Jason Engwer admits professional bible skeptics have integrity

I found this posted by Jason Engwer at Triablogue here:  

Sunday, May 16, 2021

The Moral Value Of Intellectual And Apologetic Work

"On the one hand, writing the way [the apostle Paul] usually writes - developing precise arguments with cogency and clarity - is not, in my view, morally neutral. It is a sign of honesty. To give reasons for what you believe and to strive for clarity that reveals what you truly think are marks of integrity." (John Piper, Why I Love The Apostle Paul [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2019], 94)

“… the objector is right. Paul has driven himself into a position in which he has to deny that God’s freedom of action is limited by moral considerations. ‘Has the potter no right over the clay?’ It is a well-worn illustration. But the trouble is that a man is not a pot; he will ask, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ and he will not be bludgeoned into silence. It is the weakest point in the whole epistle.”

(C. H. Dodd, The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, London (1932), p. 159)

"cogent"?  "clear"?  Then why do so many Christian scholars admit that Paul's use of the OT is a subject of never-ending debate?  Just how prevalent is the "problem of Paul"?

If Paul argued in "clear" fashion, why didn't anybody notice what he really meant about grace until Dodd, Sanders and others invented the "New Perspective on Paul"?

Do today's neo-evangelicals counsel unbelievers that becoming a genuinely born-again Trinitarian bible-studying praying Jesus-fanatic Christian apologist might not do all that needs doing in order to gain proper understanding of Paul?  

From Gary v. Smith, "Paul's use of Psalm 68:18 in Ephesians 4:8", JETS 18-3-pp181-190

Jason Engwer either doesn't know about, or doesn't care about, authenticating evidence: The Enfield poltergeist farce, again

 I cannot believe what a dipshit Jason Engwer is.   I've written about his Enflield Poltergeist crap before.  See here and here.

He is expecting his readers to draw confident conclusions about the paranormal based on audio recordings of the "Enfield Poltergeist" that somebody else uploaded to YouTube.  See here.

Gee, Jason, have you never heard of authentication, and what is implied when you cannot or will not authenticate the evidence you supposedly want skeptics to deal with?

Or maybe you think authentication was invented only by skeptics to make sure they could get rid of most of the evidence for the spiritual world?

An examination of the people who uploaded that audio also doesn't inspire confidence:

DescriptionWe are The Paranormal Detectives - a duo of paranormal investigators that visit haunted locations in an attempt to catch evidence of the paranormal on camera. Everything you see on this channel is real. No evidence is tampered with. Nothing is faked. Be sure to subscribe to us and follow our journey of the paranormal world.

https://www.youtube.com/c/TheParanormalDetectives/about

In other words, Engwer wants his Christian readers to think that these promises of authenticity are dependable, when in fact the "paranormal detectives" won't claim to have been the person who made the recording.  

That would be like me telling you that the moon rocks in my possession are not fakes.  Given that i wasn't the one who originally obtained them, how the fuck could I possibly expect you to believe that claim of authenticity was reliable?

Engwer is willing to talk all day and night about what he knows from the tapes, but he doesn't upload them, nor provide any authenticity declaration.  See here.

Engwer created a post entitled "The Enfield Poltergeist Tapes Made More Accessible",  but, as usual, he doesn't direct us to downloads of those tapes. instead, he boasts "I've only listened to a small minority of the audio so far. I intend to write posts about the contents of the tapes as warranted."  See here.

Engwers most comprehensive resource page for this paranormal fakery appears to be "The Enfield Poltergeist And Skepticism", but, as usual, he doesn't provide links to downloads of the audio, but instead boasts "After the digitizing of Guy Playfair's tapes was completed, I wrote a post about it."  LOL!  See here.

Let's just say that if Engwer were being prosecuted for murder in court, and the chain of custody for the incriminating recordings had all of the flaws the "Enfield tapes" do, Engwer would be screaming his head off that charges need to be dropped for lack of authentication.  We skeptics are not the least bit unreasonable to demand, before we turn over our entire lives to an invisible man, that the evidence in favor of the spirit world meets the highest tests of authenticity. Jason, did you forget that spiritual evil exists everywhere, and according to you, especially in the case of people who are considering taking the spirit world more seriously?

And so you think that believing some shit found on the internet should be "good enough" to pretend that the reviewer has been placed under an intellectual obligation to either confess the reality of the spirit world, or confess their bias against supernaturalism renders them unable to objectively evaluate the evidence?

So unless Engwer thinks the authentication tests required in a Court of law are unreasonably high, he cannot balk at skeptics who demand that checkable Affidavits of Authentication demonstrating a chain of custody and authentication accompany these alleged recordings from the 1970's, before there is any chance of this evidence foisting the least bit of moral or intellectual obligation upon a skeptic to 'explain' it.

Yes, that would make things impossible for Engwer, because the two girls who played this joke on paranormal investigators have never done what would otherwise be normal in court, and testified under oath to the authenticity of those tapes.  At most they visited the haunted house 40 years later, and they have appeared on talk programs, but they have never done anything remotely near as serious as testifying under oath.

So the truth is, you don't have the first fucking clue how much of such alleged audio is authentic and how much isn't.  Maybe Jason has a better idea, but that is hardly relevant to the skeptic, who isn't getting anything more from Engwer except endless trifles about how skeptics aren't dealing with certain details and have misinterpreted the evidence.

Release the properly authenticated Enflield recordings, Jason, or use up some brain cells trying to reconcile the obvious contradiction between your strong belief that this poltergeist was real, and your own refusal to release the relevant recordings.

NOW what are you going to do, Jason?  Maybe direct us to equally unauthenticated videos and audios "from the internet" ?

Since Jason cannot be accused of being retarded, it is certainly reasonable to infer that Jason's refusal to release the tapes is not due to oversight, but intention.  Well gee, if the tapes prove so much, why are you unwilling to release them?  Did you have a deal with SPR to keep the tapes private so other people could make money charging access fees?  What exactly?

Did you have a vision of God who told you to avoid writing down what the clouds said releasing the tapes?

LOL

Jason once said "The case and the tapes deserve further study."  See here.

Correction:  the case and the PROPERLY AUTHENTICATED tapes deserve further study.  Which apparently means they don't become deserving of further study until Jason decides that the unbeliever's peril in refusing to believe in the spiritual is so great as to "deserve" giving them Jason's best possible evidence...as opposed to his ceaselessly trifling about this shit as if he thinks it was the 28th book of the NT.

Jason's post at the Paranormal Detective YouTube channel from about January 2021 is:

Jason Engwer 

2 months ago 

Thanks for posting these clips. I've listened to all of the tapes, in their digitized form, and have posted a lot of articles on the contents of the tapes, if anybody is interested. Search for a post titled "The Enfield Poltergeist And Skepticism" at Triablogue. The tapes have a triple-digit number of hours of material, including a lot that hasn't been discussed publicly much or at all. The evidence for the case is much better than people typically suggest.

Then why aren't you releasing the full and properly authenticated audio?  Maybe you are afraid of bowling over the skeptics with so much evidence for the spiritual world that skeptics will start committing suicide?  YEAH RIGHT.  Triablogue exists for no other reason than to stomp down skeptical arguments.  So we are reasonable to believe that if you seriously believed the Enfield tapes proved your conclusions, you'd have uploaded them by now.  You've had since July 2018 to do this, but you haven't.  You forfeit your right to balk if skeptics become suspicious that you know your evidence is nowhere near as compelling as you pretend.

So now that we know Jason has all the tapes digitized, we have to wonder why he thinks it would be better for the world if they were only given mere tidbits of unauthenticated bits of the tapes here and there, downloadable without the slightest assurance of authenticity, interspersed with his endlessly trifling comments about how skeptics didn't account for this and that.  FUCK YOU.  

Demolishing Triablogue: Jason Engwer fails to show that Jesus' brother James ever became a Christian in the first place

 This is my reply to Jason Engwer's attempt to bolster the notion Jesus' brother James believed Jesus rose from the dead. 

The Gospels' Agreement About James And Corroboration Of Other Sources In a post yesterday, I discussed agreements among the early sources regarding the apostles. Some evidence that's often neglected in that context is what the gospels tell us about Jesus' brother James. I've discussed their material on him elsewhere. Something I don't believe I've discussed here before, though, and it's something that doesn't seem to get much attention in general, is James' position in the lists of Jesus' siblings in Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3. Notice that the two lists are different, and there are some differences in the surrounding context, so it's not just a matter of Matthew's copying Mark, Mark's copying Matthew, or both's copying some other source. What I want to focus on here, though is how they list the names of Jesus' brothers in a different order, yet agree in putting James first. As I've mentioned before, the order in which names appear in a list can be determined by a wide variety of factors. James could be listed first because he was the oldest brother of Jesus. Or it could be because he was the most prominent for whatever other reasons. Or it could be both. Maybe James was the most prominent, which was partly because he was the oldest and partly because of one or more other factors. Whatever the cause of his being listed first in both documents, that's consistent with his prominence elsewhere.

"consistent with"?  Gee, what lawyer can't show that his lying client's testimony is "consistent with" other facts?  You need to show that your theory has greater probability than the theory you disagree with.   

He's prominent in Acts, much more prominent than the other siblings listed with him in Matthew 13 and Mark 6.

No, the only "James" who is "prominent" in Acts is the James of Acts 15 and Acts 21, neither of which express or imply he is the brother of Jesus...while two of the original 12 disciples of Jesus were named "James" and thus make better candidates.  Especially given that you can't even show that Jesus' brother James ever even became a Christian in the first place.  Inerrantist Christian scholar T. George is far less impressed with Galatians 1:19 than you are:

George, T. (2001, c1994). New American Commentary, Vol. 30: Galatians. On p. 74 he says: 

1:19 Paul claimed that he saw none of the other apostles except James, the brother of Jesus. The expression is ambiguous in Greek, so we cannot be sure whether Paul meant to include James among the other apostles. Did he mean: “The only other apostle I saw was James,” or “I saw no other apostle, although I did see James”? Probably he meant something like this: “During my sojourn with Peter, I saw none of the other apostles, unless you count James, the Lord’s brother.”

Engwer continues:

He's the only sibling of Jesus mentioned by name in the resurrection appearances discussed in 1 Corinthians 15.

What makes you think the unqualified "James" in 1st Corinthians 15 is specifically the brother of Jesus, when in fact there were two different Jameses among the original 12 apostles, who would be better candidates, especially given that you cannot even show James ever became a Christian to begin with? 

He's the only brother of Jesus mentioned in Galatians 1-2

No, the James of 1:19 is not clearly equated with the apostles, as inerrantist Christian scholars admit, supra, and the "James" of Galatians 2 is unqualified in context, and the mere fact that the brother James was mentioned in the prior chapter by no means "requires" that the unqualified James mentioned in ch. 2 is the same person. 

and the only one named anywhere in Paul's letters. Jude identifies himself in connection with James (Jude 1),

Brother to which James?  He doesn't say, and the most we can reasonably infer is that he was probably talking about a James who was some type of church leader.  And the two Jameses among the original 12 apostles certainly qualify for that position far more than Jesus' brother of the same name.

but James sees no need to appeal to a relationship with any of his brothers in his letter.

And you don't know which James wrote that letter, so your theories and why he doesn't state any biological relation to Jesus are nothing that could possibly threaten the reasonableness of the skeptical position that says the James who wrote that book is too obscure to justify dogmatic pronouncements about his identity. 

This sort of greater prominence James had, in comparison to his brothers, is corroborated by the passages in Matthew 13 and Mark 6.

No, they merely mention James first, and you admitted that could just as easily be due to his being older, but now, you shove all that aside and blindly insist his being mentioned first can only imply he was a Christian leader. 

Several years ago, I wrote an article addressing why the gospels don't include any reference to the resurrection appearance to James. I said that the best explanation for their not including the appearance to James is a desire to be consistent with their previous focus on Jesus' earliest followers and a desire to honor those earliest disciples.

A better theory for that silence is that Jesus' brother James never saw a risen Christ, a theory you could prove wrong from the bible or Josephus, which means the theory must remain reasonable. 

You can read the article just linked for a further discussion of that subject and others that are related. I want to note here, though, that since one of the gospels that doesn't include the appearance to James is Luke, there's an implication that Luke wanted to honor Jesus' earliest disciples above individuals like James in the manner I just described. That's significant in light of the fact that some people deny that Luke viewed James as an unbeliever during Jesus' public ministry. I've argued that Luke 8:19-21 probably alludes to his unbelieving status.

I prefer, as do most conservative apologists, John 7:5 and Mark 3:21 to document Jesus' brother James thinking Jesus' miracles were fake. And let's not forget the bizarre Mark 6, where the people of his own hometown are angry for his doing a miracle, and he admits even those of his own household were his "enemies".  Your 'explanation' for why his family members didn't believe in him before the crucifixion, is utterly laughable...they were too blinded by their hope in a military messiah to appreciate the obvious ramifications of Jesus' miracles! LOL. 

But even if we didn't have that passage, or even if my view of it is wrong, I think the absence of any reference to the resurrection appearance to him is best explained if he was an unbeliever in the relevant timeframe.

Agreed.  Now you need to explain what's so unreasonable about the skeptical theory that says the reason James was an unbeliever during Jesus' pre-cross ministry, is because he didn't think Jesus' miracles were genuinely supernatural.  That theory is obviously reasonable, and similarly explains why lots of Christians stop following "faith-healers".  It's not like you know enough about this brother of Jesus to "prove" that he held any "military messiah" hope, or that if he did, held it so strongly that he blinded himself to obvious reality.

And if he did blind himself to obvious reality, that constitutes a legitimate impeachment of his general credibility, which cannot be erased merely by screaming that he became a believer.  Peter was stupid during his time with Jesus and even afterward, apparently.

Even if I'm wrong about both of these matters, the meaning of the Luke 8 passage and the absence of the appearance to James, there has to be some reason why all of the gospels don't mention that appearance. And that's further common ground they have about James.

In light of inerrantist Christian scholar's unlikely admissions about the ambiguity of Galatians 1:19, I say Mark 3:21 and John 7:5 not only tell us THAT this James was an unbeliever during Jesus' public ministry, but they support the inference that he probably didn't find Jesus' miracles' to be genuinely supernatural.

Answering Jason Engwer's questions on why skeptics distrust Acts

Jason Engwer of Triablogue posted to Facebook a few questions intended to rationally justify his acceptance of the reports in Acts about apostle Paul's experience of Christ on the road to Damascus.

See here

I respond to each question respectively, showing that skeptics can answer those questions in a way that renders their continued distrust of Acts and Luke reasonable.

Jason EngwerMarch 29 ·

Some of the reasons we have for accepting what Acts tells us about Jesus' resurrection appearance to Paul:
- There's no competing account.

Most modern day "miracles" have no competing account, yet despite their allegedly involving the Christian god, you do not automatically trust them.  Or is that granting you too much?

- Luke's general reliability.

No, the only reason he made sure to get the names of cities and people correct was to make his lies about miracles seem more believable.  All professional liars realize the obvious truth that if you want to make a lie seem convincing, you have to surround it with nuggets of historical truth.  And there is no rule of historiography that requires a person to believe a report or testimony until it can be proven false.  Josh McDowell lied about Aristotle's dictum.

Engwer will carp that anti-supernaturalism is fallacious, but not even he or anybody at Triablogue would believe biblical miracle claims if they were made by people today.  Suppose your single female pregnant neighbor says no man got her pregnant, it was only god, just like with Mary in the gospels.  You know god-damn well you'd be immediately suspicious, would you NOT robotically remain neutral so you could gather the evidence and weigh hypotheses.  Go fuck yourself, you trifling self-deceived liar.

- Why fabricate an account in which Paul's companions don't convert?

It makes Paul look more special and unique.  And his companions more than likely didn't convert, so saying they did carried a risk of being falsified.  And the fact that the companions are utterly unknown and disappear forever from history reasonably justifies the conclusion that if they ever existed, they actually didn't convert...which means they likely did not believe Paul was telling the truth that the experience was Jesus.

- Why fabricate an account in which Paul's companions don't see the risen Christ and don't hear all that was said?

See above.  Why would Mel Tari fabricate tales of Christians walking on water, fire falling from heaven..."

- Why not make the physicality of the appearance more obvious, as with earlier resurrection appearances, like the earlier ones in Luke and Acts?

Because Paul was an absurd mystic who liked the idea of quasi-dimensional nonsense that left him stymied as to what exactly happened and how, such as his experience of flying up in heaven, but being unable years later to tell whether it happened physically or spiritually:

 1 Boasting is necessary, though it is not profitable; but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord.
 2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago-- whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows-- such a man was caught up to the third heaven.
 3 And I know how such a man-- whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, God knows--
 4 was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak. (2 Cor. 12:1-4 NAU)

And of course, you know that Paul boasted of manifesting the nonsensical gift of tongues more than the Corinthian church, 1st Corinthians 14:18.  So Paul thought talking to himself in a language his mind could not understand constituted his talking to 'god'. 14:14.  He also thought that the time it took for all Christians to float up in the air and be with Jesus would be no longer than the time it takes to blink.  15:52.

- Why make the events so complicated (as discussed above)?

Its hard to juggle the desire to look special, along with the desire to tell a convincing story about a quasi-dimensional event.  Maybe you should interview a few lying eyewitnesses, who could have lied in court in a less complex way than they did?

Finally, Engwer and all Christian apologists routinely overlook the fact that the bible itself denies that the doing of a miracle automatically means the wonder-worker's theology is approved of by God, it also says God might give a false prophet the ability to do a miracle, merely to test the people:

 "If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder,
 2 and the sign or the wonder comes true, concerning which he spoke to you, saying, 'Let us go after other gods (whom you have not known) and let us serve them,'
 3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the LORD your God is testing you to find out if you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.   (Deut. 13:1-3 NAU)

So even if skeptics granted that Luke was telling the truth about Paul's experience of Christ on the road to Damascus, the fact of the miracle does not mean "Christians 1, Skeptics 0".

By what criteria can a person tell when the theology of a miracle-worker is divinely approved, and when the theology of a miracle-worker is merely a test from God?  Engwer cannot answer this in any objective fashion (what's he gonna say?  Jesus and Paul were nice people?), and therefore, skeptics would remain reasonable to be completely apathetic toward Jesus and Paul even if the skeptics acknowledged that they did genuinely supernatural miracles.

And if Engwer came up with any such criteria, that would be stupid since, what?  Are we supposed to apply that test to the wonder-workers in various Christian denominations to figure out which one is right?  How could we have time to conduct our lives if we were investigating miracle claims like that?

Or will Engwer cite Matthew 19:29 and insist the only rational thing to do is to give up custody of our kids so that we can have more time to obsess about Jesus?  LOL

TRIABLOGUE HAS DONE NOTHING IN 15 YEARS TO REMOTELY JUSTIFY CALLING SKEPTICS FOOLS.  IF YOU THINK THEY HAVE, I'LL GLADLY DISCUSS IT WITH YOU IN ANY INTERNET FORUM OF YOUR CHOOSING. RESPOND HERE OR AT barryjoneswhat@gmail.com

Triablogue: Dividing up Christianity is just as easy as we suggested

This is my reply to a Triablogue article by Jason Engwer entitled:

Dividing Up Early Christianity Is More Difficult Than Often Suggested

It's common for people commenting on Easter issues, as well as issues in other contexts, to put one strand of early Christianity against another. They'll claim that a particular belief is found in one gospel, but not another. The Pauline letters have one view of a subject, but a contrary view is found in the gospels.

They are correct.  Apostle Paul taught that righteousness doesn't come from the Law.  Galatians 2:21.  But Jesus not only taught that it does (the context for Matthew 5:17-20 is not "imputed righteousness" but v. 21 ff, which make actual personal righteousness a requirement for salvation), but that anything he taught the original apostles is also required of all future Gentiles, see Matthew 28:20, the part of the Great Commission most Christians miss.  If that is true, then because Jesus ordered the apostles to obey the Pharisee's commands (Matthew 23:3), Matthew also thought the risen Christ required the same of Gentiles. 

And that's how you prove Matthew was one of the Judaizers that Paul cursed in Galatians 1:8. 

And so on. In the context of Easter, we'll be told that Paul had no concept of the empty tomb

Making me wonder what you do with skeptics like me, whose arguments against the empty tomb are far more powerful than that.  1st Corinthians 15 is too convoluted to bother with, and any idiot who believed what you think Paul believed, could have expressed himself more clearly on the point.  Had Paul any concern for the historical Jesus, which he didn't, he could have appealed to the resurrection of Lazarus, and that would have made things as clear as Jesus wanted.  Adding apostle Paul to your Christianity is like getting married to a mentally retarded criminal.  You have to be sick in the head to do it.

or that some portions of early Christianity believed in a form of resurrection that didn't involve the transformation of the body that died, for example.

Ever read 2nd John 1:7?  How could the 1st century gnostic Christians possibly believe in a bodily resurrected Christ, when they asserted that his pre-resurrection body was illusory?   And there you go, a first century group of Christians who saw nothing particularly compelling with the "bodily resurrection" hypothesis.  Hell, even Paul's churches included people who denied resurrection outright (1st Cor. 15:12).

One of the points that ought to be made in these contexts is that the alleged differing strands of early Christianity often express agreement with one another. On the resurrection, Paul refers to how he and the rest of the apostles were in agreement (1 Corinthians 15:11).

FAIL.  That is only Paul alleging that the other apostles experienced things similar to himself.  A quick analysis will reveal serious problems justifying skepticism toward Paul's testimony here:

 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
 5 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
 6 After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep;
 7 then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles;
 8 and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. (1 Cor. 15:3-8 NAU)

Paul's list was intended to convey the notion of chronological progression, therefore the appearance to Cephas was first.  But assuming the gospel of Mark really is the written form of Peter's preaching as some church fathers alleged, sure is strange that Peter (assuming he is the same as Cephas) didn't mention his own experience of the risen Christ (didn't the apostles value eyewitness testimony as much as Triablogue does?  If the apostles didn't find it necessary to write 6,000 articles addressing every possible trifle against theiir faith, Triablogue will have to admit there is a serious probability that it's sin of word-wrangling truly does signify a lack of sanctification.  A true Christian cares more about walking in the light, and less about "my arguments are still powerful whether I live in sin or not"). 

It's more strange if Peter did give his testimony and Mark somehow didn't think that part sufficiently important to justify mentioning despite the fact that Peter was the source, and the resurrection of Jesus the capstone of the gospel.  Your conjured up possible scenarios (Maybe mark forgot, maybe this, maybe that) will never be powerful enough to render my skepticism at this point unreasonable. Even stranger, even assuming Mark's long ending is canonical, there is no appearance to Peter there either.  We are fully justified to say the gospels don't mention any appearance to Peter before an appearance to the 12, because the gospel authors did not know of any such appearances, not because they were knowingly suppressing relevant testimony.  They already had a hard case to prove, they would likely regard ALL resurrection testimony, which they viewed as reliable, to be indispensable.  So skepticism toward Paul's resurrection summary is justified.  Contrary to popular belief, skepticism doesn't need to be founded on absolutes anymore than Christian faith does.

The appearance to 500 brothers at one time is recorded nowhere else in the NT, and worse, there can be no intellectual constraint on the skeptic to admit that testimony, since you don't know whether Paul says such a thing based on his own personal knowledge, or if he is conveying hearsay, or if he simply made it up in the typical fashion of Semitic exaggeration, which Flannagan and Copan tell us was the case with the "kill'em all" passages in the OT.

There is no appearance to 'James' in any of the gospels, except of course the Gospel to the Hebrews...wanna go there?  I didn't think so.  Like the atheist who has already decided that miracles are impossible, YOU have already decided that the Gospel to the Hebrews is not worthy of being taken seriously, since you aren't stupid enough to open epistemological doors you'll never close again.  Welcome to the club of smug presuppositionalism.  Maybe God wants you to do something else in life beside spend his money resurrecting demon inspired events for posterity, you fuckin fool.

Paul's using the same word for "appear" (Greek: horao) for all the listed appearances including to himself was dishonest, since the most explicit NT stories about Jesus appearing to Paul, neither express nor imply that he was an "eyewitness" in the sense that the gospels portray the Christ-appearances to the other apostles.  Go ahead, read Acts 9, Acts 22 and Acts 26.  Let me know when you find anything saying Paul saw anything more than a "light from heaven".  I also answered Steve Hays' trifles about the historicity of Paul's Damascus road experience, here.  Paul was NOT an "eyewitness" of the risen Christ.  And it wouldn't matter if he was, the apostolic test for apostleship is not "did you see the risen Christ?" but "were you present among Jesus' followers from the beginning of his earthly ministry"? (Acts 1:21).  You'll excuse me if I reject Paul's criteria of apostleship in favor of Peter's.  Feel free to join J. Vernon McGee in accusing Peter and the church in Acts 1 of defying the will of God, but don't say so publicly, you're liable to get steamrolled with details in Acts 1 you've shut your eyes to.

On the other hand, a theory that Paul wasn't being dishonest in 1st Cor. 15 would require that the manner in which Paul experienced Jesus on the road to Damascus is the way Paul thought the apostles experienced Jesus, which is bad news for you, given the nonsensical "Jesus-was-there-but-didn't-allow-anybody-to-see-him-except-Paul" absurdity, the likes of which would get any case based on similar nonsense tossed out of court, the the Plaintiff sued for filing a frivolous claim.  The reasonableness of the skeptical alternatives is not going to disappear merely because you can trifle about this or that.

To cite another example, see here regarding the likely reference to Luke's gospel as scripture in 1 Timothy 5:18.

Don't forget to tell them that some inerrantist Christian scholars deny the connection:

  It is not likely that Paul was quoting the Gospel of Luke, a document whose date of writing is uncertain. Paul may have been referring to a collection of Jesus’ sayings, some of which appear in Luke’s Gospel.
Lea, T. D., & Griffin, H. P. (2001, c1992). Vol. 34: 1, 2 Timothy, Titus (electronic ed.). The New American Commentary (Page 156). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

But I'm sure that Jason Engwer will still "expect" spiritually dead skeptics to successfully navigate the disputes that conservative inerrantist Christian scholars have with each other.  To think anything else is to give them excuse to deny God, and Romans 1:20 must be upheld to the death, amen?

Paul's letters are referred to as scripture in 2 Peter 3:15-16.

You say nothing here that might intellectually obligate a non-Christian to agree.

An example cited less often, but which has a lot of significance, is the early patristic attestation of how highly John viewed the Synoptic gospels.

Matthew made Jesus into a Judaizer (23:3, 28:20), yet John's gospel nowhere expresses or implies that Gentiles must obey the Pharisees.  Perhaps somebody can have high regard for an author, without agreeing with everything that author said?  Just like Jason Engwer has high regard for Steve Hays, while thinking Hays' Calvinism is an absurd misinterpretation of scripture (or did you become a Calvinist since 2015?)

See here concerning what Papias tells us about John's view of the gospel of Mark.

And just forget about  Papias' credibility problems.  You are here to live through your blog, not "convince" anybody of anything.  Also forget about the fact that you cannot demonstrate that any modern person is under the least bit of intellectual or moral obligation to give two shits about ancient hearsay.  So when we refuse to consider it, we aren't breaking any rules of intellectual or moral integrity. 

It sucks to be you because you are doing more to promote the gospel than even your own god!  Don't tell me God works through you, or I will ask why you don't profess to write inerrantly.  Where does the bible say God's inspiration would affect people of the future to a lesser degree than it did the biblical authors?

(And for more about Papias and his relationship with the apostle John, see here.) Clement of Alexandria cited some elders who commented on John's view of the Synoptics. See here for more about that passage.

Wow, I never knew Triablogue put so much stock in ancient hearsay at third-hand.  Jesus' resurrection is as obvious as the existence of trees.  I faint from fear of your god.  Can I borrow some dust and ashes?  Or are you a dispensationalist?

Notice, too, that much of what I'm saying here holds up even if the traditional authorship attributions of the New Testament documents are rejected. I explain some of the reasons why in my article on 1 Timothy 5:18 linked above, and those principles apply to other documents as well, not just 1 Timothy.

How much would Christianity suffer if it could be proven that the modern person is not under the least bit of intellectual compulsion to give two fucks what the 4 gospels say?  Sounds like a reasonable argument for rejecting traditional gospel authorship, which I can easily make and have made numerous times before, disposes of 4 of those resurrection witnesses, in a circumstance where you don't have very many witnesses anyway, and therefore the loss of 4 witnesses could not possibly be trivilaized, unless you are a Pentecostal Calvinist like Steve Hays, who thinks his personal experience of Christ counts for beans in such a debate.

Similarly, even if you think the elder Papias referred to was somebody other than the apostle John, the fact would remain that Papias was highly influenced by the Johannine documents (as I argue in my material linked above), and he held a high view of the Synoptics.

He also held a high view of talking grapes.  Let's just say I don't exactly lose sleep at night wondering whether Papias should still be believed or not despite his credibility problems.   I've rejected him and you haven't given me the slightest reason to worry I might have been wrong.  The difference between you and I is that I'm always open to dialogue and debate; YOU are just a chickenshit cocksucker who carefully avoids explaining why he won't put up or shut up.

For example, I asked you for all the evidence you had on the Enfield Poltergiest that you think God wants you to endless blog about, perhaphs thinking in doing so you are mirroring the apostles.  I'm still waiting.  Perhaps you have a new theory?  Maybe atheists who want to evaluate the same evidence you do, are not "worthy" to be given access?

 You can tell from my debates here that when I'm involved in formal debate, I use nicer language, so don't hide behind the pretext of "foul language".  I'll talk nicer if that's what you demand, you posterboy for masculinity, you.  And if you demand I talk nicer, I'd love to hear you comment on whether James Patrick Holding's use of foul insulting language and slurs for the last 20 years can intellectually justify a person to be suspicious that his claim to salvation is complete bullshit.

Any fool can post endless blog entries about Christian theology, but direct debate is where you find out whether their blog posts are substantive, or just organized noise.

Furthermore, saying that the elder Papias refers to wasn't the apostle John doesn't change the fact that he was some sort of prominent early church leader who didn't write the gospel of Mark and seems to have operated largely outside of the circles that gospel's author is usually associated with, yet he held a high view of that gospel.

An anonymous person held a high view of an anonymous gospel.  Don't make me put my beer down, turn off the stereo and start trembling in fear before your empty sky.

Rejecting something like Pauline authorship of 1 Timothy or the identification of Papias' elder as the apostle John would weaken my argument, but the argument would still carry some weight.

But you'll never establish that there is the least bit of intellectual or moral obligation upon any modern person to so much as CARE what the gospels say in the first place.  I can make a reasonable biblical case that Jesus' warnings about eternal conscious torment contradict the Old Testament, so that there's about as much danger in rejecting the gospel as there is in deleting spam email.

Times are changing, you won't be scaring anybody into heaven if I can help it.   Now tell yourself the Holy Spirit allowed me to post this rebuttal piece because he wants you to think of new creative ways to convince yourself that you can stand up to my debate challenges without needing to actually debate.

Reply to Steve Hays replying to Greg Bahnsen on the resurrection of Jesus

This is my reply to a Triablogue article by Steve Hays entitled:

Is it improper to argue evidentially for the Resurrection?
A friend asked me to comment on an old article by the late Greg Bahnsen:
https://answersingenesis.org/apologetics/the-impropriety-of-evidentially-arguing-for-the-resurrection/

However, a serious difficulty arises when the epistemological significance of the resurrection is separated from its soteriological function. It is correct to hold that God’s raising of Jesus from the dead saves us both from sin and agnosticism, but it would be mistaken to understand by this that the epistemological problem could be handled independently of the (broader) moral problem which is at its base. It is with regret that one notices neo-evangelicals severing the justifying efficacy of Christ’s resurrection from its truth-accrediting function. In reality, the latter is dependent upon the former. Only as Christ’s resurrection (with its ensuing regeneration by the Holy Spirit of Christ) saves a sinner from his rebellion against God and God’s Word, can it properly function to exhibit evidence for God’s truthfulness.

i) The significance of the Resurrection is multifaceted, so it's a question of which facet it is deployed to prove. It has an soteriological value but also evidential value. By raising Jesus from the dead, the Father vindicates the mission of Jesus, confirming who he claims to be. If Jesus was a false prophet, God would leave him to rot in the grave.

Then apparently Steve Hays forgot about that bible verse that says God may allow a false prophet to work genuinely supernatural miracles.  See Deuteronomy 13:1-3.  Apparently, the doing of a real miracle does NOT end the discussion about whether that person's message is what God wants the hearers to accept.

The problem for the Christian apologist at that point is how spiritually dead people are supposed to figure out which workers of genuinely supernatural miracles are approved by God, and which workers of genuinely supernatural miracles are false prophets god is using to test people.  Especially if spiritually alive people such as Catholics and Protestants cannot even agree on whether God has caused Mary to miraculously appear in modern times.

ii) The reversal of death is an overwhelming phenomenon, 

Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead and his turning a few fishes and loaves into enough to feed 5,000 people is also an overwhelming proposition, yet curiously, today's apologists reserve the mighty change in the disciples solely to Jesus' last alleged miracle, his rising from the dead.  What fool would trifle that there is an important difference between watching your messiah friend raise a 4-day dead decomposing corpse back to life, and your messiah friend being alive three days after he died?

ii) Due to common grace, some unbelievers are more reasonable than others. They retain more common sense. 

thanks for supplying me with all I need to justifiably blame god for my inability to see things your way.  I didn't deserve to be born into a sinful human race, but if your god made it happen anyway, then your ideas about what's morally "good" are probably too deranged to suppose you could profit from rebuttal.

Furthermore, since inductive argumentation is dependent upon the premise of uniformity, and since this premise can only be established by a Christian presupposing the truth of Scripture (for Hume’s skepticism has yet to be countered on anything but presuppositional grounds), the “evidentialist’s” argument is really presuppositional at base anyway. The non-Christian has no right to expect regularity in nature and the honest skeptic knows it; so, an inductive argument for the historical resurrection could only have been probative force for one who granted the truth of Christianity already. 

It's true that induction presents a paradox for secular philosophy. 

it's also a paradox for the inerrantist Calvinist who is sure that the stranger's claim of gold fish who audibly testify to the gospel, is false, but who nevertheless cannot absolutely deny that possibility due to his belief that stranger things have happened.

ii) It's true that many atheists raise a classic uncomprehending objection to the Resurrection by laying odds–as if this should be treated the same way as a naturally occurring event. 

It's true that many Calvinists raise a classic uncomprehending objection to the "god made my gold fish speak to me in English" report from the stranger on the bus, by laying odds, as if this should be treated the same way as a naturally occurring event.

i) It's true that there's often not enough common ground between Christians and some unbelievers to make a case for the Resurrection that an unbeliever will find convincing. 

then you disagree with Van Tilian Calvinist Jeff Durbin, who insists that unbelievers are quite sure that Jesus rose from the dead, they just don't wish to admit it because they like to live in rebellion against their creator.

ii) But this also raises the problem of the criterion. Which enjoys priority: criteria or paradigm examples? If you witness a miracle, you don't begin with criteria but with the event itself. 

Then you obviously disagree with Gary Habermas, Mike Licona, William Lane Craig and other evidentialists who start with criteria.  A fracture in the body of Christ likely more significant than whether you all agree that Tabasco sauce tastes great.

iv) I don't think it's necessary or realistic for a Christian apologist to assign odds to the case for the Resurrection. We simply marshall the available evidence. It is what it is. There's no need to conjure up an artificial statistic regarding the degree of probability. 

Then you disagree with all modern historians, including all apologists who defend the resurrection of Jesus in terms of probability, such as Gary Habermas, Mike Licona, and William Lane Craig.  You are horrifically naive, to say that the evidence "is what it is".  Do you need to be told why tautologies never promote the cause of truth?

v) I'd add, as I've mentioned on several occasions, that there's an overemphasize on scrutinizing ancient documentary evidence. While that foundation is indefensible, Christianity is a living religion with a living Savior. Jesus answers prayer. 

Let me know when you find any such case that you think is the most impervious to falsification.

Jesus appears to people. 

Really?  What's your best evidence?  I'm ready to discuss it bit by bit.  Consider yourself challenged to put up or shut up.

Christ’s resurrection does not entail his deity, just as our future resurrection does not entail our divinity! And one could not argue that the first person to rise from the dead is God, for on that basis Lazarus would have greater claim to deity than Christ! The evidentialist may prove the resurrection of Jesus, but until he proves every other point of Christianity, then resurrection is an isolated, irrelevant, “brute” fact which is no aid to our apologetical efforts. Only within the system of Christian logic does the resurrection of Christ have meaning and implication; and that system of logical entailment and premises can only be used on a presuppositional basis-you do not argue into it. 

That's too ambitious and quite artificial. Take the actual eyewitnesses to the Resurrection.

If you could show that anything in the NT comes from "actual eyewitnesses to the Resurrection", you might have a point.

They didn't prove every other point of Christianity to acknowledge and be revolutionized by what they saw. They didn't have to operate within an explicit system of Christian logic.

yes, they did, you are to reject all forms of logic except those which lead to apostle Paul's version of Christianity.  see Colossians 2:8.   True believers do not merely accept the evidence, they have been transformed by the renewing of their mind, Romans 12:2.  And they maintain such belief by automatically avoiding any gainsayer after the second warning, see Titus 3:9-11.

i) But the Scriptures were not enough. Disciples had to actually witness the Risen Lord to be convinced.

But the risen Christ still blesses blind faith.  Ask yourself what "do not see" means in John 20:29.  I suppose the reason John dishonestly placed his own theology in Jesus' mouth was because Jesus stopped appearing to people, and he needed to answer the concerns of converts asking "if Jesus appeared to you, why doesn't he appear to me?"

ii) An apologist has no control over the mindset of the unbeliever. Either God will open the eyes of the unbeliever or not. The duty of an apologist is simply to marshal the evidence that God has put at our disposal and leave the results to God.  Posted by steve at 11:30 AM

Then since you think the bible is best source of information possible, you are making Christianity unnecessarily complex if if you do anything more than quote bible verses to unbelievers to fulfill your apologetics obligation.  Perhaps your desire to go beyond the bible actually signifies you don't seriously think the bible is "sufficient", and you are just deceiving yourself by saying you think the bible is "sufficient".

Demolishing Triablogue: Answering Steve Hays on the problem of divine hiddenness

This is my reply to an article by Steve Hays of Triablogue entitled

God's absence

1. I'm going to revisit the divine hiddenness argument. The basic idea is that many or most people don't experience God in the way they need, want, or expect.

The more advanced form of the argument says the bible-god appears to have become completely apathetic toward humanity since biblical days.

The argument operates on roughly two fronts. A typical presupposition of freewill theism is God's desires that every human being enjoy fellowship with God. Trust him. God wants everyone to be saved.

I would agree with Steve the Calvinist that the god of the bible infallibly predestined many people to end up in hell, so that there was literally no possibility they could avoid such fate.

But many human beings don't believe in God because they haven't had what they take to be a recognizable experience of God.

Many human being also don't believe in the bible-god because they find nothing in the events of today's world that remotely suggest the bible-god is doing anything other than sleeping.

It could be argued that there are many ways to experience God indirectly, which they fail to register, but the point is that from their viewpoint, if God exists, they should be able to experience him in a more personal, targeted fashion. They just don't recognize God at work in their lives.

And this is a problem for freewill theism since, on the face of it, it would be easy for God to give them a recognizable experience of himself. So what's the explanation?

One explanation is that it seems like God isn't there because, as a mater of fact, God isn't there.. Sppearance matches reality. We inhabit a godless universe. It isn't that God absents himself from people's lives, but that there is no God to experience. No one is home. You can keep knocking on the door, but the house is empty.

My sentiments exactly.  When you inspect all parts of a room and see nobody there, that means nobody is there.  It doesn't mean you lack the ability to detect invisible people.

Of course, a basic problem with that explanation is the abundance of evidence for God's existence.

Not a problem at all.  Theistic proofs are usually nothing more than word-games and horrifically ad hoc hypotheses. 

Indeed, that's one of the aggravating dimensions of the problem. Since there is so much evidence, not just for God's existence generally, but his activity in the lives of some people, why are others bereft?

Fallacy of loaded question, I deny that anybody has ever experienced god.  I also deny that anybody has ever experienced being a god in a previous universe.  My failure to check with every person doesn't slow me down in the slightest from drawing such inference. It's going to be reasonable even if not infallible.

Another explanation is to deny the universality of the freewill theist assumption. Maybe God doesn't reach out to every human being. Maybe it's not his desire every human being be in fellowship with himself.

That cannot be reconciled with every verse in the bible, but it is certainly in accord with some parts of the bible.  Calvinism and Arminianism are both equally "biblical", because it's perfectly reasonable to accuse the bible of teaching contradictory doctrines.

A freewill theist can also postulate postmortem evangelism, where God compensates for his absence in this life in the afterlife. Other issues aside, that has an ad hoc quality.

That's what Lydia McGrew thinks, and other groups, including Roman Catholics, deny that hell is the automatic destination of anybody who dies after having rejected the gospel.  I would argue that Jesus' interactions with Gentiles was sufficiently casual and short that he probably wasn't going around screaming at them that they were always one heartbeat away from hell.  He is content to preach and move on, almost as if he doesn't think those people are in any urgent danger of damnation.

2. One complication is that many unbelievers say they aren't seeking God. They hate the very idea of God. They prefer a godless universe. If they though God did exist, that would put them in a state of psychological tension.

Psychological tension exists in the Christian too, since they also complain of divine hiddenness, so that the skeptic has good reason to wonder where the idiot ever got the idea that God wishes to fellowship with people that God obviously takes no interest in.

3. There is, though, another comparatively neglected front to the issue. The problem is not God's unavailability to humans in general, unbelievers included, but God's unavailability to his own people: Christians and Jews. This is a common refrain or common complaint in the Prophets and Psalmists. So often, God is not available to us when we most need him or want his intervention.

Wow, not even being a biblical author and having THAT level of "inspiration" will help you find the answer to divine hiddenness?  If spritually alive people stumble over it, only makes sense for the spiritually dead person to think they'll never do better, and accordingly cease paying attention to the issue if they so wish.

4. That in itself requires some unpacking. In what ways to we need or want God to be available?

I don't ask that question.

i) A cliche example is answer to prayer.

Nothing fails quite like prayer, and those "prayer tests" do not show any statistic indicating greater luck for those who prayed.  The way you prayers get "answered" is more likely due to sheer luck and happenstance.  But people are pattern-seekers, and will, if the need for ultimate significance is sufficiently intense, see patterns where none exist.  Given more than 6 billion people on the planet, that's an awful lot of unemployed Christians who need a car, so sheer chance is going to account for why some of those praying Christians actually do get a car.

ii) Another cliche example is a sign from God. Not so much that we want God to solve a problem but we just want an indication that he's there, that he's still there. A confirmation that he's real. That he's there, he's aware, and he cares. That we're not totally alone. On our own in the world.

Jesus noted that the crowds did not follow him out of interest in his signs, but bevause he was giving them food, sort of arguing that they thought his tricks were purely naturalistic.  John 6:26, thus contradicting v. 2.

Could be very simple. An audible voice. Or a modest but unmistakable sign.

Yup.  Asking for a sign from god is also biblical. Isaiah 7:11.  And expecting today's Christians to perform miracles is justified from a combination of Matthew 10:8 and 28:20.  Yet despite my challenge to all Christians and Craig Keener in particular to direct me to the one modern-day miracle they believe most impervious to falsification, see here, the challenge continues on, unanswered.  See here and here.  You can hardly fault me for drawing the conclusions that there's probably a very good reason nobody wants to put their money where their mouth is.

iii) Apropos (ii), which may be the same thing or something similar, a hunger for God's "presence" or his "loving" presence in particular. What that means isn't entirely clear. It can be different from a sign. A sign is external to us. It may refer to a feeling: to be suffused with a sense of God's love.

Nothing unbiblical in this expectation either, God is capable of causing people to believe whatever he wants whenever he wants, even if the person in question is steeped in gross idolatry.  See Ezra 1:1.  Even if they are actively hostile to Christianity more than today's athetists.  See god literally blinding Saul/Paul with the light, Acts 9, 22, 26.

Again, on this view, is God's felt presence in itself an experience of his love, or is the sense of divine love something over and above his felt presence?

That's too stupidly Gnostic for me to care to comment on beyond this.

5. This, though, goes to the larger question of how we'd like God to be available to us. How often do we feel the need to be in touch with God? Is this mainly in a crisis, or something routine?

No relevance to me, i don't desire divine presence, for the same reason I don't desire self-deception.

Take Adam and Eve in the Garden, before the Fall.

Why?  The story is nothing but fiction, hence, the basis for declaring all people "sinners" and thus in need of salvation is also fictitious.

Did they feel they were missing something unless the Angel of the Lord appeared to them every day or every week?  How long could they go without a divine visitation but be happy and content with each other and the garden?

Then perhaps you never noticed the bible verse which condemns interest in controversial questions.  1st Timothy 6:4.  Sure, you can trifle that it's only condemning "morbid" interest in controversial questions, but you dont' have any criteria for identifying the piont at which Paul would think one's interest in controversial question became "morbid", so it probably makes more sense to not even open the door.  Just like if you don't know the point at which gazing at strippers becomes adultery-by-lust, probably best if you don't even walk in the club. Your love of dancing on the edge could be argued to signify spiritual immaturity, lest you stupidly think that the more about apologetics you know, the more spiritually mature you get?

6. To take a human comparison, consider a young couple riding on the crest of passion.

Surely a smart guy like Steve Hays doesn't need to ask Christians to think about other people having sex?

They spend all their free time together. They can't get enough of each other. Yet that's not indefinitely sustainable. It loses its freshness.

Because its completely naturalistic.  See here too.

Even people who are extremely close to each other can get on each other's nerves, or get bored with each other's constant company. Even people who are extremely close may need to have some time to themselves. They get tired of being together every minute of the day. They have to take a break. Have some time and space apart.

7. On a related note, an extended separation can intensify reunion. An extended separation can revitalize love.

Something that divine love should not have to engage in just to keep things fresh.

8. Or you might have two brothers who were inseparable until they got married and had kids. After that, not only do they see less of each other, but the need for their mutual companionship diminishes because they now have compensatory relationships. The wife and kids provide a different kind of emotional sustenance.

To some extent the brothers may even grow apart emotionally, not in the sense that they cease to love each other, but they're now invested in their own family. That develops a potential which was unrealized prior to marriage and kids.

If, say, the wives and kids were all killed in a traffic accident, the brothers might revert. Resume living together as bachelors. Become inseparable again.

9. In what sense has God created us to need him emotionally?

I detect no such need.

Do we naturally need to have God speak to us or appear to us every so often? Of is this mostly driven by the vicissitudes of life in a fallen world?

I would say that since God refuses to seek us, we have no duty to seek him.  He's the one with all the answers, he can no more expect sinners to contradict their nature than he can expect himself to contradict his own nature.

Does God normally supply our emotional needs indirectly through creation? Through other people and natural blessings?

If we get emotional needs met through other people, why think 'god' has anything to do with it?

10. Of course, one problem is that in a fallen world we can't necessarily turn to each other for emotional compensations because sin puts a strain on our relationships. It makes our relationships a source of pain. Rather than filling the void of God's absence, it's another way to be hurt.

11. I was a free range child. I used to go for long walks on my own, sometimes with my dog. It was a forested area with woods, ponds, streams, ravines, and lakes. A lot to explore.

I didn't need my parents to be available for me in the sense of having them around all the time. Rather, I needed to know that I had them to come back to. I had a home. I had security. It was (fairly) safe to explore the woods on my own. And if they weren't home when I got back, there was the confidence in knowing that they would return. Either I was waiting for them or they were waiting for me. There was no anxiety on my part.

Signifying nothing, since that's all empirical, whereas the hiddenness of god is due to his allegedly non-empirical nature.  If God didn't want us to draw confident inference based on our 5 physical senses, maybe he shouldn't have given us those senses.

12. There is something exhilarating about a divine Incarnation. That you're talking face-to-face with God. Looking into the eyes of God. At the same time, it might make you acutely self-conscious to be in God's presence, in such a palpable, immediate way.

Preaching to the choir.  Dismissed.

To take a comparison, boys are very uninhibited around other boys. Would it be inhibiting to be with Jesus?

Jesus' own family apparently didn't think so.  See Mark 3:21, 6:4 and John 7:5

13. Because God is rarely available in ways we long for, it forces Christians to seek each other out and try to encourage one other in our joint pilgrimage.

Which then becomes nothing but one mammal trying to help another, thus likely leading to further problems.  If God would just do his fucking job like he's supposed to, there would be no need for sinners to seek solace from other imperfect beings, and the likelihood of increased problems would diminish.

There's a bonding experience that occurs in situations of shared trust, stress, risk, vulnerability, or collaboration. There's a certain paradox when friends or Christians pool their collective helplessness. They cant do for each other what only God can do, but it can still be a maturing and sanctifying experience.

I fail to see how any of this bullshit from your post does anything toward reconciling divine hiddenness with the existence of God.

Demolishing Triablogue: No reasons for hell

This is my reply to an article by Steve Hays of Triablogue entitled

Reasons for hell

Recently I was listening to philosophical theologians give bad answers on hell.

 You should have recognized their bad answers likely implied they have been previously warned at least twice against their error, and accordingly you should have obeyed that part of the bible that tells you to avoid them, see Titus 3:9-11.

I've probably discussed most of this before at one time or another, but it may be useful to summarize them in one place. By way of preliminary comment, the primary reason Christians believe in hell

Speak for yourself, it should be obvious to a smart guy like you that not all Christians believe in hell, unless you use that doctrine as a test of orthodoxy.  Can a person be genuinely born-again while adopting annihilationism, yes or no?  If yes, then couldn't it be argued that every bit of time you spend arguing peripherals, the more you sin by taking away time better spend defending essentials?

is because they believe what the Bible says about hell.

Well gee, so do the Jehovah's Witnesses and the 7th Day Adventists.

It isn't necessary to provide an independent, philosophical defense of hell.

Especially given that such would be impossible, lest you look a little too consistent in your Calvinism and admit you worship a sadistic lunatic.

It's useful in apologetics and evangelism to be able to do that, but the warrant for believing in hell doesn't rely on that.

There's plenty of good warrant for ascribing error to the NT doctrine of eternal conscious torment.

1. Infinite God
i) A typical objection goes like this: how can a just God mete out infinite punishment for finite sin? How can the sins of a lifetime merit infinite punishment? The typical reply is that a sin against an infinite God is infinitely culpable, and merits infinite punishment.

Except that God's justice against sin in the OT is very often FULLY satisfied by decidedly temporal means of atonement, such as animal sacrifice.  Hell, the master who rapes his slave-girl is automatically forgiven simply by donating one of his rams to the priests, no repentance or change beyond this is expressed or implied:

 20 'Now if a man lies carnally with a woman who is a slave acquired for another man, but who has in no way been redeemed nor given her freedom, there shall be punishment; they shall not, however, be put to death, because she was not free.
 21 'He shall bring his guilt offering to the LORD to the doorway of the tent of meeting, a ram for a guilt offering.
 22 'The priest shall also make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering before the LORD for his sin which he has committed, and the sin which he has committed will be forgiven him.   (Lev. 19:20-22 NAU)

Sometimes Leviticus is more specific than we might expect an ancient Hebrew author to be, to make sure the reader recognized how completely animal blood expiated God's wrath against sin.  Concerning Yom Kippur, or the once-yearly animal sacrifice:

 29 "This shall be a permanent statute for you: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall humble your souls and not do any work, whether the native, or the alien who sojourns among you;
 30 for it is on this day that atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you; you will be clean from all your sins before the LORD. (Lev. 16:29-30 NAU)

Gee, really?  Steve Hays would probably trifle "in what sense did they become clean before the Lord?" 

Well gee, in the sense that "The Lord viewed them as clean"?

Sort of like, if you barged into Steve's house and said "your mother was just murdered!', he would probably trifle "in what sense, after all, 'murder' can be used by modern American persons in a variety of different ways!".  Obviously, this text was intended to be read aloud to the mostly illiterate Israelites, and such people would not likely have conjured up the stupid semantic trifles in their mind that are conjured up by Steve Hays...and his concern to make sure the NT book of Hebrews continues being held up as inerrant.

That's a popular answer because it's compact and uses the same principle as the critic, only turning that principle against the objection. But as it stands, it's a bad argument:

Thanks for the honesty.

ii) It equivocates over the nature of infinitude. The objection is to a quantitative infinite punishment. A temporal infinite. Everlasting punishment. For finite, discrete sins.

However, to say a sin may be infinitely culpable swaps in a qualitative concept. An infinite degree of badness. I'm not sure if that's even meaningful.

Skeptics like me will use such concessions from Christian apologists to straighten out the idiots that warm the pews every Sunday.  Half of the atheist bible critics' plight is in simply getting the "Christian" to correctly understand their own book.

In addition, what does it mean in this context to say that God is "infinite." In what morally relevant sense is God infinite in this argument? Perhaps what is meant is that God is infinitely good, so that a sin against an infinitely good God is infinitely bad, meriting infinite punishment. "Infinite" in the sense that God is as good as anything can be. Indeed, better than anything else. The uppermost maxima of goodness or exemplar of goodness. Something like that.
When you try to unpack the argument, it gets messy. I don't think this is a good argument as it stands.

Again, thanks for the honesty.

It does, however, contain a grain of truth, so I think it can be rehabilitated in some respect:

iii) There is a moral principle where the same action may be worse depending on who you do it to. It's worse to betray a friend than a stranger. It's worse to mistreat your elderly mother than to mistreat the telemarketer. So there can be degrees of culpability, not due to the action itself, but who it's directed to. Taken to a logical extreme, the argument is that we owe the most to God, we have the greatest obligation to God, so sinning against God is the worst kind of sin.

Except that in Steve Hays' very staunch 5-Point Calvinism, it is this infinite god who intended the sinner to sin the way he did, so that offending god by sinning is sort of like offending the person whom you gave a black eye to, because they took your hand and hit themselves with it.  How the fuck could a Calvinist believe anybody could "offend God"?  Is God offended when we manifest perfect compliance with his secret will?

Hays' displays his disturbing consistency by arguing elsewhere that God secretly wills that people disobey his revealed will, which while logical enough under his Calvinism, is viewed as shockingly heretical by most Christians.  See here.

Steve continues:

iv) There is, though, another complication to this argument. In what sense can we sin against God? We can't harm God.

Good point.  And yet Malachi uses the word "yet" to duck the obvious criticism that it is logically impossible to steal from God, see Malachi 3:8.  That's sort of like saying "Can a sinner make God go out of existence?  Yet you have caused God to stop existing."  Interesting how the little "yet" word can successfully shield an argument from deserved criticism.

It is, however, possible, to wrong someone without harming them. A thankless, malicious son can dishonor his father's memory. Suppose his dad was a conscientious father, but the son spreads scurrilous rumors about his late father that destroy his father's reputation. In one sense it's too late to harm is father. But there's still something terribly wrong about the action.

But according to Steve Hays, we only sin because God has infallibly predestined us to, and has secretly willed that we disobey his revealed will.  One can only wonder whether our "wronging" god even makes sense under such a fatalistic system as Calvinism.  Is it "wrong" to conform to God's secret will, yes or no?  If yes, then God is a stupid sadist for blaming us for such wrong since he rigged the game to make sure we couldn't possibly deviate from "wronging" him.  If "no", then god deprives himself of any basis to bitch, lest you serve a god who condemns people for OBEYING him?  But because Steve is brainwashed, he will just blindly assume that the idiot who wrote Romans 9:20 rendered all objections frivolous.

2. Eternal existence
i) A basic reason hell is forever is because human beings are forever. If human beings have an immortal soul (not to mention the resurrection of the body), then whatever happens to human beings will last forever.

Except that there are plenty of Christians and Christian scholars who teach annihilationism.  Probably because the "wrongness" of these doctrines are somewhat less obvious than the wrongness of 2+2=5... so that you can hardly blame them for adopting such doctrine.

They have an unending destiny because they have an unending existence. So whatever happens to them will go on forever. It continues because they continue. Annihilationists duck that by denying that human beings are naturally immortal.

ii) Now this is more of a necessary rather than sufficient condition for eternal punishment. In principle, it could be a argued that while whatever happens to them is never-ending, it needn't be the same thing forever. It can change. That's the contention of the universalist, as well as exponents of postmortem salvation. That requires a separate response.

It is, however, important to make the initial point that one reason damnation is inescapable is because existence is inescapable. Damnation never ceases because the damned never cease to exist.

Except that this is a philosophical objection, whereas Steve Hays' first commitment must be to the bible, whose OT clearly indicates god's justice against sin can be, and often is, fully satisfied by less than infinite means, such as animal sacrifice.  See above.  The reasonableness of that view is not going to be diminished merely because god's jailhouse lawyer can simply tack "in what sense?" onto everything they ever think of.  Steve Hays doesn't get to dictate how much stupid pretentijous trifling the unbeliever must put up with in his apologetics before they become reasonable to just flip him the middle finger and walk away. 

3. Apropos (2), a supporting argument is that damnation is forever because the damned continue to sin. An objection to this argument is that people have a capacity for change.

That can be true, but what causes them to change? In Christian theology, God's grace is transformative. If, however, God withholds his grace from the damned, then they don't get better. If anything, they get worse. More hardened.

Which denies the view of freewill held by most Christians, to the effect that we are just as capable of accepting Jesus solely by our freewill as we are capable of making a peanut butter sandwich by our own freewill.  Attributing only the good in your life to "god's grace" and the sin only to "self" is just stupid inconsistency, which renders void the many biblical passages on god "rewarding" those who do good.  If it wasn't us doing the good, then giving us a prize at the end anyway cannot rightfully be called "reward".  If the good doesn't come from us, but only from God, then only God can logically be "rewarded" if at all.

4. Apropos (3), why doesn't God enable the damned to change? Why doesn't God grant them the ability to repent?

This goes to another principle in Christian theology: in terms of eschatological judgment, some sinners get what they deserve while others get better than they deserve (no one gets worse than they deserve).

Sort of like when both of your kids disobey you and each eat one cookie before dinner, you beat one of them with a rod (Proverbs 22:15) and ground them for a month, while you give the other one $50 to go blow at the mall however she wishes, with your blessings.  Are you a fuckhead parent, yes or no?  Or did you suddenly discover how wonderful god was for enabling his jailhouse lawyers to invent "ad hoc" excuses whenever expediency dictates?

The reason the damned never leave hell is because they don't deserve to leave hell.

That's right.  If the 12 year old non-Christian girl who has done many good works of charity and gets good grades in school, should happen to reject the gospel invitation, then die in a state of unbelief in a car crash on the way home from church, God's righteousness permits no other fate for her except conscious eternal torment in "hell".

They don't deserve a better life.

You'd have been a bit more honest with your own doctrine had you specified that newborn babies do not deserve to be protected from death by rape.  God was never 'required' to give them anything better, so when he leaves them to suffer, this is nothing short of god's righteousness in action, amen?

Of course this violates common sense, since if everything is covered by the sovereignty of god, then the fact that most babies are not raped to death makes it reasonable for any Christian to suppose that God feels a moral obligation to give such protection.

That's their just desert, and there's nothing wrong with that. Indeed, there's something right with God.

Sort of like if you came home to find your mom being raped by a whole gang, the fact that she is a sinner and the fact that God himself obviously wasn't doing anything to protect her, makes it at best ambiguous whether or not you "should" do anything to prevent this crime.  But I'm sure that if you found out this happened to some mother down the street, and her son just stood around solely by choice and not fear while his mother was raped. you'd feel better knowing that God secretly wanted the rape and this neglect to happen exactly the way it did. 

Revealed will of God = "thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not murder", etc.
Secret will of God = "you shall kill that child, you shall obey that traffic signal", etc.

Is it morally good to act in conformity to the revealed will of God, yes or no?

Is it morally good to act in conformity to the secret will of God, yes or no?

Steve's Calvinism forces him to admit that Hitler's massacer of the Jews in WW2 was in perfect conformity to the "secret" will of God.  So...was it morally good for Hitler to act in conformity to God's secret will, yes or no?

Or did Steve suddenly discover there's room in Calvinism for moral relativity?

Hopefully you have a better understanding of why biblical theology causes me, an atheist, to stay awake at night, all worried "what if I'm wrong and the creator really is a sadistic lunatic?"

In Christian theology, God doesn't treat all equally-undeserving sinners alike.

Which is precisely why it is reasonable to call him a sadistic lunatic.  Just like if you didn't treat to the same discipline all of your kids who disobeyed you in the same exact way.  When the punished ones cry out "why didn't you punish her too?", you'd be 'godly' to reply "my ways are mysterious, I don't have to explain myself to you, and since you are getting what you deserve, you have no right to complain if I let other persons, equally deserving of this punishment, off the hook."  I'm sorry, but Steve is a fool to derive theology from Matthew 20:11-15...and so was Jesus for teaching such obviously unfair stupidity.  How would the world be if all employers were that arbitrary?

He draws a distinction. You shouldn't expect to get better than you deserve.

So because none of us "deserve" to have food, clothing and shelter, it can only be sinful and thus unreasonable motive why we seek these things.  Steve, why do you seek for that which you don't deserve?  isn't that sort of like the new inexperienced crew member at McDonald's wanting his starting wage to equal that of the crew members who have been there for 3 years?

Steve is also wrong biblially to condemn our wanting more than we deserve.  If God sends his rain on the just and the unjust (Matthew 5:45), then our aquiring things we don't deserve is a routine that God is responsible for, and therefore god is responsible for this routine creating a habit and expectation in our mind that we should have some things we don't deserve.

Throwing dice to decide god's will is biblical (Acts 1:26), so you should expect to get more than you deserve through the inevitability of chance + time.  Throw the dice often enough and they are bound to roll winner, and when they do, Calvinists will insist god wanted it that way.

In fact, Calvinists would say God is ultimately responsible for whatever defects in biblical and logical reasoning that you might engage in.  Could anything have more powerful justification than "god wanted it that way"?  No.  If the most reasonable thing possible is conformity to god's will, then under Calvinism, beating children to death is equally as reasonable as saving a little girl from drowning.  BOTH acts are exactly what God wanted, and by definition, God's will cannot possibly ever be "unreasonable".

To get just what you deserve is the essence of justice.

And for a justice system to decide for itself which among the two equally guilty criminals to let off the hook, and which to prosecute, is the antithesis of justice, lest you stupidly insist that the justice meted out in American Courts every day for the last 200 years is a bad idea? (Conforming to God's secret will, as America's history absolutely must, is a bad idea?).  Only in Calvinism could you get in trouble with God for doing exactly what he wanted when, where and how he wanted.  Everybody else would call this sadistic lunacy, and Calvinists reply with "that's just human logic!"

Let's just say God infallibly predestined me to avoid joining the Calvinist cause, ok?

They don't get out of hell because they deserve nothing better. They are in their natural element.

If we deserve nothing better than hell, why did God allow us to exist for the present on this better-than-hell earth?  Does God sometimes give people what they don't deserve?  If so, then why couldn't there be a strictly philosophical argument that this way of God remains true in the afterworld (i.e., sinners deserve to be in hell longer, but God limits the amount of time they spend there anyway, for the same reason he often makes life easier for undeserving criminals)?  Something is greatly amiss in your trifling attempt to make your sadistic god's ways sound plausible to modern western ears.  But since you view yourself as a puppet on a string, I'm sure you couldn't care less whether your reasoning does or doesn't square up with common sense.  Cultists are experts are justifying their departure from common sense and convincing themselves God wanted them to act contrary to "worldly wisdom".  The brainwashing is the same whether you push Christianity or ISIS.

There's something nihilistic, something morally subversive–even diabolical–about the idea that no matter what anyone ever does, it makes no ultimate different to what happens to them. To treat good and evil alike.

Then blame your god, who often treats criminals and law-abiding people alike.  And blame yourself for promoting Calvinism, a doctrine that says our sense of making a genuine difference is completely illusory and false, we can do nothing whatever except react to an infallibly predetermined plan.  And your god often treats evil and good alike.

5. Suppose (ex hypothesi) that human agents start out as a clean slate. By that I mean, suppose that initially they have no rap sheep. Their moral record is spotless.

There's no ex hypothesi about it, the bible forthrightly calls little kids "innocent", see Psalm 106:37-38, Matthew 18:3, 2nd Kings 22:16, 24:4, and under James 4:17,  which predicates sinfulness upon knowledge, for which babies, then who know nothing (i.e., they don't know the difference between good and evil, Isaiah 7:15) are correctly deemed "innocent".  If that contradicts Paul's doctrine of original sin in Romans 5, lets get excited about preaching the good news to those lost inerrantists.

I'm not an inerrantist, and for academically rigorous reasons, therefore, I really don't care if another part of the bible tells Steve that babies are infected with original sin, this doesn't impose the slightest intellectual obligation upon me to give up my reliance on grammar, context and genre, and add "reconcile this with what the bible says elsewhere" to the list of hermeneutical principles that scholars agree apply here.  Most Christian scholars are not inerrantists, those who are inerrantist cannot even agree amongst themselves about its scope, Steve Hays himself allegedly thinks the Chicago Statement on Bible Inerrancy was less than perfect, etc, etc.  So bible inerrancy is not sufficiently settled as to deserve being exalted in my mind to the status of governing hermeneutic.  I will NOT give up an otherwise contextually and grammatically justified interpretation of a bible verse merely because the interpretation contradicts my interpretation or somebody else's interpretation of some other bible verse.

Hays will trifle that biblical passages calling people "innocent" are only meant with reference to the human standard, but alas, it is "god" who is doing the talking in all the above-cited passages (at least as far as Steve is concerned) so it is Steve's burden to show that the "human standards only" interpretation arises from the grammar, context or genre of such passages.

Steve continues:

The first time I do something evil, that puts me behind.

Except that in Steve's world, whether raping children is "evil" depends on your frame of reference, and is therefore only a moral relativity.  Even if we granted that baby-rape violates God "revealed" will, Steve has already argue that any and all acts of man, including sin, necessarily conform to God's "secret" will, so that a completed act of baby-rape is biblically in harmony with God's secret will.

In other words, Steve wants us to believe that you can be "evil" because you conformed to the will of God.  Sort of like the parent who punishes their child for doing an act exactly when, where, and how the parent intended the act to be done (!?).  There's an excellent reason why Paul's smoke and mirrors evaporates at Romans 9:20.  There is no moral method anywhere near any accepted convention of reason or common sense, that will justify punishing a person for perfect obedience.  Except of course in the bible, where the stupider the act, the more "spiritual" it is (where you defeat death by getting yourself killed, and where strength is made perfect by lack of strength).  I call victory when Christians feel forced to decry the superiority of 'human reason'.  That's what one should expect from stupid cultists whose doctrines completely defy anything remotely approaching sensibility.  Whether it's about Jesus or Vishnu hardly matters.

Because I can't change my past, if I do something evil, I can't get back to where I was before I did evil.

Which would justify a lifetime of depression after you jaywalk.  Isn't it obvious how evil sin really is?

I can't get out from under that. If I did something evil, then it will always be the case that I did something evil. That's indelible. It doesn't fade with the passage of time. I don't become less guilty. Once I do something evil, there's no way to put that behind me. It's permanent. Evil has a timeless moral quality. There's no decay rate. The past is irrevocable.

Then the same must be true about your good deeds.  They too are permanent, right?

And the more evil things I do, the further behind I fall. A lifetime of cumulative wrongdoing.

Now you are just preaching the choir.

This is why vicarious atonement and penal substitution are fixtures of Christian redemption.

Maybe that's also why god offers to "forget your sins", because they are permanent? (Isa. 43:25-26).  No, Mr. God's Jailhouse lawyer, that doesn't mean he is only claiming to exempt people from the penalty for sin.  Read both verses, the human sense of literal memory failure is meant, even if the consequence is that this god would have to be insane.  The dumber it makes god look, the more likely the interpretation is correct, amen?

Without a Redeemer who atones for your sin, on your behalf and in your stead, your culpability because increasingly hopeless.

No, all we need is charcoal briquettes, a pair of tongs, and obviously non-existent creatures who seem to think heaven has air:

 1 In the year of King Uzziah's death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple.
 2 Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
 3 And one called out to another and said, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory."
 4 And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke.
 5 Then I said, "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts."
 6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. 7 He touched my mouth with it and said, "Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven." (Isa. 6:1-7 NAU)

(and Steve says "mere anthropomorphism! the get-out-of-jail-free card that is by definition necessarily always a correct interpretation with no obligation to actually justify it from the grammar or context or genre.)

Actually, we can be exempted from the penalties of even the most egregious sins (i.e, adultery and murder) by nothing more than god waiving his magic wand:

 11 "Thus says the LORD, 'Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight.
 12 'Indeed you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the sun.'"
 13 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." And Nathan said to David, "The LORD also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.
 (2 Sam. 12:11-13 NAU)

Feel free to dig your own theological grave by pretending the subsequent divinely caused death of David's baby was the "atonement".  You can't cover it with Yom Kippur, that didn't cover intentional sins.  Now what?  Maybe David committed adultery without intention?

Steve continues:

6. Counterfactual guilt
Another factor I've discussed, although it has yet to catch on, is that it's very nearsighted to limit culpability to the sins of a lifetime.

That's right.  If your teenage son jaywalks, you should save up to finance the desecration of his grave marker after he dies.  Culpability doesn't cease with physical death.  Only in stupid fanatical religion.

The sins we commit are related to our circumstances. Change the circumstances and we'd commit a different set of sins.

or not sinned at all, such as changing "we went to the titty-bar" to "we went to church".

It's not so much about committing a particular sin, but the character of the sinner. Put him in a different situation and he will commit different sins.

Put sinners in different situations and they might not sin.  Hence, the reason Christian parents counsel their kids against running around with the wrong crowd.

It's arbitrary to exclude from consideration all the wrongdoing he'd commit if the opportunity presented itself, and he could get away with it, as if guilt and innocence in God's eyes is a matter of lucking or unlucky timing or setting. Wrong place. Wrong time. Just missed it. Had you been there an hour sooner or later.

In other words, sin is inevitable...and yet God still bitches at humans over that which they are incapable of avoiding, sort of like bitching about the fact that humans need water.

But more directly to the point:  there are gullible or 'weaker' Christian brothers that will sin simply because of the peer pressure from other Christians, whereas had those Christians not come to visit, the weaker brother would probably not have sinned as he did.  So you are wrong, Steve:  how you act really IS dependent on the timing of your arrival to any situation and other circumstances.   The Christian man who has an anger problem shows up at his ex-wife's house and she's the only person there, and he does not sin.  But if he had showed up 5 minutes earlier when her boyfriend was there, he probably would have started a fight.  Steve, you are stupid if you think circumstance doesn't contribute to what motivates a person to sin or refrain from sin.

You also pretend that any act we might engage in would be sinful, when in fact chance and circumstance do not merely dictate what evil we'll do, but what ACT we will engage in.  Tarnishing the future possibility as an inevitable "sin" doesn't make sense, otherwise, why bother trying to stay away from Christians who live in sin?  If you are running around drinking on Saturday night, or staying at home reading your bible, you are still bound to sin, regardless, so how the fuck could it "matter" which way to spend that evening? 

What are you gonna say next?  Maybe that reading the bible is sinful for a Christian because their sin nature requires that their motive in doing so was to become puffed up with knowledge?

Yes, there are fuckhead Christians who demand that Christians repent of their repentance.  Read Valley of Vision by the Puritans, which is apparently approved of D.A. Carson and other prominent conservative Protestants.  I've heard the same in plenty of Protestant and Calvinist churches years ago.  I call them fuckheads because if you are too sinful to properly repent in the first place, then you are just sinning every subsequent time you repent of your prior repentance...in which case this Puritan soliloquy is little more than a dirge about the inevitability of sin.  Gee, maybe it was sinful also for any Puritan to compose or read Valley of Vision?

Steve continues:

7. Finally, and perhaps most fundamentally, critics of hell approach this issue from the wrong end.

So since many critics of hell are Christians, skeptics observe that even spiritually alive people have no guarantees of noticing important theological truth, making it even more reasonable for the spiritually dead person to stay completely away, if they so choose, from biblical "theology".   So for many non-Christians, it's much safer and more reasonable to just laugh off Christianity.

In Christian theology, the default assumption is that sinners are already lost.

I much prefer what Jesus said, and have fun getting original sin out of anything he said.  It would be like squeezing blood from a turnip.  See here and here.  Plenty of churches today are Pelagian, but its hard to remember that because the Protestants and Catholics usually squeal the loudest through the media.

They didn't start out in the right direction, then take a wrong turn. Rather, sinners are in a lost condition from the outset. They don't have to do anything extra to go to hell.

If you believe infection with original sin makes one worthy of hell, then you have no basis for making aborted babies any exception, as they too are worthy of hell, and apparently only an emotional worldly mammalian dislike of infant torture is the basis for any exception.  And Steve will triumphantly proclaim that if you don't like the idea of god subjecting babies to eternal conscious torment in hell forever, it's only because you aren't sufficiently "spiritual", the excuse cult leaders use to desensitize their followers to the obvious violations of common sense the cult requires them to engage in.  Yet Steve wants non-Calvinist Christians to view him as something other than brainwashed.

They didn't lose their way at some point along the journey. There was no fork in the road where they made a fatal moral choice. To be saved requires divine intervention.

But since the divine doesn't exist, we need not worry.  I only refute idiots on the internet for the benefit of the innocently ignorant people that might otherwise get sucked into all this stupid crap because of their lack of critical thinking skills.  Struggling to pay the rent and raise kids doesn't leave much opportunity to figure out why scholars disagree with each other about hermeneutics and historiography.

It's like a movie villain. He's already a villain when the movie begins.

So babies are already deserving of hell upon conception.  Another reason most spiritually alive Christians find Calvinism about as persuasive as atheism.

There's no backstory about how or when he became a villain. Does it have something to do with his childhood? Did he gradually turn to evil? Was there a crossroads where he made a decisive choice for evil?

Once again, Jesus did not teach the doctrine of original sin, and you are a hypocrite anyway for thinking the word of any follower of Christ could possibly have the same significance as his own words, as there is allegedly an infinite difference between advice from God himself, and advice from people claiming to represent him.  You are more safe depending on God's word, but you open the floodgates of ceaseless questions and uncertainty when you start telling yourself the words of other sinners are "inspired by God too".

That's not where the story begins. As far as the plot goes, there was never a time when he wasn't on the wrong path.

I end this post where I began it:  all attempts by hellers to "reconcile" or "harmonize" the OT texts on God's justice with the NT texts teaching eternal conscious torment, are clearly little more than the word-games you'd expect from a jailhouse lawyer (my scholarly view is that 2nd Temple Judaism became more and more influenced by pagan religion, hence, "hell" in the OT become more and more defined as the centuries go by). God's alleged "need" for justice against sin is itself contradictory to at least one biblical passage.  If God can exempt people from the consequences of sin as easily as waiving his magic wand (2nd Samuel 12:13), you'll find only deaf ears when you try to "explain" that God's holy nature "requires" that he judge sin. 

And expect theological disaster if you trifle that God's killing David's baby was an atoning sacrifice for David's sins of murder and adultery.  But without that type of atonment, you have no atonement, and hence, God can permanently exempt you from the penalty of sin without atonement and apparently nothing more than waiving his magic wand.  Or making you eat burning wood (Isaiah 6:6-7).

Did you notice that when Triablogue comes to town, atheists just scream in terror, run the other way plugging their ears and saying "Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne"?

Neither did I.