Posts Tagged “reason”
Kenneth Hynek • 20th Jan 2010 • Religion, Philosophy, Stray Thoughts, Secularism makes you stupid • burden of proof, James Chastek, logic, reason, Theology
Chastek does what Chastek do:
The most well known “proof burden” is the burden of the prosecutor — but his burden is not tied to the reasonableness of his case. There is a reason to give the prosecutor the burden, but this reason is not tied to the facts or the reasonableness of his case. If this is the model for what a proof burden is, then we cannot get from “In the dispute between p and ~p, p has the proof burden” to “prior to argument (or if the argument is deadlocked), ~p is reasonable to accept”. This would be like saying “prior to the trial, or before we know anything about the case, it is reasonable to believe the defendant”- which is clearly not true. If I walk in on a courtroom procedure, or if it is my first minute on the jury, I don’t think that the defendant’s case is more reasonable, even though I recognize that that he does not have the burden of proof.
Fortunately, in genuine theological debate, burden of proof rests on the claimant making a claim, whether that claim is for or against the existence of God.
Still, it’s amusing how often one sees self-styled champions of reason hide behind their irrational application of the idea of a proof burden, thinking all the while that their own claims are somehow the more correct for not being subject to same (if only in their own view).
(Here’s hoping James won’t mind that I quoted his entire post!)
Kenneth Hynek • 18th Jan 2010 • Religion, Atheism, Religion, Christianity, Stray Thoughts, I question the utility, Stray Thoughts, Just Plain Dumb, Stray Thoughts, Secularism makes you stupid, World News • atheism, charity, Doctors Without Borders, Haiti, reason, Red Cross, Religion, Richard Dawkins, Vox Day
Seriously…the guy can’t even talk about contributing to the relief effort in Haiti without trying to make some kind of irrational and irrelevant anti-religious statement.
Seriously…someone wrote this with a straight face:
It is widely imagined that, in times of crisis, religious people render aid in disproportion to their numbers. Richard Dawkins has now created an opportunity for non-believers to put the lie to this myth.
One hundred percent of the funds raised will go to Doctors Without Borders and/or The Red Cross (you decide). But giving in this way will send an additional message: one need not believe in God to care about one’s fellow human beings.
No…but it helps. Empirical evidence has verified, time and again, that religious people give way more of their money and their time to charity organizations, both religious and non-religious. Even if, in this one instance, atheists do in fact donate more money than believers (a highly unlikely outcome, it must be understood), the most they will have created is a statistical abberation…not a rule.
Then there’s this:
It goes without saying that your donations will only be passed on to aid organizations that do not have religious affiliations.
Who frakkin’ cares? Seriously…this is the sort of thing only an atheist or the most militant sort of Calvinist (note that the two species are more alike than different) could get hung up on. The money should go to the agency that is able to best translate it into effective aid for the people of Haiti! If that’s a secular group, so be it. If that’s a religious group…so be it! If the goal is helping people (and it should be), nothing other than the group’s dollars-to-aid effectiveness should be a consideration.
Of course, as Vox points out, Dawkins isn’t interested in helping people, not primarily. He’s interested in trumpeting the imagined virtues of atheism and atheists.
Which…kind of makes him the antithesis of his stated goal. But why would the champion of reason get hung up on something like that?
Ah, well…it’s no matter, really. One wonders if Dawkins will have the integrity to admit defeat at the hands of religious people when the final tally of donations comes in and it is seen that religious folk once again out-donated atheists by a wide margin.
Personally, I doubt he has the stones to admit any such thing; this contest will quickly vanish down a convenient memory hole. Still…it’s nice to dream.
Kenneth Hynek • 24th Aug 2009 • Religion, Catholicism, Religion, Christianity, History, Religion, Protestantism, Religion, Theology • atheism, Calvinism, Christ, DRB, exegesis, God, Jesus, John C. Wright, John Calvin, limited atonement, reason, resurrection, Sex, sexual revolution, the Church, Theology, US
Near the very end of John C. Wright‘s series of articles — in the final article, in fact — was buried a comment that made me reflect on a certain tenet of Calvinism: limited atonement.
Like most Calvinist teachings, limited atonement is bollocks, though not because it is patently false. Rather, it mixes truth and falsehood in some measure. Unlike some other Calvinist tenets, it’s not the sort of thing that’s nice in theory but not workable in reality; the errors with this doctrine are purely within the realms of Theology, exegesis, and reason.
And in fact, arguing against the tenet is quite easy. Far too many Protestants — including and perhaps especially those of a Calvinist bent — like to use John 3:16 as a forum or email signature. And while there’s nothing wrong with using Scripture in this capacity, there is a problem in that they often use this particular verse in ignorance of its complete meaning. This is especially the case for those who believe that false doctrine called limited atonement.
What does John 3:16 say, then? In the DRB, it is rendered thusly:
For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son: that whosoever believeth in him may not perish, but may have life everlasting.
For completeness, we should also consider the two verses that follow.
For God sent not his Son into the world, to judge the world: but that the world may be saved by him.
He that believeth in him is not judged. But he that doth not believe is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
One could exegete these three verses to assault another Calvinist tenet as well, but let’s table that matter for now and focus on two key points regarding atonement that the above verses teach, concerning its scope and the means by which man can attain its saving power.
John separates these two categories remarkably well. Concerning the first — atonement’s scope — he is explicit: “For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son…that the world may be saved by him.” Christ was sent into the world to save the world, not just an “elect” subset of the world. John makes no bones about this! The Gospel does not say that “God so loved his own, as to give his only begotten Son…that his regenerate may be saved by him.”
At this point, we could almost stop; noting only as much as we have already done is actually sufficient. Limited atonement — basically, that Christ’s death and resurrection only atoned for the sins of “regenerate” Christians — is obviously false, as Scripture itself indicates. Christ was sent to save all the world, and as such His death must necessarily have atoned for the sins of all the world.
So why does Calvinism teach limited atonement?
There was a recent incident in the US in which a deranged man shot up an exercise class at a gymnasium, before turning the gun on himself. On his blog, discovered some hours later, he detailed his reasons for killing…but also talked at length about his former pastor’s somewhat liberal stance on what Christ’s atonement meant. In his (errant) view, Jesus had already atoned for the sins he was about to commit, so he had to fear no eternal condemnation for either his pending murders or his present-day atheism.
Presumably, he received a rather rude awakening when he pulled the trigger for the final time.
Now, why do I mention this?
It is not, by any means, a new heresy, this teaching that since Christ atoned for the sins of all, all are saved regardless of their deeds or beliefs. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of the name of the relevant historical heresy that taught this…but I am fairly certain that such a heresy was seen in the earlier days of the Church.
I half-suspect that in inventing the doctrine of limited atonement, Calvin was attempting to argue against this heresy; that he was doing so in a way itself heretical is rather ironic. Oh, to be fair, the doctrine also proceeds, logically, from other Calvinist tenets — if one is going to believe that some people are born already, and then inexorably, damned, it’s not exactly a leap of great distance to likewise believe that Jesus did not die to atone for the sins of all mankind. It may be patent stupidity to believe as much, but it’s not illogical.
The problem, however, is that such a view isn’t really defensible from Scripture.
Oh, one could attempt to sneak the limitation in by the back door and argue that BELIEF (or disbelief) is predestined. This addresses the other category John talks about — how mankind accesses the salvation that flows out of Christ’s atonement for our sins. About this point, John is fairly specific: “…whosoever believeth in him may not perish, but may have life everlasting…he that doth not believe is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” John does leave it to later authors — Paul and James, especially — to expand upon what it means to believe in Christ, and Jesus himself gives plenty examples of what the full implications, obligations, and responsibilities of being a believer are.
And to be fair, one could get into a lengthy discussion about whether individual men and women are, in fact, predestined to believe, or predestined to eschew belief, in Christ.
But equally, so what? The issue is atonement, which we’ve already established cannot be limited, else Scripture be found to teach falsely. Even if some are predestined to never come to the faith necessary for access to the salvation that flows from that atonement (and I’m granting a very big “if” there*), this does not in any way mean that atonement itself is limited.
Now, I mentioned John C. Wright, and the good reader could be forgiven for wondering at this point just where he fits into the picture. As I noted previously, he said something that got this train of thought moving for me. Here, then, is his observation:
Christ bled and died for my enemies, the Leftists and the sexual revolutionaries, as well as for those tempted by sexual sins and lures. Not only must I pray for my enemies, I must do so even though that act or prayer holds me up to their derision. Since Christ died for them, I cannot hold these people up to the scorn they deserve, or mock their weaknesses, since those things are of secondary or even of no importance in the grand scheme of things.
What this statement got me thinking about was the implications of, especially, the first sentence if it were somehow proven that limited atonement was a valid and true doctrine. Do you see how the calculus would change, good reader? For, if Christ did NOT die for the sins of our enemies, if He did not bleed for them, then we need not pray for them…indeed, since they are inexorably damned, it would be a waste of breath and effort to do so! And since Christ did not die for “them,” there is no reason to spare them scorn, mockery, or derision for their weaknesses and sins.
One could even go so far as to argue that one’s enemies cannot be called “children of God,” and so need not even be thought of as brothers and sisters…which, in turn, means that one is free to pour out even hatred upon them, without fear of bring condemned as a murderer.
You laugh, good reader, but I’m not inventing anything here; I have heard such arguments before.
And indeed, we can see exactly such sentiments expressed in the writings and deeds of John Calvin, who once wrote that he would sooner murder — or see murdered — a good friend rather than see the man revert to being a ‘papist,’ and whose persecutions of Catholics were substantially more vicious and cruel than the persecutions Catholics are accused (rightly or wrongly) of carrying out against early Protestants.
Whatever spirit the man felt himself being led by, it was not the spirit of Jesus. And in like manner, whatever spirit gave rise to this doctrine of limited atonement was not the spirit of Christ.
One can only pray, then, that this alien spirit did not lead Calvin’s soul to ruin, just as one must pray that following his poisonous teachings will not lead millions more souls to ruin.
What else can one do? Christ died even for Calvin, and for those who continue to preach his bilgewater doctrines.
* * *
* I cannot state in strong enough terms how odious a doctrine Calvinist predestination is. If we were to abstract life as a swimming pool, in which those who come to know salvation are those able to tread water for a set time, Calvinist predestination would be the teaching that Jesus deliberately holds some people’s heads under the water and drowns them…”for the glory of God.”
It’s an ugly teaching, and a temptation I struggle to resist (and then more often than I care to admit) is the temptation to hope that it is a damnable teaching.
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Kenneth Hynek • 14th Jul 2009 • Religion, Catholicism, Religion, Christianity, Religion, Protestantism, Religion, Theology • Calvinism, Christ, damnation, emotion, evangelism, faith, Gamespot, God, Jesus, logic, Manichaeaism, Mark Shea, reason, soteriology, the Gospels
Mark Shea nails the first one, which I can likewise relate to:
Normal people do not pit God against his good creatures this way. But Calvinism (which Trent analyzed as a resurgent form of Manichaeaism) routinely does, at least in its anti-Catholic polemics. Of course, five centuries has done something to wear the edge of Calvinism into more demented hatred of creatures. Even the guy who wrote this would probably not slap his child if he sought comfort in the arms of his mother after a scraped knee or (like Calvin) have somebody flogged for praying at the grave of a loved one. Calvinists, after long exposure to normal human emotion, have backed down on the creatures are absolutely worthless in providing help and comfort. They have figured out, at least on a day to day basis, that humans rightly seek help and comfort from creatures all the time. That’s why there aren’t any Calvinist Child Rearing Books urging parents to punish their children as godless infidels when they call for their mothers after a nightmare, or Calvinist counselors slapping grieving parents around for their sinfully misplaced love of their dead child or Calvinist marriage counselors urging couples to stop finding love and consolation in the idolatrous love of their spouses.
Instead, the Calvinist zealot now confines his denunciation of enjoyment, supplication, and love of creatures strictly and solely to those creatures who happen to be dead. That’s what that qualifier about the “spirit realm” is all about. My combox Calvinist knows, at some level, that it’s insane to shout “trust in God alone” to a child who wants his Mother. He senses at some level what non-insane people know: that one of the ways God mediates his love and help to us is through creatures like our mothers. So he doesn’t denounce people for honoring their mother or asking her help. But when it comes to the Mother of God, all the demented rhetoric comes out full throttle, even though it is no more crazy to ask for her help than it is to ask for the help of our earthly mother.
The other thing is something I’ve noticed. Calvinists have this thing about “planting seeds” (not that way, sicko), and I notice the phrase is used in many of the debates that take place in the Gamespot Off-Topic Forum (and in the post-debate analysis conducted elsewhere). The dive-bombing evangelists come in, stir up anti-Christian vitriol with their whimsical, half-baked theological ramblings, and then — when logic, reason, and somewhat-more-sane Christians have dismantled their arguments and backed them into a corner — leave with a pithy comment about having planted seeds, and how the rest is in God’s hands.
This disgusts me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for evangelism. I’m just not for evangelism-as-a-means-of-damning-someone, which is why Calvinists mean (I think) with all this rhetoric about seed-planting. Banner images like this are not intended to actually compel people to seek salvation in Christ; they are made to use the reality of Christian soteriology as a weapon with which to sentence people to damnation (or, at least, that is the intent with which they are used). The Calvinist believes that simply by yelling “Jesus saves you, you damned rotten sinner,” at another person is a sufficient and fully legitimate mode of preaching the message of the Gospels; if the damned rotten sinner does not immediately go out and “get saved,” he deserves what he gets.
Of course, the person is vanishingly rare who will, upon hearing the above, go out and “get saved.” The Calvinist knows this, but spews forth his bilgewater preaching anyhow. The possibility that in so doing, said Calvinist is genuinely concerned for the salvation of the other is small, so small as to be non-existent against the statistical margin for error. The Calvinist can thus only be uttering his bilgewater preaching not to bring about the salvation of the other, but to ensure the damnation of the other (who, rightly, has indeed been informed of the truth).
Now, perhaps I am a Catholic pagan idolater infidel prostitute zealot, and a “Romanist” (17th century rhetorical polemics are just de rigeur, you see…) besides…but it seems to me that preaching to someone for the express purpose of ensuring his damnation is about as far removed from what is right, moral, and Christian as can be. Or nearly so.
Planting seeds from which faith can grow doesn’t mean spewing a venomous iteration of the message and then shrugging it off when nobody listens; it means preaching a message that actually speaks to others and encourages them to further explore a fledgling, nascent faith. It means teaching something which is true, and encouraging the other to seek after more and deeper truths from that starting point. Bellowing at someone that he’s a dirty rotten sinner destined for the Pit might make for good catharsis, but it’s actually counter-productive to spreading the Good News (actually, believe it or not, it makes the Good News sound like Bad News) and, moreover, sets up the one who bellows it out as a stumbling block in the other’s walk with Christ.
Jesus had something to say about stumbling blocks. It involved millstones.
Anyhow, it’s been a crazy day, and I haven’t had time to do much in the way of blogging, or to give complete and just answers to some threads in the CU. I’ll attempt to do so tomorrow, though I of course make no promises in this regard.
Kenneth Hynek • 20th May 2009 • Religion, Atheism, Religion, Catholicism, Religion, Christianity, Religion, Evolutionary Creationism, Society, Freespeechery, Religion, Philosophy, Religion, Theology • atheism, Augustine of Hippo, Carol Iannone, Christmas, Clarence Darrow, creation, creationism, EC, eugenics, evolutionary creationism, Galileo, God, ID, Intelligent Design, Jesus, Materialism, Pope John Paul II, reason, Religion, science, TE, the Bible, theistic evolution, YEC, Young Earth Creationism
…but I have to get on Denyse O’Leary’s case for a bit.
I don’t want to start there however. I want to start, instead, with something that Binks wrote over at Free Canuckistan.
The Binks, he say:
Science Vs. Materialism
~ AS I’VE SAID BEFORE, I’m no trained scientist, but rather an amateur (in the best sense), and not ignorant of the philosophy of science and the history of that.
I’m in a hearty dislike of scientific Materialism and the pretence that any other theory (say, Intelligent Design) is phony science, or actually ‘creationism’. That’s snobbery, and intellectual dishonesty.
Let’s stop here for a moment and set a few terms straight. Or one, to be specific. Intelligent Design (ID), like its counterparts (theistic evolution, evolutionary creationism, and Young Earth Creationism) are all forms of creationism: they all posit the involvement of a creative force or entity which exists behind and, to varying degrees, participates in the natural world, and which is the (or a) causal factor therefore.
It’s not intellectual snobbery to note that ID, YEC, and all the rest are forms of creationism, then: to observe as much is simply to assert something which is, in fact, true. ID is a flavour of creationism, but it’s not the same flavour of creationism as is spouted by this group of clowns.
It is, however, intellectual snobbery to dismiss an argument because it is, by some measure, creationist. My cousin attempted to do this to me once, during a wine-fueled debate at a family Christmas party. My reaction was probably excessive, though not incorrect in its details.
There are rational reasons to posit a creator when one regards the Universe; indeed, if one wishes to frame the discussion in terms of causality proper, it is only rational to posit that the Universe has a first cause which satisfies specific criteria. Connecting the existence of a first cause with God requires additional reasoning, but remains firmly within the realm of reason all the same.
But the point is that Intelligent Design, in this case, is in fact a form of creationism. People involved in the origins debate on the side of God need to avoid the snobbery of hiding from the ‘creationist’ label, and must in turn embrace it. It’s what we believe, after all, regardless of the name by which we call the creator, or the amount of involvement in creation we are willing to assert that He has.
But I digress.
Note how in the list of links Binks provides, there is an article listed which purports to pertain to theistic evolutionists. One notes, also, the invocation of a fairly common criticism of TEs (and of ECs like myself, as well): the “conform/surrender” trope.
It would appear that Denyse O’Leary is on a tear again.
Here is a true story about “theistic evolution,” by Carol Iannone:
[Theistic evolution, as normally propounded today = accept on faith that God dun it and holler yer guts fer Jesus to feel good – because the evidence suggests there is no God].
Let’s stop here for a moment and note the grotesque mischaracterization of theistic evolution. To be fair, I don’t really identify with the TE position, which places too great an emphasis on the evolutionary aspects of its area of study and so comes closest, of all the theistic positions regarding origins, to “conforming Scripture to science.” (EC, in contrast, is explicit in assertion of the creatorship and Lordship of God, and of His personal and present intervention in creation unto this day…including by means of an ordained, sustained, design-reflecting evolutionary process by which He has fashioned us and all living things.)
Where EC and TE agree, however, is given its most beautiful example in Psalm 19: the heavens do indeed declare the glory of God, and all creation shouts for joy at being fearfully and wonderfully made. But unlike our counterparts in, say, the YEC camp, we take Job 12′s declaration that the Earth will teach those who inquire of her a bit more seriously, as do proponents of ID (generally speaking).
My point, then, is that Denyse’s characterization of theistic evolutionists as a bunch of Jesus-hollering hypocrites who secretly believe that the evidence of the natural world points toward atheism is, in equal measures, uncharitable, unjust, and dishonest. These errors are only magnified by her digression into a discussion of the evil that is eugenics. Her choice of title implies that theistic evolution at best lines the road down which future eugenicists will happily march. I hope I am incorrect in this reading…but given my past experiences with Denyse’s vitriol, I’m going to have to wait for her to come out and say it.
The article to which she links ends with this observation:
Remember this when you see a version of Inherit the Wind, with its fradulent implication that the Bible and Darwin are perfectly compatible, and its closing scene with the Clarence Darrow character exiting happily with both in his briefcase. Generations of schoolchildren have been misled by this lie. Now at last we have the truth and can begin again to build on that.
This is a tone-perfect example of what could be called the “conflict model” in the origins debate. It pre-supposes that science and Religion are natural enemies, or at least fundamentally incompatible at several key levels.
This is a peculiarly recent phenomenon unheard of in centuries past, and it’s highly unfortunate that it has cropped up at all. Both sides of the false dichotomy that is at the heart of the “conflict model” bear the blame for its existence and ferocity — Christians who vilify science in the name of a literal hermeneutic are as idiotic and misguided as are atheists who confidently assert that evolutionary theory and other avenues of empirical inquiry essentially disprove the notion of God (and yes, such as these do exist).
Let’s come back to the point Binks makes after citing Denyse’s article. He notes that it is a form of snobbery to label something like ID — a viewpoint of which Denyse is a proponent — as creationism. He’s half right: it’s honest to note that ID is a creationistic philosophy, and it would be snobbery to reject it solely on that basis. But if we can turn what Binks is saying around for just a minute, there is — both in the article Denyse cites and in her own post commenting thereupon — a different kind of snobbery at work. It’s a snobbery fairly commonly seen in those who, in their pursuit of the erroneous “conflict model,” label all those who assert that the conflict is itself a false one as hypocrites, conformers, or surrenderers.
For centuries, dating back as far as Augustine of Hippo (and likely further still), Christians have approached science with what is essentially an attitude of openness. The one big, glaring example of this system breaking down is, naturally, the whole Galileo issue…but in truth, what happened to Galileo had as much to do with the fact that he was a “Class 1A Asshole” as with the scientific viewpoint he was articulating. In fact, it probably had a great deal more to do with his being an asshole than with the science he was articulating.
And one notes that Galileo is the only significant example, apart from the curiosities introduced by American evangelicalism in recent decades, of a formal conflict between the Christian faith and science in history.
It’s hardly an act of surrender to remain in keeping with that tradition.
“Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish.” — Pope John Paul II
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Kenneth Hynek • 7th Apr 2009 • Religion, Christianity, Politics • Battlestar Galactica, BSG, God, human rights, Mark Shea, Materialism, mutual consent, reason
Calling to mind a recent ongoing discussion I had with a fellow Battlestar Galactica fan, Mark Shea says with greater eloquence than I can leverage one of the exact points I was labouring to get across:
God is the only thing that guarantees that we have any rights at all. It is only God, as revealed in Scripture, who is the source of our rights. If rights are merely a fiction granted by the state, or another way of saying “Whatever the strong will” then nobody, including gays, has any rights at all. A society steeped in the Christian tradition can hold the notion of inherent human rights to be self-evident. But no other. Because, empirically speaking, there is nothing whatsoever self-evident about equal rights — or about rights at all. Only a society in which it is taken for granted that man is in the image and likeness of God can believe that, being such, he possessed certain God-given rights.
His remark — “But no other.” — is especially true of something like Materialism, or of BSG fan Daniel‘s own view that what is moral should be defined a) by what is legal, and b) by the existence of informed, mutual consent between parties. Shea addresses the latter viewpoint, whereas the materialist viewpoint can be addressed by observing that no empirical measure exists by which the statement “all human beings possess self-evident human rights” can be defended. Human beings have different physical characteristics, demonstrate different aptitudes and levels of intelligence and education, have different overall levels of health…and the list continues from there on down.
If one is going to posit the existence of equality between all human beings, reason itself demands that one’s criteria for defending that assertion draw upon something which is extrinsic to humanity, since nothing exists within the boundaries of what is “human” that is up to the task.
I call that extrinsic quantity “God.” I’ve never known a non-believer to have proposed a suitable, secular alternative.
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