You Can Do Better Than This

Those of you who have read my blog for a while will know that I'm something of a fan (for a certain value of fan) of the T.V. Show “The Atheist Experience”. While I obviously have big disagreements with the people running the show, I like the way in which they openly engage in dialogue with all comers. It has occurred to me that, if any of them saw the light, some of these guys would make good Dominicans. I also appreciate the fact that most of the hosts make an effort to fairly represent the views of those they are arguing against.

One of the exceptions to that rule is Don Baker, who co-hosted the most recent episode. Mr. Barker does a semi-regular section on what he calls “the failures of Christianity.” I've seen a number of these sections and quite frankly, he makes no serious effort to understand what Christians are actually saying.

His most recent section is on “The Failures of Scripture” and is found here. He spends most of his time reading from Thomas Paine's “The Age of Reason” and suggesting that this pamphlet presents unanswerable arguments against scripture.
 

Among these arguments is the claim that God wouldn't have given revelation in ancient Hebrew because words change their meanings so some of the words in the Hebrew Bible now mean different things than they once did. Yes, that's true, that's why we have translators and scholars. We are also told that it's ridiculous to believe in an Old and New Testament, since this implies that an all-knowing God changed His mind. Not the slightest effort is made to interact with the Christian belief that it was always God's plan to deal with humanity in successive dispensations. We are also told that, if Jesus of Nazareth had wanted to found a new religion with new scriptures, He would certainly have written it Himself or at least made sure it was written in His lifetime; how this is known, we are not told.

A somewhat better argument comes when it is pointed out that there was a human process, after scripture was written, of discussion and debate to determine which books would be accepted into the canon of scripture. This is a slightly more valid point; the process referred to was a real one, but Don Baker seriously suggests that anyone who believes the Bible is God's word must be ignorant of this process. This is simply false. For a Catholic, who believes in the authority of the Church, the role of the Church in canonising Scripture is frequently appealed to as an argument for the authority of the Church. Even among our protestant friends, while I disagree with them on this issue, it is simply not true that anyone with a knowledge of the history of this project lose their belief.

 

The silliest part of the whole argument, however, comes right towards the end. Mr. Barker quotes, uncritically, Paine's assertion that the New Testament could only have been written by people who believed the earth was flat. I really thought this particular piece of silliness had been thrown on the scrap heap long ago. The spherical nature of the earth was well known long before the time of Christ and was universally accepted throughout the Greco-Roman world by the time the New Testament was written. For Mr. Barker to recycle this rubbish is a sign of how lacking his critical judgement is when it comes to any argument against Christianity.
 

I can imagine some readers will suggest this rubbish is not worth the time to refute. In response to this, first, these guys have a substantial following and are worth responding to. Second, I like this show and want to like these guys and I actually expect better from them.

A Common Question

A protestant brother in Christ wanted to know how Catholics reconcile our beliefe that St. Peter was first Pope and our beliefe in Papal infallibility with St. Paul's rebuke to St. Peter at Antioch, which is recorded in St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians. This is my reply:

 

Hey Jasawa and thanks for the question. :)
 

First, I don't think there is a clear Catholic teaching on exactly when St. Peter became Pope, but he clearly had that office by the time he presided at the selection of St. Matthias. So yes, by the time the event St. Paul describes in Galatians happened, St. Peter was Pope. And no, St, Paul wasn't wrong; Galatians is Sacred Scripture. If Scripture says Peter was wrong, then he was wrong. Actually, St. Paul's action is used by St. Thomas Aquinas as the primary example that one may, sometimes, correctly rebuke one's superiors.
 

So, does this contradict infallibility? I don't think so. To understand why, we need to look at exactly what infallibility is and also exactly what was St. Peter's error. Vatican I spells out the criterion for an infallible Papal statement, the criteria are actually quite strict. Wikipedia lists them here. One of the criteria is that the Pope has to be speaking in his capacity as pastor of the whole Church. So St. Peter could, theoretically, have been teaching heresy in the dining room at Antioch without contradicting this teaching.
 

However, I don't think we have warrant to conclude that St. Peter was teaching heresy at all. St. Paul writes:
 

11 When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. 13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

From this passage, it seems to me reasonably clear that St. Peter was, in fact, teaching the correct doctrine but, as a result of the influence of certain men, he was hypocritically failing to live in accordance with that doctrine. This undoubtedly reflects poorly upon the great man, but has nothing to do with infallibility at all.
 

I hope this helps.

Time to Get Out.

This isn’t an easy post to write. It involves implicit criticism of people who I like a lot, but it needs to be said.

Yesterday I chanced upon a recruiting stall for Notre Dame University’s ALP club. The stall was interesting to me for a couple of reasons. First, there was no picture of Kevin Rudd or any other ALP figure and nothing promoting the present government’s achievements. The only prominent picture was of Tony Abbot and the recruiting pitch seemed entirely negative. There was no “join us because we stand for these values” or “join us because this government is good”. The message, so far as I can tell, was entirely “join us to stop the bad things Abbot will do if elected.”

I’m no stranger to negative campaigning; I was an active member of the ALP in 1996, when a large part of the campaign message was based on fear of a hidden agenda which, the ALP claimed, a Howard government would implement. (Most of this fear, I should add, turned out to be quite justified.) Even then, however, a typical ALP stall featured a prominent picture of Paul Keating and/or the local ALP candidate and would have some positive material about what the ALP was doing.

The second thing of note was that, among the warnings which this ALP stall was giving about Abbot, one concerns his views on abortion. This is significant; another of my memories of the 1996 election, in the debate between Keating and Howard, the compare, Ray Martin, asked a question about abortion. Both Keating and Howard responded with their personal positions but both were at pains to stress that this is not a party issue and that MPs in both their parties were free to vote as their individual consciences dictated. Both men struck me as being at pains to downplay the issue as one that any voter should consider in voting for or against the government.

Up until now, that has been the accepted pattern. The liberal party has no position on abortion, the ALP, officially has a “pro-choice” policy but also makes clear that this policy is not binding on any member. Traditionally, when the issue did come up, both sides were content to do what Keating and Howard did in 1996; stress that it was a personal matter for each member and downplay it as an election issue.

This seems, on the ALP side, at least, to be changing. When Julia Gillard launched the “Women for Gillard” group, her speech made a point of stressing Abbot’s supposed opposition to abortion as a reason to vote for her (or at least as a reason not to make Abbot P.M. which amounted to the same thing.)

This has, or ought to have, implications for those faithful Catholics and other social conservatives remaining within the ALP. As I noted above, I used to be an ALP member. I am well aware that there are faithful Catholics and other pro-life individuals within the party. Many of these are people I respect; a few of them are good friends of mine. I came to the conclusion a while back that remaining in the ALP just wasn’t a viable plan for a faithful Catholic. I was, and still am convinced that the party was moving in a direction which would eventually lead to the remaining conservative elements in the party being squeezed out. I could understand, however, why many of my brethren in Christ thought otherwise and I respect those who have stood and fought within the party in a consistent manner. As I said, I have good friends in that group.

This election, however, I think the situation has changed dramatically. When Gillard gave her “Women for Gillard” speech, for the first time in living memory, abortion was being urged, by a leader of one political party, as reason for voting for the return of that party to government. How all the pro-lifers in Gillard’s cabinet did not immediately resign is simply beyond me.

If you are an ALP member and a faithful Catholic, or a pro-life person of any other kind, you need to be clear about this. You are no longer simply a member of a party which, on paper, has a pro-choice policy but, in practice, treats the issue as a matter of conscience, you are a member of a party which is making this a campaign issue and you are on the wrong side.

I understand the reluctance of ALP members to leave. For one thing, where will they go? The Greens are even worse on this and other such issues and I fully understand why they can’t stomach the liberal side. I think the DLP has at least the potential to be a real alternative, but I can understand why many are skeptical. Surely, however, staying in the ALP has lost credibility as an option.

PS. I’m aware that there are those who have doubts as to whether Tony Abbot still is as opposed to abortion as the ALP portrays him as being. I’ve avoided direct comment on that because it doesn’t seem directly relevant to the point of this post.

PPS. Some might respond that I am being unfair in treating a speech by someone who isn’t leader anymore and one poster by one university club as representative of the whole party. In partial response to this, I’ll say that this poster was put out by Australian Young Labor and seems to be part of a national campaign.

PPPS. If any pro-choice individuals read this post, it’s obviously not really directed at you. That said, I’d be curious to know how you feel about the pro-life individuals within the Gillard and now Rudd ministries.

Deconversion and Morality

The latest edition of Protestant apologist, James White’s semi-regular webcast The Dividing Line is on-line here. Dr. White devotes a considerable portion of this episode to this article, written by Rachel Slick, daughter of White’s fellow Protestant apologist, Matthew Slick, telling the story of her deconversion from Christianity.

White has quite a lot to say about the article and, in spite of the differences between his and my theology, I was surprised at how much of what he said I agree with and how much there is in what he says that I think Catholics can and should take to heart.

What I want to focus on, however, is this one section of Ms. Slick’s story. According to her, the crucial crisis leading to her renunciation of the faith happened as follows:


This changed one day during a conversation with my friend Alex. I had a habit of bouncing theological questions off him, and one particular day, I asked him this: If God was absolutely moral, because morality was absolute, and if the nature of “right” and “wrong” surpassed space, time, and existence, and if it was as much a fundamental property of reality as math, then why were some things a sin in the Old Testament but not a sin in the New Testament?

Alex had no answer — and I realized I didn’t either. Everyone had always explained this problem away using the principle that Jesus’ sacrifice meant we wouldn’t have to follow those ancient laws. 
But that wasn’t an answer. In fact, by the very nature of the problem, there was no possible answer that would align with Christianity.



On reading this section I was interested to hear White’s response. White begins dealing with this question at around the twenty minute mark of his podcast. I have to admit, I was surprised at how close White sounded to my own position. White, correctly, I think, remarks that Ms. Slick seems to think that morality is something that exists external to God rather than being a result, as White puts it “of God's nature and purpose.” I thought that was a good answer, or at least the beginning of a good answer, although I was a little confused about how exactly Dr. White understands the relationship between God's nature and His purposes. If Dr. White ever reads this, I'd be fascinated to hear his views in more detail and try to work out how closely aligned our views actually are.

Ms. Slick's question is related to an ancient philosophical problem, first raised by Plato in his famous dialogue, The Euthyphro. In that work, Plato asks whether certain acts are pious because the gods approve of them or whether the gods approve of them because they are pious. Applied to a monotheistic God, the question presents a dilemma between either a moral law which is above God and to which he is subject, or of morality simply defined by what God commands, with the implication that God could command whatever He likes.

To the best of my knowledge, no major Christian theologian or philosopher ever embraced the first horn of Plato's dilemma and affirmed a moral law external to God, to which He was subject. Certain theologians have, however, embraced the position known as voluntarism, essentially the second of Plato's options. Taken to its logical conclusion, and some have, indeed, explicitly, taken it that far, voluntarism holds that, while, as it happens, God has commanded humans love Him and love each other, He could equally have commanded us to hate him and hate one another. If he had done so, hate would have been a virtue and love a vice.

St. Thomas, however, and those who have followed him, reject the dilemma as a false dichotomy. For the Thomist, the basis of morality lies neither in something superior to God, or in something He arbitrarily decided but in who He, of necessity is.
 

St. Thomas distinguishes between four types of law: eternal, natural, divine and human. Describing, in detail, the meaning of these different types of laws and the relations between them is a topic for a book, not a blog post. What's relevant to Ms. Slick's question, (the one that supposedly can't be answered within Christianity) can be summarised reasonably easily.
 

The eternal law is an aspect of God. Since Thomists believe God to be absolutely simple, that really means the eternal law is God himself, viewed from a certain perspective. God loves and and commands love of us because that is what His nature requires, a nature that He could no more change than He could choose not to exist.
 

The divine law, refers to specific commands of God. As is well known, and as Ms. Slick notes, Christians believe that these commands have changed over time, at one time, God's commands prohibited His people eating of pork, today they don't.
 

As I said, explaining, in depth the reasons for these changes and the relationship between the eternal and divine law is beyond a blog post, but I believe, something of the relationship can be understood if we consider the rules parents make for their children.

Good parents have certain obvious aims in raising their kids. They want to keep them safe and do their best to ensure that they grow up into happy, healthy, well adjusted people. They probably also want to ensure a level of education and preparation for later life. Now, in furtherance of these goals, the parents will make rules for the kids, and some of these rules will probably be constant as long as the child is under the parents' care. For example, rules against anything unnecessarily dangerous, or against serious law breaking will probably be constant. On the other hand, some rules will very likely change over time: things forbidden a child of one age may well be allowed once the child is older, things not expected of a five year old may well be expected of a ten year old.

None of the above means that the parents are making arbitrary rules or that there is no consistent, objective principles. The objective principles are the goals that I outlined, but how those principles need to be applied will legitimately differ.

This is somewhat analogous (I don't claim the analogy is perfect) to the relationship between eternal and divine laws. The eternal law determines God's purpose in relating to humanity, but there is no contradiction between this and the suggestion that that purpose required different specific commands for different times in history.

So, this has been my day.

So, I’m guessing that there will be some people who’ll read this blog post and feel that it’s a little too much information. I thought long and hard about posting it. What made me decide to post, in part, was the memory of something I read a while back. Someone, writing at the National Catholic Register, I can’t remember who, suggested that one of the best things that we ordinary lay folk could do for the cause of evangelisation was to be honest about struggles in following Jesus.

So, here goes the guy in the psycho-killer mask making an attempt to do his bit for the new evangelisation.

I’ve mentioned, at least once before on this blog, I have a long-term mental illness. The experts disagree about the exact nature of this illness, but there seems to be a consensus that its trauma related. It’s something that’s been a part of me since at least my late teens, and, while the symptoms come and go, it’s always there.

The past week and a bit has been especially bad, and today has been worse. I’ve had a number of really bad flashbacks. I keep, uncontrollably, thinking back to horrible stuff that happened when I was young. I can’t control the thoughts, and the emotions which they bring. I’ve had a couple of these memories on a recurring loop video in my brain and I’m struggling to get some kind of control over this. Largely I’m failing.

Running through all this is the feeling that I am worthless. The thought of suicide has also been there, don’t worry, I’m not in any danger, and I know who to call if that changes, but the idea is there.

So, here’s the thing, how do I believe in a just and loving God in the middle of a trauma related episode. Part of me just wants to shout abuse at Him, although I know, from experience, how little that can help.  There’s a temptation to simply tell myself I don’t believe, that can last for about thirty seconds, but whenever I try to verbalise that in any way, I am reminded who I am.

A while back, I attempted to write a poem which processes some of what I experienced during periods like this. One of the things my poem emphasised, was my need to remember the fact that, however, I felt about it, external reality is what it always is, my feelings don’t change that.

Ok, so I believe, how do I pray? At the moment, my prayer-life pretty much consists of a declaration that I believe in Him, and an offering up of my messed-up brain. It’s nothing much, but it’s what I have.

And I’m truly grateful to Him that I have that.

Special Pleading and the KCA

The latest episode of The Atheist Experience is online. Towards the end of the show, they took a call, which you can find here. The call included a discussion of the claim (which I have heard before) that the various cosmological arguments commit the fallacy of special pleading.

For those unfamiliar, the phrase “Cosmological Argument” refers to a variety of arguments for the existence of God which seek to prove the existence of God as a first cause. Probably the best known version these days is the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA). The KCA exists in a variety of forms, but at it's most basic, it's premises are:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The Universe began to exist.

From these premises, the conclusion is drawn that the universe had a cause. As I said, that's the basic argument. Most variations add premises to support the conclusion that the cause of the universe must be something recognisable as a God.

I must make clear, KCA is not my favourite version of Cosmological argument, but, for our purposes, it will serve as a model. The caller to the atheist experience mentioned his experience arguing with theists, their invocation of various forms of the cosmological argument. He said that he replied by asking who made God and they replied by saying that God, has always existed. The caller, host and co-host all agreed that this was an example of special pleading. I disagree.

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines special pleading thus:

Special pleading is a form of inconsistency in which the reasoner doesn’t apply his or her principles consistently. It is the fallacy of applying a general principle to various situations but not applying it to a special situation that interests the arguer even though the general principle properly applies to that special situation, too.

For this discussion, the key part of the definition are the words “even though the general principle properly applies to that special situation.” The special pleading objection would, quite reasonably, apply to the popular caricature of the cosmological argument which has, as its first premise, “everything must have a cause.” As as been pointed out, however, numerous times, no actual theist philosopher has ever put this argument forward.

Some will suggest that to apply a principle, in this case needing a cause, to everything in the universe other than God is automatically a case of special pleading. Not so. There are close on seven billion people on earth today. Of those seven billion, any one of them who believes that he or she is current President of the United States is suffering a serious delusion, with the one exception of Barack Hussein Obama. This isn't special pleading in President Obama's case, it's because there is a real principle which would legitimately apply to any other person who thought they were president but not to the person who actually is.

The principle “whatever begins to exist has a cause” legitimately does not apply to a being which has always existed. Now, I have heard atheists attempt to defend the special pleading charge with the claim that, theists get around this problem by arbitrarily defining God as having always existed.

Two things need to be said to that: 1) Even if the claim were correct, that isn't special pleading it would be closer to the ad hoc rescue fallacy. 2) More importantly, the claim is actually wrong. The theist is here not arbitrarily defining God as something that always existed but rather pointing out that the argument, if true, necessarily leads to something which has always existed.

A final point, I'll reiterate that the KCA is not my favourite form of the cosmological argument and not one I'd use a normal apologetic context. If anyone wants to comment on this post, I'd appreciate you restricting your comments to the narrow question of whether or not cosmological arguments in general or the KCA in particular commits the fallacy of special pleading. Id' rather not have this turn into a free-for-all of criticisms of the argument.

Sigh!

So, it's been a while, hasn't it? In fact, almost a month. Sorry about that; I fear a number of factors, including poor health, but also including things like my own poor organisation have kept me from blogging for quite a while. I was spurred to get back to this by my discovery that John Shelby Spong has a new book out.

For those unaware, Spong is the retired Bishop of Newark, New Jersey, in the Episcopal Church, American branch of the Anglican Communion. For decades now, Spong has been one of the most prolific voices in advocating a form of “Christianity” which systematically denies just about every belief historically considered definitional of the Christian faith. Spong denies not only the inspiration and infallibility of the Bible and the historical nature of the virgin birth and resurrection of Christ, but even goes so far as to define God in such a way that would be incomprehensible to any kind of traditional theism. At one point in my theological/intellectual development, Spong was a hero of mine. What can I say; we all have periods in our lives we'd probably rather forget.

Spong's latest book is entitled The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic. I hasten to add, I haven't read the book, so this is not a review. It is, however, a response to this article, which Spong recently published in the Huffington Post.

Spong writes that his book is the result of five years of “intense” study of St. John's Gospel. He then lists six findings of his period of study which, he says, will upset traditionalists, ie. Anyone with remotely orthodox beliefs. These six findings are: 1) The Fourth Gospel was not written by the Apostle John or any other disciple of Jesus, 2) Jesus probably never said any of the things which the Fourth Gospel attributes to Him, 3) None of the miracles recorded in the Gospel actually happened. 4) Many of the characters in the Gospel never actually existed. 5) John's Gospel contains literary hints that it is not meant to be taken literally. 6) The Gospel frequently engages in exaggeration.

My first thought, Spong says these conclusions are the results of a recent study of the fourth Gospel, but they are, so far as I can see, things he has been saying for decades. I first read Spong close on twenty years ago and I'm pretty sure he was saying all of these things back then.

My second thought, the article talks about how traditionalist Christians who love the fourth Gospel would be surprised and angry with modern scholarship regarding said book. Well, here's one traditionalist lover of St. John who feels no such anger. I do, however, feel a certain annoyance that Spong seems to equate scholarship of the Gospels with scholarship that agrees with him. This is a common feature in Spong's writings and wonderfully illustrates Protestant apologist James White's point that conservatives read and interact with liberal scholars while liberals generally pretend that conservative scholarship doesn't exist.

Spong also seems remarkably blind to the fact that his scholarship is based upon a number of debatable philosophical positions. To give just one example, Spong's third “finding” that none of the miracles reported in the Gospel actually happened. I've read Spong, and others like him, on this subject before. The standard procedure is to begin your study of the biblical text with the philosophical assumption that miracles can't happen and then claim that your finding that none of the biblical miracles are historical events was based on your textual study. No it wasn't, it was the only possible conclusion because of the presuppositions you started with.

When Spong attempts to defend his philosophical claim that the miraculous is impossible, things get embarrassing really quickly. His standard claim is that, before Newton, people could believe in miracles because they didn't know that nature worked in accordance with fixed laws but, now that now we know better. This is rubbish. The post Newtonian world certainly knows more about the details of the laws by which nature works than our pre Newtonian ancestors, but the fact that nature works according to fixed laws was as well known to Plato and Aristotle as is it today. Indeed, as C.S. Lewis pointed out, the very notion of a miracle implies the idea of such laws, if we didn't know the laws of nature exist we couldn't recognise a violation of such laws, which would really make miracles impossible.

If any apologetically minded Christian has more time and money to spare than I have, he or she would probably do us all a favour by purchasing the book and writing a critique of it. Even if I had the time and money, I don't think I'd have the patience.