Wednesday, November 04, 2015
Even if it happened, I refuse to believe it!
Unbelievers typically say they reject the Resurrection because it's too improbable. Now, one way of testing a position, even if you don't believe it, is to ask yourself what, if anything, would be different in case it were true.
Suppose you're an atheist. You don't believe in the Resurrection because it's too improbable. But as a thought-experiment, you grant the Resurrection.
As far as I can see, that would make absolutely no difference in how unbelievers lay odds on the Resurrection. Even if it happened, they'd still say it was too improbable to happen. Even though (ex hypothesi) it happened, they'd refuse to believe it because their probability calculus discounts it ahead of time.
But isn't there something screwy about that? The fact of the matter has no impact on their outlook. Whether or not it happened makes to no difference to their believing that it never happened. If our probability calculus treats events and nonevents exactly alike, don't we need to revise our probability calculus?
God over all, forever blessed
One potential prooftext for the deity of Christ is Rom 9:5. Bruce Metzger wrote a classic essay on that years ago ("The Punctuation of Rom 9:5"). Unfortunately, it has never been posted on the internet. Here's a more recent, albeit brief, defense of the same interpretation:
It is possible that Paul concludes his description of the Israelites (Rom 9:4-5) with his third set of privileges after using the workgroups "of whom adoptive sonship…", "of whom the fathers," and "from the whom the Messiah…", and then, after a major stop, praises God for what he has done. This does not seem to follow Paul's logic of his argumentation at this point, however. Paul is not intent on praising God for what he has done, since he has just recounted his own agony over his people. Instead, Paul recounts the privileges of the Israelites, which have culminated in his noting that they are the line from whom the Christ has come. If there is praise to be given, it is praise of this Christ. Paul praises him as the God who is above all things, blessed for eternity. These two elements–having the divine nature that places him positionally over all things, and being blessed forever–are both reflective of statements that are often attributed to God. God's position of being over all things is firmly established since Genesis 1 in the OT, and the term "blessed" (cf. Rom 1:25), with God being "blessed unto the ages") is one that is often used to describe God himself (e.g. Gen 14:20; 24:27). Paul's rising crescendo regarding the privileges of Israel are fittingly capped by his proclamation that they themselves are responsible for the earthly origins of the Messiah who, as Paul has already established even in the letter to the Romans, functions as one with God, and is, in fact, the God over all things and is to be blessed. S. Porter, The Letter to the Romans: A Linguistic and Literary Commentary (Sheffield Phoenix Press 2015), 183-184.
Etiologies
Critics of Scripture think Genesis contains etiological fables about the origin of the world, origin of life, origin of evil, and origin of death.
One problem with that analysis is that it's an explanation which demands an explanation. Why would primitive people assume these things even had a point of origin?
Put yourself in the moccasins of pre-Columbian Plains Indian before white missionaries made contact. All you have to go by is your experience or oral history. As far as you can tell, things have always been this way. The hawks, wolves, bears, bison, and rattlesnakes were always there. The prairies and sandstone buttes were always there. Indians existed for as long as anyone could remember. There was never a time when it wasn't just like this.
Why would they assume humans lost the chance at immortality? Why think human death is any different than animal death? Why think human suffering is not how things were supposed to be?
The paradise lost motif isn't something you can derive from nature or human experience alone.
Atheists keep assuring us that an infinite regress is perfectly coherent. So, from that viewpoint, why would primitive people imagine the need for origin myths in the first place?
That's not to deny that some of them do in fact have such legends. Of course, if humans share a common history in Adam, then ancestral memories may account for that.
Tuesday, November 03, 2015
Sexual substitution
Paul's indictment of homosexuality in Rom 1 used to be uncontroversial. But over the past several years, homosexual activists have labored to reinterpret the offending passage. For instance, they claim it only refers to exploitative homosexual relationships (e.g. pederasty) or heterosexuals experimenting with homosexuality. It doesn't refer to "loving" homosexual relationships involve men or women who are "naturally" homosexual. Let's briefly mention two problems with that maneuver:
i) Paul refers to lesbianism as well as sodomy. Yet the exploitative homosexual relations typically involved men (e.g. master/slaveboy), not women.
ii) Even more to the point, Paul's categories are entirely general. The basic principle involves substitution: men sexually substituting other men for women, or women sexually substituting other women for men. Paul counters that sexual substitution is immoral.
And he applies that to sexual attraction as well as sexual activity. A member of the same gender cannot properly function a sexual substitute (physically and/or psychologically) for a member of the opposite gender. To the contrary, that's one reason God made two different genders in the first place.
"All" in Paul
When Paul says "all", what does that refer to? Depends on the context. This crops up in Calvinist/Arminian debates. However, there are passages like Rom 5:18 which are problematic for Arminians as well. Here's some useful analysis:
The use of "all" [Rom 11:32] refers to either all of humanity, including Jews and Gentiles, or probably preferably, all in the sense of both groups of people taken as individual wholes, Jews and the rest, the Gentiles…The use of "all" may refer to all humanity, including both Jews and Gentiles, or, again preferably, all in the sense of both groups of people taken as wholes ("both"). S. Porter, The Letter to the Romans: A Linguistic and Literary Commentary (Sheffield Phoenix Press 2015), 221-222.
Is it evil to cause evil
Is it evil to cause evil? That seems transferable. But is it a reliable inference?
This crops up in debates over Calvinism. Mind you, there are various respects in which the God of freewill theism causes evil.
Now, there are certainly situations in which causing evil is evil. Indeed, that may well be typical. I'm just discussing whether, as a matter of principle, it is evil to cause evil.
Suppose torrential rain causes a damed river to become swollen. That accelerates the downstream current. There's a much greater volume of water, moving much faster, resulting in tremendous kinetic energy pounding the dam. The dam operator has a choice: he can release some water to relieve the strain on the dam. If he does so, that will flood riverside towns downstream, causing major damage. That's an evil. That causes an evil state of affairs.
Or he can let the water build up behind the dam. The cumulative force will make the dam lose structure integrity and collapse, causing an avalanche or wall of fast-moving water to wipe the downstream towns off the map. That's a greater evil.
Is it evil for him to cause the lesser evil, by releasing some water to diminish pressure on the dam?
Someone might object that God isn't subject to the same constraints as the dam operator. But even if that's the case, the point of the example is to illustrate a point of principle: it is not necessarily evil to cause evil.
Moreover, even an omnipotent God is under a self-imposed constraint if he uses a natural process to produce a desired result.
Going ape over Adam
i) Dennis Venema seems to be the big gun at BioLogos these days. This year he's done a running series attacking Vern Poythress, before he turned his guns on W. L. Craig.
I don't know where Venema gets the theistic component of theistic evolution. Perhaps that's from the fine-tuning argument. However, Venema is a biologist by training, whereas the fine-tuning argument would seem to be the provenance of an astronomer. If so, then for the branch of science he's least qualified to assess, he thinks the evidence points to supernatural origins, and in the branch of science he's best qualified to assess, he thinks the evidence is indistinguishable from naturalistic origins. That doesn't inspire confidence in his synthesis.
ii) I think creationists are sometimes guilty of special pleading. That's hardly a fatal admission, for from my reading, Darwinians are often guilty of special pleading. From the standpoint of somebody like William Provine, Venema's theistic evolution is a makeshift position.
To be on the defensive posture tends to be a position of weakness. Instead of giving positive reasons for his position, or reasons for why he thinks the alternative is wrong, someone on the defensive is simply attempting to deflect criticism. That puts him at a disadvantage. May look like special pleading. Because creationism is under constant attack, it can foster that impression, but that's because the critics, the person on the offensive, enjoys a tactical advantage.
Yet every side in this debate (young-earth creationist, old-earth creationist, Intelligent design theorist, theistic evolutionist, deistic evolutionist, naturalistic evolutionist) plays offense and defense at one time or another.
Every side begins with set of facts. What they take to be a core of well-established facts. And that functions as their standard of comparison when they evaluate the evidence or prima facie counterevidence.
Every position must contend with obstreperous data that don't easily assimilate into their paradigm. Yet, in principle, you could flip that around. You could make the recalcitrant data your starting point, and use that as the standard of comparison. There's nothing that automatically selects for or privileges what subset of evidence will constitute the benchmark in relation to which "anomalous" data must be reinterpreted and harmonized.
I'm not saying the choice is purely arbitrary. But everyone is in the same boat in that regard, even if they occupy different decks.
iii) Venema strikes me as a good student. Someone who believes what he's taught, learns the rules, and follows the rules. Unquestioning. Submissive. Dutiful.
Following the rules can produce good science. Following the rules can make small, incremental contributions to scientific knowledge.
But that can also inhibit scientific progress. Venema doesn't seem to have the kind of mind that moves science forward in dramatic new directions. That opens new vistas in the frontiers of science. That requires a more creative and iconoclastic turn of mind.
iv) With those preliminaries out of the way, I will venture a few comments on this post:
On the face of it, this is one of the more impressive arguments for common descent. I'll just mention some of the questions and considerations that come to mind when I read something like this:
v) One point of contention is how much DNA humans generally share with the great apes, or chimps in particular. 98% is a popular figure. but that doesn't strike me as very significant one way or the other.
a) To begin with, the higher the figure, the harder it is to account for drastic differences between humans and great apes. It threatens a paradox.
b) More to the point, I doubt this is relevant to the creation/evolution debate. Even before the advent of comparative genomics, it was obvious that humans have more in common with some animals than others. We have more in common with mammals than reptiles. We have more in common with some mammals than other mammals. By process of elimination, we will have more in common with one particular species than other species.
That's inevitable given biological diversity, which can be arranged along a spectrum of similarity and dissimilarity. Given that continuum, there's bound to be degrees of increasing similarity and dissimilarity. Bound to be species that range along our section of the continuum. Bound to be a species most like us. You can arrange them in ascending or descending orders of similarity, with many borderline cases.
c) Apropos (b), suppose we view DNA as a blueprint. That's a popular, if simplistic, metaphor. Why would two species have similar blueprints? From a theological standpoint, the answer is that if God wants to make two similar species, he will give them similar blueprints.
So in that respect, genetics doesn't furnish independent evidence for common descent. That's a circular appeal.
The deeper question is why God would want to create two kinds of animals that are alike. And the answer, or at least one answer, is that God wanted to create a world full of variety. Variations illustrate divine ingenuity. In that event, some animals will be more alike while other animals will be more unalike.
So I don't think that provides even prima facie evidence for common descent. It's entirely consistent with creationism.
vi) However, Venema is appealing to a more specific kind of evidence for common descent. Not designed commonalities, but acquired characteristics. Historical accidents (e.g. deletion of the same DNA letter in three primate species).
For humans and great apes to share that in common implies common derivation. Can't be coincidental.
Well, what about that inference?
a) Let's take a comparison: how did lactase persistence develop? Would it be possible for humans to adapt to adult milk consumption if enough adult humans sampled milk or dairy products on a regular basis? Even if that was initially nauseating, when food is scarce, humans will eat anything.
b) Assuming that adaptive mutation is possible, then lactase persistence could develop repeatedly and independently in isolated populations by the same process of adaptation.
c) Finally, in terms of DNA sequences, is it just happenstance where these "letters" occur, or must their placement be in a certain order for the code to be functional?
If so, then even if you had independent genetic developments, you'd expect the pattern to be the same in case the pattern must be the same. If certain "letters" are out of place, then it's selected out. The code won't work. The organism won't be viable.
Mind you, I believe the code has enough redundancy that it can survive some errors.
So those are some doubts I have about the validity of his inference.
Sunday, November 01, 2015
Skewed priorities
I will comment on this statement:
Keith Parsons
Angra,
Like you, I have never really delved into the "evidence" for the resurrection very deeply and I am not terribly inclined to do so.
That's a remarkable admission. Parsons is a militant atheist with a very long paper trail attacking Christianity. He has debated W. L. Craig twice. He's a philosophy prof. with two earned doctorates. Yet he's never taken the time to really delve very deeply into the evidence for the Resurrection. But shouldn't that be one of the very first things he examines when assessing the case for Christianity?
Does this make us derelict in our epistemic duties?
More to the point, it makes him a monumental fool.
Are we, as Craig might suggest, refusing to look out of fear of what we might find, like those who refused to look through Galileo's telescope?
Having read lots of stuff by Parsons, I'd say his pride gets in the way. He's so pleased with himself. It's crucial to his self-esteem to feel intellectually superior to Christians. He tries very hard to impress others.
I can't speak for you, of course, but my rationale/excuse is this: You just don't have time to investigate everything in the depth that you would like, so you have no choice but to make judgments about the prima facie reasonableness of a claim and decide whether it is really worth a massive investment of time, effort, and energy. Jeez. really to do it right, I would have to dig out my old textbook of Koine Greek and learn it all over again.
That's true so far as it goes, but absurdly simplistic. In a risk assessment, you need to take two risk factors into account:
Hazard: the magnitude of potential loss
Risk: the likelihood that the loss will occur
A risk with high probability but low potential loss can be less risky than a risk with low probability but high potential loss.
Cf. "Risk Assessment," W. Kirch, ed., Encyclopedia of Public Health (Springer 2008), 1:1261ff.
Suppose I'm stranded on a remote desert island. I could just do nothing and hope that I will be rescued. The chance of that happening is nearly nonexistent.
Or I could collect rocks and arrange them on the beach to spell out S.O.S. Likewise, I could gather and arrange kindling and branches for a beacon fire. That way, if a boat or plane comes into view, I have a way to signal them. The chances of that happening are very low, but it's better than being stuck on this island for the rest of my life.
Both require maintenance. Because the beach is unstable, I have to keep the rocks properly arranged. Keep sand off the rocks. Likewise, I have to keep the materials for the beacon fire dry. Or replace them if they get wet. Daily effort with dim prospects of success.
Consider the stakes. If atheism is true, Parsons has nothing to gain. He is doomed. So he has nothing to lose by making a "massive investment of time, effort, and energy" into the case for the Resurrection, even if (ex hypothesi) that turns out to be false. Conversely, if the Resurrection is true, then he has everything to lose by neglecting that.
I am empathetic with Christians who take a similar view of the "mythicist" arguments. I can understand that such a claim might reasonably strike them as too implausible to merit a close and careful look or a detailed rebuttal.
Those aren't symmetrical options (see above). Moreover, even liberal scholars like Bart Ehrman and James McGrath don't take mythicism seriously.
Further, there are just so many obvious points that strongly favor skepticism. Here are just a few of them:
1) The only witnesses of the resurrection event itself mentioned in the NT (only Matthew) were the Roman soldiers set to guard the tomb by Pilate, and we have no testimony from them.
Strictly speaking, no one saw the resurrection event itself. But if Jesus was dead for about 36 hours (from blood loss and asphyxiation), and people subsequently encountered him in the flesh, then, of necessity, he came back to life.
2) The only firsthand report of an encounter with the resurrected Jesus is Paul's, an event that appears to have been of a visionary nature (all Paul is reported in Acts to have experienced was a bright light and a voice) and which occurred some years after the supposed resurrection.
That's equivocal. A record can include firsthand reports even if the historian or biographer was not himself an eyewitness.
3) The list of other supposed eyewitnesses given by Paul in I Corinthians 15 is a bare list. We are given no information about what these people saw, the circumstances of their experiences (when and where did they occur?), their frame of mind, or their reliability as witnesses, corroborating evidence, etc. Consider the famous "500." Did Jesus appear to them on a stage or a hilltop so that they could clearly see him? Did each know Jesus well enough by sight that they could be sure that it was him? Did they get close enough for a good look? Were they in a state of emotional excitement, expecting to see something extraordinary? Paul says nothing about such crucial details.
But even if Parsons had an ancient record with that information, he'd dismiss it out of hand as a biased source (see below).
4) The Gospels, by contrast, have rich and detailed stories of encounters with the risen Christ. However, if we are going to appeal to scholarly consensus…
The appeal to scholarly consensus can be useful for the sake of argument. Even if we confine ourselves to scholars consensus, then certain core facts are not in serious dispute.
That, however, doesn't mean scholarly consensus should be the standard of comparison. It comes down to the quality of the arguments.
…then the overwhelming consensus has long been that the Gospels (a) were written decades after the events, (b) were written by persons unknown, except for Luke, who admits that he was not an eyewitness, (c) were based on oral traditions (i.e. telling and re-telling), (d) contain unmistakable fictional elements, (e) have an apologetic ax to grind (i.e. the Gospel writers were clearly not disinterested reporters), and (f) have no independent corroborating accounts.
i) He simply ignores, through studied ignorance, moderate to conservative scholarship to the contrary.
ii) Consider (f). What qualifies as an "independent corroborating account"? In the nature of the case, any writer who corroborates the Resurrection will believe in the Resurrection. So Parsons' criterion is circular. If you corroborate the Resurrection, then you can't be "independent." You can only be independent if you deny it. Parsons has an unfalsifiable position.
Fact is, if someone was going to collect all the reports of the Resurrection by individuals closest to the event, that collection would coincide with the NT. And any "independent corroborating account" would be part of that collection.
5) If the apologetic argument is aimed at skeptics, and surely it is, then it must begin with the skeptic's priors and not the apologists'. This is an obvious point that often seems ignored.
Actually, that's obviously false. What if the skeptic's priors are arbitrary? That's subject to challenge.
In other words, apologists don't get to choose their own burden of proof.
Both sides have a burden of proof. In philosophical analysis, moreover, a standard method of assessing the opposing position is to assume it's true for the sake of argument, then consider it on its own terms.
Skeptics have much latitude in how low they want to set their priors for the resurrection. If I want to put it at, say, .0000000001, why can I not?
Because you pulled that figure out of thin air. It has no philosophical merit.
What epistemic duty have I violated in doing so?
Conjuring up a bogus statistic is a good place to start (see above).
6) We now have copious knowledge about how extraordinary stories can get started and spread, despite the opposition of eyewitnesses. Soon after Darwin's death, evangelicals began to preach that Darwin had repented on his deathbed, repudiated his theory, and accepted Christ as his savior. This legend flourished for decades, finally being put into print by one "Lady Hope" who claimed to have interviewed Darwin shortly before his death. The Darwin children, who were present for their father's final illness and death, roundly repudiated those claims, declaring them utterly false. Yet, the claims continued to proliferate.
i) Parsons is so gullible. The deathbed conversion of the notorious infidel is such a familiar trope that I, for one, always greet such claims with antecedent skepticism. It's a traditional genre unto itself. Parsons has to be very credulous to imagine that's a good example to illustrate his contention.
ii) That said, imminent death is an incentive to conversion. It's more likely to happen in that circumstance than when the individual is healthy and has years ahead of him.
iii) Moreover, he fails to show how that furnishes a detailed analogy to the Resurrection accounts.
7) In sum, these purported events happened a long, long time ago, under obscure circumstances…
Like the extinction of the dinosaurs?
…with NO contemporary accounts and no independent later accounts by unbiased persons.
i) Like the extinction of the dinosaurs?
ii) In addition, there's equivocation over the definition of "contemporary accounts." An account can be written years later by someone who was contemporaneous with the events. Likewise, an account may incorporate firsthand reports, even if the writer was not himself an observer. Consider history books and presidential biographies. Parsons is overlooking really obvious counterexamples.
The claimed events were of a miraculous nature and skeptics are fully within their epistemic rights to demand a very heavy burden of proof. It is just dead obvious that skepticism is reasonable.
Why do events of a miraculous nature demand a lopsided burden of proof? That involves a prejudgment about the kind of world we live in. If there's well-attested evidence for the occurrence of miracles, then shouldn't his a priori denial demand a very heavy burden of proof?
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Only Nazis should be judges
Referring to laws governing both marriage and abortion, the young man asked Kennedy, “Would you say that there are any state or federal officials with authority to act according to her own judgment of the truth of new insights or of the soundness of the court’s constitutional interpretation, or would it be illegal for any federal official or state official to enforce or to act according to the old understanding of life and the Constitution that she still judges to be the truth of the matter?”
The justice responded by pointing out that only three judges resigned during Germany’s Third Reich — the government of Adolf Hitler — and said, “Great respect, it seems to me, has to be given to people who resign rather than do something they view as morally wrong, in order to make a point. However, the rule of law is that, as a public official, in performing your legal duties, you are bound to enforce the law.”
“This requires considerable introspection,” he continued, “and it’s a fair question that officials can and should ask themselves. But certainly, in an offhand comment, it would be difficult for me to say that people are free to ignore a decision by the Supreme Court.”
http://www.advocate.com/marriage-equality/2015/10/26/watch-justice-anthony-kennedy-implies-kim-davis-should-resign
That's the reductio ad absurdum of judicial imperialism. Putting aside the fact that this isn't really about the "rule of law," but about five lawless judges who amended the Constitution to fabricate a Constitutional right to homosexual marriage–even though the Constitution never gave the judiciary that authority–it doesn't even occur to him that in a Third Reich situation (and that's his own analogy), public officials might have a duty to resist governmental evil and tyranny remaining in office, but undermining the regime from within. Insiders can sabotage the regime in ways that outsiders cannot.
Kennedy has been a top gov't official since 1988, so I suppose it's understandable that he can no longer see things from any other perspective than a member of the ruling class. By his logic, only Nazi judges ought to be judges in Nazi German, as if it would be immoral for virtuous judges who found themselves in that situation when Hitler assumed power to maintain their position in order to subvert the evil, despotic regime.
The critics of Kim Davis have said she should "just do her job or quit." I appreciate Kennedy taking that principle to its logical extreme, where "just doing your job" becomes an end in itself. And, come to think if it, wasn't that the philosophy of the "good German"?
Hard truths
1. Recently, the Society of Evangelical Arminians erupted with several indignant, faux incredulous posts regarding the following statement:
God . . . brings about all things in accordance with his will. In other words, it isn’t just that God manages to turn the evil aspects of our world to good for those who love him; it is rather that he himself brings about these evil aspects for his glory (see Ex. 9:13-16; John 9:3) and his people’s good (see Heb. 12:3-11; James 1:2-4). This includes—as incredible and as unacceptable as it may currently seem—God’s having even brought about the Nazis’ brutality at Birkenau and Auschwitz as well as the terrible killings of Dennis Rader and even the sexual abuse of a young child . . .
— Mark R. Talbot, “’All the Good That Is Ours in Christ': Seeing God’s Gracious Hand in the Hurts Others Do to Us,” in John Piper and Justin Taylor (eds.), Suffering and the Sovereignty of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2006), 31-77 (quote from p. 42).
SEA also linked to this statement by Piper:
He works all things according to the counsel of his will. This extends to the details of all existence. Matthew 10:29, “Not one sparrow falls to the ground apart from our Father in heaven.” Proverbs 16:33, “The lot, the dice, are cast in the lap and every decision is from the Lord.” In Reno, Las Vegas, Atlantic City, every dice rolled God decides what turns up.
And SEA linked to a post by Leighton Flowers with the incendiary title "Does God Bring About the Abuse of Children for His Own Glory?"
There's a lot to sort out.
2. SEA acts as if it discovered the smoking gun of Calvinism. I understand how this would be shocking or scandalous to uniformed Christians. But there's nothing new or surprising here. Calvinism doesn't conceal the fact that God has predestined everything that happens.
In addition, I understand how this would be shocking to Christians who never read the Bible cover to cover. Yet Scripture frequently attributes the deeds of wicked men to God operating behind-the-scenes.
That's a hard truth. But, then, there are many things in Scripture that make me swallow hard. There are many things in the world that make me swallow hard.
3. The statement that God brings about something "for his own glory" is misleading without further explanation. In Calvinism, God doesn't act for his own sake, but for the sake of the elect. God cannot benefit from what he brings about, for God is sufficient in himself, apart from his creation.
4. Calvinism didn't create the problem of evil; rather, the problem of evil is created by the fact of evil. The problem of evil is generated by the conjunction of two propositions:
i) God exists
ii) Divinely preventable evil exists
To the extent that that's a theological problem, the challenge is hardly unique to Calvinism. It's a challenge for Molinism, Aminianism, universalism, Lutheranism, Thomism, Mormonism, Deism, open theism, &c. If Calvinism didn't exist, the problem of evil would still exist.
Indeed, it's challenging for atheism. Atheism solves the problem by denying one of the two propositions, but that's a costly solution. It solves the problem of evil by making human life worthless. A tad self-defeating. Like an exterminator who eliminates a roach infestation by burning down the house with the homeowner inside. Effective, but a wee bit counterproductive.
5. In addition, the Reformed position sounds shocking or scandalous to Christian ears that haven't bothered to think through the alternatives. You can't just assess the Reformed position in a vacuum. You need to consider that in relation to proposed alternatives.
In freewill theism, God allows a pedophile to abuse children because there's something more important to God than preventing child abuse. Well, stop and think about that for a while. Let it sink it. After all the outrage directed at Calvinism, what could be more important than preventing child abuse? Yet a freewill theist is forced to admit that preventing child abuse is not a divine priority. After all, God could put a stop to that.
In God's rating system, the prevention of child abuse is not God's paramount concern. A freewill theist must say that in God's estimation, there's something more valuable than preventing child molestation. Some other good that's better than the prevention of child abuse.
So why isn't that shocking to freewill theists? Why isn't that outrageous? Yet the freewill theist is committed to that proposition.
Suppose a teacher at a Christian school was accused of child molestation. Suppose, when interviewed, the principal said he knew the teacher was a convicted pedophile. He knew that hiring him was a risk. But he hired him anyway because some things are more important than preventing child abuse.
You can just imagine the incensed reaction. But isn't the freewill theists forced to say the same thing about God?
6. To say everything event is predestined is to say that everything happens for a reason. Good things happen for a good reason, but even bad things happen for a good reason. Indeed, especially in the case of evil, we usually think an agent had better have a good reason for allowing (or causing) that to happen. If there's a prima facie obligation to prevent evil, then allowing (or causing) evil requires a special justification.
Conversely, to say that God allows horrendous evils to occur for no purpose whatsoever is hardly exculpatory. "I just let it happen. Don't ask me why. There is no why."
7. Not surprisingly, freewill theists usually turn to some version of the freewill defense. For instance, they claim libertarian freedom is a prerequisite of moral responsibility. But is that an adequate response?
i) To begin with, one development in freewill theism is restrictivism. On Facebook, Alan Rhoda recently said that he and many libertarians espouse restrictivism. Take some examples:
Restrictivism is the claim that we have "precious little free will" insofar as there are "few occasions in life on which–at least after a little reflection and perhaps some investigation into facts–it isn't absolutely clear what to do." Kevin Timpe, Free Will in Philosophical Theology (Bloomsbury 2014), 24.
Restrictivism is the view that we are rarely (directly)free, only sometimes, in somewhat unusual circumstances, so our choices and subsequent actions meet the conditions for direct metaphysical freedom. A libertarian restrictionism holds that it is a feature of directly free choices and actions that they were underdetermined by prior events or states of affairs. Daniel Cohen & Nick Trakakis, eds. Essays on Free Will and Moral Responsibility (Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008), 129.
[Van Inwagen] appeals to similar resources in an argument for restrictionism, the view that…rarely, if ever, is anyone able to do otherwise than in fact he does." Joseph Keim Campbell, Free Will (John Wiley & Sons 2013), 52.
But in that event, even many freewill theists no longer think libertarian freedom is a necessary condition of moral responsibility. So that's not a given.
ii) But suppose, for the sake of argument, that we grant this contention. How would God stepping in to prevent a pedophile from molesting a child nullify moral responsibility? After all, divine intervention didn't override the pedophile's intention to molest a child. It didn't override his plan to molest a child. It didn't override his initial efforts to act on that plan. Rather, it's a last minute intervention that prevents him from executing his plan.
So the pedophile is still culpable for his malicious intentions and designs and abortive actions. The fact that he was thwarted at the last minute hardly absolves him of guilt.
iii) But suppose, for the sake of argument, we grant that divine intervention nullifies his moral responsibility. So what? The problem here is that the freewill theist is attempting to justify God's inaction by making divine respect for moral responsibility a universal principle that supersedes any conflicting duty. But why should we grant the universality of that principle?
Suppose we concede, for discussion purposes, that all things being equal, God should not infringe on our moral responsibility. Suppose, in many situations, that outranks other considerations. But if it's a choice between protecting a child and respecting moral responsibility, what makes moral responsibility a higher priority in that situation? In other words, unabridged moral responsibility might be good in general, but does that make it a greater good in every situation, to which any conflicting obligation must defer?
8. Consider another principle: For love to be genuine, the agent must either be the ultimate source of his love and/or be free to withhold his love. But is that an adequate response?
i) For starters, isn't that empirically implausible? As a matter of human experience, is that a condition of genuine love? For instance, isn't parental love basically instinctive and irrepressible? Sure, there are terrible exceptions, but I'm countering a universal claim.
Or take friendship. In my observation, when two or more people have to spend lots of time together, they either end up liking one another or disliking one another. Each person has a predisposition to either click with someone else or find them aggravating to be around. We may choose our friends, but we didn't choose what made them likable to us in the first place.
ii) But suppose, for the sake of argument, that we grant the contention. If God steps in to prevent a pedophile from molesting a child, how does that infringe on the pedophile's freedom to love God? If a pedophile is allowed to molest children, doesn't that behavior make him morally hardened? Habitual evil reduces his ability to freely love God. Divine intervention would help to preserve the agent's ability to love God.
iii) But suppose, for discussion purposes, we concede the contention. So what? Suppose repeated divine intervention somehow infringes on the pedophile's ability to freely love God. Why should that take precedence over the safety of an innocent child?
Even if, as a general principle, it is good for agents to be at liberty to freely love God, how does that override all other goods, including the good of the child? Why should the wellbeing of the child take a backseat to the wellbeing of the molester?
Suppose, all things being equal, God should not abridge the spontaneity of love. But as a universal principle, that loses plausibility precisely in cases like child abuse.
9. Freewill theist William Alston said:
A perfectly good God would not wholly sacrifice the welfare of one of His intelligent creatures simply in order to achieve a good for others, or for Himself. This would be incompatible with His concern for the welfare of each of His creatures. "The inductive argument from evil and the human cognitive condition," D. Howard-Snyder, ed., The Evidential Argument from Evil (Indiana U. Press, 1996), 111.
Seems to me that captures a fundamental principle and a priori intuition of freewill theists. Problem is, their a priori proscription collides with a posteriori reality. So freewill theists are forced to qualify their principles and intuitions in the harsh, unyielding glare of varcious kinds of evils that actually transpire.
It becomes, in part, a question of theological method. Do we begin with the kinds of evils that actually take place, and reason back from that to inform our theological parameters? Or do we begin with a set of stimulative theological expectations, then adapt that as best we can to the kind of world in which we find ourselves?
Friday, October 30, 2015
Annulment
Technically, the church of Rome regards marriage as indissoluble. Hence, its opposition to divorce. There is, however, a very large loophole, and that's annulment. This involves the theory that some unions lack one or more necessary conditions to be "valid" marriages in the first place. When the church of Rome nullifies one of these unions, it is merely giving formal recognition to the preexisting fact that this was never a valid marriage. See here:
Can. 1083 §1. A man before he has completed his sixteenth year of age and a woman before she has completed her fourteenth year of age cannot enter into a valid marriage.
The age threshold for males is somewhat arbitrary. That would invalidate many Jewish marriages. From what I've read, puberty is the Jewish threshold.
Can. 1085 §1. A person bound by the bond of a prior marriage, even if it was not consummated, invalidly attempts marriage.
This assumes that a wedding ceremony alone, absent consummation, is sufficient for a valid marriage.
Can. 1091 §1. In the direct line of consanguinity marriage is invalid between all ancestors and descendants, both legitimate and natural.
§2. In the collateral line marriage is invalid up to and including the fourth degree.
§3. The impediment of consanguinity is not multiplied.
§4. A marriage is never permitted if doubt exists whether the partners are related by consanguinity in any degree of the direct line or in the second degree of the collateral line.
Can. 1092 Affinity in the direct line in any degree invalidates a marriage.
Can. 1093 The impediment of public propriety arises from an invalid marriage after the establishment of common life or from notorious or public concubinage. It nullifies marriage in the first degree of the direct line between the man and the blood relatives of the woman, and vice versa.
Can. 1094 Those who are related in the direct line or in the second degree of the collateral line by a legal relationship arising from adoption cannot contract marriage together validly.
Doesn't that invalidate the marriage of Sarah and Abraham? She was his stepsister.
Perhaps Rome would try to salvage the condition by asserting that prohibited degrees of affinity are variable in time or place. But isn't canon law respecting marriage supposed to be grounded in natural law rather than social conventions?
Can. 1103 A marriage is invalid if entered into because of force or grave fear from without, even if unintentionally inflicted, so that a person is compelled to choose marriage in order to be free from it.
Doesn't that invalidate Hosea's marriage to Gomer? Left to his druthers, he would not knowingly marry a promiscuous woman. He was acting under duress. God commanded him to marry her.
Can. 1055 §1. The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring, has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized.
Can. 1096 §1. For matrimonial consent to exist, the contracting parties must be at least not ignorant that marriage is a permanent partnership between a man and a woman ordered to the procreation of offspring by means of some sexual cooperation.
Can. 1102 §1. A marriage subject to a condition about the future cannot be contracted validly.
Doesn't that invalidate the marriage of Mary and Joseph?
i) After Gabriel intervened to inform Joseph of God's will, it's not as if Joseph was at liberty to carry through with his intentions (pace Can. 1103). He'd incur God's displeasure.
ii) Both Mary and Joseph were betrothed with the expectation that they'd have a normal marriage rather than a platonic marriage. A prior understanding of what their marriage would amount to. But according to Catholic dogma, Mary was a perpetual virgin. If so, they became betrothed under false pretenses. Their matrimonial consent was subject to a future condition, which was thwarted by Mary's perpetual virginity.
It's like signing a contract, only to have the terms of the contract altered after the fact. That's not what you agreed to.
It's like signing a contract, only to have the terms of the contract altered after the fact. That's not what you agreed to.
iii) If marriage is ordered to the procreation of offspring by means of some sexual cooperation, and that's a necessary condition of matrimonial consent, then that invalidates their marriage–given Mary's perpetual virginity.
So on no fewer than three separate grounds, Mary and Joseph were never validly married–by Catholic criteria.
Perhaps Rome would try to salvage the condition by asserting that Mary and Joseph are a special case. But, once again, isn't canon law respecting marriage supposed to be grounded in natural law? If so, aren't these conditions a matter of principle? Something absolute, given human nature?
Jeff Steinberg, “Tiny Giant”: Celebrating 43 Years
My friend Jeff Steinberg celebrated his 43rd anniversary in ministry yesterday. I worked for Jeff from 1981-1986, as his sound man, driver, and personal assistant. Jeff posted this video from Jerry Falwell's "Old Time Gospel Hour", where he first sang for a national audience. He was 21 years old at the time:
He is still doing his thing; you can have Jeff sing at your church for a love offering and expenses. Visit http://www.tinygiant.com, or call him at 901-754-5333. Tell him John Bugay sent you.
He is still doing his thing; you can have Jeff sing at your church for a love offering and expenses. Visit http://www.tinygiant.com, or call him at 901-754-5333. Tell him John Bugay sent you.
Danger: Hard Hat Area
A common knock against the Protestant faith is that we don't have readymade answers to some important ethical questions. And that's true, although that's only a failing if we're supposed to have readymade answers to every important ethical question that comes down the pike.
We have revelation and reason. Reason applied to revelation, and reason to supplement revelation where revelation is silent. It's not a failsafe system, but we have to go with what we've got.
Regarding the recent Synod in Rome…ironically, some things are so big and obvious that they get overlooked. This is a sect that claims to be the One True Church®, directly founded by Christ 2000 ago. A church that enjoys unique divine guidance.
Now, for a second year in a row, the Synod debated two issues, the status of homosexuals, and whether divorced and remarried Catholics should be allowed to take communion.
Excuse me, but if your denomination is what it claims to be, why, after 2000 years, don't you have that nailed down by now? Communion has been around since the Last Supper. Divorce and remarriage antedate communion by millennia. Likewise, homosexuality has been around since long before the papacy.
This isn't like bioethics, where advances in medical science raise new moral issues. Rather, this is old, old stuff. If you are what you claim to be, the first few "popes" should have given definitive answers to those question.
Indeed, what is unsettling to many conservative Catholics is they thought their church did have a settled answers on that. But now, Francis reopens the question.
During the course of his long pontificate, John-Paul II wove his theology of the body, only to have Francis tug on the yarn until it starts to unravel. Then Francis begins to weave his own version.
To change metaphors, the church of Rome is like a highway project that's constantly under construction. If you drive too far, you will run out of pavement. Rome hasn't gotten that far. Moreover, Rome tears up stretches that used to be paved.
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Cheap grace in Star Wars
Since the Star Wars reboot is due out in two months, that will renew interest in the franchise, which furnishes an opportunity to make some theological comparisons and contrasts.
In Return of the Jedi, the emotional climax is Vader's death scene. Luke's priority is not to defeat his father but to redeem his father. Not to destroy the empire, but to coax his father back from the dark side. Does his father still have a conscience that only a son can reach into? Can Vader be reclaimed?
Luke, of course, wants to break the empire, but that's not his number one priority. In a sense, the fall and redemption of Vader is the metanarrative of the trilogy.
In principle, that's an interesting theme. The execution is so-so. The turning point is when Vader must choose between saving his son (from imminent death) or remaining loyal to the emperor. When I first saw it, I couldn't help thinking that in the time it took for Vader to decide, Luke might well have succumbed to electrocution.
The unmasking is dramatic, but a letdown. The actor (Sebastian Shaw) who had this crucial, but cameo appearance, is too old for the part. The final exchange between Luke and Vader is potentially poignant–if you don't give it too much thought. Later we see the ghost of Vader, alongside Yoda and Obi-wan, to show that he went to "heaven" when he died.
The weakness is not so much with the execution, but the worldview. The quasi-Buddhist outlook that informs the trilogy lacks the theological resources to underwrite a genuine concept of redemption. The concept of redemption ranges along a continuum, from a thin secularized idea to something much deeper:
i) A second chance.
In American culture, we sometimes equate redemption with giving a person a second chance after they failed in some respect. Give it another shot to succeed, to learn from his mistakes and do it right this time around.
And there are situations in which that's appropriate. But it's a very thin concept.
ii) Restitution
Somewhat deeper is a contrite person who seeks opportunities to make up for the wrongs he's done. Not just another chance to do it right, but to right his wrongs. Make amends.
That has a moral dimension lacking in (i). In addition, that's not just about what's good for the individual, but recompensing those he hurt.
However, Vader is in no position to redeem himself in either respect, even in this attenuated sense of redemption. He's mortally wounded. And even if he wasn't dying, he can't begin to fix all the harm he's done. He can't restore the dead to life. Can give them back the lost years. Can't erase the pain of the survivors.
To take a comparison, suppose Himmler had a son who was involved in the plot to assassinate Hitler. His son is slated for execution. Suppose, after some agonizing, Himmler shoots Hitler to save his son, but Hitler's bodyguards return fire during the altercation.
In a sense, it's nice that Himmer died trying to save his son from execution. Nice that his paternal instinct was stronger than his allegiance to the Third Reich.
But that doesn't begin to atone for the vast and varied evils he facilitated. That's a tiny remnant of common grace in a morass of wickedness.
There can be no true redemption in Star Wars because it has no true Redeemer. The categories of penal substitution and vicarious atonement don't exist in that world. It lacks the necessary underpinnings for redemption.
Just say you're sorry and all is forgiven. There's no justice. No restoration.
It's a touching father/son moment if you don't stop to consider what Vader got away with. But if you do think about it, then it reflects the underlying amorality of the worldview that informs the franchise.
“Yes, I know Bergoglio. He’s a person who’s caused a lot of problems in the Society.”
“Yes I know Bergoglio [says a Jesuit superior from another Latin American country]. He’s a person who’s caused a lot of problems in the Society and is highly controversial in his own country.
“In addition to being accused of having allowed the arrest of two Jesuits during the time of the Argentinian dictatorship, as provincial he generated divided loyalties: some groups almost worshipped him, while others would have nothing to do with him, and he would hardly speak to them. It was an absurd situation. He is well-trained and very capable, but is surrounded by this personality cult which is extremely divisive. He has an aura of spirituality which he uses to obtain power. It will be a catastrophe for the Church to have someone like him in the Apostolic See. He left the Society of Jesus in Argentina destroyed with Jesuits divided and institutions destroyed and financially broken. We have spent two decades trying to fix the chaos that the man left us.”
Paul Vallely, “Pope Francis: Untying the Knots”, 2013
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2015/10/repost-yes-i-know-bergoglio-hes-person.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)