there’s the puzzling title.
Who, exactly, is lying for Jesus? One of Dawkins’ villains is Mark Mathis. Is Mathis lying for Jesus?
Why would Mathis be lying for Jesus? Is Mathis a Christian? Is Expelled a movie about Jesus?
Another one of Dawkins’ villains is Ben Stein. Is Stein lying for Jesus? Unless I’m mistaken, Stein is a Jew, not a Christian. He’d have no more reason to lie for Jesus than Woody Allen.
Does Dawkins know what he’s talking about? Sorry—that’s a redundant question.
Dawkins says he was “conned” into taking part in the project. Indeed, “Mathis tricked a number of scientists, including PZ Myers and me, into taking prominent parts in the film.”
For the sake of argument, let’s assume this is true. Why is Dawkins so offended?
In the God Delusion, he admits that “It is pretty hard to defend absolutist morals on grounds other than religious ones” (232).
Since he repudiates moral absolutes, why does he think that Stein or Mathis did anything wrong, even assuming that they secured his interview under false pretenses?
Moreover, what does it say about Dawkins’ intellectual security, or lack thereof, if he would only submit to an interview on condition that the questioner is in the tank for Dawkins? Can Dawkins only hawk his wares to a sympathetic audience?
He is also offended that Mathis banned Myers from attending a prescreening of the film. But, in terms of evolutionary ethics, what moral imperative did Mathis violate?
Dawkins has said that “we are hosts for DNA parasites which are our genes.”
So, when we translate Dawkins’ indignant allegation into cool, scientific terms, what apparently happened is that one parasitic host (Mathis) was guilty of ousting another parasitic host (Myers) from a prescreening.
Where’s the evolutionary manual on social etiquette that governs social transactions between one parasitic host and another?
Dawkins even says that “Ben Stein and his unscrupulous colleagues” have done “a wicked, evil thing.”
Can a parasitic host be “wicked”? Does this wickedness attach itself to the host proper, or to the wicked genes which commandeered the hapless host—like sneaky aliens in Men in Black?
Dawkins says the film is “dull, artless, amateurish, too long, poorly constructed and utterly devoid of any style, wit or subtlety.”
Well, I suppose that’s always a risk when you interview a guy like Richard Dawkins.
Dawkins says “The whole tone of the film is whiny, paranoid -- pathetic really.”
That’s a funny charge coming from a man who squeals about how he was duped by a Hollywood humorist.
“The narrator is somebody called Ben Stein. I had not heard of him, but apparently he is well known to Americans, for it is hard to see why else he would have been chosen to front the film. He certainly can't have been chosen for his knowledge of science, nor his powers of logical reasoning, nor his box office appeal (heavens, no), and his speaking voice is an irritating, nasal drawl, innocent of charm and of consonants.”
Dawkins only succeeds in making himself look stupid when he ventures such an ignorant and easily correctible statement about Ben Stein’s résumé.
Dawkins is also offended by the way the film draws a connection between Darwinism and Social Darwinism:
“As I have often said before, as a scientist I am a passionate Darwinian. But as a citizen and a human being, I want to construct a society which is about as un-Darwinian as we can make it. I approve of looking after the poor (very un-Darwinian). I approve of universal medical care (very un-Darwinian).”
And again:
“I have many times written (for example in the first chapter of A Devil's Chaplain) that I am a passionate Darwinian when it comes to the science of how life has actually evolved, but a passionate ANTI-Darwinian when it comes to the politics of how humans ought to behave.”
That’s a very ironic disclaimer. Here’s a man who prides himself on being a brave, unyielding rationalist; a man who nobly follows the facts wherever they lead, heedless of the consequences—all delivered in his stiff upper lip accent:
“There are all sorts of things that would be comforting. I expect an injection of morphine would be comforting... But to say that something is comforting is not to say that it's true.”
“This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous - indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.”
“The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.”
“If it's true that it causes people to feel despair, that's tough. It's still the truth. The universe doesn't owe us condolence or consolation; it doesn't owe us a nice warm feeling inside. If it's true, it's true, and you'd better live with it.”
But as soon as someone draws a logical or historical connection between Darwinism and Social Darwinism, he chickens out. Like all unbelievers, Dawkins is living a lie. His official creed commits him to moral nihilism, but he constantly reverts to a moralistic posture which is at odds with his grim worldview. He stares into the abyss, blinks once or twice, and then runs weeping and screaming back to his sandbox.
He accuses the Social Darwinist of committing the naturalistic fallacy. But that’s the problem. Since an unbeliever can’t infer “ought” from “is,” naturalistic evolution uproots the foundations of all morality. There is no imperative for socialized welfare or healthcare.
“Anyone who thinks that has any bearing whatsoever on the truth or falsity of Darwin's theory of evolution is either an unreasoning fool or a cynical manipulator of unreasoning fools.”
Correct. However, Dawkins is in no position to take umbrage at guilt-by-association tactics. That’s his stock-and-trade. He constantly attacks the Christian faith by exhuming the usual suspects, viz. the Inquisition, the Crusades, &c. If he really believes that atrocities committed in the name of Christianity undermine Christianity, then atrocities committed in the name of evolution undermine evolution.
“Hitler could fairly be described as a Social Darwinist, but all modern evolutionists, almost literally without exception, have been vocal in their condemnation of Social Darwinism.”
But that misses the point. The question at issue is not whether they condemn it, but whether they are entitled to condemn it.
Because Ben Stein is a Jew, he naturally takes a pretty personal interest in the ethical implications or applications of Darwinism—vis-à-vis the Final Solution. Why wouldn’t he? Why shouldn’t he?
Dawkins’ problem is that he published a best selling slam against Christianity. Now, however, his bestseller may be eclipsed by a blockbuster documentary slamming the evolutionary establishment. In a competition between a book and a movie, the movie usually wins. Such is the pop cultural survival of the fittest.
Dawkins’ two reaction pieces are unintentionally revealing and entertaining. To begin with, there’s the puzzling title.
Who, exactly, is lying for Jesus? One of Dawkins’ villains is Mark Mathis. Is Mathis lying for Jesus?
Why would Mathis be lying for Jesus? Is Mathis a Christian? Is Expelled a movie about Jesus?
Another one of Dawkins’ villains is Ben Stein. Is Stein lying for Jesus? Unless I’m mistaken, Stein is a Jew, not a Christian. He’d have no more reason to lie for Jesus than Woody Allen.
Does Dawkins know what he’s talking about? Sorry—that’s a redundant question.
Dawkins says he was “conned” into taking part in the project. Indeed, “Mathis tricked a number of scientists, including PZ Myers and me, into taking prominent parts in the film.”
For the sake of argument, let’s assume this is true. Why is Dawkins so offended?
In the God Delusion, he admits that “It is pretty hard to defend absolutist morals on grounds other than religious ones” (232).
Since he repudiates moral absolutes, why does he think that Stein or Mathis did anything wrong, even assuming that they secured his interview under false pretenses?
Moreover, what does it say about Dawkins’ intellectual security, or lack thereof, if he would only submit to an interview on condition that the questioner is in the tank for Dawkins? Can Dawkins only hawk his wares to a sympathetic audience?
He is also offended that Mathis banned Myers from attending a prescreening of the film. But, in terms of evolutionary ethics, what moral imperative did Mathis violate?
Dawkins has said that “we are hosts for DNA parasites which are our genes.”
So, when we translate Dawkins’ indignant allegation into cool, scientific terms, what apparently happened is that one parasitic host (Mathis) was guilty of ousting another parasitic host (Myers) from a prescreening.
Where’s the evolutionary manual on social etiquette that governs social transactions between one parasitic host and another?
Dawkins even says that “Ben Stein and his unscrupulous colleagues” have done “a wicked, evil thing.”
Can a parasitic host be “wicked”? Does this wickedness attach itself to the host proper, or to the wicked genes which commandeered the hapless host—like sneaky aliens in Men in Black?
Dawkins says the film is “dull, artless, amateurish, too long, poorly constructed and utterly devoid of any style, wit or subtlety.”
Well, I suppose that’s always a risk when you interview a guy like Richard Dawkins.
Dawkins says “The whole tone of the film is whiny, paranoid -- pathetic really.”
That’s a funny charge coming from a man who squeals about how he was duped by a Hollywood humorist.
“The narrator is somebody called Ben Stein. I had not heard of him, but apparently he is well known to Americans, for it is hard to see why else he would have been chosen to front the film. He certainly can't have been chosen for his knowledge of science, nor his powers of logical reasoning, nor his box office appeal (heavens, no), and his speaking voice is an irritating, nasal drawl, innocent of charm and of consonants.”
Dawkins only succeeds in making himself look stupid when he ventures such an ignorant and easily correctible statement about Ben Stein’s résumé.
Dawkins is also offended by the way the film draws a connection between Darwinism and Social Darwinism:
“As I have often said before, as a scientist I am a passionate Darwinian. But as a citizen and a human being, I want to construct a society which is about as un-Darwinian as we can make it. I approve of looking after the poor (very un-Darwinian). I approve of universal medical care (very un-Darwinian).”
And again:
“I have many times written (for example in the first chapter of A Devil's Chaplain) that I am a passionate Darwinian when it comes to the science of how life has actually evolved, but a passionate ANTI-Darwinian when it comes to the politics of how humans ought to behave.”
That’s a very ironic disclaimer. Here’s a man who prides himself on being a brave, unyielding rationalist; a man who nobly follows the facts wherever they lead, heedless of the consequences—all delivered in his stiff upper lip accent:
“There are all sorts of things that would be comforting. I expect an injection of morphine would be comforting... But to say that something is comforting is not to say that it's true.”
“This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous - indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.”
“The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.”
“If it's true that it causes people to feel despair, that's tough. It's still the truth. The universe doesn't owe us condolence or consolation; it doesn't owe us a nice warm feeling inside. If it's true, it's true, and you'd better live with it.”
But as soon as someone draws a logical or historical connection between Darwinism and Social Darwinism, he chickens out. Like all unbelievers, Dawkins is living a lie. His official creed commits him to moral nihilism, but he constantly reverts to a moralistic posture which is at odds with his grim worldview. He stares into the abyss, blinks once or twice, and then runs weeping and screaming back to his sandbox.
He accuses the Social Darwinist of committing the naturalistic fallacy. But that’s the problem. Since an unbeliever can’t infer “ought” from “is,” naturalistic evolution uproots the foundations of all morality. There is no imperative for socialized welfare or healthcare.
“Anyone who thinks that has any bearing whatsoever on the truth or falsity of Darwin's theory of evolution is either an unreasoning fool or a cynical manipulator of unreasoning fools.”
Correct. However, Dawkins is in no position to take umbrage at guilt-by-association tactics. That’s his stock-and-trade. He constantly attacks the Christian faith by exhuming the usual suspects, viz. the Inquisition, the Crusades, &c. If he really believes that atrocities committed in the name of Christianity undermine Christianity, then atrocities committed in the name of evolution undermine evolution.
“Hitler could fairly be described as a Social Darwinist, but all modern evolutionists, almost literally without exception, have been vocal in their condemnation of Social Darwinism.”
But that misses the point. The question at issue is not whether they condemn it, but whether they are entitled to condemn it.
Because Ben Stein is a Jew, he naturally takes a pretty personal interest in the ethical implications or applications of Darwinism—vis-à-vis the Final Solution. Why wouldn’t he? Why shouldn’t he?
Sunday, April 27, 2008
The Arminian Counter Argument
Victor Reppert wrote a post called "The Calvinist Argument."
This post stands in the long line of posts where Reppert has continually dodged or ignored the responses given to his arguments. What started out a while back as post on why Calvinists can't solve the problem of evil, has degenerated into a a hodge podge of mystery soup. Reppert's in red.
My center was my theodicy. That was followed by my correcting Victor on his notions of the decree, and offering arguments to show how it wasn't a problematic notion. Next I would say has been my proving that Victor himself asks people to believe things contrary to their moral intuitions. Right after that would be that I have shown examples of people groups that have had different moral intuitions and Christian missionaries have had to break those intuitions on the Bible. Next was my counter-exegesis of the texts Victor has appealed to. After that I would say all the reversals I have done, showing that, even sticking to intuition, Victor's theism asks us to believe things contrary to even his moral intuitions. Victor is simply misleading his readers if he presents the above as "the center" of my argument(s). If he is not misleading them, then he's not bothered to read my posts; or, perhaps, not read them well. None of those arguments has been responded to (except for one attempt to initially respond to my theodicy, of which I have posted 2 follow up posts with no responses).
For any interested, here are my posts (starting with the latest):
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/answer-to-repperts-question-for.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/repperts-ruminations-on-reformed.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/stop-yer-blubbering.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/puzzled.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/repperts-latest-try-at-undermining.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/victor-reppert-on-anti-calvinism_17.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/intuitions.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-reppert-cant-unsolve-calvinists.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/reply-to-anti-calvinists.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/answering-back-to-reppert-or-is-it-god.html
Given all of that, it's not clear to me why Victor would call "the center" of my argument some small point.
Furthermore, it is dishonest to parade my claim about as "the center" of my argument given that I made sure in my last post to inform Victor that my answers would vary depending on who I was talking to.
Let's note that Victor said that, for arguments sake, he "granted the truth of Calvinism."
I then said that if you were a Christian, who believed in inerrancy, then the above argument would have to work for you.
I pointed out that if you believed that Scripture was infallible, and you believed that it taught Calvinism, and that it taught that God was good, then you would have to reason: Scripture teaches T, my intuitions say ~T, therefore, ~~T.
Secondly, I have made use of this argument to point out how I can deny Reppert's intuitions. Certainly given that I believe in infallibility, and that the Bible teaches Calvinism and God's goodness, then Reppert's intuitions are wrong.
Moreover, I assumed, though it is not clear anymore, that Reppert was initially trying to give an internal critique against Calvinism. In that case, then I get to pull from inerrancy to show how Calvinism can avoid the problem of evil from an internal position.
Now, as I have said many times, if Reppert wants to argue:
(*) Since libertarian free will is true, and PAP is true, and Arminian exegesis of the texts are true, and . . . is true, then Calvinism can't solve the problem of evil.
Okay, but (*) isn't an interesting claim. Yeah, if those are true, Calvinism has some big problems. I would have never debated the proposition: Given Arminianism, Calvinism is problematic.
Now, if Reppert wants to come at me as an atheist, or as a Christian who denies inerrancy (which is what I'm hoping to draw out for those Arminians who do not deny inerrancy, which is what i hope to draw out to show where Victor must go to answer Calvinism), then I would have different arguments. I've even said so on numerous occasions.
So, drop the inerrancy claim (though it still works to show you how someone who holds to inerrancy can easily deny a moral intuition which contradicts an inerrant teaching). I still have all my other arguments. Those work regardless of the inerrancy claim.
On to Reppert's post:
Does Victor want to debate the transmission of the texts now? Where’s he going now? I thought we were debating why the Calvinist can't solve the problem of evil.
If they have been reliably copied, then what's the problem?
If a is inerrant, and b says a, then b is inerrant.
And, so what? It's the arguments, not the numbers, that matter, right?
So what?
What's Reppert's alternative? Does he think he can believe whatever he wants to so long as "there's disagreements out there?"
Is this supposed to mean that the most rational position isn't my interpretation?
I mean, people disagree about the resurrection. "Big leaguers" do.
So is Reppert demoted to some kind of quivering heap of uncertainty about the resurrection of Jesus and believers?
There's a difference between radical and reasonable doubt.
I expect many people who were "better than me" to be in hell, too.
That's one of God's good purposes in hell. Shows us all the more that salvation is completely by grace alone, not by works.
And, what does Reppert mean by "certainty?" I have, over and over again in our discussion, not claimed any kind of epistemic certainty. I have not claimed that I have given knock-out arguments that all rational men would be forced to accept just by reading the premises.
That I might be in error regarding a translation doesn't give me reason to think that I am. And, if I believe that the text teaches T, then I should, to be rational, believe that ~T is false. But, much goes into this exegetical process. So, I don't just open my Bible and whatever the text seems like it is saying, on the face, is what it must mean.
So, I put work into my understanding of the text.
The "process" is also reliable. Especially given much of what Plantinga has to say.
Thus, I can know that the text teaches P and not ~P.
Does Victor deny me this? Is he going to set up some infallibilist constraints? Hold me to internalism? No justification without awareness?
Well, we can debate those too, if he wishes.
I guess whether Calvinism can solve the problem of evil now turns on internalism verses externalism with respect to warrant.
If he does not, then:
(**) If I know that the Bible is inerrant in what it teaches, and if I know it teaches T, then if something says ~T, the most rational position for me to take is ~~T.
I can claim what I did in (**) even if I do not have some kind of Cartesian certainty. Even if I don't go on the irreligious quest for religious certainty.
I am not God. I don't have the kind of certainty about my beliefs that he does. Neither does Reppert. Neither do Roman Catholics, despite their protests.
So all of this is really smoke an mirrors. Elementary skepticism invoked as a sophistic ploy to turn the focus off the arguments I've given.
Neither is my exegesis of Victor's blog posts for that matter. Should I be struck dumb by the very possibility that I might be in error in reading him? Or, can I be warranted, and so also rational, in my beliefs about what he has said? Can I know what he has said?
If I can, why can't I know what the Bible teaches? Especially considering the lack of counter-arguments in our debate? You've not given me reason to doubt what Scripture teaches. And certainly name dropping with the likes of "Witherington" or "some Arminian blogger" isn’t something that should shake my belief. Is it?
But, like you, I can be reasonably sure what the Bible teaches.
Now, if you grant that the Bible is infallible, and you stick to what you said you were doing in your last post which is to grant that the Bible teaches Calvinism C, then you should doubt your moral intuitions because you believe that it is true that C.
If C is true, then ~C isn't.
But perhaps you don't believe the Bible is infallible? That's where you have to go to deny the force of Calvinism, say.
As I said, in this case some other arguments would be required.
Those would be all the ones I've been giving you in our debate. The ones that have been ignored.
So, given that I'm only clarifying here what I made clear in my last post and other places, wouldn't you say that it was uncharitable and unfair to act as if "the center" of my argument against all people whoever was just to say, "Shame on you Mr. X, you disagree with Jesus" as I beat them over the head with my Apologetics Study Bible?
(***) Sam believes the Bible is not in error in what it teaches. Sam believes it teaches Calvinism and God's goodness. That went against Sam's admittedly fallible moral intuitions. Sam studied the Bible. He still came to the conclusion that it taught Calvinism. According to Sam's belief policies, Sam has a strong case for denying his previous moral intuitions.
Besides that, with you, I have offered a theodicy. I have reversed many of your points. All I have seen on your end is the continued re-asserting that "Calvinism flies in the face fo your moral intuitions."
As I said, if you want to dig your heels in the sand, stick your fingers in your ear, then there's not much I can do.
But if this is all you are going to do, why try to argue against the Calvinist and write a post on why we can't solve the problem of evil because they conflict with your moral intuitions that you refuse to budge on.
And, if you reject the Bible's teaching, and its inerrancy, and your ability to rationally believe, and know, what it teaches, then tell me what kind of "strong case" would you accept? What would convince you that Calvinism isn't horrendous? And how does all I've said on the matter not at least answer all of this?
No where does Scripture say, [2] "Victor Reppert believes on the Lord Jesus Christ."
But, it would seem that if [2] were true, then [3] would be inerrant: "Victor will be saved."
Again, it seems that Victor's rule implies this questionable Assumption:
[A] That S might be wrong that P means that S is wrong that P.
At any rate, the main point here is that Victor has simply misunderstood my arguments in many, many ways.
On the one hand I've tried to show that Victor's argument against Calvinism doesn't work. I've even shown that he could keep his intuitions while still not idicting Calvinism, I've shown that his intuition argument is arbitrarily employed. I've shown offered disproofs by counter-example showing that his view of theism even contradicts moral inutitions he holds. I've answered all his exegetical arguments. On the othe rhand, Victor keeps finding new ways to re-state that Calvinism flies in the face of his moral intuitions. Okay, we've heard that, loud and clear. Is that all to our discussion? Are we free to move on?
This post stands in the long line of posts where Reppert has continually dodged or ignored the responses given to his arguments. What started out a while back as post on why Calvinists can't solve the problem of evil, has degenerated into a a hodge podge of mystery soup. Reppert's in red.
Paul wrote: ii) Again, Reppert misses the argument: If Scripture is infallible/inerrant in what it teaches T, and if my moral intuitions are fallible and tell me ~T, then ~~T.Not even close. If one should care to read my arguments, which have all been in response to various points Victor has brought up, one would note that the above has not been "my center."
Here's the center of what I take to be Paul's argument.
My center was my theodicy. That was followed by my correcting Victor on his notions of the decree, and offering arguments to show how it wasn't a problematic notion. Next I would say has been my proving that Victor himself asks people to believe things contrary to their moral intuitions. Right after that would be that I have shown examples of people groups that have had different moral intuitions and Christian missionaries have had to break those intuitions on the Bible. Next was my counter-exegesis of the texts Victor has appealed to. After that I would say all the reversals I have done, showing that, even sticking to intuition, Victor's theism asks us to believe things contrary to even his moral intuitions. Victor is simply misleading his readers if he presents the above as "the center" of my argument(s). If he is not misleading them, then he's not bothered to read my posts; or, perhaps, not read them well. None of those arguments has been responded to (except for one attempt to initially respond to my theodicy, of which I have posted 2 follow up posts with no responses).
For any interested, here are my posts (starting with the latest):
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/answer-to-repperts-question-for.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/repperts-ruminations-on-reformed.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/stop-yer-blubbering.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/puzzled.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/repperts-latest-try-at-undermining.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/victor-reppert-on-anti-calvinism_17.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/intuitions.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-reppert-cant-unsolve-calvinists.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/reply-to-anti-calvinists.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/04/answering-back-to-reppert-or-is-it-god.html
Given all of that, it's not clear to me why Victor would call "the center" of my argument some small point.
Furthermore, it is dishonest to parade my claim about as "the center" of my argument given that I made sure in my last post to inform Victor that my answers would vary depending on who I was talking to.
Let's note that Victor said that, for arguments sake, he "granted the truth of Calvinism."
I then said that if you were a Christian, who believed in inerrancy, then the above argument would have to work for you.
I pointed out that if you believed that Scripture was infallible, and you believed that it taught Calvinism, and that it taught that God was good, then you would have to reason: Scripture teaches T, my intuitions say ~T, therefore, ~~T.
Secondly, I have made use of this argument to point out how I can deny Reppert's intuitions. Certainly given that I believe in infallibility, and that the Bible teaches Calvinism and God's goodness, then Reppert's intuitions are wrong.
Moreover, I assumed, though it is not clear anymore, that Reppert was initially trying to give an internal critique against Calvinism. In that case, then I get to pull from inerrancy to show how Calvinism can avoid the problem of evil from an internal position.
Now, as I have said many times, if Reppert wants to argue:
(*) Since libertarian free will is true, and PAP is true, and Arminian exegesis of the texts are true, and . . . is true, then Calvinism can't solve the problem of evil.
Okay, but (*) isn't an interesting claim. Yeah, if those are true, Calvinism has some big problems. I would have never debated the proposition: Given Arminianism, Calvinism is problematic.
Now, if Reppert wants to come at me as an atheist, or as a Christian who denies inerrancy (which is what I'm hoping to draw out for those Arminians who do not deny inerrancy, which is what i hope to draw out to show where Victor must go to answer Calvinism), then I would have different arguments. I've even said so on numerous occasions.
So, drop the inerrancy claim (though it still works to show you how someone who holds to inerrancy can easily deny a moral intuition which contradicts an inerrant teaching). I still have all my other arguments. Those work regardless of the inerrancy claim.
On to Reppert's post:
And here's the problem. Let's allow the the original autographs are infallible. We don't have those. We have a Greek and Hebrew text which has not been inerrantly copied.Okay, I never claimed otherwise.
Does Victor want to debate the transmission of the texts now? Where’s he going now? I thought we were debating why the Calvinist can't solve the problem of evil.
If they have been reliably copied, then what's the problem?
If a is inerrant, and b says a, then b is inerrant.
We have a texts, lots of them, that are interpreted variously.So? I've read my Erhman. I'm not scared yet. What is Reppert trying to prove here? That some texts are in error? Which ones? And are they the ones I have been using? What kind of "error"? That there are two different spellings? The very fact that we have "lots of them" work in our favor. As has been pointed out, we suffer from an embarrassment of riches.
The "big leaguers" in Biblical scholarship are divided.This is tendentious. Which "big league scholars" did he have in mind. Is "big league" a term to invoke fear? Isn't this fallacious? Are we talking inerrancy anymore, or are we talking exegesis and hermeneutics?
And, so what? It's the arguments, not the numbers, that matter, right?
The best you can come up with on this is "as best I can tell, based on what I take to be the best Biblical scholarship out there, the Scriptures probably teach Calvinism.The best I can come up with is: "This reading has the best arguments for it, is consistent with the rest of the Bible, is the most reasonable position to take on the matter, etc."
So what?
What's Reppert's alternative? Does he think he can believe whatever he wants to so long as "there's disagreements out there?"
Is this supposed to mean that the most rational position isn't my interpretation?
I mean, people disagree about the resurrection. "Big leaguers" do.
So is Reppert demoted to some kind of quivering heap of uncertainty about the resurrection of Jesus and believers?
There's a difference between radical and reasonable doubt.
The inerrancy of Scripture, which is itself a doctrine open to debate amongst genuine Christians, (though Paul may deny this) does not confer certainty to doctrinal conclusions derived from Scripture, if the derivation is produced by fallible processes.I know it is debated. And, depends what Reppert means by "genuine Christian?" Since I believe that it is based on the person and work of Jesus Christ that we are saved, through faith alone by grace alone, then it is possible for someone to go to heaven who doesn't hold to my view of inerrancy. Same with Arminians. I expect many non-Calvinists to be in heaven.
I expect many people who were "better than me" to be in hell, too.
That's one of God's good purposes in hell. Shows us all the more that salvation is completely by grace alone, not by works.
And, what does Reppert mean by "certainty?" I have, over and over again in our discussion, not claimed any kind of epistemic certainty. I have not claimed that I have given knock-out arguments that all rational men would be forced to accept just by reading the premises.
That I might be in error regarding a translation doesn't give me reason to think that I am. And, if I believe that the text teaches T, then I should, to be rational, believe that ~T is false. But, much goes into this exegetical process. So, I don't just open my Bible and whatever the text seems like it is saying, on the face, is what it must mean.
So, I put work into my understanding of the text.
The "process" is also reliable. Especially given much of what Plantinga has to say.
Thus, I can know that the text teaches P and not ~P.
Does Victor deny me this? Is he going to set up some infallibilist constraints? Hold me to internalism? No justification without awareness?
Well, we can debate those too, if he wishes.
I guess whether Calvinism can solve the problem of evil now turns on internalism verses externalism with respect to warrant.
If he does not, then:
(**) If I know that the Bible is inerrant in what it teaches, and if I know it teaches T, then if something says ~T, the most rational position for me to take is ~~T.
I can claim what I did in (**) even if I do not have some kind of Cartesian certainty. Even if I don't go on the irreligious quest for religious certainty.
I am not God. I don't have the kind of certainty about my beliefs that he does. Neither does Reppert. Neither do Roman Catholics, despite their protests.
So all of this is really smoke an mirrors. Elementary skepticism invoked as a sophistic ploy to turn the focus off the arguments I've given.
Exegesis is not a hard science, like physics.So? Neither is our exegesis of Plato. Are we all subjected to massive skepticism about what Plato taught? No one can know what Plato taught anymore?
Neither is my exegesis of Victor's blog posts for that matter. Should I be struck dumb by the very possibility that I might be in error in reading him? Or, can I be warranted, and so also rational, in my beliefs about what he has said? Can I know what he has said?
If I can, why can't I know what the Bible teaches? Especially considering the lack of counter-arguments in our debate? You've not given me reason to doubt what Scripture teaches. And certainly name dropping with the likes of "Witherington" or "some Arminian blogger" isn’t something that should shake my belief. Is it?
On the other hand, not only are my moral intuitions fallible, my physical senses also fallible. Nevertheless I can be reasonably sure that I am typing these words on a keyboard at this moment.I never denied you could.
But, like you, I can be reasonably sure what the Bible teaches.
Moral intuitions are a legitimate sources of knowledge.A point I've not only never denied in our discussion, but also have granted.
Faced with what I take to be a strong Calvinist exegetical argument from, say, James White about Romans, alongside a deeply held moral conviction that a God who behaves like a Calvinistic God does would not be good, why am I obligated to follow the exegetical argument instead of the evidence of my moral intuitions?As I told you, this answer may vary.
Now, if you grant that the Bible is infallible, and you stick to what you said you were doing in your last post which is to grant that the Bible teaches Calvinism C, then you should doubt your moral intuitions because you believe that it is true that C.
If C is true, then ~C isn't.
But perhaps you don't believe the Bible is infallible? That's where you have to go to deny the force of Calvinism, say.
As I said, in this case some other arguments would be required.
Those would be all the ones I've been giving you in our debate. The ones that have been ignored.
So, given that I'm only clarifying here what I made clear in my last post and other places, wouldn't you say that it was uncharitable and unfair to act as if "the center" of my argument against all people whoever was just to say, "Shame on you Mr. X, you disagree with Jesus" as I beat them over the head with my Apologetics Study Bible?
I might change my moral convictions if I think the case is very strong.And depending on what other beliefs you hold, one very strong case would be:
(***) Sam believes the Bible is not in error in what it teaches. Sam believes it teaches Calvinism and God's goodness. That went against Sam's admittedly fallible moral intuitions. Sam studied the Bible. He still came to the conclusion that it taught Calvinism. According to Sam's belief policies, Sam has a strong case for denying his previous moral intuitions.
Besides that, with you, I have offered a theodicy. I have reversed many of your points. All I have seen on your end is the continued re-asserting that "Calvinism flies in the face fo your moral intuitions."
As I said, if you want to dig your heels in the sand, stick your fingers in your ear, then there's not much I can do.
But if this is all you are going to do, why try to argue against the Calvinist and write a post on why we can't solve the problem of evil because they conflict with your moral intuitions that you refuse to budge on.
And, if you reject the Bible's teaching, and its inerrancy, and your ability to rationally believe, and know, what it teaches, then tell me what kind of "strong case" would you accept? What would convince you that Calvinism isn't horrendous? And how does all I've said on the matter not at least answer all of this?
The only way such a general rule can by justified is if we make an illegitimate transfer from the inerrancy of Scripture to the inerrancy of conclusions derived from Scripture.That's odd. Scripture says that, for example, [1] "If you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ you will be saved."
No where does Scripture say, [2] "Victor Reppert believes on the Lord Jesus Christ."
But, it would seem that if [2] were true, then [3] would be inerrant: "Victor will be saved."
Again, it seems that Victor's rule implies this questionable Assumption:
[A] That S might be wrong that P means that S is wrong that P.
At any rate, the main point here is that Victor has simply misunderstood my arguments in many, many ways.
On the one hand I've tried to show that Victor's argument against Calvinism doesn't work. I've even shown that he could keep his intuitions while still not idicting Calvinism, I've shown that his intuition argument is arbitrarily employed. I've shown offered disproofs by counter-example showing that his view of theism even contradicts moral inutitions he holds. I've answered all his exegetical arguments. On the othe rhand, Victor keeps finding new ways to re-state that Calvinism flies in the face of his moral intuitions. Okay, we've heard that, loud and clear. Is that all to our discussion? Are we free to move on?
Scripture & special pleading
Faithful Christians, who honor the plenary inspiration of Scripture, are often accused of special pleading when they defend the inerrancy of Scripture. Since this is a popular charge, it’s worth giving attention to the charge.
1.The way the accusation is usually framed is that we have an obvious error in Scripture, but the inerrantist, due to his blind faith and intellectual insecurity, can’t bring himself to admit the error—for his faith would come unraveled, like pulling a loose end of yarn.
Thus, the inerrantist is in a state of denial. Ironically, so goes the argument, he isn’t getting his theory of inspiration from Scripture itself, for he is turning a blind eye to contrary evidence in the text of Scripture.
It’s the inerrantist, so goes the argument, who is taking Scripture seriously at this point. The inerrantist who is taking Scripture at face value.
2.This may be plausible to some, but it’s specious. It commits a level confusion. For what we’re really talking about is not, in the first instance, the text, but the reader. We’re talking about perceived errors.
Dewey Beegle perceives a number of errors in Scripture. What the inerrantist is responding to is not the text of Scripture, in and of itself, but Beegle’s perception of Scripture. His interpretation—or misinterpretation—of Scripture.
This is not a conflict between what the inerrantist believes and what the text of Scripture actually says. Rather, this is a conflict between what the errantist perceives and what the inerrantist perceives.
That’s the immediate level of the conflict. Not between the reader and the text, but between one reader and another reader. Between your reading and mine. Not what Scripture says, but what Beegle says Scripture says, and how he relates his reading to other Scriptural or extrascriptural data—which involves him in further interpretive judgments.
The errantist has no more direct access to the text than the inerrantist. Both of them are looking at the same text. If the errantist says that he perceives a mistake in Scripture, and the inerrantist says that he doesn’t perceive a mistake in Scripture, how is one man’s perception special pleading, but the other is not?
It is of course possible for a reader to indulge in special pleading. But there’s no presumption that the inerrantist is guilty of special pleading, for the text is not the immediate point of dispute.
Let’s bracket the Bible for a moment and speak more generally. Where inspiration is not a consideration, it is possible for a perceived error to be a real error.
But that’s not the level at which the dispute occurs. For we’re talking about the imputation of error. The error exists in the mind of the reader, whether or not it actually exists in the text. And it’s quite possible for a perceived error to be a misperception.
So the errantist has no initial advantage in this debate. We’re dealing with rival perceptions. Rival readings. Rival interpretations. If you perceive an error where I do not, it’s not as if your perception of the text is automatically better than mine. That has to be demonstrated, not assumed.
At the outset, you and I are on a par. We left the gate at the very same time. We may not finish at the same time, but it’s not as though the errantist enjoys a head start which the inerrantist must overtake.
3. If, moreover, I have good reason to believe that Scripture is inspired, then I’m not guilty of special pleading if I treat Scripture differently than I do the New York Times.
It’s like an optical allusion. If I have good reason to believe that mountains aren’t any smaller at a distance, then I’m not guilty of special pleading when I try to account for the difference between appearance and reality.
Imagine a naive realist accusing me of blind faith in physics. I “explain away” the “obvious” fact that mountains are smaller at a distance. Who do you believe—me or my lying eyes?
4.Then there’s the matter of who is leveling the accusation. There are two different groups. To begin with, you have theological “moderates.” They subscribe to partial inspiration or limited inerrancy.
But one of the problems with this mediating position is that Scripture doesn’t assert partial inspiration. Scripture doesn’t assert limited inerrancy. So their theory of inspiration doesn’t come from the self-witness of Scripture.
It isn’t determined by what Scripture says about itself, but by what they believe about Scripture. And, on this view, inspiration is person-variable. The scope of inspiration expands or contracts to coincide with what the reader is prepared to believe.
When he was 20, he thought that Gen 1-50 was inspired. When he was 30, he thought that Gen 12-50 was inspired. When he was 40, he thought that Genesis was uninspired.
So the boundaries of inspiration parallel the boundaries of his waning faith. They have a convenient way of receding at just those junctures where his faith in Scripture is receding. Whatever he still believes is still inspired; whatever he no longer believes is no longer uninspired.
Somebody less charitable than myself might accuse the limited inerrantist of special pleading.
3. Then you have the outright unbeliever. Surely his position is more consistent. Or is it?
One reason some people disbelieve the Bible is the presence what they take to be false prophecies. In their view, certain predictions were falsified by the facts.
However, unbelievers reject other prophecies because they were a little too close for comfort. Some of the prophecies of Daniel or Isaiah are too true to be true. No one could really see into the future to that degree.
Since there’s no naturalistic explanation, these “predictions” must have been made after the fact. It’s too true to be a true prediction.
Same thing with the Olivet Discourse. Since Jesus couldn’t realistically predict the Fall of Jerusalem, this was obviously put in his mouth after the fact.
If it’s a false prophecy, then it’s false—but if it’s a true prophecy, then it’s also false!
Somebody less charitable than myself might accuse the unbeliever of special pleading.
1.The way the accusation is usually framed is that we have an obvious error in Scripture, but the inerrantist, due to his blind faith and intellectual insecurity, can’t bring himself to admit the error—for his faith would come unraveled, like pulling a loose end of yarn.
Thus, the inerrantist is in a state of denial. Ironically, so goes the argument, he isn’t getting his theory of inspiration from Scripture itself, for he is turning a blind eye to contrary evidence in the text of Scripture.
It’s the inerrantist, so goes the argument, who is taking Scripture seriously at this point. The inerrantist who is taking Scripture at face value.
2.This may be plausible to some, but it’s specious. It commits a level confusion. For what we’re really talking about is not, in the first instance, the text, but the reader. We’re talking about perceived errors.
Dewey Beegle perceives a number of errors in Scripture. What the inerrantist is responding to is not the text of Scripture, in and of itself, but Beegle’s perception of Scripture. His interpretation—or misinterpretation—of Scripture.
This is not a conflict between what the inerrantist believes and what the text of Scripture actually says. Rather, this is a conflict between what the errantist perceives and what the inerrantist perceives.
That’s the immediate level of the conflict. Not between the reader and the text, but between one reader and another reader. Between your reading and mine. Not what Scripture says, but what Beegle says Scripture says, and how he relates his reading to other Scriptural or extrascriptural data—which involves him in further interpretive judgments.
The errantist has no more direct access to the text than the inerrantist. Both of them are looking at the same text. If the errantist says that he perceives a mistake in Scripture, and the inerrantist says that he doesn’t perceive a mistake in Scripture, how is one man’s perception special pleading, but the other is not?
It is of course possible for a reader to indulge in special pleading. But there’s no presumption that the inerrantist is guilty of special pleading, for the text is not the immediate point of dispute.
Let’s bracket the Bible for a moment and speak more generally. Where inspiration is not a consideration, it is possible for a perceived error to be a real error.
But that’s not the level at which the dispute occurs. For we’re talking about the imputation of error. The error exists in the mind of the reader, whether or not it actually exists in the text. And it’s quite possible for a perceived error to be a misperception.
So the errantist has no initial advantage in this debate. We’re dealing with rival perceptions. Rival readings. Rival interpretations. If you perceive an error where I do not, it’s not as if your perception of the text is automatically better than mine. That has to be demonstrated, not assumed.
At the outset, you and I are on a par. We left the gate at the very same time. We may not finish at the same time, but it’s not as though the errantist enjoys a head start which the inerrantist must overtake.
3. If, moreover, I have good reason to believe that Scripture is inspired, then I’m not guilty of special pleading if I treat Scripture differently than I do the New York Times.
It’s like an optical allusion. If I have good reason to believe that mountains aren’t any smaller at a distance, then I’m not guilty of special pleading when I try to account for the difference between appearance and reality.
Imagine a naive realist accusing me of blind faith in physics. I “explain away” the “obvious” fact that mountains are smaller at a distance. Who do you believe—me or my lying eyes?
4.Then there’s the matter of who is leveling the accusation. There are two different groups. To begin with, you have theological “moderates.” They subscribe to partial inspiration or limited inerrancy.
But one of the problems with this mediating position is that Scripture doesn’t assert partial inspiration. Scripture doesn’t assert limited inerrancy. So their theory of inspiration doesn’t come from the self-witness of Scripture.
It isn’t determined by what Scripture says about itself, but by what they believe about Scripture. And, on this view, inspiration is person-variable. The scope of inspiration expands or contracts to coincide with what the reader is prepared to believe.
When he was 20, he thought that Gen 1-50 was inspired. When he was 30, he thought that Gen 12-50 was inspired. When he was 40, he thought that Genesis was uninspired.
So the boundaries of inspiration parallel the boundaries of his waning faith. They have a convenient way of receding at just those junctures where his faith in Scripture is receding. Whatever he still believes is still inspired; whatever he no longer believes is no longer uninspired.
Somebody less charitable than myself might accuse the limited inerrantist of special pleading.
3. Then you have the outright unbeliever. Surely his position is more consistent. Or is it?
One reason some people disbelieve the Bible is the presence what they take to be false prophecies. In their view, certain predictions were falsified by the facts.
However, unbelievers reject other prophecies because they were a little too close for comfort. Some of the prophecies of Daniel or Isaiah are too true to be true. No one could really see into the future to that degree.
Since there’s no naturalistic explanation, these “predictions” must have been made after the fact. It’s too true to be a true prediction.
Same thing with the Olivet Discourse. Since Jesus couldn’t realistically predict the Fall of Jerusalem, this was obviously put in his mouth after the fact.
If it’s a false prophecy, then it’s false—but if it’s a true prophecy, then it’s also false!
Somebody less charitable than myself might accuse the unbeliever of special pleading.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Answer to Reppert's "Question for Calvinists"
Victor Reppert has a question for Calvinists. I'll do my best to answer. But, since this discussion has been public, I'll still make comments on much of what Victor says for the benefit of readers. The by-product of our discussion is that our Calvinist readers can generalize from it and apply it to other discussions. Also, many of Victor’s arguments, assumptions, and questions are those that atheists ask. So, though Victor is no atheist, this discussion has apologetic value far beyond the specifics of our debate. So Victor and I aren't the only ones involved. In what follows, I will answer his question, but this whole post should be read in order to get at that answer. (Reppert appears in red.)
I should also point out that Steve Hays made many good points in his post below..
This claim cuts both ways. Since Reppert is not a voluntarist, then “it could certainly turn out that Omnipotent One is not good, and not worthy of worship.” Since this being is the Omnipotent One, he could be planting false intuitions in Reppert’s mind. So, “[a]lthough you believe that the Omnipotent Being is worthy of worship, the great Cosmic Nightmare might turn out to be true, and it could turn out that the Being in charge of everything just isn't good.”
ii) In Reppert’s favorite haunt, the god of the philosophers, a being is worthy of worship if he is the greatest conceivable being. But as most philosophers of religion point out, this is almost meaningless given the various religious traditions we find, and the various intuitions we have. Is impassibility a perfection? Some say yes, some say no. How about necessity? Mormons wouldn’t agree. Does God's omnipotence mean he can, say, do the logically impossible? Aquinas said no, Descartes yes. Does God's omniscience include knowledge of the future? Again, some yes, some no. Does God's goodness mean he cannot willingly permit some to go to hell for their sinful actions? Some yes, others no. In Christianity, we go to revelation to figure this out.
iii) In Christian theology, we take God's goodness to be shown as his benevolence, lovingkindness, graciousness, mercifulness, faithfulness, longsuffering, compassion, those are some starters.
iv) Apropos (iii), of course these undefined terms don't do much, especially for those who want a god of the philosophers:
I take all of what Scripture has to say on a matter. To call the God of the Bible the OF is simply to speak in a foreign language. I have no idea what a good God would look like if the God of the Bible wasn't a good God but, rather, an OF. We've moved far beyond our ken, into a unconceptualizable conceptual scheme, I'd say.
So, if all the things the Bible credited, ascribed, or attributed to God were true, then he wouldn't be an OF. Given that I’m allowed to pull from my entire revelation, which is perfectly acceptable, then I’d need some pretty strong reasons from Reppert (or anyone) to the affect that that kind of being is an Omnipotent Fiend. Just say I’d need more than “What if” stories.
Now, is Reppert going to come back and say, "How do you know for certain (epistemic certainty), that you are not being deceived?" Then he faces those same objections to his reading of Scripture and his moral intuitions. But other than this desperate move, what reason to I have to doubt God's word? There's a distinction between radical doubt and reasonable doubt.
Given, further, that if Christian theism is true, then Scripture is God's testimony to man. The testimony of the word of another. He has made man capable of understanding his word. Made me in his image. Indeed, we function properly when we take the word of our maker on his say-so (similar to how children function properly by believing their parents). Not only that, he has given the Christian his Spirit to aid in the understanding of this testimony. Add to this that we employ that part of our cognitive faculty aimed at producing true beliefs based on testimony when we read Scripture, there's not much of an argument against the warrant of my belief in what God reveals to me in his word.
ii) If you believed Calvinism were true you would believe that God is justly punishing criminals. Those who have committed a capital offense. So, to not want to worship a being who justly punishes those who deserve suffering strikes me as an irrational stance to take.
iii) Belief in Calvinism as true is more than belief in reprobation. There are a whole host of other beliefs that are included in your granting Calvinism as the case. One of those is a correct view of reprobation and the decree, which you seem not to have (I wonder if Reppert could write a blog post arguing for the Calvinist position on all of these matters? If so, would Calvinists recognize their position in his post? If he cannot, can he at least admit he hasn’t studied those who he is attempting to refute? If he hasn’t, isn’t the scholarly course of action to study the position out before subjecting it to public critique; even ridicule at times?)
iv) Perhaps you mean all of this as an objection from an atheist? So, you’re not speaking of yourself, then. This matters since answers can be person relative. I would address a professing Christian different that an atheist.
v) What about C.S. Lewis’ spot on point in Mere Christianity:
iv) Or, one might point to Del Ratzsch’s remark in response to Richard Dawkin’s “intuitions” in Ratzsch’s article: The Demise of Religion: Greatly Exaggerated Reports from the Science/Religion Wars (Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion, eds. Peterson & Vanarragon, 2004, p.78):
[MM] I will call no being good who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow creatures.
Does Mill/Reppert think any and all God-talk is univocal? It seems that instead of picking on Calvinism, he's forced to indict major theistic traditions across the board. If he does, take these counters:
[MM1] I will call no being thinking who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow creatures.
Does God think just like humans now? Discursively? Reasons through a chain of inference?
How about:
[MM2] I will call no being strong who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow creatures.
Is that our idea of God? A cosmic muscle man lifting bar bells?
How about:
[MM3] I will call no being knowing who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow creatures.
But if we take a traditional tripartite (whether “justified” or “warranted”) analysis of knowledge, then belief would have to be included. What do you do with Alston’s paper, “Does God Have Beliefs?” (see Alston, Divine Nature and Human Language: Essays in Philosophical Theology, Cornell, 1989, ch. 9). His paper rejects the principle behind Mill’s Maxim. Is Alston irrational, or epistemically blameworthy for doing so?
In Miracles, Lewis observed,
ii) Also, proof is not persuasion. It is very hard to persuade someone who is dead set on holding on to his intuition. As Reppert should well know, almost anyone can dig in his heels and deny the force of arguments. Is Reppert asking for some knock down argument that all rational men would have to assent to? But does he even have anything like that?
iii) These questions could be asked by two types of people. Call them the Christian Reppert CR and the Non-Christian Reppert NCR. Let me address CR first (key to understanding CR is that CR has granted that the Bible indeed teaches Calvinism):
a) God saved you from your sins when he didn't have to. Sent his son to die for you. I would say that is all you need to know. If you accepted the Calvinist view of sin, the horror of your condition before a holy God, then that God would save even one sinner is strong proof of his goodness.
b) Appealing to your belief that the Bible is inerrant. If you are convinced the Bible teaches T, but your moral intuition says ~T, then the rational course of action is ~~T.
c) By pointing out a contradiction within your set of beliefs. For example, as a Christian who admits (per your story) that the Bible teaches Calvinism, and also that the Bible says that God is good, that he will always do right, that he has done good things for his people throughout all of history, then this Christian must believe that his moral intuitions are in error. If he is rational he must do this because by believing, say, that the Bible’s teaching that “God is good” is true, then if you also believed that God was not good, and you had properly functioning cognitive faculties, then you couldn’t hold that set of beliefs once it was pointed out to you. Now, you might choose to drop your belief that the Bible teaches the truth. That would be another conversation.
d) I would also make sure you understood what Calvinism was, since you are taking it as a unit. I doubt the problem would even arise if you understood all of what Calvinists are saying. That’s why there’s many, many Calvinists. We have all heard your kind of objections. Yet we aren’t fleeing from the churches. (It’s not even clear that Dr. Reppert understands the Calvinist position when he speaks of the decree. The decree isn’t an efficient cause. It doesn’t cause anything, in fact. The decree is the plan, the plan is worked out in history, under the rubric of providence. Furthermore, the fall was willingly permitted. I’ve explained much of this before and I’m not confident that Reppert even knows what he’s objecting against.)
e) I will ask you to trust God. He asks us to do this in his word. Indeed, one can say this is part of the essence of the Christian life. We live the life of faith, not sight. Christians trust in their heavenly father. To not trust God is a mark of the atheist. It is what Adam and Eve did in the garden. Thus, the refusal to trust God shows that the problem of evil, at heart, isn’t evidence of non-belief, it is the very expression of that non-belief.
iv) Let’s now look at the question from NCR’s point of view. I take it that your question, “how do you now persuade me that this is right?”, means “how do we persuade you that it is right for God to do things you don’t see as good.” Well:
a) We’ve been over this before. I would offer my theodicy. I did this for you and have not received any response showing how I can’t deal with the problem of evil.
b) Another would be: God punishes evil doers; he's just. I would say that it is just a truism that any being who does not punish the guilty, if he can and is in that position, is not a good being. So, a consequence of NCR’s argument is that he wants a God who doesn't punish the guilty.
c) I might point out that you have no objective moral standard by which to raise the problem of evil argument. If you say that the problem is an internal objection, then I get to use all my resources in answering you. That is, you are just objecting against Doctrine D1 and D2. D1 and D2 appear problematic, until you bring in D3 and D4, that is.
v) CR or NCR, at this point, might re-appeal to his WCP. But, if so, I will simply point to my (as of yet) unanswered response to his WCP argument.
ii) It is not illegitimate to point to Scripture’s own statements if you ask as CR. I assume CR has granted that the Bible is God’s word. Thus it is not question-begging to appeal to one of the very premises someone holds in order to get them to be consistent.
iii) The doctrine of Scripture’s self-attestation receives massive support from all Christians, spanning denominational boundaries.
iv) If you ask as CR, then since you grant that the Bible teaches Calvinism, and you’d grant that the Bible teaches that God is good, but you say God is not good, then you must say that the Bible is false. At this point I’d say you have bigger problems to deal with. Since you grant that the Bible teaches Calvinism, and it is obvious that the Bible declares that God is good (as you yourself admit), then are you even a Christian any more? Can a Christian believe that their God is not good?
v) If you ask as NCR, then of course I won’t come over and beat you over the head with my Bible. In this case I would deal with you differently (see points a-c directly above for answers to NCR).
ii) You’ve been shown that you ask people to accept things inconsistent with their moral intuitions. I offered the example of the tribe of people who thought treachery was one of the greatest moral virtues. These people thought Judas’ betrayal of Jesus was the climax of the Gospels. Missionaries had to break their moral intuitions. There is also a long-standing tradition within atheology that takes any version of the atonement to be a story of a great immorality. The very heart of our system goes against fallen, prideful man’s moral intuitions.
iii) It is dishonest to minimize all of the various arguments I have given you as simply “saying you cannot appeal to moral intuition.” I even appeal to certain “moral intuitions” that directly countered your claims, showing that you hold theological beliefs that go against your own moral intuitions (e.g., a being who could stop evil, permitting it. If S can stop some act of evil E through no loss of his own, then S should stop E.). I also took your intuitions head on and provided a theodicy whereby your intuitions couldn’t serve to demonstrate that God was not good. So, it’s disingenuous to keep asserting that God is not good. You offered a defeater. I defeated that defeater through an undercutting defeater, as well as a defeater-deflector. Ball's not still in my court.
iv) As far as question begging, let's recall the claim from Reason & Religious Belief I cited above, "It should be recognized that in setting for God's attributes we cannot possibly ignore the religious and theological tradition within which any given theology operates." Let's remember those things Alvin Plantinga told us in his Advice for Christian Philosophers. J.P. Moreland and W. L. Craig even recognize the acceptability for the Christian to go to revelation to answer questions (cf. Foundations for a Christian Worldview). So your objection isn't clear to me, at all.
ii) I would offer and expect a rebuttal to my theodicy rather than continuing to assert, in the face of a theodicy that God is not good.
iii) If you’re going to dig your heels in the sand and, as you said, “stick your fingers in your ears,” then there’s not much I can say to someone like that. What could anyone say to someone like that in any field of inquiry? I would simply ask the readers to see who they believe has presented the stronger case. It isn’t that philosophically impressive to ignore all the arguments and just continue to assert your opening statement.
iv) I can reverse your arguments: So my question is this: if we assume that Universalism is true, on what basis do we believe that the Universalizer is a just being? If we pose the question that way, it looks as if appeals to Scripture are going to beg the question. You wouldn't dare appeal to my intuitions, now would we? You can't appeal to sheer Love, without negating justice, which you say you aren't. So how do you appeal to me in this situation. You tell me.
If I "stick my fingers in my ear," and dig my heels into the sand, and cling to my intuitions about justice, what can Reppert do?
Reppert's strategy is a recipe for unfruitful, stale-mate discussions across the board.
And, if his strategy with me works, have I just provided a knock-down argument against Universalism? If not, neither has he against my position.
At the end of the day, does Reppert really want to make the strong claim that "Calvinism can't answer the problem of evil" when all he's doing is "sticking his fingers in his ears" and "digging his heals in the sand" and "holding fast to his intuitions"? Does he want to say this especially in light of the fact that I've offered an unanswered theodicy? I've offered unanswerd defeaters for his posts on Romans. I've offered unanswered defeaters for his strongest intuitional argument viz., the WCP.
v) I would point out that you should have a problem with Christianity in general, not just Calvinism. The Bible, the Christian’s book, reports all sorts of “horrible evils” that were perpetrated on behalf of God’s commands in the Old Testament (and the God of the New Isn’t any better, they say!). Have you read Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens? At what price your “attractive” Christianity? Is your gospel an “offense?” How do you speak to them and their intuitions? Take out your scissors and have them read the ARV (Authorized Reppert Version) Bible?
I’ll leave you with Lewis who pointed out in Miracles that the God of the Bible is an uncomfortable fellow:
this is my Father's world whoa let me ne'er forget
that though the wrong
seems so strong
He is the ruler yet
-- O.C. Supertones
I should also point out that Steve Hays made many good points in his post below..
All the Calvinists in this discussion have told me that they are not theological voluntarists.This goes for virtually all Calvinists in general. When you call us voluntarists you simply hinder discussion.
I take it that theological voluntarism is the view that something is Good because God does it or commands it, and in this instance a being is entitled to the appelation "God" in virtue of His superior power.I don't know . . ., is Reppert arguing against Calvinism, or any theist who holds to a Divine Command Theory of ethics? Seems most of his arguments might apply to, not just to his view of Calvinism, but many Arminian Christians as well. Exactly what Victor is arguing, and who he is arguing it against, isn’t altogether clear anymore.
But if you are not a voluntarist, it could certainly turn out that Omnipotent One is not good, and not worthy of worship. Although you believe that the Omnipotent Being is worthy of worship, the great Cosmic Nightmare might turn out to be true, and it could turn out that the Being in charge of everuthing just isn't good.I don't get my idea of God from my philosophical speculations.
This claim cuts both ways. Since Reppert is not a voluntarist, then “it could certainly turn out that Omnipotent One is not good, and not worthy of worship.” Since this being is the Omnipotent One, he could be planting false intuitions in Reppert’s mind. So, “[a]lthough you believe that the Omnipotent Being is worthy of worship, the great Cosmic Nightmare might turn out to be true, and it could turn out that the Being in charge of everything just isn't good.”
One question I might now ask is in virtue of what is the "God" of Scripture, as understood by Calvinists, thought of as good, if not His power. What characteristics does the Omnipotent One have that we should worship him.i) Good in the sense of moral goodness or perfections? Some philosophers like to make these distinctions. Reppert told us he is handling this issue as a philosopher, not a theologian. If so, then he’s not clear here.
ii) In Reppert’s favorite haunt, the god of the philosophers, a being is worthy of worship if he is the greatest conceivable being. But as most philosophers of religion point out, this is almost meaningless given the various religious traditions we find, and the various intuitions we have. Is impassibility a perfection? Some say yes, some say no. How about necessity? Mormons wouldn’t agree. Does God's omnipotence mean he can, say, do the logically impossible? Aquinas said no, Descartes yes. Does God's omniscience include knowledge of the future? Again, some yes, some no. Does God's goodness mean he cannot willingly permit some to go to hell for their sinful actions? Some yes, others no. In Christianity, we go to revelation to figure this out.
iii) In Christian theology, we take God's goodness to be shown as his benevolence, lovingkindness, graciousness, mercifulness, faithfulness, longsuffering, compassion, those are some starters.
iv) Apropos (iii), of course these undefined terms don't do much, especially for those who want a god of the philosophers:
"It should be recognized that in setting for God's attributes we cannot possibly ignore the religious and theological tradition within which any given theology operates. If, for instance, we were to offer the Jewish religious community a conception of God radically at variance with that which is found in the Hebrew Bible and in Jewish tradition, that conception would not be warmly received. [...] As we have noted, intuitions about perfection may vary and a philosopher of religion who is seeking to apply that notion would do well to pay attention to the conception of God that actual religious communities have found best to represent perfection and worshipfulness" (Reasons & Religious Belief: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, eds. Peterson, Hasker, Reichenbach, and Basinger, Oxford, 2003, pp. 61-62).Continuing...
Of course Scripture says that Omnipotent One is good. But, of course, if Scripture is the word of the Omnipotent One, that is precisely what we should expect. It's just the Almighty's spin machine. The Almighty says He is good, and Clinton said he was telling the truth. What else is new? We need some characteristics of the Omnipotent One that provide us with grounds that we are not dealing with an Omnipotent Fiend.Reppert is compartmentalizing things. That's his shell game. If we're talking about all of Scripture, not just one verse that says, "God is good" in isolation from the rest, then when you read all of Scripture you cannot believe that this being is the Omnipotent Fiend OF.
I take all of what Scripture has to say on a matter. To call the God of the Bible the OF is simply to speak in a foreign language. I have no idea what a good God would look like if the God of the Bible wasn't a good God but, rather, an OF. We've moved far beyond our ken, into a unconceptualizable conceptual scheme, I'd say.
So, if all the things the Bible credited, ascribed, or attributed to God were true, then he wouldn't be an OF. Given that I’m allowed to pull from my entire revelation, which is perfectly acceptable, then I’d need some pretty strong reasons from Reppert (or anyone) to the affect that that kind of being is an Omnipotent Fiend. Just say I’d need more than “What if” stories.
Now, is Reppert going to come back and say, "How do you know for certain (epistemic certainty), that you are not being deceived?" Then he faces those same objections to his reading of Scripture and his moral intuitions. But other than this desperate move, what reason to I have to doubt God's word? There's a distinction between radical doubt and reasonable doubt.
Given, further, that if Christian theism is true, then Scripture is God's testimony to man. The testimony of the word of another. He has made man capable of understanding his word. Made me in his image. Indeed, we function properly when we take the word of our maker on his say-so (similar to how children function properly by believing their parents). Not only that, he has given the Christian his Spirit to aid in the understanding of this testimony. Add to this that we employ that part of our cognitive faculty aimed at producing true beliefs based on testimony when we read Scripture, there's not much of an argument against the warrant of my belief in what God reveals to me in his word.
"Now, let's suppose that a thorough study of Scripture reveals to me that Calvinism is in fact true, that is, the being in charge of the universe is indeed a Calvinistic God who has predestined some to eternal life and some to everlasting punishment. The Omnipotent One does exist, and God is a reprobator. At first, as I discover this, I ask myself if I might be mistaken in thinking that this reprobating deity would not be good. However, depressingly for me, my intuitions don't budge. It seems true all right that the Omnipotent One has predestined some to heaven and some to hell, but I find that I can't worship Him."i) This is odd. If you believe Calvinism is true, then you believe God exists, and if you believe God exists, you believe that he is the greatest conceivable being, and if he is that, then he is, by definition, worthy of worship. Calvinism also maintains that God is good. So, if you do believe that this is true, then you believe God is good. If you do believe that, you don't need convincing that he is good.
ii) If you believed Calvinism were true you would believe that God is justly punishing criminals. Those who have committed a capital offense. So, to not want to worship a being who justly punishes those who deserve suffering strikes me as an irrational stance to take.
iii) Belief in Calvinism as true is more than belief in reprobation. There are a whole host of other beliefs that are included in your granting Calvinism as the case. One of those is a correct view of reprobation and the decree, which you seem not to have (I wonder if Reppert could write a blog post arguing for the Calvinist position on all of these matters? If so, would Calvinists recognize their position in his post? If he cannot, can he at least admit he hasn’t studied those who he is attempting to refute? If he hasn’t, isn’t the scholarly course of action to study the position out before subjecting it to public critique; even ridicule at times?)
iv) Perhaps you mean all of this as an objection from an atheist? So, you’re not speaking of yourself, then. This matters since answers can be person relative. I would address a professing Christian different that an atheist.
v) What about C.S. Lewis’ spot on point in Mere Christianity:
Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have guessed. If it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected, I should feel we were making it up. But, in fact, it is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up. It has just that queer twist about it that real things have. So let us leave behind all these boys' philosophies--these over simple answers. The problem is not simple and the answer is not going to be simple either.Seems like Lewis points out that our intuitions aren’t golden. Seems like Lewis points out that Christianity isn’t necessarily “what you’d expect.”
iv) Or, one might point to Del Ratzsch’s remark in response to Richard Dawkin’s “intuitions” in Ratzsch’s article: The Demise of Religion: Greatly Exaggerated Reports from the Science/Religion Wars (Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion, eds. Peterson & Vanarragon, 2004, p.78):
In any case, if we do form such expectations, and if we observe aspects of the word which clash with those expectations, the problem may lie in our expectations. It is worth noting that nearly every scientific revolution has involved reality itself violating our previous best scientific explanations concerning the natural. Our human expectations concerning the supernatural may be far off the mark [too].Moving on...
I remain convinced that the creature can say to the creator "Why hast thou made me thus." As John Stuart Mill puts it:I think this is odd. Take Mill's Maxim:
I will call no being good who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow creatures; and if such a creature can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go.
[MM] I will call no being good who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow creatures.
Does Mill/Reppert think any and all God-talk is univocal? It seems that instead of picking on Calvinism, he's forced to indict major theistic traditions across the board. If he does, take these counters:
[MM1] I will call no being thinking who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow creatures.
Does God think just like humans now? Discursively? Reasons through a chain of inference?
How about:
[MM2] I will call no being strong who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow creatures.
Is that our idea of God? A cosmic muscle man lifting bar bells?
How about:
[MM3] I will call no being knowing who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow creatures.
But if we take a traditional tripartite (whether “justified” or “warranted”) analysis of knowledge, then belief would have to be included. What do you do with Alston’s paper, “Does God Have Beliefs?” (see Alston, Divine Nature and Human Language: Essays in Philosophical Theology, Cornell, 1989, ch. 9). His paper rejects the principle behind Mill’s Maxim. Is Alston irrational, or epistemically blameworthy for doing so?
In Miracles, Lewis observed,
And if we say that we are rejecting the old images in order to do more justice to the moral attributes of God, we must against be careful of what we are really meaning. When we wish to learn of the love and goodness of God by analogy . . .we turn of course to the parables of Christ. But when we try to conceive of reality as it may be in itself, we must beware lest we interpret ‘moral attributes’ in terms of mere conscientiousness or abstract benevolence.Certainly, though God is good, and if we knew all the facts we would certainly say that all the Calvinist says God has done is good (and not just by his mere volition, but really good), we understand Mill’s Maxim to be a bit simplistic. When speaking of the metaphysics of goodness as it relates to God and his infinite plan, then we’ve stepped into a different territory. “In The biblical world-view, there is no metaphysical gap as great as that between divine creator of all and any of his creation” (Thomas Morris, Our Idea of God: An Introduction to Philosophical Theology, Regent, 1991, p. 25). In our discussion Reppert has either ignored or minimized this vital notion in Christian theology--that of the Creator/creature distinction. God is not just like a perfect version of us!
Given the fact that I have now agreed that Calvinism has the facts right, how do you now persuade me that this is right. Yes, I am headed for a showdown with the Almighty in which I stick my finger in the Almighty's face and tell him that I won't worship him since I can't see him as good.i) Again, how I might persuade you might vary with respect to your position on these matters.
ii) Also, proof is not persuasion. It is very hard to persuade someone who is dead set on holding on to his intuition. As Reppert should well know, almost anyone can dig in his heels and deny the force of arguments. Is Reppert asking for some knock down argument that all rational men would have to assent to? But does he even have anything like that?
iii) These questions could be asked by two types of people. Call them the Christian Reppert CR and the Non-Christian Reppert NCR. Let me address CR first (key to understanding CR is that CR has granted that the Bible indeed teaches Calvinism):
a) God saved you from your sins when he didn't have to. Sent his son to die for you. I would say that is all you need to know. If you accepted the Calvinist view of sin, the horror of your condition before a holy God, then that God would save even one sinner is strong proof of his goodness.
b) Appealing to your belief that the Bible is inerrant. If you are convinced the Bible teaches T, but your moral intuition says ~T, then the rational course of action is ~~T.
c) By pointing out a contradiction within your set of beliefs. For example, as a Christian who admits (per your story) that the Bible teaches Calvinism, and also that the Bible says that God is good, that he will always do right, that he has done good things for his people throughout all of history, then this Christian must believe that his moral intuitions are in error. If he is rational he must do this because by believing, say, that the Bible’s teaching that “God is good” is true, then if you also believed that God was not good, and you had properly functioning cognitive faculties, then you couldn’t hold that set of beliefs once it was pointed out to you. Now, you might choose to drop your belief that the Bible teaches the truth. That would be another conversation.
d) I would also make sure you understood what Calvinism was, since you are taking it as a unit. I doubt the problem would even arise if you understood all of what Calvinists are saying. That’s why there’s many, many Calvinists. We have all heard your kind of objections. Yet we aren’t fleeing from the churches. (It’s not even clear that Dr. Reppert understands the Calvinist position when he speaks of the decree. The decree isn’t an efficient cause. It doesn’t cause anything, in fact. The decree is the plan, the plan is worked out in history, under the rubric of providence. Furthermore, the fall was willingly permitted. I’ve explained much of this before and I’m not confident that Reppert even knows what he’s objecting against.)
e) I will ask you to trust God. He asks us to do this in his word. Indeed, one can say this is part of the essence of the Christian life. We live the life of faith, not sight. Christians trust in their heavenly father. To not trust God is a mark of the atheist. It is what Adam and Eve did in the garden. Thus, the refusal to trust God shows that the problem of evil, at heart, isn’t evidence of non-belief, it is the very expression of that non-belief.
iv) Let’s now look at the question from NCR’s point of view. I take it that your question, “how do you now persuade me that this is right?”, means “how do we persuade you that it is right for God to do things you don’t see as good.” Well:
a) We’ve been over this before. I would offer my theodicy. I did this for you and have not received any response showing how I can’t deal with the problem of evil.
b) Another would be: God punishes evil doers; he's just. I would say that it is just a truism that any being who does not punish the guilty, if he can and is in that position, is not a good being. So, a consequence of NCR’s argument is that he wants a God who doesn't punish the guilty.
c) I might point out that you have no objective moral standard by which to raise the problem of evil argument. If you say that the problem is an internal objection, then I get to use all my resources in answering you. That is, you are just objecting against Doctrine D1 and D2. D1 and D2 appear problematic, until you bring in D3 and D4, that is.
v) CR or NCR, at this point, might re-appeal to his WCP. But, if so, I will simply point to my (as of yet) unanswered response to his WCP argument.
If my reading of Scripture leads me to call into question whether or not God is good, it seems question-begging to say that, of course, God in Scripture says He is good. Of course Scripture says God is good, it's God's word.i) Again, much of this turns on who is asking the question, CR or NCR.
ii) It is not illegitimate to point to Scripture’s own statements if you ask as CR. I assume CR has granted that the Bible is God’s word. Thus it is not question-begging to appeal to one of the very premises someone holds in order to get them to be consistent.
iii) The doctrine of Scripture’s self-attestation receives massive support from all Christians, spanning denominational boundaries.
iv) If you ask as CR, then since you grant that the Bible teaches Calvinism, and you’d grant that the Bible teaches that God is good, but you say God is not good, then you must say that the Bible is false. At this point I’d say you have bigger problems to deal with. Since you grant that the Bible teaches Calvinism, and it is obvious that the Bible declares that God is good (as you yourself admit), then are you even a Christian any more? Can a Christian believe that their God is not good?
v) If you ask as NCR, then of course I won’t come over and beat you over the head with my Bible. In this case I would deal with you differently (see points a-c directly above for answers to NCR).
I am consistently told that I shouldn't lift my moral intuitions up above the Word of God. This works so long as I remain convinced that God is good. Dispelling doubts about God's goodness by appealing to Scripture seems blatantly question-begging.i) You’ve been answered according to your profession of faith.
ii) You’ve been shown that you ask people to accept things inconsistent with their moral intuitions. I offered the example of the tribe of people who thought treachery was one of the greatest moral virtues. These people thought Judas’ betrayal of Jesus was the climax of the Gospels. Missionaries had to break their moral intuitions. There is also a long-standing tradition within atheology that takes any version of the atonement to be a story of a great immorality. The very heart of our system goes against fallen, prideful man’s moral intuitions.
iii) It is dishonest to minimize all of the various arguments I have given you as simply “saying you cannot appeal to moral intuition.” I even appeal to certain “moral intuitions” that directly countered your claims, showing that you hold theological beliefs that go against your own moral intuitions (e.g., a being who could stop evil, permitting it. If S can stop some act of evil E through no loss of his own, then S should stop E.). I also took your intuitions head on and provided a theodicy whereby your intuitions couldn’t serve to demonstrate that God was not good. So, it’s disingenuous to keep asserting that God is not good. You offered a defeater. I defeated that defeater through an undercutting defeater, as well as a defeater-deflector. Ball's not still in my court.
iv) As far as question begging, let's recall the claim from Reason & Religious Belief I cited above, "It should be recognized that in setting for God's attributes we cannot possibly ignore the religious and theological tradition within which any given theology operates." Let's remember those things Alvin Plantinga told us in his Advice for Christian Philosophers. J.P. Moreland and W. L. Craig even recognize the acceptability for the Christian to go to revelation to answer questions (cf. Foundations for a Christian Worldview). So your objection isn't clear to me, at all.
So my question is this: if we assume that predestination is true, on what basis do we believe that the Predestinator is a good being? If we pose the question that way, it looks as if appeals to Scripture are going to beg the question. You wouldn't dare appeal to my intuitions, now would we? You can't appeal to sheer power, without becoming a voluntarist, which you say you aren't. So how do you appeal to me in this situation. You tell me.i) I already pointed out the contradictory nature of this argument for the believer.
ii) I would offer and expect a rebuttal to my theodicy rather than continuing to assert, in the face of a theodicy that God is not good.
iii) If you’re going to dig your heels in the sand and, as you said, “stick your fingers in your ears,” then there’s not much I can say to someone like that. What could anyone say to someone like that in any field of inquiry? I would simply ask the readers to see who they believe has presented the stronger case. It isn’t that philosophically impressive to ignore all the arguments and just continue to assert your opening statement.
iv) I can reverse your arguments: So my question is this: if we assume that Universalism is true, on what basis do we believe that the Universalizer is a just being? If we pose the question that way, it looks as if appeals to Scripture are going to beg the question. You wouldn't dare appeal to my intuitions, now would we? You can't appeal to sheer Love, without negating justice, which you say you aren't. So how do you appeal to me in this situation. You tell me.
If I "stick my fingers in my ear," and dig my heels into the sand, and cling to my intuitions about justice, what can Reppert do?
Reppert's strategy is a recipe for unfruitful, stale-mate discussions across the board.
And, if his strategy with me works, have I just provided a knock-down argument against Universalism? If not, neither has he against my position.
At the end of the day, does Reppert really want to make the strong claim that "Calvinism can't answer the problem of evil" when all he's doing is "sticking his fingers in his ears" and "digging his heals in the sand" and "holding fast to his intuitions"? Does he want to say this especially in light of the fact that I've offered an unanswered theodicy? I've offered unanswerd defeaters for his posts on Romans. I've offered unanswered defeaters for his strongest intuitional argument viz., the WCP.
v) I would point out that you should have a problem with Christianity in general, not just Calvinism. The Bible, the Christian’s book, reports all sorts of “horrible evils” that were perpetrated on behalf of God’s commands in the Old Testament (and the God of the New Isn’t any better, they say!). Have you read Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens? At what price your “attractive” Christianity? Is your gospel an “offense?” How do you speak to them and their intuitions? Take out your scissors and have them read the ARV (Authorized Reppert Version) Bible?
I’ll leave you with Lewis who pointed out in Miracles that the God of the Bible is an uncomfortable fellow:
Men are reluctant to pass over from the notion of an abstract and negative deity to the living God. I do not wonder. Here lies the deepest tap-root of Pantheism and the objection to traditional imagery. It was not hated, at bottom, because it pictured Him as man but because it pictured Him as king, or even as warrior. The Pantheist’s God does nothing, demands nothing. He is there if you wish for Him, like a book on a shelf. He will not pursue you. There is no danger that at any time heaven and earth should flee away from His glance. If He were the truth, then we could really say that all the Christian images of kingship were a historical accident of which our religion ought to be cleansed. It is with a shock that we discover them to be indispensable. You have had a shock like that before, in connection with smaller matters--when the line pulls at your hand, when something breathes beside you in the darkness. So here; the schlock comes at the precise moment when the thrill of life is communicated to us along the clue we have been following. It is always chocking to meet life when we thought we were alone. ‘Look out!’ we cry, ‘it’s alive’. And therefore this is the very point at which so many draw back--I would have done so myself if I could--and proceed no further with Christianity. And ‘impersonal God’--well and Good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads--better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap--best of all. But God Himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband--that is quite another matter. There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion (‘Man’s search for God!’) suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found Him? We never meant for it to come to that! Worse still, supposing He had found us? …One may be in for anything.God is good. He has a good reason for all he does. He is not what we dreamt up, though. His plan is far too complex for us to sit in judgment upon him. The Christian, at the end of the day, trusts in God. Our speculations about what God is like, what he must and must not do, are fine in the halls of the ivory tower. But with the real God, the God of Christianity, he has come to us and given us a revelation. He has knocked us off our comfortable rocking horse. His revealtion has borne out that he does things contrary to what we would expect. Abraham didn't expect god to command him to kill the son of promise. The Jews expected a Messiah who would conquer the Romans with military power. The disciples didn't expect their teacher to die on a cross like a common criminal. The kingdom is here now, but it is not here yet. We are free, but we are slaves. Jesus is king, but he is servant. Jesus is shepherd, but he is lamb. Indeed, there is quite the inductive case that God's ways fly in the face of our human expectations of what God will, or must, do. His ways are too excellent for us. He's the one who uses what Lewis called, "A deeper magic."
this is my Father's world whoa let me ne'er forget
that though the wrong
seems so strong
He is the ruler yet
-- O.C. Supertones
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