Ramadan Mubarak!

So, yesterday began the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. I'm not sure if any Muslims will read this post, but, if any of you do, my sincere good wishes for the fast.

I can imagine some eyebrows being raised at a Catholic Apologist wishing Muslims well in something tied to their religion. So that there are no misunderstandings, let me be clear; I believe public revelation ended with Christ and His apostles. For this  reason (and a number of other reasons) I believe that my Islamic friends are mistaken in their belief that Muhammad was a prophet. Logically enough, I therefor believe that they are mistaken in thinking that the Ramadan fast is something God commanded. To get an idea of why I reject Islam, you can watch my debate with Abdullah Kunde.

For all that I disagree with my Muslim friends, however, there are many things they a right about. One of those things is the importance of fasting. Fasting is not a specifically Christian or Islamic thing, but is a spiritual practice common to a great many of the world religions. For the Christian fasting is something Christ commands us to do (cf. Matt 9:15) and recommended by many of the saints a spiritual masters throughout history. I find it a source of some sadness that many Catholics today fast so rarely and would be very happy if a growing familiarity with Islam would help to encourage Catholics to reconsider fasting within our own spiritual tradition. So, while I don't believe the Ramadan fast to be divinely inspired, I admire the dedication of my Muslim friends on this point. I also think it is reasonable to hope that those who observe the fast in a sincere (even if mistaken) belief that it is God's command will be blessed by Him for doing so.

What really inspired me to write, however, was this news story. Apparently Woolworths supermarkets have been putting up signs in some stores wishing people a "Happy Ramadan". I have to say, wishing someone a happy fast strikes me as odd, but I guess their hearts were in the right place.

Some people, however, are upset, labelling the wishes as offensive and "Unaustralian." This annoys me, although it also amuses me a little. If you are an Australia who is anything other than (a) an Indigenous Australian, or (b) of pure White Anglo-Saxon Protestant heritage, the odds are pretty good that you are descended from someone who was once labelled "Unaustralian." This is particularly the case if you are a Catholic who is inclined to join the "Islam is Unaustralian" chorus. If you are such a person, can I suggest that you have a look at what was being said about your own religion seventy or so years ago. Indeed, I'm occasionally tempted to write a FaceBook post that would go something like:

First, we need to kick out all the Muzzies. They are probably all terrorists, or at least terrorist supporters ,and this is a Christian country and if they don't like it they can all go back to Arabia where they came from.

Then, we need to kick out all the Catholics. They put loyalty to Vatican City above loyalty to Australia and most of them are probably IRA members and if they don't like the religion of our protestant majority and our protestant Queen then they are all free to got live in Italy.

If you think the second paragraph is not the sort of thing anyone would say, do a bit of reading. I've read some of what was being said about Australian Catholics back in 30s by some of our protestant neighbours (not all of them, of course) and the above is only a slight exaggeration.

In any event, Woolworths gets an A for effort at least, and I wish my Muslim friends a sincere Ramadan Mubarak.

A Response to "DawahIsEasy" on the Deity of Christ (Part II)

I continue my response to this video by YouTube Vlogger "DawhaIsEasy". The first part of my response is found here.

The historic Christian belief, shared by Catholic, Protestants and the Eastern Orthodox Churches is that Jesus Christ is the God-Man, both fully human and fully divine. Our Islamic friends, as this video makes clear, claim that this is impossible. The common Islamic argument is that being God necessarily requires certain properties (necessary existence, being unlimited, being immortal) while being human requires properties (being mortal, etc.) which are inconsistent with the properties of God. From this, it is argued that the very notion of a God-Man makes no more sense than the idea of a four sided triangle.

This point is well made at approximately the fifteen minute point of the video by the Islamic speaker. He declares that it makes no sense for one being to have two natures since the nature of God is to be almighty while the nature of a creature is to be limited and you can't have a being at once limited and unlimited.

To show why Christianity doesn't contradict itself, we need to unpack exactly what the Church teaches. The faith shared by Catholic, Protestants and the Eastern Orthodox holds that Jesus is one person with two natures. What exactly does this mean? Jesus posses a human body and a human soul. This body and soul forms the human nature of Jesus. At the Annunciation, when Christ was conceived in His mother's womb, this human nature was joined to the Eternal Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity. Two natures, joined together, thus formed a single person.

With this in mind, it is possible to understand how some of the questions asked in the video should be answered. When for example, the Muslim speaker asks if Jesus is all knowing or if his knowledge is limited and the Christian replies "both" the Christian position looks horribly contradictory. The proper response is as follows: Christ has a human soul, one power of which is a human intellect. Christ also has a Divine nature, one power of which is His Divine intellect. These two intellects are the means by which Christ knows something. Having said that, while His intellects are the means by which Christ knows things it is important to note that it is the person who knows things.

From this it follows that Christ knows some things but not others through His human nature while he knows all things through His divine nature, but, and this is the crucial point, the person knows all things and is, in no way, limited in His knowledge.

It follows, from what is said above, that while Jesus has both a human and a Divine nature, the person, who is the union of these two natures, is a Divine and not a human person. Incidentally, the fact that the two natures make one person and that that person is Divine is the reason that the Church declares Christ's mother to be "Mother of God."

Let me say something to my Christian readers: I suspect many of you will find what I have just said rather technical and perhaps even difficult to follow. There is no getting around these facts, however. Anyone seeking to preach the Gospel in our current environment will increasingly find that we need to be able to answer the questions put to us by our Islamic friends. These are the questions they will be asking and, to answer them, we need to have a clear handle on exactly what the Church believes about the natures of Our Lord.

I will, deo volente, continue this response as time permits.


 

The Whiskey Sour (a la Jason)

I recently wrote this post  in which I discussed the six "basic cocktails" laid out in David Embury's classic work "the fine art of mixing drinks." In said post, I mentioned that the sidecar is my favourite among Embury's six "basics" and my all time second favourite before dinner drink.

My favourite before dinner drink is the Whiskey Sour. As with most cocktails, variations exist in how this is made. The most commonly cited recipe calls for a mix of Whiskey (preferably American), lemon (occasionally lime) juice and a sweetening agent of some kind. As previously noted, I'm more of a fan of sour in my before dinner drinks than most, so I dispense with the sweetener.

So, Jason's preferred recipe for the Whiskey Sour:

Let N represent the number of people having drinks mixed for them:

45mls x N of Whiskey, preferably Bourbon. Jim Beam is best.
30mls x N Lemon Juice, freshly squeezed if possible.
The white of (1/2) x N eggs.

Stir the egg whites until slightly fluffy then mix ingredients together and shake vigorously over ice.

Serve neat, preferably in chilled glasses with an orange slice and maraschino cherry for garnish.

In my experience, the drink is best enjoyed fifteen minutes or so before ones main meal.
 

Understanding Class, a Rejoinder

Timothy Scriven has written a blog post in which he lays out his understanding of the Marxist theory of class. Tim has declared that his post is written in the hopes of stimulating debate and discussion and I offer this response in that same spirit.

Tim begins by arguing, reasonably enough, that in order to understand something you need to know what it is for. He then explains that the Marxist theory (at least, in his interpretation) differs from most other understandings of class in that its aim is not primarily to analyse society as it now but to identify how the system can be overthrown. As Tim puts it "Marxism sees everything in actually existing society through the lens of revolution." He makes clear that this does not mean that Marxism cannot analyse the existing state of affairs but that, as he put it "...its primary concern is with the instabilities, tensions and lines of possible motion within the system."

While Tim doesn't explicitly quote Marx's famous Eleventh Thesis on Feurbach "Up until now, Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point, however, is to change it." that quote would seem to me to undergird his whole article.

This would seem to raise the question of why overthrowing the system is so important. Tim will go on to tell us that he doesn't want to overthrow capitalism just for the fun of it. He writes:

Our objection is that capitalism in its hundreds of years of operation has killed and shortened the lives of billions and drained much joy from the lives of billions more. We are not rebels without a cause... we are instead desperate people.

A number of objections could be raised here, but the deepest objection seems to me to ask how Tim thinks he knows the system has these features which merit its overthrow. The obvious answer would be that this conclusion is drawn from his examination of the system as it currently exists. The problem is that Tim has told us that his analysis of the system takes the overthrow of the system as it's starting point.  If the starting point of your analysis is the overthrow of the system and you claim to derive your belief that the system should be overthrown from the same analysis, you would seem, at least prima facia, to lay yourself open to a charge of circularity.

Tim, none the less, thinks that he can make the case for why the system ought to be overthrown. He makes a number of points in support of this:

To mention just two: we destroy vast quantities of food because the starving who need them who need them can't afford them and we seem to find it inordinately difficult to prevent our species from roasting itself to death since trying to do so would interfere with profit.

I can't deny that Tim has a point. The fact that wealthy nations destroy food because that's the profitable thing to do with it while famine continues to exist in the third world is a blight upon the present system and upon humanity. In wanting to end this, Tim stands shoulder to shoulder with Catholic Social Teaching.

Having said that and having declared that I'm a long way from being any kind of friend of unregulated capitalism, some of what Tim has to say strikes me as more than a little overblown. When I read Tim's comment which I quoted earlier, about capitalism killing billions and draining the joy from the lives of billions more I really wasn't convinced. Are there injustices which Capitalism (especially in its untrammelled forms) creates? Yes, I believe there are plenty. But compare the lives of many who, by today's standards are considered 'working class', 'struggling' or even 'poor' to their counterparts a hundred years ago let alone at the dawn of the industrial revolution. Is it not plain that the worker of today is better fed, better housed, has a wider range of educational opportunities and travel available?

Having established his starting point, Tim goes on to declare that aim of his analysis of class is to determine which force has both the interest in and the power to overthrow capitalism. Tim likens this to the plot of a classic detective novel.

We seek to identify a group with means and motive. We call the hypothetical group who have both the means and motive the 'proletarians'; after a Latin word meaning that the group of people who had nothing to give but their own bodies and wombs.

Now, it's a very long time since I studied Marx's sociology in any serious way and I don't have a direct quote to mind, but Tim's definition here seems to me to stand Marx on his head. When I first read The Communist Manifesto (longer ago than I now care to admit) it seemed pretty clear to me that Marx and Engels started with the fact of the Proletariat's existence and saw it as their task to demonstrate that it was in the Proletariat's interest to overthrow the existing system. On Tim's view, it is analytically true (ie. true by definition) that, if any proletarians exist, overthrowing capitalism is in their interest, it is then the Marxists task to show that anyone fitting this definition of a proletarian actually exists. I have to say, I'm not at all clear why Tim's variation should be considered any kind of advance.

Those are my initial thought's on Tim's post. Obviously, I'm not a sociologist and I'd be interested in Tim's, or anyone else's response to my thoughts.

 

A Response to "DawahIsEasy" on the Deity of Christ (Part I)

I recently found this video, published by Islamic vlogger "DawahIsEasy". For those unclear, "dawah" is an Arabic word meaning roughly "preaching". The video shows a discussion on the deity of Jesus between a Muslim and a Christian. The video is well worth watching by any Christian interested in apologetics and evangelism.  I originally intended to write only a single post in response but realised that, some of the issues raised here, required a series. This first post, therefore, will cover a few minor and introductory points, the next post will (deo volente) delve into some deeper waters.

Let me first make a couple of minor points: The Muslim gentleman makes a couple of factual claims that are simple nonsense. For example, he claims that the English words "evangelise" and "evangelical" come from the Arabic word "Injil", the Arabic name for the Gospel. In fact he goes so far as to claim that "you can't disagree" that the Arabic name is the source of those English words. I'm sorry, but I can disagree. While I take it to be uncontroversial that the words are linked, the reason is not because  the English words are derived from the Arabic but because the Arabic and English words share a common root in the Greek "Evangelion."

Second he claims that "according to scholars" the gospels (he especially mentions St. John's Gospel) were originally in Aramaic and later translated into Greek. If he'd bother to do a simple Google search he'd learn what rubbish he was talking. In fact, while some scholars hold the St. Matthew's gospel was originally in Aramaic, they are a small minority. A majority of scholars agree St. Matthew was originally written in Greek and an effective consensus exists that the other three were written in Greek. The gentleman's claim that scholars generally believe St. John's Gospel to have originally been written in Aramaic is just ignorance.

Also, the Muslim claims that, on St. Paul the Apostle's tombstone, one will find the name "Saul", not Paul and that this calls into question whether Saul of Tarsus was ever really converted. Again, simply false. As this article notes, the sarcophagus commonly believed to have held the body of St. Paul clearly bears the words: Paulo Apostolo Matr". Paul Apostle and Martyr.

These are all minor points and I'm not suggesting that any of them, in and of themselves, invalidate his arguments. The fact of him repeatedly making errors like this is, in my mind, significant, however. The reason is that he frequently makes claims about "what I have read" or, more significantly, what scholars say and goes on to make a very basic error. These are not the sort of errors which it would require any deep research to discover, a quick Google search would have shown any of the three claims I noted above to be baseless. Given this, I think we must say that the gentleman making these claims is, at best, showing serious incompetence in his research and, at worst, simply dishonest.

Having said that, while the Muslim certainly asserted a great many factual errors, I don't think the Christian did a very good job of explaining Christianity. As a minor aside, our Christian friend declares that "there was discussion about the two natures of Jesus in the second century." Well, I'm not exactly certain what he means and I'm sure there has been discussion of Christ's nature in every century since His coming, but the major debates in which the Church's beliefs about Christ natures were defined were in the fifth and sixth century. Much more seriously, our Christian declares that Jesus "is not a man" but "He was both human and divine." No, this is not orthodox Christianity. The Declaration of Chalcedon, accepted by Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and the vast majority of Protestant Churches describes Our Lord as subsisting (present tense) in two natures.

More importantly, however, the Christian in the video is clearly not prepared to answer questions about the dual natures of Our Lord. He identifies himself as a theology student and street preacher. If you are going to be a street preacher in our contemporary situation you need to prepare yourself to answer the questions our Muslim friends will have. Generally speaking, these questions will involve the divine and human nature of Christ.

I will, (deo volente) in the next post of this series, lay out, in more detail what we believe and how Muslim criticisms misunderstand this belief.

P.S. A small point, but, as I philosopher, I can't let this go. The Christian in the video makes a couple of statements about Philosophy that show he has not the faintest clue what Philosophy is.

Miraculous Transformations

I've noticed something interesting about certain political conservatives. Now, please note, I'm not saying this is true of all Conservatives, or even most and, if you are a Conservative who is reading this because we are friends, this almost certainly doesn't apply to you. Having said that, I've spent more time than was probably healthy over the past week reading some of the right-wing groups on FaceBook and other parts of the internet, and, in many of the people posting there, I notice something.

This something refers to the Australian unemployed, the homeless, the disabled and those who might broadly be described as "the needy." In the minds of the people I'm describing, such people seem to possess miraculous powers of transformation. The transformation goes something like this: whenever the conversation is about welfare policy, the aforementioned people are all bludgers who could find decent jobs and homes if they really wanted to and it's a terrible injustice that the taxes of hard working Australians get wasted on subsidizing these people's laziness. If, however, the topic turns to foreign policy, and more specifically to foreign aid, those same people are magically discovered to be poor Aussie battlers who both need and deserve a hand up and, obviously, we cannot be sending money overseas while there are all these needy Australians upon whom the government should be spending more money.

It really is an amazing thing and, as a legally disabled person myself, I was startled to discover that I posses such powers of transformation.

As astounding as this is, it is by no means the first time that such miracles have been observed in Australian politics. I can remember when John Howard first became Prime Minister, in Nineteen Ninety-Six.  After his election win, the unemployed underwent a change of a similar kind. Prior to the election, they had all been innocent victims of Paul Keating; they really wanted jobs, but the incompetence and heartlessness of the ALP government had created conditions under which there just weren't jobs for them to find. Within months, however, they had all been transformed into bludging layabouts who could easily find jobs, they just didn't want them.

What amazing folks, we unemployed and disabled Australians are; I don't believe J.K. Rowling's characters have anything on us.

Answers for an Atheist (Part IV)

I'm continuing my response to Hemant "The Friendly Atheist" Mehta's "78 Questions for Christians." This, is the original post and this is the most recent.

The first seven of Mr. Mehta's questions were on salvation. With question eight he begins a new series of questions on prayer.

#8 If you son or daughter were dying (and I hope that never happens) would you just pray for them or would you take them to the Doctor?
#9 And, if you say you'd do both, which one do you think has more of an impact?
#10 Whose prayers does God answer?
#11 And if it's ultimately God's will what happens, why even both praying?
#12 If you have cancer right now, what's going to help you more, drugs or prayer?

First, a brief aside, for Catholics, prayer has four essential purposes. In descending order of importance: adoration (praising God for His intrinsic glory), thanksgiving (of which the meaning, I hope, is obvious),  reparation (apologising and seeking to make up for our sins) and supplication (asking God for things) .

I note this because some evangelical protestants (I'm not suggesting this is true of all or even most, but those who do speak this way tend to be rather prominent) speak of prayer as if prayer simply referred to asking God for things. On Catholic belief (and, I should add, on the views of many protestants) this sort of prayers, prayers in which we make requests of God, are the least important kind. I realise that this doesn't answer Mr. Mehta's questions but it does, perhaps, put them in the proper context.

To answer these, it's important, once again, to state some basics of Catholic beliefs.

Catholics believe that God is both the ultimate cause of the existence of all things other than Himself and that He is also the ultimate source of all change that occurs in the world (This is the essence of St. Thomas' first two proofs of God's existence). So if I, or some hypothetical loved one of mine had a potentially fatal illness, it would be important for me to remember that God is the ultimate source of everything.

The upshot of this is that, if my hypothetical loved one does recover from his or her hypothetical illness, God is responsible, not in the sense that He will necessarily suspend the laws of biology with a miraculous cure but that God is the source of the natural laws  under which a cure will happen and is also the source of the intelligence of the men and women who will make the cure possible.

So, the answer to question #8 is that I would do both.

To answer #9 and # 12, I don't know and I don't believe it's quantifiable. God is all knowing. When God first laid down the laws of nature under which my hypothetical relative got sick and under which he or she will, deo volente, be cured, He knew I would one day be praying for my loved one's recovery. When He gave Louis Pasteur, Marie Curie and all the other genii of history who made modern medicine possible, their prodigious intellects, He knew I would one day be praying for the recovery of my loved one. So, Jason, are you really saying that your prayers were a factor in making Louis Pasteur as smart as he was? I don't know, as I said, I don't see how it could be quantified, but I don't see any a priori reason to reject the notion as impossible.

Having said all of that, even if I knew for certain that my prayers would have no effect on whether I or my hypothetical loved one recovered, I'd still pray. I'd do this because prayer is ultimately essential not as some means of changing God's mind but because of its effect on the one praying. In petitionary prayer I confess and remind myself of my status as a creature and my dependence upon my creator. This would be of value even if I were to be convinced that my prayers would make my desired outcome no more probable.

To answer #10, it depends what you mean by answer. God certainly hears and responds to the prayers of everybody. However I suspect that Mr. Mehta is asking whose prayers God grants. The simple answer is that God, who is, as I said, all-knowing, knows which prayers it will ultimately produce the greatest good to grant and He will grant those prayers which it will lead to the greatest good.

This leads, naturally enough, to question #11. Part of the answer is given above, even if I knew my prayers had no effect on what I was praying for, they would still be worthwhile. Having said that, I believe prayer does effect outcomes. How, a reasonable person may ask, is that possible if it all comes down to God's plan? A full answer to this would involve a lengthy discussion of providence, predestination and the exact ways in which Divine Sovereignty interacts with human freedom, a task beyond a simple blog post.

A short answer, however, is given by St. Thomas Aquinas. God, being all powerful, could, if He wished, have created a world in which He directly accomplished all His plans Himself. God, however, wanted to enable humans to be active participants in bringing about His will. Prayer is one of the ways in which we participate. As St. Thomas puts it, drawing upon St. Gregory the Great:

"For we pray not that we may change the Divine disposition, but that we may impetrate that which God has disposed to be fulfilled by our prayers in other words 'that by asking, men may deserve to receive what Almighty God from eternity has disposed to give,' as Gregory says " (S.T. II-II Q. 83. Art. 5. c.f. I Q.23. Art. 8)

I will, (Deo volente) continue with this at some point in the reasonably near future.