Sloppy philosophers

Eric Reitan says:

Tuesday, December 20, 2011 at 6:00pm

Here is, for me, the big problem: God’s preordaining some sinners for reprobation is supposed to reflect God’s justice, which tempers His mercy and love (or the other way around?). The idea is that sin is such an intolerable affront to God’s holiness and majesty that divine justice demands that it be repudiated. And so God casts some sinners away forever as a display of His just wrath against sin, even as he elects others for salvation to display His mercy and benevolence.

 

The problem is this: In casting sinners away from His presence, He casts them away from the only thing that (according to the very theology underlying this theory) can overcome sin. Thus, God guarantees that this intolerable affront to His majest continues eternally in the souls of the damned. In short, the view essentially amounts to this: sin is so terrible that God decisively acts to guarantee that this intolerable thing continue in all its intolerability forever and ever. “What you’re doing is so inconceivably unacceptable that I am going to make absolutely sure that there is no way for you to ever stop doing it!”

 

And making sure that this intolerable affront to His holiness never stops is supposed to be God’s justifying reason for not electing all, and so for truncating the scope of his benevolence? Is that a coherent understanding of divine justice?

 

I think a variant of this problem obtains not only for Calvinists, but for any adherents to that understanding of hell according to which the God-justifying purpose for damnation is to justly punish sin. It is not a problem for those understandings of hell more like C.S. Lewis’s, in which damnation is a regrettable outcome of divine respect for the free choices of rational creatures.

 

But if I go on, I’ll end up summarizing John’s and my entire book in a blog comment, and then no one will buy it even when it comes out in the affordable paperback version…

http://randalrauser.com/2011/12/does-god-hate-those-he-does-not-save/

i) First off, I’d like to thank Reitan for sparing us the need to read his book. Given the quality of his summarized argument, it would be poor stewardship of time and money to invest in the book.

ii) I’d also like to make a general observation: in theory, philosophers ought to be more logical than folks who lack formal training in philosophy. A large part of philosophy involves spotting fallacious arguments.

Yet, in practice, philosophers frequently use their training to retroactively justify their prejudice. This is often the case in political philosophy, but it spills over into other branches. They use their training to rationalize positions they didn’t arrive at rationally. Reason in the service of emotion.

iii) As for Reitan’s argument (such as it is), he tries to contrive an artificial dilemma by casting the issue in terms of tolerance. As he frames it, the Calvinist God tolerates the intolerable. Hence, Reformed theism is self-contradictory.

iv) But he’s burning a straw man. In Calvinism, “sin” is not “intolerable” to God. “Sinners” are not intolerable to God.

What’s “intolerable” (if you wish to put it that way, which may not be the best way to put it) isn’t sin, but injustice. Isn’t sin, but allowing sin to go unpunished. What’s “unacceptable” isn’t the existence of sinners, but justice denied. Sooner or later, the scales of justice must be righted.

It not a question of “overcoming” sin, but exposing sin for what it is, then meting out a suitable punishment. That, in turn, reveals the moral character of evil–for the punishment fits the crime.

v) Put another way, in Reformed theodicy, evil is “acceptable” to God as a means, but not as an end. Evil has an instrumental value in God’s plan.

Something can be evil in its own right, but also be a source of good. The Crucifixion is a paradigm-example.

vi) Finally, Reitan is a universalist, to that’s his underlying objection to Calvinism.

Did Matthew And Luke Think They Were Writing History?

Amy-Jill Levine recently wrote an editorial about Christmas for the Washington Post. She makes no effort to interact with the counterarguments to her position. Her article is largely about the allegedly unhistorical genre of the infancy narratives. See my post on that subject here.

Why does a New Testament scholar like Levine put forward a view that's so contrary to the historical evidence? And why is the public so easily misled by arguments like Levine's and so poorly prepared to argue against her position?

"I'm a Mormon" campaign

http://blogs.standard.net/the-political-surf/2011/10/11/100-plus-years-ago-charles-w-penrose-also-explained-why-he-is-a-mormon/

The “Three Wise Men” or Magi of Matthew 2:1-6

http://www.craigkeener.com/the-three-wise-men-or-magi-of-matthew-21-6/

Rivers of Living Water in John 7:37-38

http://www.craigkeener.com/rivers-of-living-water-in-john-737-38/

Historical Facts About the Birth of Jesus — Luke 2:1-14

http://www.craigkeener.com/historical-facts-about-the-birth-of-jesus-—-luke-21-14/

On the eve of Iowa

I’ve said a lot about the individual candidates. Let’s take stock one more time.

Gingrich

Like Data and Lore, there are two of him: good Gingrich and bad Gingrich. Like The Three Faces of Eve, you never know which personality will emerge.

Good Gingrich is the iconoclast who challenges the conventional wisdom. Who questions a false premise. Who shakes up the establishment. Examples of good Gingrich are his positions on the federal judiciary and the so-called Palestinians.

Bad Gingrich is the pundit who contradicts himself because he talks too much, because he’s seduced by academic fads, because he lacks an ideological center. The political precession of the equinoxes.

Perry

I think Perry has good instincts. I think he’d be better than Romney. But on national and international issues, he comes across as a psychic or faith-healer who lost his earpiece. That blank look when he can't hear the backstage advisor whispering his cues.

Romney

Romney and Gingrich are a study in contrasts. Gingrich has a disturbing capacity to self-destruct.

But I prefer him to Romney. He had more of a conservative core than Romney–who has none.

Romney is less likely than Gingrich to implode. That’s both a strength and a weakness. He’s timid, cautious. Plays it safe.

The downside of being risk-averse is that he doesn’t generate any excitement. He’s so predictable and scripted. It’s like the difference between live TV (where anything can happen), and prerecorded TV–which edits out the flubs.

Romney would handle himself well in a debate with Obama. Smooth, affable, unflappable.

But is that enough? Wouldn’t that makes it sound like a discussion between two reasonable men? We need a candidate who can draw blood in a debate with Obama.

Enter Gingrich. Gingrich is scrappy. A street-fighter. He’d try to destroy Obama in debate. If he succeeded (and he has the ability to pull it off), Obama would stagger out of the debate like a battered boxer. I think that would be far more damaging to Obama’s image than a gentlemanly debate between Obama and Romney.

Ron Paul

I actually like some of his proposals. For instance, he wants to ax the departments of energy, housing and urban development, commerce, interior, and education. He also wants to let young workers opt out of Social Security and shift Medicaid and Food Stamps to states in the form of block grants.

Great ideas!

But therein lies the problem. Those actions require Congressional authorization. He’s been serving in Congress on-and-off since the mid-70s. If these proposals were doable, why hasn’t he done it by now?

Even when he’s right, he’s ineffectual. If all I cared about was ideological purity, Bachmann would be preferable to Ron.

Santorum

He’s my favorite candidate. I do think he needs to recalibrate his position on foreign policy. Nation-building was a bust. You can’t keep pouring resources down a bottomless drain. You need to show tangible results. Measurable progress.

The imperial judiciary

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/286355

Want Growth? Try Stable Tax Policy

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204791104577110152436029914.html

The Lord of Non-Contradiction: An Argument for God from Logic

http://www.proginosko.com/docs/The_Lord_of_Non-Contradiction.pdf

Ron Paul is a CIA plant!

Until today I was planning to vote for Ron Paul, cuz he’s the only real conservative in the race, you know. He’s the true Constitutionalist. The true Federalist.

But then I made a shocking discovery. Recently, Ron Paul let slip his true, covert identity:

There's been a coup, have you heard? It's the CIA coup. The CIA runs everything, they run the military. They're the ones who are over there lobbing missiles and bombs on countries. ... And of course the CIA is every bit as secretive as the Federal Reserve. ... And yet think of the harm they have done since they were established [after] World War II. They are a government unto themselves. They're in businesses, in drug businesses, they take out dictators ... We need to take out the CIA.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul632.html

That’s right–Ron Paul is a stoolpigeon for the CIA. If the CIA runs everything, after staging a coup d’etat, then that must mean the CIA put him up to it. His presidential campaign is just a front organization, run out of Langley. And, of course, Gen. Petraeus is the current DCI. Connect the dots.

As you can imagine, this was very disillusioning to me. Ron Paul was my last best hope, but now I learn he’s an apparatchik who takes his marching orders from Gen. Petraeus. 

I'd like to say more, but as I peer out the window I see a military caravan approaching my house. Apache choppers are hovering overhead. 

Ron Paul's chimerical federalism

Ron Paul thinks social issues should the province of the states rather than the federal gov’t. Yet this is obviously nearsighted. What it overlooks is the fact that, as things currently stand, a red state can only be as red as a federal judge with blue state values will allow it to be. Moving from Massachusetts to Texas is ultimately no escape. As long as the federal judiciary has the final say on social policy, federalism is a dead letter.

He’d like to curtail the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary in some matters, yet–needless to say–any law curtailing the jurisdiction of the courts would itself be subject to judicial review. You don’t have to be as bright as a tree full of owls to figure that out. It happens on a regular basis. What Congress proposes, SCOTUS disposes. How long does it take a 12-term Congressman to pick up on that?

In theory, there are at least two ways to readdress that problem. One is to challenge the principle of judicial review. Due to institutional inertia, this has become an unquestioned axiom, yet the question can always be reopened. For instance:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/229672

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/11/001-how-the-court-became-supreme-41

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01/marshall-marbury-and-judicial-supremacy-11

Another alternative is Gingrich’s “Jeffersonian” proposal:

http://www.newt.org/sites/newt.org/files/Courts.pdf

i) Now, I’m not a legal expert, so I don’t necessarily vouch for this strategy. My point is simply that people tend to take the status quo for granted. But that’s something we should be prepared to reexamine.

ii) Some critics act as if this were a fascist coup d’etat. But to my knowledge, Gingrich is not suggesting that the President exercise dictatorial power over the judiciary. Rather, he’s suggesting that Congress pass a law.

iii) The federal judiciary is already politicized. Unfortunately, the federal judiciary has all the benefits of the two elective branches without the accountability. But as long as the judiciary is politicized, why should it be exempt from the same level of scrutiny and accountability as the Executive and the Legislative branches?

iv) State judges are elected officials. They have to face the voters. So there’s no antecedent reason why the federal judiciary should be insulated from the will of the electorate, expressed through the two representative branches of government. If that’s not incompatible with the independence of state judiciaries, why is that incompatible with the independence of the federal judiciary?

v) Some critics are also aghast at the suggestion that judges should have to explain their decisions. Why not? If their decisions are defensible, why shouldn’t they be prepared to defend them?

A basic problem with judicial elites, like any elites, is that they rarely have to play by the same rules as they impose on others.  If they were forced to play by the same rules, it would be a disincentive to their going rogue.

v) One potential objection is that this tactic cuts both ways. Depending on whose in power, both Democrats and Republicans can do it. However, I don’t think that’s a very formidable objection:

vi) To begin with, so what if Scalia or Roberts or Alito had to go before Congress and explain their legal opinion on a particular case? Aren’t they more than capable of arguing for their interpretation? And it would be good for the general public to hear how fine conservative legal minds arrive at their position.

Conversely, if Judge John Jones had to explain his reasoning in the Dover case (to take one example), that would expose the ugly underbelly of judicial activism.

vii) Likewise, the reason that liberals take refuge in the courts is because their social engineering schemes lack sufficient popular support to get through Congress. So I don’t assume that if Republicans could abolish renegade courts, Democrats would have the same success. If liberal initiatives were that popular to begin with, they wouldn’t need judicial activism in the first place.

An Interview With Craig Keener On Miracles

Michael Brown just interviewed Craig Keener on his recent book about the historicity of miracles.

NEWT FOR SCOTUS?

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/12/newt-for-scotus.php

Gone to their reward

Doug Wilson on what an atheistic universe entails.

For Wilson's thoughts on Hitchens, see this post, which in addition refers back to his Christianity Today post.

BTW, it looks like his "Collision" debate with Hitchens is available on YouTube: The "Collision" documentary is available to watch on YouTube:

The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture

http://davidgpeterson.com/biblical-theology/the-inspiration-and-authority-of-scripture/

Hebrews and Assurance

http://davidgpeterson.com/hebrews/hebrews-and-assurance/

The Sufficiency of Scripture

http://davidgpeterson.com/biblical-theology/the-sufficiency-of-scripture/

Fireproofing Roger Olson

Recently I laid down some rules of thumb by which I will decide which reader comments I will post and which I will not. I will not post comments by persons who come here only to argue, heckle or try to embarrass me (or someone else). This is a forum for dialogue. I will never post comments that engage in ridicule or intentional misrepresentation of others’ views.

 

Fortunately, following those rules of thumb has worked to calm things down quite a bit. Some of the more aggressive Calvinists who came here only to heckle me or insist that I respond to a certain critic, etc., have gone away after I have declined to post their comments. For the most part, the discussion here has improved dramatically.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2011/12/a-quick-comment-about-discussion-here/

In the interests of Christian brotherhood, I’d like to take up a collection for Roger Olson. He can’t stand the heat. He suffers from third-degree burns whenever Calvinists mount arguments against his Arminian objections to Reformed theology.

So let’s pool our resources to buy him a fireman’s uniform. Asbestos lined jacket. Fire-resistant boots, gloves, and helmet. 

Ron Paul on Israel

http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/12/dont-support-ron-paul-just-send-message/2003776