Presence

Atheist Under Ur Bed has responded to my article on the Rationality of Theism in A Few Responses to Arthenor. Below is my response:

Exactly how God “fills the earth” is not described. I see no reason to insist that this must be understood in the sense of divine substance being everywhere or in everything. Both passages can easily be understood as describing every place as being in or filled by God’s presence.

Problem of Evil

Allowing evil

Death, pain, and evil are not good, nor where they a part of the Creation originally pronounced to be “good”. These things became a part of this world at the fall as a consequence of sin. God could, of course, stop all evil from happening and instantly judge every intended evil deed before it happened. However, if He did, we would all be damned. God has chosen to allow evil to persist along with the accompanying pain and death for a time in order to save some.

Personal Responsibility

AUUB also attempts to counter my solution to the problem of evil by arguing that there are two possible explanations of human behavior: deterministic and chaotic. We are ultimately not responsible in either case. This is ultimately true from the perspective of a naturalistic world view. Either our behavior is a deterministic product of complex physical reactions set in motion from the beginning of the universe and we can do nothing other than the things we do, or our behavior is the chaotic product of relatively deterministic forces influenced by random quantum-mechanical events. If naturalism is true, AUUB is not responsible for being an atheist and I am not responsible for being a theist. Nature has simply forced us to be this way.

However, I am not a naturalist. If I am right and God exists, there is no reason to believe that the above argument negating personal responsibility obtains, because we are no longer necessarily purely natural machines. God could easily have given each human being a supernatural element (soul) capable of choice. Our choices would then not be random or predetermined, and as free agents, we would be responsible for them.

Power

As James has already attempted to do, AUUB attempts to refute my argument by insisting on different definitions. AUUB insists on understanding omnipotence in the absolute terms of “able to do anything imaginable, no matter how absurd”. I put forward a more limited definition as follows: “able to do anything which simply requires sufficient power”. Insisting on an inherently ridiculous interpretation is not a refutation of my argument, its a dodge, pure and simple. No justification has been presented for favoring this inherently absurd definition over my reasonable one.

As for where the laws of logic come from, the most likely explanation I can think of is that they, like moral laws, are also an inherent part of God’s character. God is not only the all-powerful and perfectly moral being, He is also the ultimate rational being. As such, I seriously doubt He has any interest in making things such as four-sided triangles even if His omnipotence allowed Him to do so.

Happiness

Atheist Under Ur Bed has posted the last segments of his series attacking theism. This last sequence of posts focuses on the consequences of theism. He covers a lot of things. In the interest of brevity, I’ll only be addressing the highlights.

• 6A
• 6B-C
• 6D
• 6E
• 6F

The first consequence AUUB deals with is happiness. AUUB closes with two primary points, which I actually agree with. First, he cites George Bernard Shaw, who said, “The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.” In other words, current happiness is not a good measurement of truth. Scripture itself contradicts such a conclusion, declaring that sin is pleasurable for a season (Heb. 11:25). Second, AUUB concludes that truth trumps feeling. Here at least, we agree.

Family

AUUB next examines the impact on family. However, in this case, the consequences covered are often not consequences of theism itself, but consequences of specific doctrines (such as rejecting certain kinds of medical treatments) or assumptions (theism is false, therefore time in church is wasted). It is true that many people, religious or not, have lived according to some pretty strange and in some cases damaging or deadly principles. Truth here is important and we should be careful not to reject truth because some theists also happened to accept some wrong principles.

AUUB also makes some invalid claims about the impact of theism, Christianity in particular, on marriage. He claims that the rate of divorce is higher among Christians, citing the Barna Group (but no specific study). The first one I found on their site from 2008 (http://barna.org/barna-update/article/15-familykids/42-new-marriage-and-divorce-statistics-released) contradicts this claim in two ways. First, the implication is that fewer divorces indicate stronger marriages. However, the article begins by pointing out that while 84% of Christians have married, only 65% of atheists and agnostics have ever been married. The Barna Group also points out that “[atheists et. al.] have lower rates of marriage and a higher likelihood of cohabitation, a combination of behaviors that distort comparisons…” Adjusting the divorce statistic to account for this difference (30% * 84/65) yields about a 38.8% divorce rate among atheist or agnostics, higher than all Christian figures and the national average. Therefore, the lower rate of divorce is probably best explained by a lower rate of marriage rather than stronger marriages. Second while notional and protestant Christians as a whole are either statistically indistinguishable from the national average or slightly higher, Evangelicals and Catholics have significantly lower than average rates of divorce (26% and 28%), suggesting that some Christian views do significantly impact divorce rates.

Society

Regarding society, I’ll be addressing two major points brought up by AUUB: homosexuality and morality.

Homosexuality

Regarding homosexuality, AUUB repeats the claim that people are “born gay” and this somehow absolves them of any responsibility for their actions. The argument here is that genetics cause actions and people have no freewill. Therefore, it is unfair to condemn actions which are unfree. There are essentially two ways to understand personal actions and responsibility: freewill and determinism. If freewill is true, then people are responsible for their decisions. If determinism is true, people are not responsible for any of their actions. People are “born gay” in the same way they are “born murderers”. If we accept this second option, as it seems the naturalist must, there are only two options: first, we can not hold anyone responsible for any actions. The end result is anarchy. Second, we can recognize that not all behavior is good for society and restrict that type of behavior for that reason. Whether homosexuality, like murder, is wrong may be debatable outside a scriptural framework, but observations of “born this or that” entirely miss any meaningful point.

Morality

AUUB also argues that atheists are more moral than theists. Again, truth matters. What is most relevant here is not rates of morality, but justification of morality. Christians have a solid foundation for understanding proper morality, even if they do not always live up to it. Atheists may follow moral principles as well, but what justifies their morality? Why is their morality preferable to no morality or any other morality? In previous articles, AUUB raised the problem of evil as an argument against theism. I submit that just as theists must explain how evil can exist despite a good God, atheists must explain how anything can be good at all.

Cultures

Without much evidence, AUUB next argues that religion makes people less creative, inventive, progressive, or democratic. While this may be true of certain people, I see no reason to believe that it is universally true or that the opposite is necessarily true of atheists.

War

War is certainly a complex and unfortunate reality and has in some cases been inspired by religion. However, the ideas that all wars are somehow caused by religion and that all engagement in war is somehow wrong seems naive to me. Other motivations, such as greed and hatred also fuel conflicts and when attacked or significantly threatened, self-defense, both national and personal is a perfectly reasonable response both rationally and scripturally.

Environment

While some have clearly taken Gen. 1:28 out of context, there are numerous passages that present not only man’s dominion over nature, but responsibility and stewardship for it. Even in the very next chapter, God declares that He placed man in Eden “to dress…and to keep it” (Gen. 2:15). The suggestion that Christianity necessarily teaches disregard for and abuse of nature is untrue.

Phantom of the Mind

Atheist Under Ur Bed continues his argument against the theistic premises in points Phantom of the Mind, Doesn’t Pull It’s Own Weight, and Function Before Truth. While I went to considerable length in addressing the previous two arguments, these later arguments seem significantly less substantitive and include a great deal of repetition from the first two points. Therefore, this response will be considerable shorter.

AUUB’s argument here essentially seems to be that no consensus exists regarding the nature of God. People disagree about all kinds of things all the time, including AUUB’s claims in these articles. Concluding that everyone is wrong when consensus does not exist is frankly a ridiculous conclusion that would require us to reject most if not all ideas. To take such an argument to it’s logical conclusion would require one to conclude that we don’t know the shape of the earth (after all, some reputedly think it is flat) and that atheism is an equally unacceptable premise (after all, most people disagree with atheism’s central premise). Polling or counting people is not a particular logical way of establishing truth.

Does God Pull His Own Weight?

AUUB’s fourth objection largely repeats portions of the first three objections, returning to arguments regarding comparisons with four-sided triangles and unicorns, and the lack of consensus regarding the nature of a divine entity or entities. These were addressed in previous articles.

Function Before Truth

Under the fifth argument, AUUB again mostly repeats the same old arguments: Occam’s Razor, claims that the premise of God is absurd and unsupportable, etc. However, he does seem to present one relatively new argument. The argument (D-F) is essentially that the concept of God fits the needs of humanity so well, He can’t be real and must be only a figment or our imagination. This is essentially a converse of the argument that God is so perfect, He must exist. The argument that God is “too good to be false” is not particularly persuasive. However, the counter-argument that God is “too good to be true”, is, if possible, even less convincing.

Deducibility

Atheist Under Ur Bed continues to attempt to discredit the concept of God over at AnAtheist.Net.

AUUB’s next objection is that God is neither deducible or detectable.

As I discussed in Reason, Philosophy, Science, and Faith the complaint that God and similar premises are not fully deductive is due to the nature of deduction not the fallacious nature of divine claims.

AUUB does not deal with many of the proofs of God, he does specifically mention several objections to the first cause argument.

First, he repeats the classic objection that if everything requires a cause, what caused God? The flaw in this objection is that it misunderstands the basic nature of the argument. The first cause argument is essentially that everything we observe in the natural world has a cause, not incidentally, but necessarily. Therefore, a cause is required to start the kind of things we see, which must itself be significantly different from the things we observe. The immediate conclusion is that this thing must be uncaused. One can also reasonably posit that this thing must be powerful in order to be the initial cause of all effects, etc.

Second, AUUB denies the premise that nothing comes from nothing. There is no reason to believe such a thing is possible and every reason to believe it is impossible. AUUB attempts to bring up vacuum energy, but the vacuum energy example does not apply here because empty space (or space-time) is not nothing.

Third, AUUB argues that positing causes outside the natural order is an absurd excercise in the first place. This really seems like a different way of stating the first argument. The basic observation here is that everyone we see in this universe, including the universe itself, requires a cause. There is nothing particularly absurd about this observation.

Fourth, AUUB objects that the impossibility of infinite regress is an unwarranted assumption. Even if this is true, it seems irrelevant given the present consensus regarding the finite nature of the universe.

Finally, AUUB is correct that if we accept the first cause argument it does not itself imply any specific religious tradition. It merely demonstrates that some supernatural thing is implied by nature. More argumentation is required to arrive at particular details regarding this thing.

Detectability

It is interesting that AUUB should mention that some planets were hypothesized before they were discovered. These hypotheses posit the existence of entities which were not directly observed, but are indirectly implied. Consider the design and first cause arguments. Both begin with an observation (design is a product of a designer, cause and effect) implying an unknown (source of design, start of the cause and effect chain) and posit an implied entity as the best explanation. Most arguments for the existence of God follow precisely this line of reasoning. While AUUB may disagree with those arguments and their conclusion may not be 100% certain, but that does not mean that the premise of God is as utterly vacuous as AUUB claims.

In this way, the premise of God is not “untestable”. For example, if one could prove that the universe had always existed, the first cause argument would be discredited. If one could prove that the design inherent in living things and the fine-tuning of the universe actually were accidental or inevitable, the premise would be disproven.

Furthermore, the contention that the “God hypothesis” renders all meaningful explanations impossible is, frankly, bogus. Some people may treat the premise that way, but as long as one accepts God, not as the direct cause of all things, but as a rational first cause who established a logical order to the universe and occasional intervenes, there is plenty of room for meaningful, logical, and scientific inquiry with the goal of understanding God’s established natural order. That some people propagate a divine view which leads to the conclusion of an irrational and incomprehensible universe does not mean all divine views do so.

Occam’s Razor

Occam’s razor or the law of parsimony, as AUUB concisely states it, is that “assumptions ought not to be multiplied unnecessarily” (emphasis mine). The real question here is whether God is an unnecessary premise or not. As such, applying Occam’s razor is a circular argument which assumes God is unnecessary in the first place.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the concept of God is not a parallel to a unicorn (a plausible entity for which no evidence exists) because indirect evidence exists which supports the claim. Neither is God like an invisible unicorn (an entity for which no evidence can exist, untestable) because conceivably true premises would contradict the premise of God. Nor is God like a four-sided triangle or a round square (a definitionally absurd and illogical concept), because His various attributes are not absurd (see my response to AUUB’s first series of objections).

Problem of Evil

Atheist Under Ur Bed has been arguing that the concept of God is fundamentally absurd. This is my response to the first three articles:

1. 1A
2. 1B
3. 1C

Articles D and E seem primarily to build on, extend, or repeat problems presented in A-C. F addresses counter-arguments which differ from the ones I bring up here. Therefore, I am focusing only on A-C.

Another approach to the problem of evil is to note that God allows evil as a product, not of His own will, but of our own freewill. Thus, God, not being the author of evil, can be all-good, and allow evil. He can be all-powerful and will triumph over evil at some point in time, but must not necessarily do so from the beginning. God can be all-knowing, and have chosen to allow a period of evil to ultimately produce a world of even greater good than would have otherwise been possible.

I discuss this concept in greater depth on my blog in the following articles:

• God, Evil, and Original Sin
• Freewill, Evil, and Eternity

Divine Attributes, Logical or Absurd

AUUB tries to argue that divine concepts of “all-good”, “all-knowing”, and “all-powerful” are ultimately absurd, but they are only absurd if one insists in making them so.

All-Good

AUUB’s first argument is that good is a term relative to a specific context and things are often neither good nor bad. However, what is meant by God being all good is the following:

1. God is the ultimately, absolute reference point for what is good
2. God is morally perfect. All that He does is ultimately the best possible action. He can even use evil to produce good (Rom. 8:28)

The first point illustrates the error of the appeal to relative goodness and the second points out the error of making an analogy between moral agents and neutral objects in terms of morality. Things, not being actors simple are what they are. They are neither good nor bad, but can be used by agents to produce good or evil. To argue that agents must be neutral because non-agents are neutral is a false conclusion based on a false analogy.

All-Knowing

AUUB presents several arguments related to the concept of “all-knowing”.

The first confuses knowledge and experience. Essentially, he argues that knowledge of a state requires experience of a state and as God has not experienced every possible state, God must lack knowledge of that state. There are two good reasons to reject this claim.

First, “experiencing a state” is essentially receiving certain inputs. As God exhaustively knows all inputs, it seems reasonable to conclude that He would not be precluded from experiencing what every state is like.

Second, if knowledge requires experience, there would be no point to trying to teach anything directly. Everyone would have to learn “the hard way”, so to speak. We would not be able to learn something was bad from other peoples experience or learn from history.

The second objection does not make much sense to me. He seems to argue that knowing everything would imply a complete reproduction of everything inside one’s head. However, there seems to be no basis for this claim. One does not say of someone who knows a lot about, say a coffee mug has a coffee mug reproduced in their head, even to some small degree.

The third objection or group of objections seems to simply be the argument that he does not understand how all-knowingness would work, therefore the concept should be rejected. This is absurd. One would expect a transcendent God to be somewhat beyond full comprehension of finite beings such as ourselves. Therefore, lack of full understanding is not a reasonable objection to such a concept.

All-Powerful

The objection to the concept of “all-powerful” is essentially the classic question “Can God make a rock so big He can’t lift it?”. This fundamentally misunderstands the conception of “all-powerful”. The concept is not that “God can do anything imaginable no matter how absurd”, but merely that God can do anything which is merely a question of sufficient power. The concept does not require God to violate logic or do absurd things, it merely implies that anything which can be done given enough power is within His ability.

God and Being

Being

The answer to the question of image is that we are not the same as God but share in imperfect measure of certain of His qualities. The exact mechanics of “being everywhere” are not explicitly discussed in scripture to my knowledge. The way it makes sense to me has to do with understanding presence. One can be present in an entire room or space without materially filling it. Presence is limited by perception. If a room has walls, it limits one’s presence because one can not see through it. Therefore, presence is the space within which a being is sensorially aware. Because God is “all-knowing”, there is no limits on His space of sensorial awareness. He is therefore present everywhere. That does not mean He fills all space with some magical or divine substance.

Spirit

Spirit is merely a different form of being, not a form of “non-being”. There is no reason to insist that “being” is limited to a corporal existence. Much of the rest of AUUB’s discussion here seems to echo his critique of the term “all-knowing”. That one can not fully understand every aspect or mechanic related to a particular concept does not preclude that concept from being true. In reality, there really is not much that we can claim to fully, comprehensively and exhaustively understand in every minute detail (is there even one thing we understand that well?).

Time

Transcending time does not imply that one can not interact within time. It merely means one is not bound by time as we are. One is free to see all time at once and act at specific points. In fact, one might say that relative to such a being there is no past or present. There is only the present. This idea sounds quite a bit like Jesus’ claim that “before Abraham was, I am”.

Perfect

It is interesting that AUUB claims God can’t exist because He can not even be conceptually understood, but understands the concept well enough to claim that a perfect being would never create anything. We might not understand everything about Him, but that does not preclude His existence or creation.

Freewill and the Problem of Evil

My recent post God, Evil, and Original Sin has received several responses. James from AnAtheist.net responds in Free Will & Sin, positing that limited freewill could conceivably allow both freewill and a lack of evil. In the comments on my blog, the Conversational Atheist asks the question: “Do you have free will when you get to heaven?” Qohelet asks a similar question in commenting on James’s reply.

In Free Will & Sin, James presents an argument and supporting analogy in an attempt to demonstrate that the ability to will evil is not strictly necessary for freewill. His argument is essentially that any physical limitations we have already limit our will, and therefore restricting our capacity to do evil would not limit freewill in any unique way in which it is not already limited. To support this argument, he presents an analogy between our ability to fly and our ability to do evil.

This analogy confuses will and ability. We can certainly will to fly, but we lack the ability. To use James’s terminology, we have the ability to choose to fly, but we lack the ability to actually fly. Will, therefore, is not dependent on ability as James suggests. It is therefore possible to will something beyond one’s ability to perform it. Therefore, our inability to fly does not represent a limitation on freewill which God could have merely extended to include sin.

While the analogy is faulty, James’s point is at least initially a reasonable one. It does seem conceptually possible for God to have created a world in which humans were free to choose certain things, such as what good work to perform on a particular day or pick a favorite color, but be unable to will to perform an evil deed. However, there are two objections to this:

First, as argued in my initial post, this would not be true freedom. Humanity would essentially be much like Isaac Asimov’s robots governed by the three laws. We would be good, not of our own choosing, but only because God forced us to be so.

Second, at least in the Bible, the most important choice there is is to choose to obey or disobey God. In other words, the primary purpose of granting freewill is to allow us to choose Him. Giving us freewill without the ability to choose against Him would defeat that purpose.

Other Remarks

James also disagrees with my post in two points:

Prior Knowledge of Good and Evil

Your claim is that she had knowledge that eating the fruit was wrong before she had knowledge of right and wrong. That would be like telling my dog that barking is wrong and wondering why she still does it. – James

False. My claim is that she did know right (obey God; do not eat of the tree) from wrong (disobey God; eat of the tree) beforehand and that the phrase “knowledge of good and evil would be better understood as “discerning good from evil”. It is invalid to argue that my argument is absurd by substituting one’s own premises for mine. We can debate whether my premise regarding the proper interpretation of the phrase translated as “knowledge of good and evil” is, but the fact that our premises differ and James’s premises conflict with my conclusion does not make my argument invalid or absurd because it is not based on those premises.

Determining or Knowing Good and Evil

Rather than addressing my argument on the proper understanding of the original word “yada” in the passage of the creation and fall, James essentially begs the question, assuming his interpretation is correct because it is “obvious” that the Bible is “a primitive attempt” by ancient people to explain certain concepts and that my argument was essentially false because it was too complicated.

That the story is obviously a primitive attempt to explain various aspects of humanity is clearly not as obvious as James would like it to be. What is obvious is that if one insists on interpreting the Bible through the assumption that it is a primitive and absurd book, one can certainly arrive at primitive and absurd conclusions by insisting on simplistic interpretations rather than entertaining the possibility that the Bible might be reasonable. However, that assumption is far from justified.

The argument I presented may not prove with certainty that the passage must be understood in the manner I described, but it does demonstrate that there is good reason to understand it in a different way than James suggests. This interpretation presents a much more consistent and sensible conclusion, undermining his claim that this passage is necessarily absurd.

Freewill in Eternity

Regarding the question of freewill for the saved in eternity, I am not aware of a statement in the Bible which directly answers the question of freewill in eternity. I think the general assumption is that the process of sanctification (essentially, putting off the sin nature) which is completed upon entry into heaven renders believers into a state in which, while they could sin, they never will again. However, I think a good case can be made which suggests that freewill will be at least limited in heaven.

The primary reason is this: if it is true that evil must be a possible side-effect of freewill, evil would be possible in heaven. The possibility of evil implies the possibility of suffering, which is denied in heaven. If there is no possibility of suffering, there must be no possibility of evil, which implies a lack of full freewill. Freewill may exist in a limited form, such as James suggests in “Free Will & Sin”, but this argument presents a reasonable case against the kind of freewill we have now. The idea that sanctification produces believers who have full freewill, but simply will not sin sounds a lot like Adam and Eve’s original state in the garden, a state in which they were clearly capable of sinning.

Qohelet argues that this conclusion contradicts the necessity and importance of freewill that I argued for above and in my original post. This is not so and it seems to me the reason helps to explain why as Rhodes said, a world which includes evil is the best possible path to the best possible world. If, as argued above, freewill implies the possibility or even the probability of evil, the best possible world, that is, one in which there is no evil and therefore no suffering, is one in which freewill is at least not absolute. However, if another property of the optimal world is its inhabitants freely choosing to love and obey God, freewill is necessary for that optimal world, but can not coexist with it. Therefore, one can not begin with an optimal world. Freewill and lack of suffering are incompatible. Therefore, the optimal world must be preceded by a sub-optimal world with freewill, by which people can freely choose to love and obey God, making the optimal world possible.

Given the importance of freewill in most Christians understanding of the world, sin, and the gospel, this is certainly an important question. I would be interested in any views, comments, or insights other readers might have on this topic.

The Problem of Evil

Over on AnAtheist.net, James asks the question “How can a perfect creator produce an imperfect world?” in the recent article Adam, Eve, and Suffering. The essence of the question is essentially the problem of evil. How can a good God create a world in which evil exists? Is God the author of evil?

James says the answer he usually hears is a reference to the story of the fall. However, that does not really seem to answer the question. As James points out, God would have known they would have sinned. Why did he create them in the first place? Furthermore, why was sin made possible? God clearly created Adam and Eve capable of sin and even provided a means for sin (the tree).

The key answer is freewill. God certainly could have created a sin free world which contained only automatons. Clearly, God valued freewill enough that freewill with the potential for evil was more valuable to Him, and therefore, more perfect, than a world without it. The purpose for the tree seems clear as well. Freewill without the potential for negative exercise is not really free.

At this point, it is reasonable to point to the fall as the first example of humans exercising the negative side of freewill and reaping the consequence (the curse) which, together with continuing sin, responsible for pain and suffering in this world. However, that really still only explains the cause of suffering and evil, not why God continues to allow it or how a perfect God could allow such an imperfect world.

Biblically, God’s primary purpose in allowed this imperfect world to continue is mercy:

2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

However, that does not fully answer the question. The real question remaining is why would God choose this clearly imperfect world over any other optimal alternatives. The simple answer is: He did not. Ultimately, this is not the world that God valued the most, but it is the way to get there. This is the world God ultimately valued most:

Rev 22:3-5 And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.

As Ronald Rhodes writes in Who Made God?:

the fact that God has not defeated evil today does not mean He is not eliminating it in the future (see 2 Peter 3:7, Rev. 20-22). This is not the best of all possible worlds, but it is the best way to the best of all possible worlds. (pg. 39)

Determining Good and Evil

Regarding the specific case of the fall, James raises some other objections which deserve answers. One is the observation that if eating the fruit granted knowledge of what was right and what was wrong (good and evil), Eve would have been ignorant of right and wrong before eating the fruit, and therefore, at worst, her eating the fruit would have been simply a misunderstanding. However, knowledge that it was evil (rebellion against God) was given to Adam and Eve prior to the fall (Gen. 2:17) and Eve refers to this somewhat inaccurately (Gen. 3:3). Therefore, she did have knowledge that it was wrong to eat the fruit.

Furthermore, the Hebrew word “yada” translated here as “knowledge” is a relatively broad word. Many understand it here as meaning “determining”, implying “determining for yourself good and evil”. This also fits much better with the implication that this “knowing” is a divine attribute. It does not seem reasonable to argue that knowing good and evil makes one a god, but establishing a moral law is a divine attribute. Therefore, eating the fruit, did not magically give Adam and Eve perfect knowledge of God’s Law, that which was good and evil. At that point, they already knew all of God’s Law (do not eat the fruit) and they decided for themselves to break it. Rebelling against God’s Law (do not eat the fruit) and substituting their own (eat the fruit). This attempt to become one’s own law maker is the root of sin.

Original Sin

James also refers to the imputation of original sin to all humans, which Paul discusses in Rom 5:12-19, interpreting it as us being punished for Adam’s sin. There are some questions as to what exactly Paul’s discussion means mechanically. Some say that God imputes Adam’s sin to us, others argue that Adam’s one sin represents all our sins. The relevant point is that we all have sinned independently and earned the penalty of sin (death). Before chapter 5, Paul spends a lot of time demonstrating this (Rom. 2-3). Therefore, whatever Paul is saying here, he is not saying that some of us may have lived perfect lives, but because Adam sins we are damned. Even those who interpret this passage as a full imputation of guilt for the purpose of salvation, do so on this basis; that God knew all would sin independently and therefore in place of that guilt imputed the guilt of original sin, so that “as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous” (Rom 5:19).

Iniquity of the Parents

James relates this to God’s statement in the commandments regarding “visiting the iniquity of the fathers” on following generations “of them that hate me”. As James also points out, more explicit passages distinctly state that children should not be punished for the sins of parents. The key phrase here is “of them that hate me”, which applies not only to the father, but the children. Therefore, while children should not be punished for the sins which their parents committed, they are punished for committing the sins of their parents, and the root of sin is hatred of God.

Flawed Plan

In Reason – Not Personal Philosophy, Darthcynic raises what he considers to be problems with the Bible. Many of them stem from his assumption against the supernatural. Right now, I am only concerned with alleged internal contradictions within the Bible, allegations which, if true, would render Christianity an inconsistent and absurd system.

Darthcynic claims that God’s plan is flawed. Without any explanation of what Darthcynic believes God’s plan should be and how it fails, there is nothing for me to really respond to on that point.

Genocidal God

Darthcynic also condemns the God of the Bible as genocidal. While he omits any specific claims, there are probably two common cases that come to mind. In each case, God is not being arbitrary but judging sin.

First, God frequently punished the children of Israel during the wilderness wanderings by killing many of them. This was clearly a punishment for rebellion.

Second, during the conquest of Canaan, many cities has their entire populations slaughtered. For example:

Deut 2:31-34 And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have begun to give Sihon and his land before thee: begin to possess, that thou mayest inherit his land. Then Sihon came out against us, he and all his people, to fight at Jahaz. And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain:

However, the Canaanites and surrounding peoples were wicked and rebellious, earning God’s judgement through the Israelites. In fact, God gave the Canaanites centuries of grace before utterly destroying them:

Gen 15:13-16 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.

Neither was God arbitrary in judging the Canaanites. He promised similar destruction to the Israelites who followed in the ways of the Canaanites:

Lev 18:25-28 And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you: (For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;) That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you.

As a side note, I would ask by what basis Darthcynic judges genocide to be wrong and therefore God’s killing to be divine sin?

The Flood

Darthcynic also poses questions about the flood. He suggests that God should have seen it coming and had a better solution than murder. He also asks how God can be angry.

Should Have Seen It Coming

God certainly would have and did. There isn’t anything that suggests that God was surprised or acted rashly in Gen. 6. In fact, God gives 120 years after his determination before executing judgement.

Better Solution Than Murder

First, killing (any killing) is not equivalent to murder (unjust killing). The “wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23) and it is only because of God’s mercy that anyone yet lives. Second, those who died had roughly 120 years of warning and continued in rebellion to God. God is slow to anger (Jonah 4:2) and does not delight in the destruction of the wicked, but if people will not repent, God, in justice, must judge (Ez. 33:11). Third, it is not obviously clear that a better solution exists, especially since we do not know everything God knows.

How can God be Angry?

As a transcendent being, it is clearly difficult to accurately communicate to finite beings precisely what God’s emotional status is. Such anthropomorphic designations should therefore not be over interpreted. While we may often become angry as a result of an unpleasant surprise and do something rash, that does not mean all anger is like that, or even wrong. Jesus Himself was angry at the abuse of the temple for profit and I think we might all be able to agree that certain horrible deeds, such as the holocaust or other massacre’s may invoke anger in us which is not wrong. God’s anger is like that and often understood in terms of it’s product: just judgement.

Determining Truth

Darthcynic recently responded to some of the material in Response to Darthcynic on the Historicity of Christ which, in the interest of focus, he previously omitted. In Reason – Not Personal Philosophy, he addresses the issues of reason, philosophy, science, and faith. I had intended to respond in a single post, but I have decided to split my response into two parts. This first part deals with the more philosophical discussion of reason, science, faith, and worldviews. The second post will address Darthcynic’s critique of the Bible.

Darthcynic opens his post by complaining that I have promoted the mistaken notion that he simply wishes to disbelieve the supernatural and that is his real reason for rejecting the Bible. Please allow me to clarify. I have not made that argument, nor do I believe it to be accurate. Rather, what I have tried to point out is that Darthcynic begins with a basic premise, an assumption of naturalism. Based on that assumption, he seeks to build a rational world view. Therefore, I am not arguing that Darthcynic’s position is completely devoid of reason, but that his reason is guided by an assumption. While that assumption is not unreasonable, it is not certain, nor is it one we share. It also biases the kinds of facts and conclusions he and others with a similar assumption are willing to accept. This is evidenced by his willingness to reject supernatural and divine claims as absurd.

Darthcynic next discusses his requirements for credible claims. I think this may highlight to a large extent the misunderstanding which is key to a lot of the disagreement he discusses. This misunderstanding is probably my fault because I did not clearly delineate between the goals of particular arguments. This discussion began with the focus of objectively demonstrating whether a mythic or historic Jesus is more probable/historically admissible. This claim does demand a relatively high level of evidence and I have made a significant effort to meet that burden. Adjacent to this topic, questions of contradictions in the Bible came up. In defending the consistency of scripture, my goal was not to prove that it was in fact, inerrant or 100% certain historically. That would require a high level of historic proof which is clearly not there. Rather, I endeavored merely to demonstrate that such contradictions are ambiguous, misunderstandings of the actual text, or not strictly impossible or even implausible if the basic premises of Christianity are true. That is, whether the Biblical account is provable or not, it is possible. Not provably absurd, contradicting certain facts, or inconsistent with itself.

Deductive Approach

When I say that my goal was merely to demonstrate that Christianity is plausible if it’s basic premises are true, some of you may think that I am beginning with the assumption of Christianity as I accused Darthcynic of beginning with an assumption of naturalism and then making the circular argument that conclusions based on naturalism prove naturalism. That is not the case. My approach to evaluating world views is not to assume basic conclusions of my world view against which to judge other world views, as I would argue Darthcynic does. Rather, my approach is to begin with the assumption that the basic claims of a view are true and see if they line up with other views with regards to internal consistency and observation of the real world.

Anyone who has studied deductive systems such as formal logic and proofs (as in mathematics) knows that this is essentially how those systems work. However, logic and reason require a knowledge base upon which to act. The knowledge base must be initially populated with some initial axioms or assumptions considered to be reasonable by some other criterion. Proofs often begin with a given, often an assumption that that which is to be proved is false and then seeking a contradiction, rendering the negative assumption absurd. The target premise is then proven to be true with respect to the foundational assumptions.

Inductive Approach

To justify some initial axioms, Darthcynic reasonably appeals to an inductive approach. However, despite frequent pronouncements that “The absurdities of Ezekiel are just that-fiction”, “I am certain that He does not exist”, and “Therefore these supernatural Biblical events for all intents and purposes did not take place, and so they must be fictional creations by their authors for metaphorical purposes; which in turn suggests that the Bible’s origins are not divine”, he also must admit that “it is impossible for me to prove a negative” and “It is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything” (regarding science, an inductive method). In other words, even though Darthcynic frequently makes absolute claims such as “Ezekiel is fiction” and “I am certain God does not exist”, his own admission is that he has no rational basis for such a leap. An inductive method can only demonstrate, at best, that Ezekiel is probably fiction and God probably does not exist.

Darthcynic does appear to try to argue that his absolute statements should be understood within his limited philosophical framework, but insisting that absolute statements should not be understood as absolute statements only leads to confusion. If he is making statements of inductive likelihood, he is responsible for making that clear.

Basic Approach

In order to build a knowledge base upon which to reason, Darthcynic follows the basic approach of applying induction to justify his basic premises. This is an approach which I find to be reasonable.

Darthcynic’s Worldview

Darthcynic seems to present the following starting axioms:

1. Naturalism
2. The scientific method can always advance knowledge in all areas

Naturalism

To justify the assumption of naturalism, Darthcynic presents the common, inductive argument that because he and many others have not observed an unquestionable event or result of supernatural power, it is inductively rational to assume such an event has never occurred and that any claim that one has must meet a substantial burden of proof. This is not an unreasonable induction, but does have several faults, which I shall cover later.

Universal Usefulness and Power of the Scientific Method

Darthcynic’s second assumption is that there is always room to expand knowledge in any area via the scientific method. He employs this second assumption to reject invoking God in any event which has the potential to be understood in supernatural terms. Observe:

So until anyone can objectively prove His existence then it is not acceptable to use the argument from ignorance of “god did it” to paper over any absurdity that crops up. If every time we encountered the then unexplainable and posited an omnipotent deity to be responsible then we would learn nothing, no scientific discovery; so why should we make an exception for one group solely because it was written?

Worldview Comparison

Before directly addressing Darthcynic;s inductive proof of naturalism, I am going to note here that his system, contrary to his claims, precludes the possibility of the supernatural. Given the need of deductive systems for a knowledge base and the probabilistic nature of inductive systems, arguing that one can only accept certain proof of anything to discredit contrary claims is the proposing of an unreachable burden of proof, which no system meets, including naturalism. Furthermore, Darthcynic’s axioms also preclude any possibility of a supernatural conclusion, because they assume any ambiguity or uncertainty can be acceptably assumed to be natural.

This is also an attempt to present atheism (negatively defined as the belief that no supernatural/divine being exists) or naturalism (positively defined as the belief that existence is exclusively limited to the natural realm) as a default position, one which requires a lower burden of proof than any other position. This is an unjustified assumption and as demonstrated above presents an abusive burden of proof to discredit it. If there is a default position, it is pure agnosticism (ignorance). Such a default should also demand a similar burden of proof for all views on reality and knowledge. One could, as it seems many agnostics do, make one’s criterion of an acceptable view certainty. As demonstrated above regarding deductive systems, that would seem to doom one to agnosticism. Rather than despair of any meaningful, fundamental understanding of the world, it seems reasonable to me to accept a less stringent criterion of accepting the view which seems most reasonable, presenting a solid inductive case for its axioms, building reasonable conclusions on the axioms, and reasonably addresses objections.

My Worldview

My core approach is similar to Darthcynic’s. I accept the limitations of deduction, but posit different axioms.

Axioms

Supernatural Creation

First, I reject Darthcynic’s assumption that we observe no supernatural event. The primary event which we all observe is existence itself. That is, creation. Science has clearly demonstrated that this natural realm had an initial beginning (entropy and red shift/big bang) implying a supernatural power. Second, the amazing complexity, purposeful arrangement, and informational content of living things reasonably implies a supernatural intelligence.

There are, of course, alternative natural explanations to each of these observations and I would be willing to discuss any of those with anyone who wishes to bring them up. The salient point here is that there is no immediate reason to favor those hypothesis over mine.

Darthcynic does mention “scientific observation, experimentation, and data” contradicting the conclusion of Creation. However, in my previous post, I questioned the certainty of this evidence, arguing that much of it assumes naturalism and precludes supernatural explanations in the same way Darthcynic does. It is pretty easy to conclude that the most rational explanation is natural if one has already effectively rejected any supernatural explanations, not because of actual scientific, physical evidence, but for metaphysical reasons. Therefore, it is unconvincing to point to the sweeping evolutionary conclusions of most biologists without first examining the actual evidence and arguments made in favor of those conclusions. So far, I have been unimpressed by my examinations of the evidence and have observed that many scientists seem biased against supernatural solutions for the same metaphysical reasons Darthcynic appeals to. If Darthcynic or anyone else is aware of any persuasive analysis free of this bias, feel free to bring it up. However, one can not assume naturalism and then use conclusion based on that assumption to prove naturalism or disprove alternatives which were not considered with regard to the actual evidence.

Absolute Morality

Second, I observe that any discussion of morality in which one person suggests another person ought to do something, must presuppose a perfect law. Coincidentally, this contradicts Darthcynic’s premise that science (the method) can advance our knowledge of truth in any area. The moral realm seems inherently intractable to scientific examination because science can only examine how things do work or how they are. Not how they ought to be. One might argue that science can tell us the optimal moral path to achieving a desired outcome or goal, but any such system must likewise assume a value or ought. For example, Humanism presupposes the inherent value of human beings and the moral goal of advancing human beings as a group. Just as science can not tell us what ought to be morally, it can not tell us what ought to be valued morally. While some naturalists accept humanism, valuing the human race as something inherently special, others reject that premise, it seems to me equally reasonably given their philosophical foundation. These people argue that nature is more valuable than human beings, which are actually a scourge which needs to shape up or check out. Therefore, absolute morality, or any meaningful morality for that matter, requires a supernatural foundation.

Human Failure

Third, no one I have observed, including myself, seems perfectly moral. We all have problems, some small and some great, but we all have failed to live up to what many people would consider to be moral, including our own personal standard at some point in time.

Hope

Finally, I assume there is hope for us. One might argue that this is an irrational assumption. However, I see it as the conclusion that possible positive outcomes are the only ones worth rationally considering. If we are all doomed to some terrible or senseless fate, those who wallow in despair will ultimately be at best, just as well off as those who sought hope. On the other hand, if there is hope, those who despair will most likely miss it. This is not to say that I necessarily deny any possibility of despair, but where ambiguity exists, I am not going to despair or just give up until despair is demonstrated to be certain.

Conclusions

Based on these four inductions:

1. Supernatural Creation
2. Absolute Morality
3. Human Failure
4. Hope

we can reasonably derive some conclusions about the world. First, absolute morality implies that God is perfectly just. Without justice morality is meaningless. Second, justice and our moral failure implies judgement. Third, hope implies that God is perfectly good. Premises, such as divine sadism and reality as one big joke on us merely for his amusement, are despairing conclusions and not particularly worthy of consideration. Goodness and hope imply mercy, a path to forgiveness. Unfortunately, there is only one way for forgiveness and justice to be compatible: substitution. Payment must be made for moral failure. Finally, as the method of mercy and substitution is not logically obvious, there must also be revelation. Revelation is necessary for us to know the details of morality, how to receive mercy, and as we have already posited that God is good, He will provide it.

Therefore, from four initial inductions, I derive the following core conclusions about reality:

1. Divine Justice
2. We are judged
3. Divine goodness
4. Divine mercy
5. Substitution
6. Divine Revelation

Christianity

While this view does not immediately imply Christianity, Christianity seems to fit the best by far. Theistic systems such as polytheism (Zeus and Thor) lack absolute concepts of justice and morality with conflicting deities. Balanced, dualistic systems, positing equal and opposing moral forces remove any meaningful expectation of justice or really even of absolute morality itself. Other monotheistic systems tend toward ultimately absurd views of substitution such as justifying evil deeds by balancing them with good deeds. Later, we can certainly examine this in greater depth, but for now, that is not my goal.

Science

Throughout his post, Darthcynic suggests that I have promoted the “old canard of ’science is like religion’”. This is false. True science is strictly an inductive, rational method for exploring the natural world. I agree with Darthcynic that this method is immensely useful for understanding the natural order. Where we disagree is the scope of this method. Darthcynic contends that it is universally applicable; I contend that it is limited to the natural realm. This is not necessarily a disagreement because Darthcynic essentially argues that the natural realm is all we can really accept and for that reason science is applicable to everything. Therein lies our real disagreement, whether or not the supernatural realm exists.

This core disagreement is not a part of science. It is a part of naturalism. That is why in initial discussions of this topic, I was careful not to say, as Darthcynic attributes me as saying that “science ‘needed’ to discredit Jesus and His miracles to remain relevant.” Rather, I said, “If true, [Jesus'] miracles directly discredit naturalism by demonstrating supernatural power.” This is a key distinction. Science is an epistemological method consistent with many distinct world views. Naturalism, however, is a worldview which has at its core, a premise of natural exclusivity.

Faith

In attempting to differentiate between naturalism and theism, Darthcynic brings out the common accusation that theism appeals to a “God of the gaps”. That is, in ambiguously natural or supernatural cases, theism assumes God. However, the fact that such cases exist reveals that a natural solution is not currently known. The naturalist alternatively assumes a natural solution will be discovered later by science. This is essentially a “science of the gaps” of the same magnitude as “God of the gaps”. The naturalist may accuse the theist of faith in God, but the naturalist similarly betrays a similar faith in presumed naturalism and it’s implication of the universal applicability of science.

I am not suggesting that any area of ignorance should assume a divine solution until a natural solution is found. Some problems clearly seem to be within the realm of science. Other problems, such as the origin of the universe, the origin of life, and morality seem significantly less so.

I am not also suggesting that the faith mentioned here is blind. That is, a purely irrational leap to a comforting, arbitrary conclusion of an individual’s choosing. It is unfortunate that this existentialism has caught on in many places, including the church, but that is not what I am talking about here. What I am talking about is a conclusion which is inductively (implying less than 100% certain) derived from reasonable observations. Darthcynic observes that at least most experiences we have are clearly natural. Therefore, he inductively believes (faith) that the rest are as well. Conversely, I observe that naturalism involves problematic conclusions and therefore inductively believe (faith) that some of our experiences must have a fundamentally divine origin. It is on this level, that of naturalism and theism, that our worldviews are directly comparable.

My Position

In the interest of keeping More on the Historicity of Jesus from being even longer than it was, I did not respond to two points that Darthcynic made in The Gospels and the Historical Jesus. Those points are his description of my position and his evaluation of our respective biases and what he felt was my goal in pointing out his bias.

After evaluating the gospels, Darthcynic proceeds to straw man my position. Rather than mention the many counter-arguments I have already provided to refute many of his claims, he chooses to give the reader a simplistic caricature of me as simply ignoring his arguments (“Arthenor would seem to contend that none of this matters”) and that I insist that a criteria of “old and inline with [my] beliefs [is] more than enough to imbue the gospels with historical authority” and that I continue to maintain the gospels are “inerrant…even though folks have been adding extra material”. I challenge Darthcynic or any reader who accepts this conclusion to support this straw man with references to what I have actually said on my blog ([1] [2] [3]) or in my related comments on Did Paul Know Jesus’s Disciples.

While I have admitted that my evaluation of the evidence as supporting the conclusion of a historic Christ and my willingness to accept the gospels as historical may be somewhat biased by my Christian view point, I have not made the vacuous appeals Darthcynic attributes to me. I have consistently countered his sweeping rejections of the gospels and evidence for them, arguing that his rejection lacks evidence, lacks a reasonable justification, and is biased by his own view point. Furthermore, I have supported my conclusion that Jesus is a historical figure and the gospels are at least reliable enough to draw this basic conclusion by defending the consistency of the gospel narratives against Darthcynic’s claims of contradiction and by citing corroborating, extra-Biblical sources such as Tacitus. That I evaluate the evidence differently does not make my position a vacuous appeal to antiquity and faith, as Darthcynic suggests. Nor have I been particularly concerned with demonstrating the inerrancy of the gospels. I certainly believe this to be true, but the inerrancy of the gospels is not a necessary premise for concluding that Jesus was a historic figure and I have consistently pointed out that even if some details are disputable, the historic nature of Christ is still a reasonable conclusion.

Personal Bias

Like Darthcynic, I admit that I am probably subject to some bias in evaluating this topic. However, I do not accept the alleged, extreme, almost desperate or blind bias which Darthcynic appears to attribute to me in an effort to maintain the historicity of Christ and the inerrancy of the gospels. I have presented reasonable arguments to support my position which can not simply be ignored as products of “bias”, but demand rational counter-argument.

However, unlike Darthcynic’s accusations of bias against me, which as far as I can tell are based solely on our difference of opinion on the strength of various evidence and my admission of religious beliefs, my accusations of bias are much more substantively based. Throughout this discussion, Darthcynic has revealed that his low evaluation of the evidence is in part due to a deep distrust of religious people, a philosophical bias against the supernatural, and a propensity to accept any evidence or analysis against a historic Christ and reject any evidence or analysis in favor of a historic Christ. For example, in his recent post, he argues that we can not admit the gospels because religious people writing for religious purposes are more prone to bias than secular writers rendering their accounts irrelevant. In a previous post, he argued that the books in the Bible, such as the gospels, can not be historic because they include events which violate the laws of physics. This implies that Darthcynic is drawing conclusions based on a naturalistic assumption against the gospels. Finally, Darthcynic argues that there is no corroborative evidence outside the gospels for a historic Christ based on any basis for raising questions about such sources. He even considers Tacitus to be essentially irrelevant simply because Tacitus may have only been repeating what Christians said, which is itself significant.

Conversely, I have not dismissed any non-Christian sources simply on the basis of possible bias; rejected atheism, naturalism, or secular sources or arguments a priori, assuming that the world must be fundamentally supernatural; or repeatedly dismissed any evidence or analysis against the evidence for a historic Christ. In fact, I have accepted many of the arguments Darthcynic presented against accepting alleged corroboration of Christ such as Josephus and Pliny. To be clear, I have not accepted the arguments to the extent of making such sources largely irrelevant as Darthcynic appears to, but in seriously reducing the reliability or the strength of demonstrating the historicity of Christ based on them.

It is perfectly fair to observe natural tendencies or incentives to a biased interpretation of the facts. However, what is more important is whether that bias is seen to be at work or not. While I do not deny some bias on my part, the evidence indicates that Darthcynic has displayed considerable bias himself.

Finally, my accusation of bias is not the product of an attempt to level the playing field regarding my own bias. It is merely an observation that contrary to what some claim, atheists also have a stake in our topic which provides a natural incentive to bias and sometimes that bias can be seen at work. I do not accept that any arguments made by Christian or religious people should be rejected on the basis of their potential bias nor am I arguing that the arguments of Darthcynic or atheists in general should be rejected on the basis of bias either.

For this reason, this topic is probably the most fruitless one we are discussion and also the most emotionally charged one, as it attacks our persons. As such, while I invite Darthcynic to reply if he wishes, I will probably not continue this area of our discussion.