James McGrath, boiled down and distilled

After many days of trying to get James McGrath to just give me a rundown of how we can know about God and how to live, he finally, seemingly inadvertently, tipped his hand yesterday. I don't honestly know what has taken him so long.
Take a look here:

Rhology is persuaded that there must be a source that can provide absolute certainty about a number of important matters. Some of us are not so persuaded. And so where does that leave us? It means that we'll inevitably be wrong about some things, and uncertain about some things - and that we'll inevitably feel certain about some things that it turns out we were wrong about.

The interesting thing is that this doesn't differ as much as might first seem to be the case from Rhology's own situation, in which, even if there is an inerrant text, the question of how one interprets it, which Scriptures one starts with when "interpreting Scripture in light of Scripture", as well as our own human propensity for self-delusion, means that even if we had such an absolute authoritative source, we would presumably nonetheless have significant disagreements. The variations among groups that claim to hold the Bible as inerrant or at least infallible provides evidence for this.

Anyway, to put it in a nutshell, those of us who are not persuaded that we have an inerrant text that speaks to us without interference on the part of the human authors, seek to do the best with what we have, using Scripture, tradition, reason, wise advice, scientific evidence, and any other source of information that seems relevant. And sometimes, even with the best of intentions and the best of data, we get things wrong.

I understand why this viewpoint can be so terrifying that some feel the need to flee it, denounce it, attack it and avoid it. And I think James Fowler's notion of "stages of faith" helps shed light on the psychological and emotional aspects of this topic, and why many of those who've been part of this conversation are unable to persuade one another that they are right.

After all I've just written, I'll end with this disclaimer: As far as what I've just written is concerned...I could be wrong. (emphasis original)

Let's take a few points out and see where they lead us.

-It means that we'll inevitably be wrong about some things, and uncertain about some things

Translation - it means that Rhology and his ilk will be wrong about some things, particularly the things that they hold to be really important and that serve as defintional of their position, like inerrancy and the substitutionary atonement of Christ. We will also be wrong about some things, but not important or definitional things. So we could be wrong about how many carbon credits to assign to turning off one's lights for an additional hour per night or how much it is justifiable to charge for a John Dominic Crossan anthology at one's university bookstore. We are NOT wrong, however, about such things as the fact that Rhology and his ilk are wrong in at least some of their definitional doctrines. Nor are we wrong that we'll inevitably be wrong about some things and uncertain about some things. That is certain.


-and that we'll inevitably feel certain about some things that it turns out we were wrong about.

See above.
Will he extend the same grace to my ilk and me? Perhaps, perhaps not. I know many of his commenters would be less than willing to do so, but he's often been more conciliatory than they.



-the question of how one interprets (the Scripture)...as well as our own human propensity for self-delusion, means that even if we had such an absolute authoritative source, we would presumably nonetheless have significant disagreements. The variations among groups that claim to hold the Bible as inerrant or at least infallible provides evidence for this.


1) And what is Dr McGrath's argument that this is the fault of the Bible?
2) How does this matter on the question of inerrancy?
3) Dr McGrath conveniently forgets that the Bible predicts this very thing, that a believer will have to use his discernment and his knowledge of and relationship with God to discern between false and true teaching.
4) Further, we will see in a moment his source of spiritual epistemology, and it does far worse on this score of internal unity. What do I mean? This is the very same argument we use in disputes with Romanists and Eastern Orthodox, who claim that Sola Scriptura is a "blueprint for anarchy", while Sola Ecclesia, the living voice of the church as effectual authority over the Scripture, produces unity. Comparing apples to apples, however, we see that such is not the case.
Who actually believes in inerrancy, or Sola Scriptura? Many but not all Baptists, Assemblies of God, charismatics, Presbys, Lutherans, Church of Christ, a few Methodists, and I'm sure there are a few I've left out. Now, do we all agree on everything? Of course not. Are we all Trinitarians, though? United in our Christology? Our authority? Monotheists? Think baptism is an obligation for a believer? Necessity of Jesus' salvific work for salvation from sin? That the Holy Spirit is at work today in the world and the church? See what I'm getting at?
Now, let's compare McGrath's spiritual epistemology, namely:
"seek to do the best with what we have, using Scripture, tradition, reason, wise advice, scientific evidence, and any other source of information that seems relevant"

Hmm, who falls under this umbrella? Unitarian Universalists, Congregationalists, United Church of Christ, agnostics, some atheists, some Presbys, some Baptists, some Methodists, some Lutherans, New Age, Jehovah's Witnesses, some Roman Catholics, some Eastern Orthodox, Wiccans, Buddhists, Japanese Shinto-Buddhist agnostics (aka 98% of the population of Japan), etc.
In what beliefs are these folks united? Trinitarians? Um, no. Monotheists? No. Christology? What the heck is that? Authority? Baptism? Sin? God as personal?
An emphatic No to all of these.

So, exactly where does Dr McGrath get off advocating his ideas on this basis?


-those of us who are not persuaded that we have an inerrant text that speaks to us without interference on the part of the human authors, seek to do the best with what we have, using Scripture, tradition, reason, wise advice, scientific evidence, and any other source of information that seems relevant.

This is my favorite quote from his comment.
Now, let's focus a bit. We're trying to figure out a source for spiritual authority, to tell us what we SHOULD believe. I say it's the Bible. He says it's not b/c it's errant. So what does he want to put in its place? Let's take 'em one by one.

1) Scripture.
Errant, human Scripture. By which he no doubt means "the parts of Scripture that I baselessly believe are not errant". As I've asked many times before (in this very combox, even), how is the Scripture any guide or authority when YOU decide the subset of what is to be followed and believed among the set of all its contents? He has never attempted to answer that.

2) tradition.
Even more errant, even more human tradition.
Whose tradition? Mine? His? Buddhist? Mormon? Branch Davidian? Moonie? Some obscene, bastard mix of many? Which elements, since they all contradict at numerous points? How is this at all useful to the seeker of actual truth?
Never mind the fact that Jesus commanded us to submit all human tradition to Scripture in Mark 7:1-13.

3) Reason.
How precisely does reason tell us what we OUGHT to do? Is he unfamiliar with the famous Hume's guillotine, sometimes known as the naturalistic fallacy (which is related but apparently not the same)? How does reason tell us the OUGHT?

4) Wise advice.
See #2 and 3.

5) Scientific evidence.
See #3.
Further, this is a significant category error. We're talking SPIRITUAL epistemology, in the metaphysical. How does science, which can only deal in the empirical, give us any significant information about the metaphysical?

6) Any other source of information that seems relevant.
This is why I said in an earlier post the following, which bears repeating here:

One of their fundamental problems is their backhanded ethnocentrism. You will no doubt swear up and down that it's actually those awful fundies who are racist, but wait a second. Our message, from the Bible, remains consistent. We call ALL people to repent and believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ, b/c ALL people are equally filthy and equally dead in their sins. You want this squishy "community" wherein people are able to "express themselves", but you only want some of that. You won't include the conservative Reformed person like me. You won't include the unrepentant jihadist or the Hindu church bomber, or the loner, or the repentant homosexual who is now happily married to a woman and has 4 kids and wants to help others to leave the homosexual lifestyle, or the sociopath, or the wife-beater. And you know what? There are an awful lot of people like that out there. They are sinners. We are sinners. We need a Savior. Our problem is not that we need community. Our problem is that we are sinful.

One of the points of that is that humans are wildly inconsistent and don't agree on much of anythg, but you naively make humans your yardstick. This boils down to nothing more than happy-happy subjective relativism, and it will fail you in the hard (or even moderately difficult) cases. Ground your morality in humans? What do you tell the guy who wants to murder you? You can't say it's morally wrong to do so! You might tell him it's wrong FOR YOU, but maybe it's perfectly right for him!

Q&A on God's justice and Christ's propitiation

I just thought this exchange between Damion and myself would be helpful for others.

what we consider good, such as the “infinite bliss and happiness”

We might indeed usually speak of it that way, but that's not what I'm after here. On atheism, does it make sense that ANYthing be called good? Whether it makes sense doesn't necessarily touch on whether people will believe it, as I'm sure you'd agree. Proof is not the same as persuasion.


on your theological premises, God would still be perfectly good if only one person (say, um, Enoch) enjoyed infinite bliss

You are right. Further, God would be perfectly good if NOONE enjoyed infinite bliss.
Compared with how it really is, one could say that He'd have shown less mercy and compassion that way, but one would not have a useful or reasonable way to judge that, or to judge God as wrong.


billions of souls suffering eternally counts for exactly nothing in the overall calculus of good and evil in the universe

No, I wouldn't say that. That's not a good thing, not at all. It's so distasteful and wrong, in fact, that it cost Jesus Christ His very life.


Does God acts in good ways because He embodies goodness, or does He embody goodness because he acts in good ways?

It's the former.


what precisely do you mean when you say that goodness is an ontological attribute?

I can't guarantee that my language is the most strictly correct and proper, philosophically speaking. What I'm trying to say is that God has revealed Himself as being good and there is every reason to trust Him. Further, there is no viable alternative for defining good in any useful way.


but on your terms no conceivable amount of harm (even the eternal harm of billions of souls) is unjustified so long as it is divinely ordained. Can you think of any harm which is unjustified, and in what sense is it so?

Former sentence is correct. For one thing, as I said before, we don't know the full plan of God and so have insuff information to judge. On atheism, I don't see any way to ground "justification", so that's another problem.
You asked for "any harm", in general, so I'd say that any and all evil committed by a created being, be it human or angel, would be unjustified harm. Sorry if that's not what you were asking for - elucidate the question and I'll be happy to respond to it.


it is only wrong to murder because God specifically forbade it?

I would say that, yes.
As I understand natural law theology (which is not all that well), I think a proponent thereof would disagree and say that it's also forbidden by natural law. I am not sufficiently versed in that to say either way.


you would say God just had to punish someone because He is perfectly just, so much so that ordinary outright forgiveness is logically impossible for Him

I guess you could say that, yes. The way that the law and justice are set up, wrongdoing must be punished.


justice (as we usually use the term) requires that the punishment for a given criminal fit his own crimes, God’s justice allows Him a loophole -- punish an innocent volunteer instead of the guilty party

Oh, I guess that wording, while a bit irreverent, fits, yes. The alternative is that, indeed, every criminal pay for his crimes, and his crimes are of infinite evil b/c they offend an infinitely holy God's holy law. God does not tolerate impurity in His presence, so we'd all be doomed forever to separation from Him. The only "candidate" for acting as substitute for mankind is God Himself.


Once again, it seems, you’ve run so far afoul or ordinary usage that you would actually be better off using antonyms.

And that would be a problem if I cared much about "ordinary usage". We do not judge God by man, but rather man by God.


Is God also being unjust in allowing sinners into heaven?

This is an excellent question, and speaks to the untruth of Islam. It's a major chink in the Islamic armor - Allah allows some sinful people into Paradise and the virgins and all that. And on what basis? Allah just --poof-- forgives the offenders.
The God of the Bible does no such thing. Take me as an example. All the times I've lied, been unjustifiably angry, looked with lust at a pretty girl, etc, these things have been fully punished. All the just punishment has been poured out on Christ on the Cross. My sin has been reckoned/imputed to Him and His perfect righteousness has been reckoned/imputed to me. Think of it as swapping bank accounts. At the Cross, I told Jesus I was sorry for all the 50% APR credit card debt I'd racked up and meant it. I asked Him for His Swiss bank acct containing €100 million. He agreed and did the switch.
Sounds crazy, right? To me too, but that's the reality. Christianity is too good to be true, only it really is true.
For those who reject the bank acct swap, they justly go to "debtor's prison". For those who accept the acct swap, they justly receive the money, since the guy who receives the bad debt has the resources to pay it. It's just that He's generous enough to share His incredible wealth with whomever might ask.


If they are non-believers, then by definition they *cannot* turn to God since they do not know God is really there.

God says that they DO know He exists - Romans 1:18-22. Further, that His law is written on their hearts, so that they have no excuse - Romans 2:10-15.
OTOH, it's true that they can't turn to God. For a person to turn to God, it requires a supernatural work on His part in their life.


I understand that you believe God is loving, but would not the hypothetical deity (affirmed by universalists) be far more loving than the one that you believe in?

How loving is it to refuse to punish all the evil done in the world? To arrive in Heaven and find an unrepentant Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot hanging out on the clouds with you? Especially since your last thought was "curse Hitler" as the SS guards threw the switch to flood your shower stall with sarin gas?
To arrive in Heaven and find the man who just finished raping and messily murdering you and your family there beside you?
I think this series of articles is very useful and illustrative of my meaning, for real.


I am *NOT* criticizing God but merely a man-made concept...

Fair enough, but you really do need to incorporate the idea of internal vs external critique into your argument. From my end, your viewpoint is man-made, and TGOTB really does exist.
So I ask myself - can atheism provide any grounding for making such moral critiques as I find here? So far I've not seen one, but I could be surprised someday.


But in this case you must give up on Anselm, because it becomes trivially easy to conceive of a greater being than the one you claim to worship.

Oh, that's a very interesting thought, actually!
I'll have to chew on that for a while, but I think you may very well have a great point WRT Anselm's ontological argument...

Peace,
Rhology

Yet another liberal professor

One Dr Eric Reitan has chimed in here and here at Dr McGrath's blog.
He is apparently nothing more than another dime-a-dozen liberal religion professor type who likes to talk like an Emergent. Probably b/c "Emergent" usually just means "old-tyme liberalism wearing a soul patch and thick black-frame glasses, a progressive and awesome hairstyle, and typing his blog on a Mac".
But it really is remarkable how he has eviscerated any thought of a meaningful religion given to humanity from God. Rather, he apparently thinks the "man trying to reach God by means that man chooses" is the way to go. Yeah, good luck with that.

Dr Reitan said:
The gist of it is this: a God whose essence is love would not choose, as His primary vehicle of revelation, a static text.

Right off the bat, you are setting yourself up as an authority over the Bible, just like Dr McGrath.
Which means you don't accept the Bible as God's primary means of self-revelation. What will you put in its place? From reading the rest of your comment, you will put "people" in its place. Nice theory, but it only works when people are sorta like you, nice people who don't want to kill you and your kids for fun, who don't want to steal your car and use it for drug and drive-by shooting raids, who don't want to foist all sorts of legalistic requirements for salvation on others, who would never give up their Macs for Lenovos, who would never dream of attempting to subjugate the entire human race under one racist régime.
I don't know if you're a part of the Emergent Church, Dr Reitan, but what you have said here falls directly in line with their worst elements, and that's an awful shame. One of their fundamental problems is their backhanded ethnocentrism. You will no doubt swear up and down that it's actually those awful fundies who are racist, but wait a second. Our message, from the Bible, remains consistent. We call ALL people to repent and believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ, b/c ALL people are equally filthy and equally dead in their sins. You want this squishy "community" wherein people are able to "express themselves", but you only want some of that. You won't include the conservative Reformed person like me. You won't include the unrepentant jihadist or the Hindu church bomber, or the loner, or the repentant homosexual who is now happily married to a woman and has 4 kids and wants to help others to leave the homosexual lifestyle, or the sociopath, or the wife-beater. And you know what? There are an awful lot of people like that out there. They are sinners. We are sinners. We need a Savior. Our problem is not that we need community. Our problem is that we are sinful.

One of the points of that is that humans are wildly inconsistent and don't agree on much of anythg, but you naively make humans your yardstick. This boils down to nothing more than happy-happy subjective relativism, and it will fail you in the hard (or even moderately difficult) cases. Ground your morality in humans? What do you tell the guy who wants to murder you? You can't say it's morally wrong to do so! You might tell him it's wrong FOR YOU, but maybe it's perfectly right for him!

OK, back to a point by point refutation of your foolish premise.
a God whose essence is love would not choose, as His primary vehicle of revelation, a static text.

How do you know anything about God apart from His self-revelation in the Bible?
Also, you never interacted (much like your colleague Dr McGrath) with my questions. I invite you with all possible urgency to do so.


We learn most about love through loving and being loved.

Apart from God's revelation of the nature of love in the Bible, how do you know:
1) what love is, and
2) what loving looks like?
See how you've set yourself up over God, set yourself on the throne?


Christianity affirms this when it maintains that God's most fundamental revelation in history was in the PERSON of Jesus.

And if the biblical text is errant, you have a strong defeater for ANY proposition you might make about Him.
"He told us to love our neighbor." No, the text was errant at that point.
"He told us to turn the other cheek." No, the text was errant at that point.
You've cut yourself off from the source and you're left floundering. This is the fruit of liberalism.


He made disciples--PERSONS--whom He sent out into the world.

And you know nothing about them either apart from the Bible.
Will you appeal to church tradition? It looks nothing like what you're proposing here, sorry to say. In fact, it doesn't look like much of anythg - it's a mishmash of elements we'd today identify as Romanism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism, with all sorts of other elements thrown in the mix. One thing is for sure, it doesn't look like what you're expressing here. So I guess that appeal is right out for you, and we're right back to what is, in effect, "But I'm Eric Reitan, yo. Trust ME."


But it will cease to be valuable if we come to pay more attention to this text than we do to our neighbors.

This has ceased being an argument for an alternative foundation for epistemology and morality and is evolving into a complaint that modern conservative Christians can be meanies. And who denies that? We're sinners.
If the text is errant, I'd like to know why I *SHOULD* pay attention to my neighbor. Can you tell me?


the place where Christ is present, embodied, on Earth today. Not in a book. In persons.

Persons who have no knowledge of the historical Christ outside of that book.
It's not like I'm denying the importance of people or the church, but the church is cut off from her moorings without God's guidance.


When the biblical witness is treated as the proxy voice of persons who lived long ago,

Oh, like a history book is a "proxy" of dead guys who fought wars, drew borders, made peace, etc?


the biblical witness becomes an invaluable partner in our efforts to understand what God is saying to us

Even though Jesus Christ Himself taught us to test all things by the standard of His Word? Mark 7:1-13.


it trumps the voice of the neighbor and is used as a conversation-ender.

Precisely. Let all human voices cease before the voice of God. Let Him, in His infinite love and wisdom, define the universe for us and let us bow before our Sovereign Creator.
HE defines sin. HE defines righteousness. HE provides for our salvation. HE commands. HE is the final authority. This is Christianity. I wish you were part of it.


It becomes an excuse not to listen to the lived experience of the neighbor.

Oh, I'll be happy to listen all day long if necessary. But for actual finding the answer to tough questions, God has defined them, and our puny human efforts fail miserably. I'd be willing to bet you only think that "human experience" is important when most things are going right for you in the world. What happens when you're faced with a church split? A divorce? The murder (God forbid) of a family member? Temptation to do something and you can't decide which way to go? Death? What does "human experience" have to say about the question of life after death?


And since compassionate listening is one of the most essential acts of neighbor love

Which you have no way of knowing outside of an objective revelation from God.
In closing on this, you have no case. Your mouth is closed before the Lord. Submit yourself to God.


But why pay attention to fallible people when you think you've got an infallible book?

Maybe b/c I love those fallible people? And b/c the infallible book told me to?
What am I listening to them FOR? You'd say I should go to them for EVERYthing. The Bible tells me to give TO them from the truth that God has already given. See how God would have us be generous, and on your view more selfish?


The tendency is to silence them by quoting chapter and verse: "It's (sic) says so here. It's never wrong. So you must be wrong. Now shut up."

Depends on what we're talking about. If this person wants to know the truth and the Scripture speaks to that issue, yes, God is right and you're wrong. You are obligated to agree, and furthermore, agreeing with God is right in and of itself. That doesn't mean I say "shut up" to people. I only say that to false teachers (much like Dr McGrath) and other destructive influences in the church who are willfully distorting the truth. Not to people who just have questions. And not on every question, either. The Bible allows for diversity of belief on many, many issues. Dr Reitan would lump all questions in under the same category, and he should know better.


the anguished cries of gays and lesbians who are excluded from full participation in the life of the community are ignored in favor of Romans 1:26-27.

And what of when the anguished cries of thieves and child molesters who are excluded from full participation in the life of the community are ignored in favor of Revelation 22:15? You would judge them?!?!?!?!
The church of Jesus Christ is for REPENTANT SINNERS, not unrepentant sinners who want to turn a nation to greater perversity and acceptance of sin. But see again how Dr Reitan is focusing on the loud, gay-agenda, "We're here, we're queer, get used to it" type crowd and ignoring the many homosexuals and former homosexuals in the world and in the US who neither want "civil rights" nor support the gay rights political agenda, nor want to destroy the institution of marriage for everyone else, nor even want to keep being homosexual. Doesn't mean they'll all be able to overcome their same-sex attraction, but it does mean they have actually repented of their sin.
Wow, imagine that - people who honestly and authentically realise they are sinful and bow the knee before a perfect Savior and His revelation.

Dr Reitan will never see that as long as he continues in his stubbornly unChristian views.

I'm a big meanie, or Priorities, people!

Well, the Internet hate for me is approaching white-hot levels since I dared tangle with the sacred cow of the large-university liberal religion professor (or is that professor of liberal religion?) a few days ago.
Credit where credit is due, first of all. McGrath declined to identify me by name (or handle) in his post on this incident. That's being a stand-up guy. I, also being a stand-up guy, have identified myself as the tattle tale, and this has led to a few humorous comments about my identity.
My favorite comes from the very rude blog of Dr Jim West, who first said this in the post:

I have no time for the coward, hiding, as he does, behind anonymity. I’ll not engage the person since it would be an utter waste of time.

Then, in the combox:
ashrebg Says:
Why is this guy a coward and NT Wrong a hero?

Jim West Says:
gee i dont recall ever saying wrong was a ‘hero’. as ive said now countless times, i know wrong. hence, he isnt anonymous.

NT Wrong is apparently a frequent commenter on West's blog. This is hypocrisy in action, absent a retraction from West. Dr McGrath knows my name, where I'm from, and other details such as the name of my church, and has had the decency not to broadcast such, just as I haven't broadcasted the name of his church or of his pastor. So he "knows" me. West castigates me for being anonymous (which I'm not, really), but gives a pass to his buddy NT Wrong b/c he knows him. I'm a coward; NT Wrong is alright.

Moving on, yesterday I had pressed a commenter hebrewandgreekreader to substantiate his accusations that I've been "unloving". He responded.
Before I take it point by point, let me register my vexation and naïve (by now) surprise at the screwed-up priorities exhibited by this commenter and by most others who have reacted to my actions toward Dr McGrath. Here we have a patent, obvious heretic and denier of the most central of definitive essentials of Christianity - the bodily resurrection of Christ - sitting in a position of authority and teaching in an ostensibly evangelical church. Apparently the widespread idea is that a Baptist Sunday School is better meant to be a weekly interfaith dialogue, the crunchy, flaky exterior of Baptist with a gooey, chewy Unitarian Universalist middle. So...one would certainly expect them to be open to Wiccan, Muslim, Hindu, Branch Davidian, Satanist, atheist, Moonie, and Mormon teachers too, right? Anything except a conservative Reformed teacher, no doubt.
The New Testament (and Old, now that I think about it) condemns such welcoming of wolves into the sheep pen in the strongest possible terms, and this blind, biblically illiterate church is letting it happen.
Finally on this point, Dr McGrath is bound for eternal condemnation as it stands now. Unless he repents of his sin and bows the knee to the biblical Jesus, "you will die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins" (John 8:24). And hebrewandgreekreader and the rest of these libs are concerned that I'm not being nice? Priorities, people!

On to his points:

"Turns out he is a typical liberal, substituting hand-waving and politically-correct bloviating for actual arguments." - If you've never met him, this is unfounded and rude.

I've met him...on his blog. Is the man not responsible for what appears on his blog, from his own keyboard? If you don't think I've fairly characterised his comments, can you explain his neglect of my actual questions?

"...requesting that he recognise that McGrath is a heretic who doesn't belong as a member of any church that claims to hold to the Bible as its final authority, let alone as a Sunday School teacher." - Again you've never met him and never sat in one of those classes.

I give Dr McGrath the benefit of the doubt, that he teaches and believes what he says on his blog. If the two are inconsistent, there's something perhaps even more problematic going on. I'm doing McGrath less a disservice than you are - I give him credit for meaning what he says, whereas I'm not at all sure you do.

"Boo-hoo; no doubt he wants us all to bear with him as he works them out, to come to an "honest" and "authentic" (to use the liberal buzzwords) faith." - This dismisses the liberal Christian view. It does not critically engage it. And again, just sounds rude.

It stands dismissed w/o substantive answers to the numerous questions I've been raising and which Dr McGrath did not interact, b/c liberalism is just plain silly and a clear ad hoc syncretism between Christianity and modern naturalism, and b/c it's indeed a different religion altogether, dishonestly attempting to veil itself in the veneer of Christianity, much like the Watchtower and the LDS Church. I certainly invite anyone to interact with them.
Did you know that Jesus was frequently rude to false teachers who kept up the veneer of true religion while denying its foundations? Let me commend Matthew 24 and John 5 to you, not to mention John 6.

"Sadly, he is most dangerous to the lemmings who should be sheep under a kindly and godly shepherd but whose ears are being tickled by this false teacher." - Not only have you once again said something rude about your brother (which 1 John doesn't like), but also his students, who are not lemmings. You should apologize to this class of people you've never met.

Dr McGrath is no brother in Christ. I've already asked this commenter at least once for an argument that McGrath is a Christian; I am still waiting.
His students are clearly lemmings, as they have not recognised the biblical teaching regarding their responsibilities towards false teachers and towards the church as a whole. The pastor stands chiefly condemned, sadly.

I'm glad your post ends with your wanting the best for them all, but following remarks like the ones I've noted, its hard to believe.

Perhaps b/c our priorities are different. I'm concerned with the state of their eternal souls, even it means I have to be a little harsh and blunt in the short-term. You're apparently more concerned that everyone play nice, even if it is with poison. You're a tool of political correctness in the church, ironically, I say, b/c you are probably also a proponent of church-state separation (I presume, perhaps wrongly).

It seems your greater problem is not with James, but the pastor who has him teach and those who sit in his class.

Absolutely right. The pastor stands condemned for his failure to lead his flock in truth and to exercise the church discipline he is clearly called to do on Dr McGrath and anyone else who stubbornly holds to heresy in the midst of his church. The case of the pastor is indeed the saddest of all.

Tattle-tale

I recently found myself on the blog of one Dr. James McGrath and found a topic worth discussing - whether the Bible is worth even paying any attention to if it is errant.
We had a discussion of decent length here, but he dropped out of it prematurely for whatever reason, without answering most of my questions, which is a shame.
Said questions included:
(link) How do we judge which parts are right and which are wrong?
(link) You seem to offer "wrestl(ing) with what is right and wrong" and "love for others and the Golden Rule" as the standard of comparison for knowing good and evil. But perhaps "love one another" is part of the UNinspired, errant text of the Bible? How would you know? How does "wrestle with it" give any guidance? I'm asking whether I'm right to do this or that - I'm looking for something external to myself. Does God speak with authority on right and wrong, or not?

(link)So, it looks like your answer to the question "How do I know which parts are good and which are bad?" is "wrestle with it, go with what is loving", more or less? How does this escape my charge of the elevation of yourself as authority over the Bible that I expressed in my previous comment?

(link) if I pick and choose what to believe and follow, I am de facto a higher authority than the Bible. Why even bother reading it?

(link) Again I ask what moral standard we should use to judge what God has said. Please supply it.

(link) The Bible says do this or that, you say no. It's as simple as that. I'm just wondering why you bother listening to the rest of it, or better yet, why you would cite it for any moral authority for some other question. Why not just cite yourself, since you know better?
Why follow Luke 14:33, and why cite it? Are you saying I *should* follow it? Why?

You get the idea. I invite anyone to read just how well Dr. McGrath interacted with these questions. Turns out he is a typical liberal, substituting hand-waving and politically-correct bloviating for actual arguments. Not that I expected anything different.
Anyway, I was dismayed to learn from his blog that he is a Sunday School teacher, and a friend pointed out to me which church he attends, a Baptist church whose statement of faith was quite short but also orthodox. In my experience, a short statement of faith is not ideal, but I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt.
Bottom line - Dr. McGrath denies the authority of Scripture, as should be clear from the above-cited thread. He denies the penal substitutionary atonement of Christ, for poorly thought-out reasons. Worst of all, he denies the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
I shouldn't have to point out 1 Corinthians 15:14-19, but I will:

...if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. ¹⁵Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. ¹⁶For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; ¹⁷and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. ¹⁸Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. ¹⁹If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.

There is no code here, no obscurity. Why would Dr. McGrath continue to hold to the label "Christian" AND deny the resurrection, given what Paul says here? It's because he is committed to the authority of himself to pick and choose as he likes. He has no great need to be consistent with himself, and that's why he wouldn't answer my questions.

I emailed some of my concerns to the pastor of the church Dr. McGrath attends, requesting that he recognise that McGrath is a heretic who doesn't belong as a member of any church that claims to hold to the Bible as its final authority, let alone as a Sunday School teacher. I was and remain concerned for the class he teaches and the church as a whole. One day later, the pastor emailed me a courteous and pitiful reply, informing me that he was taking all this under "serious consideration" and he was "sure that you understand the strength of the Baptist faith in its diversity of beliefs and practices" and promising to discuss this with Dr. McGrath. Sigh. Of course, glaringly absent was any "Oh my gosh! We'll DEFINITELY be asking him to repent, for his own good, removing him from his post immediately for his own good and the good of the class, and we'll be exercising church discipline on him in the hopes that he will repent of his sin and unbelief."

Yesterday Dr. McGrath posted a complaint about my actions. A brief look at one quote from the post:

Such concerns often lead doubts to be denied publicly, perhaps even denied to ourselves. In such circumstances, being a Christian often becomes a matter of appearance, of pretending to be more certain than one really is, or simply refusing to ask certain kinds of questions.

We're talking about a guy with a Ph.D in religion-related fields who is teaching Sunday School to a group of people in an allegedly-evangelical church. And he has "doubts". Boo-hoo; no doubt he wants us all to bear with him as he works them out, to come to an "honest" and "authentic" (to use the liberal buzzwords) faith. But he wants to be a teacher to others while he does so.
A few passages come to mind:
Romans 2: ¹⁷But if you bear the name "Jew" (or "professor of religion and Sunday School teacher in a Baptist church) and rely upon the Law and boast in God, ¹⁸and know His will and approve the things that are essential, being instructed out of the Law, ¹⁹and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, ²⁰a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth, ²¹you, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one shall not steal, do you steal? ²²You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? ²³You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God? ²⁴For "THE NAME OF GOD IS BLASPHEMED AMONG THE GENTILES BECAUSE OF YOU," just as it is written.

Matthew 15: ¹³He replied, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. ¹⁴Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit."

Maybe in HIS church, they don't ask questions. Maybe he could do that as a guest, not a member, and for sure not a teacher. In my church, we ask all kinds of questions, and answer all kinds as well. We host atheist organisations for atheist-theist debates, we bring in ID-evolution debates, we go out on campus for anti-baby-murder educational exhibits. Perhaps McGrath would like us better if we just asked his kinds of questions, and answered them only the way he would like us to. Yeah, that's my guess too.

Also from him:

A conservative blog recently described me as "dangerous"

Just for the record, I can't take credit for that, but I certainly agree. Sadly, he is most dangerous to the lemmings who should be sheep under a kindly and godly shepherd but whose ears are being tickled by this false teacher.

Moving on, what cracks me up the most is the other blogposts tracking back to that post, like #1, #2, and #3.
I love it - I'm some nobody blogger from flyover country, and I'm the "Thought Police"!
Let's take a look at this frothing from the mouth of #2.
-I'm a "cowardly offender who believes himself to be the thought police, and justified in reporting McGrath’s wicked views to his poor unsuspecting Parson."
I am a concerned observer, concerned for the pastor's church. The ideal situation is for the pastor to realise what's going on and discipline McGrath, and that McGrath would repent and be saved. I want the best for them all.

- "Shut up."
Mmm, nah.

-"it’s none of your business what McGrath blogs. Ever heard of freedom of speech? Or (as James pointed out) has it ever occurred to you that his Pastor already reads James’s blog?"
Of course it's my business - it's a public blog. And do you see me asking Blogger to shut his blog down? Or siccing the ACLU on him? Of course not. Rather, I'm concerned that the name of Christ and His church may be pure and unequivocally defined. I want this church to be holier than it is, the same as I want for my own church. And I couldn't believe that his pastor reads his blog, but maybe he just skimmed it sometimes, maybe he needed a wake-up call, maybe he didn't read it recently. I didn't know. Why would Dr. McGrath object (for the record, he never did so) to my contacting his pastor? All his thoughts are out there for the world to see.

-"to ‘report’ him to his Pastor is just the most droll sort of childishness I’ve ever heard of... what did you hope to accomplish?"
See above.

-"Shame on this transgressor. He or she should consider him or herself anathematized."
So now I'm a transgressor. Looks like I'm too intolerant for this author, but it's OK to be intolerant of me. McGrath denies the resurrection of Christ, I tattled on him to the pastor, and I'm the one guilty of an excommunicable offense. Not only did this lib forget his own talking points when convenient, he needs a little priority adjustment.

Finally, #1 accuses me of wrongfully sending an anonymous hit-piece. Not so, I post under the same handle as is my email address. There could be no doubt who I was. What would have been cowardly would be to create a false email address - ilikejesus452w9380438590845@hotmail.com or something - and send the message that way.

Liberal tolerance at its finest.

EvilBible.com Project, Part 1, Addendum

Fellow EB.com critic Vox Veritatis had this to say about the last post, and it's quite good.

However, at some point, I think that we should go one step beyond saying that all men are sinners and deserving of death, to stating that it is a wonder that any of us have lived past our first breath out of the womb. The atheistic presupposition is that man is good and that God is unjust to take his life (through whatever means). The Biblical position is that as sinful human beings, we are all deserving of death. Given this, why hasn't God taken our lives already?

Thus, if we insist on pressing this antithesis, instead of merely trying to defend God against charges of evil and injustice (and stopping there), we then seek to understand and explain His mercy and His apparent delay of justice upon us. Not only does this leave the atheist totally without grounds to accuse God of injustice (on Biblical grounds), this also leads naturally into the Gospel.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's good (and necessary) to show that the atheist is unfounded in accusing God of injustice. However, I don't think that we've done all that we can if we stop here, having won the defensive battle, and not having taken the offense. I think, to be glorifying to God, we need to take the next step and ask why God hasn't executed His judgment upon us already, and when we do that, not only do we see God as merely not evil, but we also see Him as infinitely merciful, loving, and good. Furthermore, we see His justice and mercy combined at the cross, so that God is both fully just and infinitely merciful in forgiving us of our sins. I don't know of any better way to glorify God while refuting the pretensions of unbelievers, with respect to issues of God's justice, goodness, and morality.

The EvilBible.com Project, Part 1 - Murder in the Bible

I was recently contacted by Mariano of AtheismIsDead with the proposal of correcting evilbible.com in conjunction with a group of bloggers. Sounded like fun, so here we are.
See also the other posts so far in the series:
-Atheism, the Bible, Rape, EvilBible.com and Dan Barker, part 1 of 6
-The Impossibility of God, Part I: Prolegomena

My contribution to the project begins with the page Murder in the Bible.
Obviously, a site named EvilBible intends to discuss moral value judgments. And the author is apparently an atheist. Thus it comes as little surprise how the author (apparently a woman named Chris "Ali Baba" Thiefe) casts the issue in objecting to alleged murders that take place in the Bible.

After reading much on this site, it becomes readily apparent that most or even virtually all of the complaints against the Bible are emotionally-driven. No effort is made to ground an atheistic theory of morality that could enable someone to apply a meaningful label of "good" or "evil" to an action or thought. It really seems that EB.com is more like a (crappy, selective, and poorly-done) information service than a serious attempt to build a case against the Bible. In that, it is not any different from several dozen other antitheistic websites out there.

One example is when EB says:
In much of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, there are laws that command that people be killed for absurd reasons

Is the definition of "absurd" given anywhere on the page? No.
On the home page? No.
On the About EvilBible.com page? No.
It's just simply absurd; no other explanation is apparently required. So...am I supposed to be impressed or distressed b/c Ali Baba thinks the reasons are absurd? You know what they say about naked assertions.
How about the definition of "murder"? That would seem to be a good place to start. Yet no attempt is made to define even that. This is pretty shoddy, pretty clumsy. I suppose one is free to make up one's own definition. Fortunately, I've got one - Murder is the unjustified taking of human life. As every man, woman, and child is sinful and bears the guilt of the sin of Adam, all are subject to the death penalty. This includes the various peoples of Canaan, whom God commanded the OT Hebrews to put to death after hundreds of years of giving them time to repent of their perversions. This includes the millions of babies that die every year in the womb (re: Sam Harris' correct and yet wrongheaded and amazingly morally blind assertion that God is the greatest living abortionist). God is fully justified in putting anyone to death at any time thru any manner or agency He chooses.
Absent an argument to the contrary, EB.com's assertion that the Bible commends murder is already defeated. And as the archives of this blog alone will attest, even if EB.com's authors were to muster an argument for their definitions of absurd and murder, etc, the chances are pretty good that said argument would be seriously faulty and arbitrary.
Finally, how often does EB.com offer the context of these passages? Hint: It rhymes with "never", revealing that EB.com is merely an exercise in intellectual dishonesty. After all, Ali Baba herself, on her own webpages, says: "I...say...cursed be he...who...does not...murder...people." What more proof of Ali Baba's guilt do we need? I'll call the police.

Now, just for the purpose of piling more dirt on EB.com's face, let me take their points one by one and offer more explanation. I will also offer corrected subtitles where helpful and relevant.

Under 1) Capital Punishment Crimes, EB.com gives us a list of, well, crimes for which the death penalty is prescribed.
I suppose EB.com is against the death penalty? We are not told, but the point is that each one of these offenses is a violation of the law of the land. And it's not just these reasons that warrant the death penalty, you know. Murder was also a capital crime in OT Israel. I don't, however, see that mentioned in this list of "absurd" reasons for capital punishment. Why? Presumably EB.com considers 1st-degree murder a justifiable reason for the state's putting someone to death, but I'm just guessing b/c we are not told.
EB.com here is meddling in the affairs of another country, calling it names such as "absurd". EB.com is guilty of anachronistic judgment, committing the thoughtcrime of temporalethnocentrism. One wonders whether EB.com supports the US' actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, where one country is meddling in the laws of another.
The one exception in this section is Romans 1:24-32, with the subtitle "Infidels and Gays Should Die". EB.com is apparently totally unaware of the difference between DEscriptive and PREscriptive text. In this case, the text is DEscribing what is happening to certain members of unrepentant humanity due to God's judgment on them. There is no "Go and do this or that" type of command here. Further, the death penalty mentioned here is not loss of one's physical life but rather an emphasis on their state of spiritual death (which is, incidentally, a much more serious condition than physical death). A better subtitle - "Infidels and Gays Will Die, Unless They Repent, Just Like All Other Sinners."


Under 2) God's Murders for Stupid Reasons:
"Kill Brats" - Once again, EB.com displays ignorance that this is a historical acct, not a prescriptive set of commands. These "children" were actually more like a gang of teenagers, who were threatening Elisha the prophet, shouting in effect, "Elijah went up with you to the mountain and didn't come back. Why don't you go on back too and not come back?" They are wishing death upon a servant of God, rebelling against God's authority on Earth. Finally *God* sends the bears, not Elisha. A better subtitle - "God Kills Rebellious Teen Gang Who Had Committed Assault".

"God Kills the Curious" - The Ark had just been returned to Israel from enemy captivity, and Israelites knew or should have known the law for the treatment of the Ark. They broke the law and thus committed a capital crime, and their punishment showed that God takes reverence of Him very seriously. Does Ali Baba think ignorance of the law is a good excuse for breaking it?
This blasphemous action followed worship: "The people chopped up the wood of the cart and sacrificed the cows as a burnt offering to the LORD." v. 14. Indeed they should have known better, and they learned their lesson - The people mourned because of the heavy blow the LORD had dealt them, 20 and the men of Beth Shemesh asked, "Who can stand in the presence of the LORD, this holy God? To whom will the ark go up from here?" v. 20. A better subtitle - "God Kills the Sinfully Curious Blasphemers".

"Killed by a Lion" - I've always found the "school of prophets" and unnamed "men of God" and prophets wandering around Israel and Judah during the times of 1 Samuel - 2 Kings pretty fascinating, but the OT doesn't give a lot of info about their identity or grouping or anything. However, why assume this is an absurd reason? Why not consider that these 2 guys very possibly knew each other and/or that prophets were generally known? Why disobey the voice of a prophet, which was tantamount to disobeying the very voice of God? Murdering someone else is disobedience to the Law, which came directly from God - so the instructions of a prophet.

"Killing the Good Samaritan" - God had given very specific instructions on how to transport the Ark of the Covenant - carried by men with poles, a reverent procession, etc. These men had forgotten the holiness of God and were transporting the Ark on an oxcart, and when it was in danger of tipping over (b/c it wasn't carried by men as God had instructed), God decided to let His displeasure with the disobedience be known. A better subtitle - "God Punishes the Disobedient to Reiterate His Holiness".


Under 3) Murdering Children:
Most of these items are prophecies of the coming Babylonian destruction of Judah, if I'm not mistaken. The Babylonians were the tool God used to punish Judah for its 100s of years of extreme disobedience and blasphemy and idolatry, much like He had used Joshua-era Israel to punish Canaan for the same thing. Read Samuel, Kings and Chronicles with the heart of a Christian and you'll find yourself amazed at God's patience, that He let things go on like that for so very long. Of course, if He had intervened quickly, Ali Baba would no doubt be complaining that God didn't give them a chance to set things right. There's no pleasing people like EB.com's authors.

"God Kills all the First Born of Egypt" - Perhaps Ali Baba missed the preceding events, the 400 years of brutal slavery, the unwillingness to let Israel worship God despite pleas for simple humanity's sake as well as 9 supernatural plagues, etc.
Further, God expressly said that He wanted to humble mighty and mightily-blasphemous Egypt under His hand to glorify His name to everyone who would hear of these events. In doing so, He explicitly put the smackdown on Egyptian pagan (and false) deities - the river god, the sun god, fertility god, etc, not to mention the considered-divine Pharaoh.

"God Will Kill the Children of Sinners" - A warning of God's chastening punishment if Israel were to go astray from their covenant with God. Now, I love my children, so it's really kind of amazing to me that Israel would so easily neglect her covenant with God. Sin is a powerful and horrible thing.


Under 4) Miscellaneous Murders:
"More of Samson's Murders" - Israel and Philistia were at war. Does Ali Baba object to war, I guess?
"The Angel of Death" - Israel and Assyria were at war. People were starving inside Jerusalem b/c of the siege of the army camped outside its wall. Ali Baba wouldn't know this, however, b/c I can't believe that she actually did read this psg.

"Peter Kills Two People" - I missed where the text says, "And Peter swung his sword and decapitated Ananias." These people had sold their property and given what they claimed was the full price to the church, thus lying, probably in order to gain a good reputation. This is the first sin in the church of Jesus Christ, and God showed how seriously He takes sin by putting them to death when they continued unrepentant in their sin. And let us remember that, if they truly had faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, they were taken immediately to Heaven - not a bad fate. If not, they were sinful interlopers in the Body of Christ, a serious offense. A better subtitle - "God Kills Two People in the Act of Sin to Protect His Church".

"Mass Murder" - God had given the Canaanites 100s of years to repent of their sin and idolatry and His patience eventually reached its limit.
Further, it's not like this is a problem under an evolutionary atheistic worldview! The Amalekites did lose the battle - obviously they were not sufficiently fit to survive in this cruel, nasty, brutish world. Sometimes unfit and backwards civilisations die off. Why is a moral problem for ascribing blame when it's a people group that does the killing, versus a slower, more gradual process as, say, the Anasazi or Cro-Magnon man or something? I don't see Ali Baba blaming Mammy Nature or Papa Darwin for murder.

"Kill Your Neighbors" - Neighbors who had been encamped at the foot of a mountain covered by the cloud of glory from the Lord, and they were making a golden calf and then engaging in an orgy while Moses was at the peak. Sometimes you need extreme measures to get people's attention.

"Kill the Family of Sinners" - Achan had explicitly disobeyed the direct command of God not to take any booty from Jericho. This cost Israel several dozen lives and a military defeat.

"Kill Followers of Other Religions", "Murder" - Idolatry was a capital offense in OT Israel. This is the death penalty.

"Kill All of Babylon" - A prophecy of God's sending Persia to punish Babylon for its idolatry, evil, and bloodthirsty actions. See comments about the Amalekites above.

"Micah Kills a Whole Town" - Ali Baba says, "(Note that God approves of this slaughter in verse 6.)".
V 6 - The priest answered them, "Go in peace. Your journey has the LORD's approval."
Yes, their journey had the Lord's approval. I missed where in the text their subsequent violent actions had the Lord's approval. Maybe EB.com could cite said approval in its 2nd edition.


So, the whole of the page examined, and not even one psg stands up to even elementary scrutiny. An exercise in futility, really, but it's hard to believe that the author is putting forth a serious effort. However, given the caliber of Internet atheist commenters I've seen in places even as well-known as ERV, I guess it shouldn't surprise me that much.

BEAR 3 - Assume you are a better designer

(What is BEAR?)

Our third installment comes in the form of a response to the contention that an intelligent designer is the best explanation for the life we see today.

ID person: "A designer is the best explanation, blah blah blah..."

Evolutionist type: "But if a designer did all this, then what about the poor design of the _____? Why did(n't) God the Designer do what any human engineer would have done, and ... the ... ?"

A few responses to this:
1) If naturalism is true, to precisely what standard, what teleology, do you compare this? There is no designer, therefore no design. There is no "good" design and therefore no "bad" design. If the designer had _____-ed the _____, who are you to dictate that that would definitely be better than the way it is now?

2) And so what if there exists some "appearance of design"? It's all in your imagination, because it WASN'T designed.

3) Maybe the designer tried really hard and managed to design life more or less as it is but couldn't get all the minutiæ down pat, like he wanted. Consider this the counterpart argument to the Flying Spaghetti Monster - no one believes it, but it's conceivable, a thought experiment.

4) Maybe the designer just didn't design it like you would have, bottom line. Why should anyone think that even your "new and improved" design would be preferable to the designer's? What was the designer trying to accomplish? You don't know, so how can you assume you know how to make the organism better?
It would reduce pain or discomfort, you say? It would help it run faster so it could escape predators? It would allow every member of the species to obtain and maintain a Swiss bank account in the millions of dollars? How do you know that's better? Why should anyone think your vision of the way the world should be is to be accepted by anyone else? You're into ToE, which posits death and genetic mistakes as two of the main driving forces of the mechanism, and you're all of a sudden into how awesome life is and better genes are?

5) In every design, there are trade-offs. My eyes can see a large cone of the 180º of sight available from the front of my head. Maybe my eyes could be moved further to the sides of my head, but then I'd lose out on focus and have to cross my eyes all the time.
Maybe I could have been made with wings, or gills, as John Loftus sorta-famously suggested. But then I'd have to have the musculature and different skeletal structure to support the wings, and different lungs to work with the gills. And those would be subject to different strains, sprains, and breakages. The different lungs would be subject to all sorts of other diseases, from parasites and different germs floating around in the water I'd breathed in. And then these skeptics would complain about THOSE, no doubt - there just can't be a designer b/c he forgot to make us immune to these diseases, these sprains, these bruises.
Would they ever stop complaining until they were made like God? No, and then they'd no doubt complain that they were still subordinate to God.

6) You think you're such a big hotshot and you could do it better? Do it.
Create one single-celled organism out of dust.
...
Then, before you break out the bubbly, get your own dust and do it again.

This anthropocentric hubris is sad and funny at the same time. These people claim to be so focused on the empirical and the reasonable, the observed, and here they are poking fun at God, acting like they could do better. How do they know they could do better? Sure, humanity has been able to make TVs that last for years. But many decades? Hard drives, which sometimes fail catastrophically right out of the box. Space shuttles and lunar craft and space robots, which have a fairly high failure rate as well. Obviously, humanity has invented and done many amazing things, but no one is perfect and no one has ever made anything that is perfect. And no human has ever created an organism! These armchair critics are apparently only interested in throwing rocks and mockery, but they've never even gotten close to this accomplishment, nor can they even bear to give credit where it is due.

7) In reality, God created the world good. What everyone always forgets is that after Genesis 1&2 comes Genesis 3 and the fall of man. Sin has a very powerful and deleterious effect on the entire world, and God's perfect design has become imperfect because of sin in the world. God will redeem the world and make it perfect again, but not yet. Skeptics conveniently and frequently forget Christianity's doctrine of the fall when it comes to these arguments.

The Atheist Experience forgets their talking points

I've listened on occasion to the Atheist Experience podcast. For me it's about as easy to listen to as I expect the Bible Answer Man is for an atheist (not that I'm a big BAM fan), only less well-produced and with (mercifully) far fewer commercials and requests to buy Hank's latest book. It can get a bit repetitive, but recently they took a turn for the entertaining when Matt Slick of CARM.org decided to give them a call. I've long considered giving them a call myself but have always been too lazy. Matt Slick's a decent pinch hitter. ;-)

He called their show twice, on 15Feb09 and then again on 22Feb to continue the conversation, and they discussed the 2nd time for a good 45 minutes with one of the hosts Matt Dillahunty. These two dialogues have made some hay in the blogosphere and I won't attempt to track it all down now, but the AthExp blog around that time is a good place to start.
The topic of each dialogue was the Transcendental Argument for God, Slick's version of which is found here.
Now, the way Slick typically (in live format) goes about laying out the TAG is a bit strange to me, given that he relies heavily on the concept->mind linkage, but perhaps he finds it successful and probably he's far more well-read and experienced in such things than I. At any rate, it seemed to come to a head in a more effective way with Dillahunty than it previously had with other atheists I'd heard, possibly b/c Dillahunty is sharp and was fair, and Slick didn't waste a bunch of time as he often does complaining about being interrupted all the time.

I recommend starting to listen to the 22Feb show around minute 57 or so, b/c they did go around in circles a bit, Slick having insisted they are conceptual, Dillahunty denying such. 59:04, Slick seizes upon Dillahunty's clear laying out of his idea the nature of logic's existence:
"Logic is purely conceptual and is contingent upon a mind to use...They (the laws of logic) don't depend on anything...Reality depends upon them."
Slick: "You said they're non-physical. So what other options are there?"
Dillahunty: "I don't know."
Slick (and me, in my mind): "[[snicker]] You don't *know*?"
Dillahunty: "They're abstract. They're abstract."
Dillahunty continued: "This is one of the things I find most laughable about apologists and I won't even ask for you to not take this personally. Once again you get to this point where "I don't know" is such a bafflingly unacceptable answer to you. This is the colossal arrogance of the theist position, that they're unable to say 'I don't know, maybe we'll find out someday'. And instead of accepting an 'I don't know', they just go ahead and leap to the first thing that seems most reasonable to them."

Dillahunty continues, saying that this would take us to the point of having to consider all the other possibilities and rule them out, but that's obviously not going to help.
Slick (and again, I in my mind) says: "I'd like that." Zing!
Dillahunty retreats to the "Well, prove to me God exists, without a fallacy."
Slick continues to ask for a 3rd option. Dillahunty won't even attempt it!

Anyway, I recommend you listen at least from minute 55 or so of that 22Feb show. It's well worth it to listen to Dillahunty squirm and then act like it's no big deal that he doesn't understand that a request for a 3rd option is perfectly legitimate if one rules out the physical and the conceptual. Dillahunty wants to keep it at "non-conceptual", but how is that very helpful? He's just hoping that his self-enforced agnosticism will let him off the hook with his listeners. Fail.

This brings me to an interesting realisation - often atheists will question me "What is God? Describe His nature." Gordon Stein did it (and was subsequently famously dissected) during the Bahnsen-Stein debate. Dan Barker loves to insist that "God is Spirit" is totally unacceptable, since we have no concept of what "spirit" is. TracieH of the AthExp, who was herself on the air during these same shows, recently raised similar questions.
Right back at you, I will now respond to my atheist interlocutor(s). The well-known Atheist Experience apparently thinks "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable answer to the question of the nature of the laws of logic. But it's a big victory for atheism if you don't understand the concept when we tell you the nature of God? I mean, this is one of the things I find most laughable about atheists and I won't even ask for you to not take this personally. Once again you get to this point where "I don't know" is such a bafflingly unacceptable answer to you. This is the colossal arrogance of the atheist position, that they're unable to say 'I don't know, maybe we'll find out someday'. And instead of accepting an 'I don't know', they just go ahead and leap to the first thing that seems most reasonable to them. Cheers.

My 2nd encounter with ERV

I attended a debate this past Thursday between ERV and one Dr Charles Jackson because I spotted it on ERV. And of course, since I'm a creotard and a Trinity spawn, I thought it would be a good time. The topic was: “Does Molecular Genetics Support Human Evolution?” and it took place at a local evangelical church (or at least I'm pretty sure it's like an evangelical Bible church).

A few impressions:
-Charles Jackson is kind of a weird guy, but oh well. I would imagine extended exposure to studying these topics might mess one up a bit. I can feel it creeping into my own psyche as well. Plus, I can't say that any YEC creation-scientist type has ever come across to me as what I'd call "normal", for better or worse.
-ERV herself, in person, is quite personable, even courteous, even friendly. I have never, ever met someone whose online persona differs more from their real-life persona than ERV's does. It is absolutely amazing - one would never expect that the person who appeared at the debate was the same person who blogs at ERV. I can't help but ascribe that to a fair amount of intellectual dishonesty, really. I admit that I'm bolder behind the keyboard than I am in real life, but not much, and part of the difference in tone is the lack of vocal nuance and body language, etc, that is invisible through a screen.
-The initial presentations from both sides were garbage. Each side made, as far as I could tell, precisely 1 ½ points. I didn't know what to expect from Jackson; to be honest, I expected a bit of a Kent Hovind type. I suppose he fit that sort of, but Hovind is at least far slicker in his presentations. The weird thing is that ERV had a, if you will, captive audience, and 20 whole minutes to make her case to a group of fundies, myself, Vox Veritatis, and 2 other Bible-thumper friends included. ERV used perhaps 13 minutes of her initial presentation, and the main point (illustrated through an exposition of her research of endogenous retroviruses and suchlike) was "The genetic differences we see only make sense in an evolutionary paradigm." That's it? Really? Out of the mountains upon mountains of evidence you allegedly have, you were able to pare it down to that?
-The moderation was nonexistent, and that ended up being a good thing, because the structure was: 20 min initial presentation, 10 min rebuttal, audience Q&A. No cross-ex, which is the heart and soul of any good debate. But since the format was pretty open and audience members felt the freedom to stand up and speak to the debaters, which happened occasionally but not overwhelmingly, and since there was no time limit fixed, the debaters interacted sometimes with audience members and increasingly with each other as well. The nearly 2-hour Q&A period was thus by far the most enjoyable part of the debate. Jackson shined in this interaction period, repeatedly overturning points from ERV and even surprising me by shutting down an audience member with whom I'm quite familiar on a fairly obscure point about the Permian extinction or something. He didn't win them all, far from it, but he did far better than I'd expected and easily won the debate.
-Jackson is very evidentialist in his apologetic orientation. Numerous times my friends and I would feel him closing in on a great point and would prepare for jubilation as he closed the noose...only to lapse back into frustration as he veered aside from the jugular to snarl and tear at the opponent's shinbone again. Too bad.

I was able to ask ERV a set of questions not too far into the Q&A session. I know that live Q&A in debates like this generally turn to irrelevant and emotional diatribes, so I resolved to stick to the topic at hand and got my chance when ERV made her "The genetic differences we see only make sense in an evolutionary paradigm" point.
First question: I repeated her point back to her, then asked her to consider a different paradigm in which God created the world and humans good, but then humans fell into sin. Sin has a seriously deleterious (noetic) effect on the world as well as humans and leads to bad mutations, death, etc. Thus these genetic differences are accounted for by God's design and the subsequent effects of sin.
ERV responded that she agreed - that would account for the genetic differences.
What I should have then said was, "So, given that this was your main point and that you concede it, do you concede the debate?"
Without the audio of the debate, however, I can't recall exactly what occurred in between, unfortunately (edit: See the interaction here). It ended, however, by ERV saying something about not being able to take the miraculous or supernatural (or sthg like that) into acct in actual research in the lab.
I then said "Thank you. Final question, then - would you say that you have an a priori commitment to naturalism?" and gave the mic to someone else. She responded in a way that made me want to grab the mic back, actually - "Well, of course - in the lab I have to follow the evidence". (Edit: Apparently, some don't hear her answer that way, and I can kind of see where they're coming from, enough to concede partly that there's a good chance I heard wrong. See this comment for more information.) This doesn't answer the question at all, but it was a cute sidestep. Had I had the chance, I would have continued, "Oh, what is your evidence for naturalism?" and had a good time that way, but it was not to be. Again, too bad.

Further comment from me is found here.