More on icons

I was recently asked by email: I was wondering what you believe concerning "art" that attempts to represent "Christ" and God. Is such art idolatrous?

It depends. Either way, I think the question of icons and art must be parsed carefully.
1) On the one hand we ask whether it's permissible to have icons, even icons in the church but placed outside the sanctuary/room of worship, that do NOT represent Christ or God. Say they represent saints who have gone before. John Chrysostom, Charles Spurgeon, John Calvin, Athanasius, etc. Just by themselves, what would be the problem? I can't see one.

2) What if they're IN the room of worship? Again, I personally don't see a problem. Of course, at some point Roman 14 and 1 Corinthians 8 ('the weaker brother') come into play, but I'm assuming there are none such present.

3) The problem comes when religious practices of devotion and piety are conducted towards said icons. I don't care what our Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox friends say about not praying TO the icons. When someone lights a candle in front of an icon, kneels before the icon, prostrates himself before the icon, prays to(wards) the icon, how is it not worshipful devotion?

4) The problem is greatly worsened when the wrongheaded and foolish idea of praying to someone other than God is introduced, virtually always in conjunction with the presence of an icon or statue. This is adding a mediator (in RC theology) between man and Jesus and therefore between God and man in violation of 1 Timothy 2:5. And this is where idolatry really comes into play, for religious practices of devotion and piety are given to persons who are not God. God alone deserves such practices; no person does.

5) And remember, these people are DEAD. There are multiple biblical injunctions against calling up the dead, such as Isaiah 8:19-20, Deut 18:10-12, etc. I don't see a problem thinking that the dead can and maybe do pray for us, but it does not follow that we can or should contact them and ask for that. We're not supposed to talk to the dead. Talk to God.

6) Now, the question of having an icon of Christ...you know, I don't see why not (at least right now, but I'm open to convincing the other way), to be honest. He was incarnate in flesh, after all, so He was tangible, visible, etc. What might be wrong with depicting Him in His incarnation?

7) Whether we should have an icon of the Father, I'd have to say no way. Unfortunately, some EOdox and RC icons do represent the Father, which is a huge mistake.

Now, as regards the history of iconoclasts/iconodules, I don't know a ton. I do know that asking an EO about the iconoclastic Council of Hieria of 754 is always a good starting point - why is it not an Ecumenical Council while the iconodule 2nd Council of Constantinople is? The only answer I have seen is "The Church says the former isn't and the latter is", which is highly instructive in and of itself.
An interesting interaction on the topic recently took place here. See this post (where the question is asked), the one right above where it's answered, and this post, where it's gone over again.

Finally, I'll forestall a couple of possible objections.
3) It's not latria, it's dulia.

Here are some instructive articles on the topic.

The long and short of my response:
-In the OT LXX, the phrase "worship and serve" occurs many times, and is translated from "douleo" and "latreuo" (or sthg like that). They are very often in conjunction with each other.
-Sometimes they are even juxtaposed within the same thought, demonstrating that they are similar ideas.
-Thus it is unbiblical to create an artificial distinction between them, even less to ignore biblical revelation for the sake of human traditions (Mark 7:1-13).
-Scenario: an Israelite has been calling up a dead believing ancestor and has been caught and brought before Moses for judgment.
His defense: I was dulia-ing my ancestor, not latria-ing him.
Is it your position that he would be exonerated? Should he be?

4) Are you saying you never ask anyone to pray for you? Wouldn't that be mediation?

-I fail to see how they're the same. In RC doctrine, these mediators dispense grace and merit. My friends don't; they just pray for me.
-They're also seen in many circles as preferable to ask for spiritual help rather than Jesus. Amazing.

5) "God is the god of the living, not the dead". There is but a thin veil between the living and the dead. You ask your living brethren in Christ to intercede for you; why not your dead ones?

-When I ask someone to pray for me who's alive, I ask him.
-When you ask a dead person to pray for you, you light candles, kneel and prostrate yourself before an icon, kiss the icon, burn incense, and pray at the icon. These are worshipful actions.
-Hopefully, you never pray silently and expect them to hear you, lest you think they are endowed upon death with the powers of telepathy.
-I challenge you: next time you want your church family to pray for you, make an icon of them, put it in the church, then do all the things you normally do when you ask St. Athanasius, for example, to intercede for you. But don't TELL them face to face; since your challenge is that it's the same, let it be the same.
-Scenario: an Israelite has been calling up a dead believing ancestor and has been caught and brought before Moses for judgment.
His defense: God is the god of the living, not the dead.
Is it your position that he would be exonerated? Should he be?


7) But the Father was revealed in Christ.

-But I already said that I don't know of a problem (yet) with an icon of Christ, so have an icon of Christ.
-The Father dwells in unapproachable light (1 Timothy 6); there is no way to depict such.

Alors là, j'ai beaucoup rigolé

Merci Olivia!
I laughed a lot when I saw this.

An independent thought about God

The previously-mentioned email correspondent asked me another question. This goes into a bit of my personal history of thought, but I shamelessly lay it out before you, my faithful trio of readers.

Question: Since you became a Christian, have you ever had a totally independent thought about God, Jesus, the Holy Ghost, the Trinity, Satan, evil, good, Heaven, or Hell? If so, what do you consider the most salient one?

Answer:
First, a disclaimer - No one ever has any independent thoughts about anything, so strictly speaking, the answer is no. We are either controlled by evil (an oligarchy of the flesh, the devil, and the world) or by the Holy Spirit.

That's probably not what you meant, though, so I'll address this on a more colloquial level.
2 things come immediately to mind, and maybe more will occur before I finish writing this.

1) Earlier in my walk with God, I believed that God *would* without fail make sure that I understood theological truths about Him and about the Scripture (specifically, on whether it is justifiable to claim the spiritual gift of speaking in tongues, or glossolalia) based simply on the fact that I had prayed (and very earnestly, no lie) that He would lead me into these truths b/c, as I would tell people, "Why would God lie to me?"
What I forgot was, of course, that God has no obligation and has made no promise to telepathically reveal all theological truth on any given question based on even an earnest prayer. I can think of several reasons why, but at the time that didn't occur to me.
God used His Scripture (as He usually does) to shepherd me to a better understanding of this issue so that, after about 10 months of struggling with this issue, I realised that I had never observed nor performed speaking in tongues in a biblically-supportable way.

2) A little later, I think I came to a much fuller-than-it-previously-had-been realisation of the horror of Hell. It occurred to me that Jesus Christ, while He lived ~30 years as a human and suffered all our weaknesses, died for us, rose again as the 1st glorified human, etc, He had never gone to hell. How, then, I thought, could we say that God's been everywhere we've gone? Hell is SO horrible and SO eternal! How could it be eternal?
Many answers presented themselves to me. I find them fully intellectually satisfying and for the most part satisfying to my heart, but the horror of hell remains. It's a similar horror to the one I sometimes encounter when I talk to atheists. Specifically, sometimes the subject of morality is broached, in similar manner to the one in which you have broached it with me. I respond in the same way in which I respond to you. The wrangling then proceeds to the point that I sometimes ask them if they can unequivocally, rationally say "Hitler was in the moral wrong to murder 6 million Jews". A few times, these atheists have revealed that they are far more consistent than others with their own position: "No, what he did was right for him but wrong for me."
Therein lies the complete abdication of any possibility of any moral judgment at all. And this event is only 60 years removed from now!
The upshot is that this question is already academic for them - they have NEVER seen horror. The stacks of bodies they've seen in grainy photos are simply statistics, not humans with families, friends, and dreams. They pale in color and passion to the heroes and villains they see blown away on a daily basis on TV and video games. But I struggle and strive to remain cognizant of the horror of evil, and I express that in part by eschewing and even shooting down the occasional "Jew in the oven" joke or "heil Hitler" joke I hear.
THAT is the horror I mean.
Ironically, this is precisely one of the answers to the question. How evil is evil? Well, it's terribly, horribly evil. Justice demands punition of evil, and that's Hell. Evil is so evil it must be destroyed without question.
Other aspects to it:
-Sartre's comment that the door to hell is locked from the inside and related thoughts.
-The Bible doesn't say who torments the damned; it just says they are tormented. I think it's quite reasonable to believe that the damned, deprived even of God's common grace, will torment and tear each other to pieces for eternity, thus incurring eternally continuing sin and justifying their eternal punishment.
-The damned knew, in life, that God exists and that they are lawbreakers and yet rejected Him anyway. Why would God bring them to heaven against their will? CS Lewis said: "There are 2 kinds of people: Those who say to God 'Thy will be done' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'THY will be done.'"

Doug Pagitt is amazing

I was just listening to Todd Friel of Way of the Master Radio, interviewing Emergent Doug Pagitt.
I invite you to listen to this conversation as well (only the 1st 20 minutes are Todd and Doug) and it is nothing short of amazing. It's why I just...can't...take...the Emergents. Dave Parker is just an exemplar, and he's not the worst of the bunch. May God have mercy.

Primer on the Bible's infallibility

I've been asked to present why I believe the Bible is infallible.
I had inquired after the questioner's worldview so I could know how to answer, since he commented on the Beggars All blog which is usually aimed at those of the Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox persuasions. I have extrapolated that he's not RC but more like an agnostic/naturalist. That will be fine - see? I'm not asking much. ;-)
And he agreed with me in what I was saying about worldview presuppositions, so I'm glad that's out of the way.

The infallibility of the Bible is not dependent on someone's worldview, true, but where I start to defend that idea is dependent on that person's worldview.

And he's wrong to suggest that I just "presuppose that some book from the Middle east is some got the authority of God, is the very word of God Himself, and then go from there" (sic).
I DO presuppose, however, that a theistic God exists. Why? Well, I want to be able to use logic and reason to examine the world around me, for one thing. And in particular, you're asking me to present a rational defense of the infallibility of the Bible. A naturalistic worldview can't provide the foundation for using reason to defend anythg, so I start the only place I can - theism.

Now, given theism, why is the Bible infallible? Several reasons.
1) Only 3 major theistic religions exist - Christianity, Islam, Judaism. Islam's Qur'an says the Bible is to be relied upon, so OK, I will, thanks.
Judaism and Christianity believe that God is the One Who breathed out the words of the Bible.
2) The Bible claims itself to be breathed out by God, and on theism, God is perfect and omniscient, does not make mistakes. How then could what He says be a mistake? 2 Tim 3:16-17, 2 Peter 1:20, 2 Peter 3:16, the very numerous "Thus saith the Lord"s.
(EDIT): This is why I mentioned the presuppositions first of all. We believe that God is and that He is 100% trustworthy (being the Way, the Truth, and the Life and all that), that He knows everything, and that He does not lie. How could His breathed-out Word, His communication with mankind, then, contain an error or falsehood?
3) The Bible's purpose is to reveal God, His commands, and His character and dealings with humanity.
4) Jesus Himself believed it was God talking (Matthew 22:31) and that it was the standard by which all human tradition must be judged (Mark 7:1-13).
5) Jesus Himself quoted Scripture to refute the devil (Matt 4, Luke 4).
6) The Bible contains hundreds of prophecies which have since been fulfilled, perhaps most notably in the book of Daniel.
7) The Bible accurately describes reality, including history as verified by archæological study.
8) Many of the biblical authors (especially Jesus' apostles) were in a position to know with certainty that Jesus was NOT raised from the dead, committed secret deception, or something else. Yet though they would have known their message was false (if indeed it were false), they turned back on their lifelong beliefs to cause a major disruption in their own social lives and that of their families and to risk (and eventually succumb to) an ugly death for the sake of teaching that same message that they would have known was a lie.
9) The Bible is consistent with its own thought and ideas and information on every point despite its having been written over the course of centuries by ~40 different authors.
Some of the authors were ignorant men.
Others wrote eloquent poetry and were peerless military leaders (David). Others were kings, celebrated worldwide for their wisdom (Solomon). Others were highly-educated Pharisees (Paul). Others were sophisticated advisors to kings (Isaiah and Daniel). Some were brought up as the prince of the most powerful and learned nation on earth (Moses).
Yet others were simple fishermen (Peter and John). Others were indeed goatherders from Nowhere, Israel (Amos). Others were probably-disobedient Jews (author of Esther). Some exposed ruthlessly the flaws of their nation and leaders (the author of Kings and Samuel). Others were more cheerful (the author of Chronicles). Some were traitors to the Jewish nation, converted (Matthew). It is the variety of authorship and yet the beauty of the consistency of thought that are striking.

That's a good start. If you have any questions about the details about my beliefs on the Bible, please check here first.

One more note: InvisibleDude says

I'm not questioning the RC's because I know what they'll tell me about their infallible human being of the pope, and from what I read here, that position don't look so good, so, no dude in Rome to confirm it for you, how since he's not infallible, and you're not infallible, and your list is not infallible, what makes the books themselves infallible, and how does the individual Christian know that?

I agree 100% that the Roman Catholic position doesn't look very good.
No, we don't have any dude in Rome to confirm the Scripture for us. Why would we? He's the one relying on the Bible to prop up his authority claims. What then? Turn right around and claim he's the one who can tell us what the Bible is? Maybe that works for some people...
How we know this, however, deserves a little bit more fleshing out. I told you that we don't know infallibly that the Bible is infallible, nor do we know infallibly what books belong in the Bible (ie, the Canon of Scripture). But infallibility is not equivalent to a sufficient knowledge, to knowing with sufficient basis the answers to these questions. We present our arguments and examine counterarguments to that purpose.

Edit: See also Vox Veritatis on this issue.

Happy Reformation Day!

The Reformation Polka

by Robert Gebel
From here.

[Sung to the tune of "Supercalifragilistic-expialidocious"]

When I was just ein junger Mann I studied canon law
While Erfurt was a challenge, it was just to please my Pa.
Then came the storm, the lightning struck, I called upon Saint Anne,
I shaved my head, I took my vows, an Augustinian!
Oh...

Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation
Speak your mind against them and face excommunication!
Nail your theses to the door, let's start a Reformation!
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!

When Tetzel came near Wittenberg, St. Peter's profits soared,
I wrote a little notice for the All Saints' Bull'tin board:
"You cannot purchase merits, for we're justified by grace!
Here's 95 more reasons, Brother Tetzel, in your face!"
Oh...

Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation
Speak your mind against them and face excommunication!
Nail your theses to the door, let's start a Reformation!
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!

They loved my tracts, adored my wit, all were exempleror;
The Pope, however, hauled me up before the Emperor.
"Are these your books? Do you recant?" King Charles did demand,
"I will not change my Diet, Sir, God help me here I stand!"
Oh...

Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation
Speak your mind against them and face excommunication!
Nail your theses to the door, let's start a Reformation!
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!

Duke Frederick took the Wise approach, responding to my words,
By knighting "George" as hostage in the Kingdom of the Birds.
Use Brother Martin's model if the languages you seek,
Stay locked inside a castle with your Hebrew and your Greek!
Oh...

Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation
Speak your mind against them and face excommunication!
Nail your theses to the door, let's start a Reformation!
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!

Let's raise our steins and Concord Books while gathered in this place,
And spread the word that 'catholic' is spelled with lower case;
The Word remains unfettered when the Spirit gets his chance,
So come on, Katy, drop your lute, and join us in our dance!
Oh...

Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation
Speak your mind against them and face excommunication!
Nail your theses to the door, let's start a Reformation!
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!

Why did God delay?

An email correspondent asked this:
Would I be correct in assuming your answer is in essence that you haven't a clue, guess, thought, speculation, or hypothesis concerning why God postponed telling man anything significant about the Trinity, Heaven and Hell until two-thirds of the generations of man were dead?

I had earlier answered a less-developed question, but he has pressed, desiring a fuller explanation. I thought my answer would be worth sharing here (but I could have been wrong to think that):

No, it's not that I don't have a clue, it's just that God almost certainly hasn't revealed all His reasons.
So I'll take another stab at it.
1st, He may have waited until 2/3 of generations of man were dead, but certainly not until 2/3 of all humans that will ever live have died. Also, we have no idea how many generations of man WILL pass by before the end comes. This earth could well go on so long that God's delay in fuller self-revelation would leave an inconsequential segment of humanity unrevealed-to in the past, if you will, compared to how many will have lived since.
2nd, getting to what He has explicitly said, like I said, He waited until the time was full. The only "why" I can give is that God ordains all that comes to pass, so He planned that Christ would come when He did. It's all according to His plan.
3rd, God desired to glorify Himself and provide evidence to humanity of His existence, goodness, and provision by giving prophecies thru His prophets and Scripture beforehand and then carry out and fulfill said prophecies.
4th, related to #3, God apparently enjoys foreshadowing the future and preparing types of the still-to-come antitypes/fulfillments. An example is Adam (type/foreshadowing) and Jesus Christ (2nd Adam, as fulfillment, antitype) (see Romans 4-5).
5th, God is glorified thru His people exercising faith in His goodness and provision based on what He has done before and His promises. The books of Hebrews (chapter 11) and 1 Peter discuss how the holy men and women who came before us were recipients of promises, but in most cases, they did not receive the promised-for things b/c they were for the benefit of future generations. They were mostly to be fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

And I reiterate that the OT has a doctrine of afterlife, Hell and Heaven both are foreshadowed in significant ways.
The Triune nature of God is foreshadowed in, among other ways, multiple OT references to the Holy Spirit and angelophanies of the "angel of the LORD", who is clearly divine and whose identity is, in fact, very probably the preincarnate Christ, and the oft-stated axiom that "to see God is to die". Yet people saw God. How, if not by a Triune God?

Hitler a Christian?

ChooseDoubt seems to think so.

That cracks me up. The guy goes to church and all of a sudden he's giving full assent to Christ's substitutionary atonement for his sins and a promise to repent of murder and stuff. ChooseDoubt is accusing Hitler of being not just a genocidal madman, not just a freak, not just pretty much the most worthily vilified person the world has ever known, but also a hypocrite! That's just piling on.

So, I have proposed this as a synthesis of what he's presented and the significant amount of conflicting facts out there:

Hitler was a madman who was heavily into a sort-of self-theistic mythological megalomania.
So maybe it's not a great idea to call him an atheist, I can see that maybe. It's worth a different discussion.
But just b/c Hitler appeared in churches doesn't make him a Christian. That's pretty silly. I myself have been known to frequent coffeehouses. That doesn't make me a French skeptic. It means I like what the coffeehouse provides - good coffee. Similarly, Hitler liked what going to church provided - psychological power over a religious populace.

A Common Word Between Us and You

I was just reading this open letter from Muslims to Christians everywhere and a few things occurred to me.
I'm off hiatus now, BTW. I'll be getting back to the comboxes, and anyone interested is welcome to resume the convos there. With the understanding, of course, that I have limited time. But I think most everyone who's ever commented here has been quite good about not bugging me about not getting to their comment in a timely manner, and I appreciate that.

Of note is those to whom the letter is addressed. No one I'd consider a leader worthy of unmitigated or nearly-unmitigated respect. But maybe they're not talking to me.
There's Pope Benedict XVI, a bunch of Orthodox high-ups, the Pope of the Coptic Church (the memorably-named Shenouda), leaders of other historically Christian churches, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the ELCA, the World Methodist Council, the Baptist World Alliance, and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. It would have been nice to see a bone thrown to someone like SBC Pres Frank Page, John MacArthur, Al Mohler... even Billy/Franklin Graham. As it is, a significant portion of their supposed audience goes unaddressed.
And they lose points for addressing the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, to be honest.

Reading thru the actual text, I note that this (Muslim-penned) document frequently refers to "the Unity of God". Given that this is not a theological document but rather a start of dialogue ostensibly aimed at producing peaceful relations, it is a little funny to me. Almost like the authors are tossing a few snips at the Trinitarian concept of God while laying out peace. It's what I would do, honestly. But maybe I'm just reading too much into it, and either way it's just a quirky sidenote. All that to say, when a Muslim says "Unity of God," he doesn't mean it the same way a Christian does - "unity" to the Muslim entails an (unjustifiable) assumption of unitarianism.

The document's big gaffe is almost unbelievable in its clumsiness. On the .pdf page 15 of 29, it asks: "Is Christianity necessarily against Muslims?"
The answer, of course, is that this question is silly. Christian doctrine is that men everywhere must repent and request forgiveness for their sins from the Savior Jesus Christ, which will lead to their salvation from that sin and to eternal life. Where did the idea that Christianity might be against Muslims come from, so that they added the word "necessarily"? This alone is almost enough to tempt me seriously to disregard this document entirely, as either disingenuous or just ill-conceived.
A much better question is: "Is Christianity necessarily against Islam?" to which the answer is "yes."
Or one could ask: "Are Christians against Muslims?" to which the answer is: "Any Christian who acts without love against a Muslim who is not attempting to blow him up or something is acting in a sinful manner."

We are then told: "We therefore invite Christians to consider Muslims not against and thus with them, in accordance with Jesus Christ’s words here," based on three out-of-context quotations from Jesus Christ in Matt 12:30, Mark 9:40, and Luke 9:50.
To be honest, when I meet a Muslim in the US, I look on him/her as almost certainly a peaceful person who is a sinner, but also with a greater amount of suspicion than that with which I look upon an Argentine, a Chinese, or a Singaporean.
I'm glad these authors invite me to consider them "with" me (I assume they mean with me in the pursuit of peace on earth), but I have to withhold unconditional acceptance of that from "Muslims" until I see more than a kind of poorly-written document from some Islamic scholars.

Finally, the authors (again, clumsily) seem to lose track of the goal of their document with this closing statement: "Let this common ground be the basis of all future interfaith dialogue between us, for our common ground is that on which hangs all the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 22:40)."
I'm not interested in "interfaith dialogue" as it is usually meant in modern parlance. Followers of Islam need to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ and need to repent and believe it. "Interfaith dialogue" might be a good vehicle thru which such might be accomplished, so on that level it's great. But it must not become the end for the Christian, b/c it is pitiful in its short-sightedness.

That said, I come away from this document a little more hopeful that the attitude expressed therein can lead to more peace in this world. I hate war. May God grant the people of the world reprieve from war. I need to see alot more from the Muslim side, however, before I could have a lot of optimism that the hostility endemic to their religious system has been conquered by modern sensibilities. One document does not erase Qur'anic statements directing Muslims to conduct violent jihad nor their bloody history of military expansion.

My absence

I apologise for leaving comboxes high and dry. I was out of town for a conference and was not able to post a "sorry, will be gone this week" notice.
Attendance at said conference has left me with a lot of things to think about and not a little discouragement. Please feel free to deal with whatever posts and/or comments of mine you want to; I doubt I'll be engaging them within a week minimum. I guess this would best be called a small hiatus for now. Thanks for your patience. And any prayers are appreciated.

If you can't beat 'em, malign 'em

Such is the modus operandi of not a few Internet atheists these days. Case in point - Frank Walton, who dares upset the "Rational" Response Squad's plans for world domination.


Another is ERV where, after I spent some time mixing it up about evolution and having a good time, the author Abbie has accused me of using 3 different handles after I denied doing so in response to another commenter's implication that I do. I wasn't sure he was accusing me, so I left it open for correction, but instead of doing the honorable thing, simply saying, "No, you misunderstood me; I wasn't accusing you of using multiple handles", he let it go and ERV stepped in.

So, mindful of the fact that the Internet is a place of anonymity where an accusation like this can almost certainly neither be 100% confirmed nor 100% denied, I'd at least like to know which handles ERV refers to. I'd like to warn them.
Super-secret link tag thing

Talk.origins swings and misses

Hi all,

There is remaining to me a little more patience (just a little, though - I'm much more willing and comfy defending the Christian worldview, not ID) to deal with evolution before moving on to much more interesting topics such as the origin of life and the universe.

At some interlocutors' request, I have looked at a few articles at talk.origins and found some interesting things.
I will make sthg clear, though. I expect to find relevant articles to which I'm referred to have a lot of explanatory value. I expect them to bludgeon me with the overwhelming evidence that is supposedly on the evolution side. So if I read three articles and each one has a variety of problems, what's to push me to keep reading? Have these articles not been peer-reviewed? Have they not been selected for extinction? Is talk.origins just a bad place to look? If so, why refer me to it? (Unless you're falling prey to the common self-defeating arguments I sometimes hear, like "well, motorcycles evolved!")


OK, so I took a look at the monkeys that ChooseDoubt mentioned.
I note a few things about this.
1) The duplication occurred about four million years ago, after colobines split off from the other Old World monkeys
This is just begging the question - they don't really have any solid way of knowing when that happened. If any reader would like to disagree, make sure to explain how you can know.

2) “Our results suggest that this is an adaptation to the more acidic environment of the small intestine in colobine monkeys,”
They suggest it, do they? That's solid.

3) RNASE1B has become super-efficient at the first job, but has lost the ability to do the second
Though this is an enzyme, not an organism, this seems to violate #3 of my 5 questions.
This statement would seem to militate against #3's being a good criterion, however: After duplication, you have two enzymes, each doing just one job, but doing it better than the other.” (See, I'm doing the evolutionists' job for them. ;-) )
To be fair, I'll say that at this time I don't know quite what I'd say to respond to this. Remind me to ask Dembski the next time I'm palming him a couple of $100 bills.

4) Zhang’s analysis shows that the duplication occurred some six million years after colobines began eating leaves. “So leaf-eating did not depend on the new gene, but the new gene apparently improved the efficiency,” he concludes.
Again, this is begging the question. To be fair, that's probably not the point of this article, so I won't fault the author for this, but still I would like to know how one might propose a non-question-begging method of discovering when a gene duplication like this might have occurred.

5) Finally, I'd like assurance that this experimentation did not inject intelligence into the equation, per #s 1 and 4 and that this has been observed repeatedly per #5.
Remember, my questions are an attempt on my part to make sure these highly important experiments don't cross the line into junk science that are targeted to produce a desired result rather than pure science, where the experimenters are working in good faith to change their minds to fit the evidence, rather than the converse. I'm trying to be a purist.


As for a 2nd article I looked at, I found
1) In experiments with bacteria, variation (including beneficial mutations) arises in populations that are grown from a single individual...

This violates my questions #1 and #4 and is possibly in violation of #3 and #5.

2) pests have developed resistance to a variety of antibiotics and pesticides, many of them artificial and unlike anything in nature

Which are developed by intelligence.
Nothing is mentioned about whether this answers question #3.

3) In particular, reducing populations to a single pair of individuals, as Noah's Flood requires

For all the talk about how creationists misunderstand evolution, it would be nice to see hypocrisy like this be avoided.
Noah's Ark is not the only element in a Christian understanding. The Bible says nothing about whether God intervened temporarily in another creative act to either increase variation or to create some more animals in other places. On a Christian worldview, there would be nothing to demand that didn't happen.
That's not the only possibility, but it is one.

4) if the selection is maintained, change should continue, albeit at a much slower rate
An assumption. I catch flak for allegedly making assumptions all the time; why not hold the same standard up to these guys?


Another talk.origins article I looked at seems to be a classic example of navel-gazing simplicity; one might label it "promissory materialism" or "science of the gaps". It's on the question of junk DNA.
Looks like current research is overturning these ideas. Again, this article seems not to have been selected for extinction yet, but there's still time - apparently scientists can know with certainty that this planet will exist for further millions of years.

OK, that should suffice for now in my analysis of talk.origins articles. Color me less than impressed.

Now then, CD said:
No one expects to see the same mutation occurring repeatedly.

But science is purported to be based on repeatable, testable results. This supports my contention that this is not science. It's going to be tough to do repeatable experimentation on that. Why doesn't that put a crimp in your confidence?

I get the impression that the only information you receive regarding evolution is from creationists.

You know, I actually don't read creationist stuff much. I get more of it from ID theorists. And I get some from interaction with evolutionists. And some I get from reading evolution people, like talk.origins or R Dawkins and his buds online. But it's always easier to demonise the fundy blogger...

This is confusing abiogenesis

Dang, it's hard not to do that! You may be right...I want to talk about it but we shouldn't now.

As for a common ancestor you have to define common to whom?

Every living thing. I thought that was the neo-Darwinian stock position. But let me clarify - do you believe that there was more than one common ancestor, and I'm talking at the VERY beginning?

it’s very likely that the average person’s idea of the complexity of processes going on in their entire body is radically less complicated than what is actually going on within any single cell in their body.

Which is one reason why it seems so very improbable that nat sel acting on mutations could be responsible for it.

the answer to that is evolution. It’s not faith. It’s a theory supported by absolutely all evidence we have and contradicted by none of it.

Now you've got me laughing.

god magically created everything as it is

Strawman - nobody claims God "magically" created anything, nor that He created it all as it is. Do have the courtesy to acknowledge when you caricature my position?

What studies have been undertaken and what evidence has been presented

I don't appeal to "studies" to support my ideas of the origin of life or the complexity thereof.

It doesn’t matter that most mutations will be detrimental to the resultant organism. Evolution has no problem with this.

It doesn't have a problem when the requisite mutations are highly improbable? OK.

Ignoring drug resistance is ruling a priori that important evidence must be ignored.

But it violates several of my questions, so I don't "ignore" it; it disqualifies itself.

Bird’s beaks have provided another form of first hand study and again you have arbitrarily ruled the evidence out.

I already explained why and you apparently didn't listen. One wonders why I'm wasting my time on THIS post, but I press on...

Are you are really saying that there is no way natural selection can operate on single celled organisms?

Nowhere have I denied that the evolutionary mechanism operates in the real world (ie, microevolution). I deny that it was responsible for getting from one simply common ancestor to today's diversity. And I don't see how nat sel operating on mutations could produce the enormous diversity of complex and specified genetic information present in today's organisms.


Now, Billy said:
Evolution's answer is natural selection.

Yes, yes, acting on mutations.

Mutation is one of the mechanisms which natural selection acts upon to produce evolutionary change.

What would be another?

Where do you think Darwin got the idea from in the first place?

From flawed examples such as his finches.

This is possibly the stupidest thing that you've ever written.

Well, since my last post anyway. ;-)

While the environment in which the processes takes place will be designed, the processes themselves are not "designed".

I'm sure you'd agree that a natural environment brings into acct many factors that a controlled environment does not and cannot admit. What we have here is artificial selection acting on mutations. That's not your theory.
And if it'd be really really hard to get any experimentation done in organisms' natural environment, I say tough cookies - real data obtained at great difficulty is far better than contrived data.

You're wrong about the finches

OK, from the article you pointed me to:

If each island had its own birds, as Gould suggested, and the archipelago as a whole had its own roster of genera, his shipboard speculations about the instability of species were more accurate than he had thought"

Begging the question. What if God put them there?
That's just stupid, you stupid fundy!
If your response amounts to that, sounds like I can prophesy as well. Or at least extrapolate from pre-existing data.

But Wells fails to discuss the evidence of the climate in the past.

But no solution to the inherent problem for the evolutionist is provided. How do you observe that the finch beaks ACTUALLY DID change? The article implicitly admits this is speculation:

that there was more than enough time for significant directional change to occur.

Pitiful performance. I'm done here. And I don't feel like going over to the peppered moths example - talk.origins is batting 0 for 4 today.

On increasing information in the genome

Here's something about which I'm fairly curious. I am very skeptical (no, really?) but really would like to know if anyone reading this can furnish an example of a mutation that:

1. has been observed in an organism NOT IN A LAB (b/c that would inject intelligence into the equation, and I'm after full nature here),
2. has increased the USEFUL information in the genome,
3. has been BENEFICIAL for survival in the organism's natural habitat,
4. which occurred without ANY human intervention whatsoever,
5. and which has been observed repeatedly.
   

That's just science. I want to see if evolution fits the bill.
Just to forestall answers I've gotten in the past, I don't want to hear about your bacteria who grew resistant to antibiotics developed by humans, introduced by humans in a petri dish in a lab and who, upon reintroduction into a petri dish full of the original kind of bacteria, died en masse (though no one ever mentions that part). I don't want to hear about peppered moths or finch beaks. The item in question must fit all 5 criteria.

The First Coming of William Dembski

Last night William Dembski came to the Univ of Okla to speak on a topic close to "Is Atheism Still A Fulfilling Option?" in specific (and Intelligent Design in general) at a large auditorium on campus. My wife Aubrey and I went to see the goings-on, but by the time we got there, they were turning people away. Too bad for us. Outside the doors in the hallway, the cacophony was a bit disorienting. Many of my friends were present as were many people arguing. I caught sight of a Professor Emeritus of Zoo arguing in a circle of younger people. And I met two young women who were representing the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which I recognised as a rhetorical device often used by Internet atheists, and which my friend Kyle recognised as equivalent to the Invisible Space Monkey illustration he used to employ during his atheist days.
Having been asked to move out of the hallway, we adjourned to the outside staircase. The FSM twosome began to read from their Gospel of the FSM book, which was a new one on me.
It was really cute, actually - the Pastafarians (their word) would say things like this:

• "The FSM has revealed to us that he created the universe, in 3 slightly hungover days."


• "The FSM touched me with his noodly appendage."


• "Ramen!" (as opposed to "Amen" - this one had me laughing)


• "The FSM has appeared multiple times in history."

Etc. It was actually pretty funny - I have to commend Kacy and Lindsey for staying in character for much of their presentation. I began to press them for more details, recalling well a recent conversation on the same subject.
You see, this whole FSM thing starts off well, has some promise, but once the Pastafarian must answer questions about her "deity", the position starts to crumble. Go figure. Anyway, once I began to ask them about whether the FSM grounds reality and logic, their position began to disintegrate into just another flavor of Postmodernism. As if I haven't seen that 1000 times before. So I was a little disappointed but we gamely continued and I pointed out at least 3 self-refuting statements that they made, such as "there is no objective truth" (which is about as obvious as they come), "we can be sure of no history whatsoever", and "we can have no confidence that our words match reality".
The convo was sidetracked when a very courteous African-American gentleman who was himself probably a Christian began to press them about their tangential statement on slavery and oppression. It was kind of cool actually to see him examining these white girls on their bad politics, but I was a little agitated b/c I wanted to get back to the yet more central issue, that of the Gospel. I eventually got my chance and asked them what their problem with Jesus Christ was. After some wrangling, they threw out counterexamples of Gandhi (sacrifice for his people) and jihadists (who go willingly to death for their people). The Gandhi example is fraught with problems, but even more so the jihadist example. Almost incredulous, I said, "Does it not stick in your heart that you equate Jesus Christ, Who left heaven behind to come be unjustly executed at the hands of evil people, all of whom He wanted to save, Who did so without killing anyone but by sacrificing Himself, with jihadists who killed 1000s of innocent people to serve a dubious cause?"
Apparently it did not. They soon after, however, departed the premises, looking none too pleased. Hopefully their displeasure had to do with their inability to answer any fundamental questions well.

Later we talked with a "Discordist," who believes that all is chaos besides the order we impose. Kyle began to break his position down (with ease) but we started to see people leaving the auditorium so we went to sit in the balcony, after about 10 minutes had elapsed in the Q&A session.
Dembski was alone at a podium stage right with a laptop and a bottle of water, taking questions from the long line of hostile askers.
The questions were all challenges with one exception, a guy who (rightly, and unpopularly) questioned the open-mindedness of the majority of the students present. His question was met with jeers and a "Shut up!" from the middle of the auditorium. Exactly.
In general, Dembski controlled the exchanges well. He is not an imposing figure but definitely has a steely composure, difficult to ruffle even when the crowd thought a good point had been made. He made lots of jabs at the establishment, sardonically exhorting his questioners to go write up their findings and get NSF funding to do so, they'd have no problem, they are headed for a great career to be sure. I thought those were funny.
One of my favorite moments occurred when a questioner brought up the example of a motorcycle: "We know that this is designed, and yet it evolved!" At this point, a murmur ran thru the crowd and my friends and I in the back began to call out, "Intelligence! Design!" The irony was probably lost on the questioner, but that sort of stuff cracks me up.
The most difficult moment was when a biology prof specifically challenged the irreducible complexity of the bacterial flagellum example. Dembski and he had a long argument over the value of the example, and the prof insisted that he knew 4 intermediate evolutionary steps off the top of his head. Dembski apparently saw little reason to go back and rework his math after this challenge, and the question of "numbers" and genetics was a little lost on me. To me, the larger point is that such intermediate steps are improbable and dumb to think about; a "just-so story", as Dembski put it. These 2ndary structures are not geared towards anythg close to a flagellum, but evolutionists insist they evolve into such a useful structure as that. And during the steps in between THOSE steps, what would be the pathway? At what point is the acid motor that does the one function "unplugged" from the one function to be "plugged" into the flagellar motor? At what point does the cilium become elongated enough to qualify as a flagellum? What happened in between?

The Q&A session was probably 110 minutes or so, and was mostly interesting, though many of the questions were silly. One grad student complained of being mistreated on Dembski's blog. Welcome to the blogosphere, I'd say. Why not put your paper in a peer-reviewed journal and cry into your NSF-funded beer? The motorcycle example. Questions about Dembski's faith and therefore-obvious ulterior motive (which he candidly admitted and dealt with well).

Afterwards, I talked to a college student who was claiming he was Jesus Christ, come again. I lost patience with him when he refused to do any exegesis of the Bible and when he kept saying "No, I'm just deluding you to THINK that with my supernatural power" when challenged about the fact that not every knee had bowed, that there had been no judgment, that people were not yet in heaven or hell, that the world was not changed, that no one had observed him return, etc, clearly differentiating himself from the Jesus of the NT. But later he identified himself (no longer in character) as an empiricist. With a couple of my new friends present, I TAG-ed him, asking to provide evidence for his view that evidence is the best way to discover truth. I don't think he followed me b/c he kept accusing ME of being circular in demanding evidence; I kept telling him, "No, it's YOU who are circular; I'm acting as an empiricist right now and seeing the flaws!" His name is Forest - I'll be praying for him, Kacy, and Lindsey.

Overall, a fun time was had. Even though I'm really sleepy today.

So many implications, so little time

I can't even begin to count how crazy and informative this little article is. North Korean weaponry? Syrian weaponry? Saddam's Iraq WMD?

Also, the Israeli military seems to be quite powerful. Sometimes it makes me wish their handlers had a little more guts.

My 2nd-favorite pastor is blogging!

I knew it was only a matter of time before Joel Osteen launched his blogging career. The wait is over. This will only make my Best Life better.

I'm noticing a pattern here

Two days ago I drank only green tea. I felt terrible all day.
Yesterday I had two cups of coffee in the morning at Men's Fraternity at church. Then I had two glasses of the nectar of God, I mean, Dr. Pepper, at lunch. Felt GREAT, if a bit jumpy, all day.
Today I had a cup of coffee, mostly decaf, and a caff-free Dr. Pepper for lunch. I feel about 40% as great as I did yesterday.
A pattern is emerging.

Lauding the Bible ('cause that's what I do)

Chris Severn has challenged my belief in the Bible as Word of God. Here's an answer.

The intention of my fake book was of course to infer you shouldn't go around believing everything written in a book of unknown authorship just because you think the book is right on a few things.

Yes, and I wouldn't recommend that either. Didn't you see me rip the Qur'an? ;-)

The bible is sometimes set in real places, sometimes not.

I don't accept that an atheistic worldview provides the preconditions for intelligibility; as such no book is understandable.
On the Xtian worldview where intelligibility is possible, I'd like to know what you refer to here.

Sure you don't (eat your young) :)

[burp]... What, you don't trust me?

The claim that atheists supress the truth is one such claim.

But the Bible is much more trustworthy than an atheist's word; why wouldn't it be rational to trust the more reliable source?

The bible claims a lot of things. Many of them are false.

Like what?

No. The bible just claims to.

1) Borrowing from the biblical worldview again.
2) Indeed, every sentence you write does so.
3) How doesn't it? You can start by interacting with the post linked-to above.

There isn't much useful difference between the Book of Mormon, Bhagavad Gita, Qur'an or the Bible as concerns their claims of reality.

1) Internal consistency.
2) Fulfilled prophecy.
3) Accurate descriptions of reality.
4) For the BG and the BoM, neither provide preconditions for intelligibility, being polytheistic.

The Humanist Manifesto doesn't claim as reality things that can't be demonstrated.

I found a few. Did you even read it before you said that?

-THIRD: Holding an organic view of life, humanists find that the traditional dualism of mind and body must be rejected.
-FIFTH: Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable any supernatural or cosmic guarantees of human values.
(CD and I have been talking about this. He has far to go to prove it.)
-it does insist that the way to determine the existence and value of any and all realities is by means of intelligent inquiry and by the assessment of their relations to human needs.
(See my recent discussion with the Jolly Nihilist.)
-SEVENTH: Religion consists of those actions, purposes, and experiences which are humanly significant.
(Begging the question - certainly I don't agree with this.)
-We assume that humanism will take the path of social and mental hygiene and discourage sentimental and unreal hopes and wishful thinking. (emph. added)
-the quest for the good life is still the central task for mankind.
(What is "good" is taken on faith.)

I didn't go thru the whole thing but those examples should suffice.

But, why do you believe all of it, without question, to the exclusion of all other evidence ?

This is a diff question than "Prove it", so I'll answer the exact question.
The God of the Bible has mercifully saved me even though He didn't have to. He changed my life and gave my heart and mind peace and purpose. Every question I'd been asking while I felt so lost and in turmoil, He has answered in a rationally- and spiritually-satisfying way. Finally, I have never encountered a purported contradiction in the Bible that held any water (and I've encountered a LOT of attempts).

What makes you think that the god you believe in had anything to do with the Christian bible?

There is a great deal of internal and external evidence.

What is it about a collection of stories written largely by ignorant goat herders more than 1500 years ago that impresses you so much ?

Some were ignorant.
Others wrote eloquent poetry and were peerless military leaders (David). Others were kings, celebrated worldwide for their wisdom (Solomon). Others were highly-educated Pharisees (Paul). Others were sophisticated advisors to kings (Isaiah and Daniel). Some were brought up as the prince of the most powerful and learned nation on earth (Moses).
Yet others were simple fishermen (Peter and John). Others were indeed goatherders from Nowhere, Israel (Amos). Others were probably-disobedient Jews (author of Esther). Some exposed ruthlessly the flaws of their nation and leaders (the author of Kings and Samuel). Others were more cheerful (the author of Chronicles). Some were traitors to the Jewish nation, converted (Matthew).
It is the variety of authorship and yet the beauty of the consistency of thought that serve also to impress me of this.

Peace,
Rhology

Goodnight to Nihilism

In response to this post...the JN and John Morales apparently want me to write my positions in my own words, make a big deal out of it. I understand, but at the same time, I'm parroting and expounding on Bahnsen's ideas. You may consider his words mine in this case (it’s not imitation, it’s emulation ;-) ). Not everyone has time like apparently the JN has to type stuff. Though I could wish I did.

Unfortunately, the conversation has degenerated into a Who's Begging the Question Worst? match. Consider this most recent offering from the JN.

-You asked that I provide evidence that could substantiate the value of evidence. I did precisely that. My first principle, as I repeatedly have said, can be summarized as “The road to truth is paved with evidence.” That is, in order for human primates to happen upon truth (or its close approximation), the most reliable route is that of evidence (or, alternately phrased, “the relevant facts”).

Of course, what's the predictable response from me? Yep - Fine, evidence is the evidence for the idea that the best way to discover truth is to examine evidence. What is your evidence for that, since we want to discover the truth about that idea?

And on and on. This may get tiresome for you the reader, but just imagine how it is for me! I have to keep repeating the same thing over and over again while getting roasted by the JN's sycophants in his comboxes and my own.

The very next sentence is classic:

-My first principle only would be self-defeating if it, itself, could not be substantiated through evidence.

He then attempts to substantiate his principle by appealing to it. Which is, of course, circular.

Then, we hear:

-Perhaps your questions are “easy” for the theist because they are designed presupposing the theistic worldview.

Not really, though one only wishes that the JN would then follow that line of reasoning.
The questions I've asked are not all that "specialised", when you think about it. I'm not asking "How do you think the Eucharist is best celebrated?" or "What do you think about the baptism in the Holy Spirit?" Far from it. Rather, the questions are designed to show that an atheistic worldview can't make sense of such important questions, whereas the biblical worldview can (as the JN has just admitted here).

This may be my favorite admission from the JN:

-This question is fallacious because it presupposes that communication, reasoning and logic require “grounds”

For someone who purports to be after the "truth", one really has to wonder what this could mean. So perhaps he means they don't require grounds - they just ARE. And God isn't. Which brings up a whole host of problems, not least of which is how the universe (ie, matter and energy) could arise out of non-personal abstract concepts. They are immaterial - where is material from?

But of course, if he can presuppose that logic just IS, then I can presuppose that God just IS. We are at an impasse now until each of us takes on the other's worldview to see which one comports to reality.

So, let’s do so. We will see that the JN or any atheist, by engaging the topic, has conceded the issue. The reason for that is that their presuppositions do not allow for the coming-forth of beliefs that are reliably believed to be true. This is the point of Alvin Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN) (see Plantinga’s statement here), and I’d state it two ways.

1) The way Darwin himself stated it:

“With me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind? (Darwin 1887)”

Related specifically to evolution.

Or,

2) Why would I believe that my own or anyone’s cognitive faculties are reliably geared to producing true beliefs when they are nothing more than neurochemical reactions? They are atoms banging around. As I’ve said, I don’t argue with my bottle of lotion, nor do I ask a fizzing can of Dr. Pepper who has the upper hand in the debate between the JN and me. Doing such would make as much sense, after all, as asking who is winning the debate on the other side of the room between the fizzing can of Coke and the fizzing can of Mountain Dew. The liver secretes bile; the brain secretes thoughts. How can we have confidence in these thoughts, these secretions of the brain?

This is what results when I take on the atheist’s worldview. Can we presuppose reason and not God? Sure, let’s see what happens when we do. We have several problems now:

1) The question of the origin of the universe. Since there is no personal First Cause, there is no answer to how matter and energy came into existence.

2) The question of why we should trust reason in the 1^st place, as stated in the above 2 arguments.

3) Just b/c we presuppose reason does not mean that we presuppose logic.

4) If we presuppose logic and reason, that means we have presupposed the existence of immaterial entities. If immaterial entities exist, materialism is defeated. I’m not sure whether the JN is a materialist, but if he presupposes logic and reason as brute facts, he can’t be a consistent materialist.

So I’m not feeling too comfortable now as far as this goes. OTOH, the God of the Bible fulfills the role as grounder of intelligibility b/c these things flow out of His character, how and who He is. He is logical. He is reasonable. Our thinking processes and trust that our cognitive faculties can be relied upon to produce true beliefs in many instances reflect the fact that His cognitive faculties, if you will, are that way. How do we know this? Remember, now we are presupposing the Christian worldview and testing how far it comports with reality. A criticism of the Christian worldview, therefore, would need to presuppose it and then try to show how it is internally inconsistent on its own grounds, not on the grounds of some other worldview like naturalism.

Finally, when I say that the JN borrows capital from the Xtian worldview to attack the Xtian worldview, I mean this. He presupposes the worldview that includes the 4 major problems I listed above, which cast serious, serious doubt on the reliability of his or anyone’s cognitive faculties to produce true beliefs. He needs to deal with those problems and then we can talk. Otherwise, his worldview precludes him from having any confidence in intelligibility or rational thought, which means that he has to implicitly stand on the platform of a worldview where intelligibility and rational thought ARE supportable. That worldview is the Xtian one. So he stands on Xtianity in order to use its framework for rationality and intelligibility (b/c those things reflect how God is and how He has revealed Himself to be) and then employs intelligible, rational arguments to assert that this God does not in fact exist. He stands on my stage and denies my stage exists.

I have recently taken up a contributing role to the Beggars All Reformation blog, and so my time at that blog is going to cut into my time here and in this discussion with the JN. Please note therefore that my substantive responses, if any are necessary, on this subject may be slower in coming than before. Patience is appreciated, and I commend the JN, John Morales, Tommy, and the other commenters (Lucian excepted) for not busting my chops for running away just b/c I haven’t said anythg in a while. Peace to all of you,

Rhology

An admission and an indication of circularity

Continued from this thread, where John Morales has been very kindly and gently pointing out that he sees "no evidence that (I) understand logic".

So, John, ISTM you are implying that my accusation of the JN's reasoning as question-begging is funny b/c my own reasoning also begs the question.
If that's the case, then you are partly right and partly wrong. I *am* begging a similar question, true, but in questions of ultimates like this one, everyone has to appeal to faith at some point. That is what my questioning of the JN has been designed to reveal. I have faith in the God of the Bible. The JN has faith that "the road to truth is paved with evidence."

So, what's going on here? I will come right out and say that I have this faith. I will defend it as rational and as in full comport with reality. However, the JN denies that he appeals to faith. That has been my central criticism of his position so far. The problem is, these faith positions must undergo examination. My lines of questioning just also happen to demonstrate that his faith does not comport with reality, because it is self-defeating in its circularity.
My own faith position is circular in the same sense as his, and it is a presupposition as his is. But mine is not self-defeating, which is the beauty of the thing.