turch is rong: freewill

Showing posts with label freewill. Show all posts

Thursday, June 18, 2020

There is no mystery of evil, only a mystery of thick-headed obstinate Christians

I respond to a Christian who articulates the problem of "evil". See here.

In case the post gets deleted, here's what I said:

Monday, June 8, 2020

Cold Case Christianity: we are in control

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled:

Is God in Control or Are We in Control?

Posted: 13 Apr 2020 05:36 AM PDT

I’m often asked where I “land” on the issue of God’s sovereignty and human freedom. How much free will do we actually have as humans? If God is all powerful and all knowing, if God knows the end from the beginning, if God has predestined us to come to faith, doesn’t it follow that humans are simply along for the ride?

Rush has the answer: Attention all planets of the Solar Federation: we have assumed control...we have assumed control. (the All the World's a Stage album had the best version...RIP Neil Peart).

But seriously, a simple logically deductive syllogism shows libertarian freewill cannot exist if god's foreknowledge is infallible.

Anything God foreknows, is incapable of failing (dictionary definition of infallible)
God foreknows that Julie's will eat a candy bar tomorrow.
Therefore, Julie's eating a candy bar tomomrrow is incapable of failing.

There are only three ways to refute a deductive syllogism: prove premise 1 is wrong, prove premise 2 is wrong, or prove the conclusion doesn't necessarily follow.

Sure, premise one could be wrong, but if so, then the doctrine of God's infallible foreknowledge is false.

As a Christian, it’s clear to me that God is powerful enough to accomplish his goals without limit (see Daniel 4:35, Romans 9:15-16, Ephesians 1:5-6, and Romans 1:9-11). I call this power of God to accomplish whatever He wants the “Make Sure” Will of God.

But then if God has any will beyond the "make sure" crap, then he is sort of like a drunk woman, preferrng to be uncertain. I'll pass.

But if God is in complete control of every aspect of our lives, how do we answer the following questions?
When people fail to come to faith, is it God who is preventing them?

If you stand around doing nothing while a child in yoru custody fails to use chemicals correctly and endures injury, is it YOU who is preventing their proper use? If not, you must think we should get rid of our system of civil law, which charges people all the time with "negligence" (i.e., failure to act when acting was within one's power and acting would have prevented an injury without causing another)

When evil happens in the world, is it God who is responsible?

Read Deuteronomy 28:15-63, then you tell me what is implied by your 2nd Timothy 3:16 trust that such scripture remains profitiable for doctrine, reproof and correction TODAY.

How could God ever hold us responsible for anything?

The same way we capture a wild animal on the loose in the neighborhood. It's inability to control its dangerous desires doesn't mean we are obligated to turn away.

Is the ‘will of God’ a divine plan for our lives?

As a Christian bible-believer that's YOUR problem. You cannot show from the bible that God has a plan for any particular individual, and you cannot show that the bible has the least bit of relevance to modern humanity beyond the useless trifle of being a historical curiosity. The question is whether God gives a shit about you at all. The answer from actual reality is "no". The answer form the bible only works for the people to who those books were originally intended. Sucks to be you.

While the Bible affirms the sovereignty and power of God, it also provides examples when God does not seem to be able to accomplish something He desires. In Matthew 23:37-38, Jesus seems to be unable gather Israel because they were unwilling.

Agreed. But as an atheist, I deny biblical inerrancy, and thereore do not expereince any compulsion to decide whether the bible teaches Arminianism or Calvnism. It teaches both, which means the bible contradicts itself on doctrine.

In 2 Peter 3:8-10, We are told that God does not wish that anyone of us should perish (but that all of us should come to repentance), yet we know that many people in our world will NEVER accept Jesus, never come to repentance, and simply will not be saved. So what’s up with God’s sovereignty?

A better questoini would be: Why should be blindly assume an apostle's theological viewpoint is necessarily correct? Especially an apostle who denied Jesus three times, and who, even after experiencing the gift of the Holy Ghost in Acts 2, was condemned as a moral hypocrite by Paul. Methinks the inerrantist's trust in biblical infallibility is just shy of foolhardy. It is anything but realistic.

How can it be that something can be within ‘God’s will’ (God can desire something) yet He seems to be unable to make that something happen?

Easy, the bible contradicts itself. Will that answer cause J. Warner Wallace to stop using Jesus to attract attention to himself?

I think the Bible actually describes two kinds of “will of God”.

That's a sobering admission, coming from an inerrantist. No, you won't be "haronizing" freewill with God's sovereignty anytime soon, will you.

The first is what I call the “Make Sure” Will of God, the second is what I have come to call the “Sure Wants” Will of God.

Then god is fucking stupid, since if he "sure wants" something and has the "make sure" power to get the job done, then only he is to blame if he refuses to resolve the problem by exercise of his powers.

God wants all of us to be saved;

You cannot show that anything in the NT was intended to apply to modern-day people. If we can show the NT authors intended to address 1st century people, YOU acquire the burden of showing they intended to address anybody else. No sophistry about how God can intend a wider audience than the human author intended. If the authors didn't intend something, then since the author was your only hope of showing the author's divine inspiration, any god who allegedly inspired them also didn't intend that something. The reaosnableness of that inference is not going to disappear merely because you can preach about how God can have greater plans for a person than their own plans.

He wants all of us to come to faith in Jesus;

Even the people whom he ordained by his providence to live in times and circumstances preventing them from hearing about Jesus?

He wants all of us to reflect his moral precepts;

He wants us to use fire to kill little girls for engaging in pre-marital sex (Leviticus 21:9)? Or did some dickhead "apologist" on the internet suddenly discover how easily the "satire" excuse can be exploited to defend biblical "inerrancy"?

He wants all of us to love one another.

Even those whom he instructs us to hate (Deut. 23:6)?

But he also knows that none of this is truly possible unless each and every one of us is allowed to have the ‘freedom’ to love, obey and follow (see Mark 3:34-35, 1 John 2:17, Ephesians 6:5-6, Romans 12:2, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, 1 Thessalonians 4:3-7 and 1 Peter 2:15-17). Without ‘free will’, humans are simply robots who respond according to pre-programming rather than from a position of true love and obedience.

you are assuming true love cannot exist without the libertarian notion of freewill existing. Not true. obviously dogs and lower mammals love their young, yet you would probably argue that as creatures of instinct they do not have "freewill".

You are also forgetting the deductive syllogism I started this post with. If God's foreknowledge is infallible, then those human acts (such as love) that he foreknows are "incapable of failing", which logically prevents the person from withdrawing the love at the time God infallibly foreknows they will show that love.

Yes, it is God’s will that no one should be lost (it’s something that God ‘sure wants’),

Bullshit, the way he turns humans to carnage in the bible, god is quite capable of simply using his power to rescue you from anything. Telling yourself maybe God allowed you to do evil because of Frank Turek's "Ripple-Effect" sophistry is mere self-delusion. The ripple-effect theory does nothing to render the atheist theory of evil "unreasonable".

but this does not mean that God will ‘make sure’ that all come to faith.

Then he is fucking stupid and his problems are his own fault.

Yes, it is God’s will that no evil should exist in the world (it’s something that God ‘sure wants’), but this does not mean that God will ‘make sure’ that evil is eliminated.

Yes, it is dad's will that his baby son not get raped, (it's protection dad 'sure wants'), but this does not mean that dad will 'make sure' that such rape possibility is eliminated. Nice going.

Yes, it is God’s will that we should live a certain way and seek to know His heart and character, but this does not mean that he will ‘make sure’ that no one behaves immorally.

I'd say you've ventured further out into the surf than atheism can permit. This Arminian/Calvinist debate is YOUR problem.

There are two kinds of ‘will of God’ passages in the scripture. Some describe God’s sovereignty and some describe God’s moral character and desire for our lives.

And there is no reason to think the bible is inerrant. So there's nothing unreaosnable in assuning the bible gave rise to churches with contradictory theology, beause the bible itself teaches contradictory theology.

While it is certainly within God’s power to eliminate all evil, to control our behavior and to allow none of us the possibility of rejecting Him, to do so would eliminate the possibility for something precious to God: the ability to love. (I’ve written more on this in the section on Evil here at ColdCaseChristianity.com

So what's more important to god? The criminal's ability to love? Or the child's safety from rape?

Under God's stupid reasoning, America's love would be more god-like if jails removed their locks and incarcerated only those who chose to endure their punishment. if God is going to let rapists and murders run free, how could we have less love than god if we also allowed such criminals the same freedom? If God isn't going to stop evil, then it must be good to let evil exist.

Yes, it is God’s will that no one should be lost (it’s something that God ‘sure wants’), but this does not mean that God will ‘make sure’ that all come to faith.

You are only saying that because of the bible's contradictory statements, not because it is at all clear that this is in fact the case. What a fool to pretend that so many ancient authors, seperated from each other by centuries, nevertheless wrote in perfect harmony about subjects philosphers have disagreed on for millenia. Not even most Christian scholars accept biblical inerrancy!

How exactly do your musings do ANYTHING to disturb atheism?

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

My reply to Rational Christian Discernment's defense of mind-body dualism

My other blog pieces refuting the mind-body dualism whose biblical basis Christians cannot agree on. See here and here..

The RCD article starts out quoting the non-dualist opinion that the brain = the mind, and that consciousness is a real mystery to the experts:

Monday, September 30, 2019
A Rational Argument For The Existence Of The Human Soul
"In this discussion, many modern scientific thinkers have taken position that consciousness is an illusory faculty created by our neuronal activity. According to this position, our subjective self-awareness is wholly imagined fantasy that has no objective existence:
“Despite our every instinct to the contrary, there is one thing that consciousness is not; some deep entity inside the brain that corresponds to the “self”, some kernel of awareness that runs the show ... after more than a century of looking for it brain researchers have long since concluded that there is no conceivable place for such a self to be located in the physical brain, and that it simply doesn’t exist.” (Journalist Michael Leminick, Time Magazine)
“We feel, most of the time, like we are riding around inside our bodies, as though we are an inner subject that can utilize the body as a kind of object. This last representation is an illusion ... “ (Atheist author Sam Harris)
“The intuitive feeling that we have that there’s an executive “I” that sits in the control room of our brain ... is an illusion.” (Dr. Steven Pinker)
These thinkers all readily acknowledge that our actual experience of reality seems to fly in the face of their description of it — hence Professor Dennett’s “problem of consciousness.” One would think that in order to draw conclusions about the true nature of this problem they would rely on carefully researched evidence and hard facts before informing us that every experience that we have (or will ever have) — from love and morality to the appreciation of beauty and free will — are fictitious. Here are some examples of what the world of science does actually offer on this topic:
“Nobody has the slightest idea how anything material could be conscious.” (Dr. Jerry Fodor, Professor of philosophy and cognitive science)

Then we start getting the rhetoric:

“The problem of consciousness tends to embarrass biologists. Taking it to be an aspect of living things, they feel they should know about it and be able to tell physicists about it, whereas they have nothing relevant to say.” (Dr. George Wald, Nobel Prize winning biologist)

Biologists don't specialize in the brain's function, neurologists do.

“Science’s biggest mystery is the nature of consciousness.

History shows us that it is fallacious to assume that lack of current explanation suddenly means "god did it".

It is not that we possess bad or imperfect theories of human awareness; we simply have no such theories at all.” (Dr. Nick Herbert, Physicist)

Then apparently you haven't read the explanations neuroscientists give for consciousness. Start here. Basically, it is not coincidence that physical or chemical changes to the brain always produce difference in mental activity or awarness as a result.

Christians of course are free to simplemindedly trifle that perhaps the mind can only come into the brain, so that the mind's ability to manifest itself only appears to be, but isn't actually, affected by a degraded form of the brain. But since this theory also posits the mind coming into the brain from another dimension, this trifling possibility has a far lower probability than the empirically demonstrable correlations which are always consistent: to mess with the brain is to mess with the mind, hence, the mind is nothing but the function of the brain, sort of like power to the wheels is the function of a running engine.

Based on these honest assessments of the state of scientific knowledge on this topic one might think that these thinkers — who have a priori drawn conclusions on a subject for which they seem to have little to no evidence — would speak in far more humble and guarded tones.

No, Christian mind-body dualism posits our mind coming from another dimension. That's sufficient to render reasonable the skeptic who argues from history that we will, in all likelihood, do for the mind what we did for epilepsy fits and thunder...and find a purely naturalistic explanation. If you were a real Christian, you'd find obeying Jesus far more important than doing science. The more you cite mind-body "research" the more you must admit being dissatisfied with the way the Holy Spirit convicted people of their sin before the age of Enlightenment. If you already have biblical assurance the HOly Spirit will do his job merely by your "preaching the word", then your desire to "help" the Holy Spirit with further advances in science is reasonably construed as your rejection of the sufficiency of scripture. For if you thought scripture "sufficient" for faith and morals, you wouldn't try to "help make it more convincing" with non-scriptural references, just like if you think one glass of water is sufficient, you don't seek a second. But since you use commentaries the way most people use college books, you are apparently very screwed up on what it means to live out your alleged belief that scripture is "sufficient" for faith and morals. You may as well say one piece of clothing is "sufficient" for you, despite your desire to fill up your wardrobe with numerous additional articles of clothing.

No one seriously suggests that protons, quarks or chemical compounds possess innate awareness.

Correct, we rather assert that when those things are arranged in certain ways, degrees of self-awareness become emergent properties.

Why then do they suggest that the products of these foundational materials will suddenly leap into self-cognizance?

I don't think human consciousness is a "sudden leap". As you go down the food chain, self-awareness and consciousness become far more fuzzy.

Is this a truly rational position to hold?

When the alternative is minds coming into our bodies from other dimensions? Yes.

Exactly how many electrons does it take for them to become “aware” of themselves?

A lot. Present science cannot give an exact number. Exactness not required for reasonableness of theory.

Cells do not wonder about themselves, molecules have no identity and a machine — no matter how sophisticated — is imbecilic (without its programmer).

Not true, plenty of experts in artificial intelligence acknowledge that if the sophistication continues to increase, robots will begin to feel self-awareness. See here.

If our decision-making faculty was indeed an illusion of the brain it should be impossible to physically affect the brain through our own willful decisions and yet research has demonstrated that the “I” can and does alter brain activity through the agency of free will as described by Canadian neuroscientist Dr. Mario Beauregard:
“Jeffrey Schwartz ... a UCLA neuropsychiatrist, treats obsessive-compulsive disorder — by getting patients to reprogram their brains. Evidence of the mind’s control over the brain is actually captured in these studies. There is such a thing as mind over matter. We do have will power, consciousness, and emotions, and combined with a sense of purpose and meaning, we can effect change.”

So Schwartz is a "top-down causality" advocate. Wonderful. Other brain doctors are bottom-up causalists.
I'd have to view his notes to make an informed decision about whether his tests were conducted correctly. I also wonder what he has to say about OCD patients who fail to respond favorable to his treatments.

Why then should we not consider the possibility — the one that satisfies our deepest, most powerful and intuitive sense — that the “I” that we all experience is the human soul?

of course the feeling is powerful, so is our feeling in every other part of our body. Will you thus argue that our elbows come from another dimension?

And that the reason that science has not discovered its whereabouts is not that it doesn’t exist, but rather that it is not part of physical reality as we know it and as such is undetectable and unmeasurable by material means.

But since you cannot show that any "non-material" method is reliable, your confessed inability to materially demonstrate your hypothesis makes it reasonable for skeptics to regard it as a loser. What are you going to argue now? That the OT predicted specific details of Jesus' life with amazing accuracy hundreds of years before he was born? Gee, skeptics have never trashed the book of Daniel, have they?

It is certainly understandable that for those who believe that material reality is the only reality this would be an unwelcome notion.

Because we are reasonable to have initial and sustained resistance to theories taht require positing immaterial beings that come into our bodies from other dimensions. We tire of such ideas when we finish watching science fiction movies.

Nonetheless, I submit that in absence of any compelling alternative and with the obviousness of the reality of our self-awareness so manifestly apparent — it is the rational conclusion to draw."

Nope, you require the existence of an immaterial being who comes into my brain from another dimension. Sorry, but because the arguments against Jesus' resurrection are powerful, Christians are running no less risk in offending whatever "god" is left, than atheists are. If you feel comfortable in your current beliefs despite your inability to answer every trifling bickering bit of bullshit somebody can throw at you, you cannot fault atheists for learning from your example and doing the same.

Thursday, September 19, 2019

Will J. Warner Wallace ever stop pushing his elementary school level apologetics?

This is my reply to yet another "pushing ignorance as knowledge" article by J. Warner Wallace entitled:

“There is no evidence for God’s existence!”

8:05 AM (2 hours ago)

How Would YOU Respond?

I respond to the version I recieved in email.

How would you respond to the objection that there "isn't any 'hard' evidence for the existence of God"?

I'd respond "I agree. You refuse to take the Mormon view that God is physical, therefore, there couldn't logically be any "hard" evidence for God unless you arbitrarily defined "spirit" as "physical".

This complaint is commonly presented to young Christians

It's also commonly presented to Christians of any age, because it forces Christians to recognize that what they believe in, cannot be "proved" but only "inferred", and as such, is subject to numerous powerful objections.

and we, as their parents, educators and leaders, have a duty to help them respond.

If the Holy Spirit actually did anything more than exist as a biblical concept, i guess he would have a 'duty' to educate you as well. But unfortunately, like the child who rationalizes Santa's inability to fit into a chimney, you don't care that nothing at all can be rationally credited to the Holy Spirit's direct intervention, you will simply tell yourself over and over that the Holy Spirit never does anything on his own, but only works "through" Christians...that way, you can always pretend that the Holy Spirit's work is real despite the fact that your own efforts are much better interpreted as purely naturalistic phenomena. Nothing was ever a more gratuitous afterthought, than "the Holy Spirit". What are you gonna say next? Angels are the only reason you weren't killed by a meteor today?

Here is one reasonable response we can give to skeptics, excerpted from a recent "Quick Shot" article:
“What do you mean by evidence? There are two forms of evidence: direct evidence (eyewitness testimony) and indirect evidence (everything else).

You started by addressing the question of "hard" evidence. Since "hard" obviously means "direct" in this context, we have good reason to deny that "hard" evidence can also be "indirect".

Both forms of evidence are used to make cases in a court of law.

And hearsay is typically rendered inadmissible in a court of law, which would thus dispose of 99% of the biblical 'witness' to Jesus rising from the dead. And that's just hearsay, when in fact the gospels have already been rendered inadmissible under the ancient documents rule...a rule used in courts that, with good reason, J. Warner Wallace doesn't think can help him in his desire to do what car salesman do...create a problem...sell the solution. That's right, kiddies...you cannot possibly live out your full potential in Christ unless you purchase materials authored by J. Warner Wallace.

There is a large body of direct evidence for God’s existence, like the testimony of those who observed the Resurrection of Jesus

The trouble being that at best the only first-hand testimony to it is Matthew, John and Paul, everything else in the NT that testifies Jesus rose from the dead is second-hand, or other disqualified phenomena like dreams/visions, or testimonies that have been changed by textual variation. I'd say 3 first-hand testimonies, whose first-hand nature is even disputed by Christian scholars (in the case of Matthew and John), is a pretty sad case for the resurrection of Jesus. To say nothing of the other arguments that show them to be liars or deluded, such as arguments against miracles and against the alleged eyewitnesses' identities and authorship.

and the testimony of those who have experienced the miraculous intervention of God.

Sorry, for a couple of years I've been issuing a challenge to Christian scholar Craig Keener to provide checkable documentation for any "miracle" he claims has happened within the last 100 years, that he believes is the best attested. So far, no takers. See here. Likewise with every other claim propounded by those in Christianity who happen to disagree with their cessationist Christian brothers. (Isn't that a hoot? Cessationist Christians believe miracles no longer happen, non-cessationists believe they still do. Jesus, is there anything beyond Jesus' gender and God's existence that "Christians" agree on?).

There is also a large body of indirect evidence for God’s existence, like a universe that came into existence from nothing,

So god is like the parent who realizes the child is too ignorant to realize how dangerously they are to the camp fire, but who only uses "indirect" discussion and evidence to alert the child to this great danger. You'll excuse me if I draw the conclusion that your camera-shy god's love for me is limited.

But for a more direct response: Since even Christian creationist organizations like AiG and ICR claim the big bang contradicts the bible and contradicts science too, you can hardly fault atheists who agree that the big bang contradicts the bible. For example, Dr. Jason Lisle is a Christian astrophysicist who researches issues pertaining to science and the Christian Faith. He says:

In fact, there are many contradictions between the big bang and the Bible.

...Therefore, for those who believe the Bible, the big bang is not an option.

See here. I'm an atheist, I'm not arguing that the big bang is false because it contradicts the bible. That would be stupid. I'm arguing that if even other Christians who are more educated on the big bang than J. Warner Wallace, insist that the Big Bang contradicts the bible, then atheists obviously cannot be considered 'unreasonable' to regard the big bang as unbiblical, and to accordingly laugh at J. Warner Wallace as somebody interested in pushing populist crap. Let Wallace first engage the Christians who have formal education in astrophysics, who find the big bang unbiblical. Let him host a debate between Christian apologists who accept it and Christian apologists who don't...then maybe his pointing to the big bang will appear to have somewhat more plausibility than the case of a child pointing to a dollar under their pillow as proof of the tooth fairy.

the naturalistically implausible appearance of fine-tuning in the universe,

The second law of thermodynamics doesn't say systems always tend toward disorder. It says CLOSED systems tend toward disorder.

Evolution and the Second Law
Some critics claim that evolution violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics, because organization and complexity increases in evolution. However, this law is referring to isolated systems only, and the earth is not an isolated system or closed system. This is evident for constant energy increases on earth due to the heat coming from the sun. So, order may be becoming more organized, the universe as a whole becomes more disorganized for the sun releases energy and becomes disordered. This connects to how the second law and cosmology are related, which is explained well in the video below.

See here. Of course I would disagree with the view that it makes sense to talk about something to be true for "all" of the universe, since I view the universe as infinitely large and old, while the word "all" necessarily implies a limitation (all the bread, all the cars, etc).

The universe is full of stars which are sources of energy for the planets around them, so that entropy or disorganization can be stalled or decreased through energy input. But for proof that complexity can increase without intelligent intervention, when water freezes, its atomic structure becomes more complex. I guess this is the part where you insist that it never gets cold unless an intelligent god blows cold air?

the miraculous origin of life from inorganic matter,

God of the gaps fallacy. Every time science admits it doesn't have the answer, you fill that hole with "god did it". But it was only science alone that weaned you away from mistaking epilepsy fits for demonic possession...unless you wish to say that Jesus has imparted some of his power to epilepsy medication, and that's why this chemcical is capable of holding back the demonic manifestations?

and the improbable existence of information in DNA.

The way you idiots talk about the information in DNA, you would think that we could look at human tissue through a microscope and see various combinations of actual English letters.

All this indirect evidence is most reasonably explained by a Divine Creator.

Not when you remember that you cannot define "divine creator" or "God" in a coherent way without running back to your question-begging security blanket of "god's ways are mysterious".

Maybe I'm just stupid, but sounds to me like nobody is under the slightest intellectual obligation to worry about, or pay any attention to, concepts that cannot be coherently defined. Pasting definitional labels on God is about as useful in the real world toward the goal of coherence, as would be insisting that Santa is a "special" human being who uses "magic" to deliver presents to the kids of the world. That's also pasting definitional labels on Santa, yet does precisely nothing worthwhile in the real world. Since the definition is based upon nothing in the real world, the attempt at coherence is abortive. What else are you gonna say? The big bag wolf takes medication for depression?

Do you think you might be interested in examining all the direct and indirect evidence related to God’s existence?”

Do you think you might be able to fulfill your Christian duties acceptably to God without purchasing anything produced by J. Warner Wallace?

As it turns out, there is plenty of evidence for the existence of God.

But given that the way you define "god", this thing is infinitely more complex than anything else, thus the concept of "god" would rank as the lowest probable explanation for any phenomena under Occam's Razor...which says the simplest explanation that accounts for the data is more likely to be the correct one. Gee, how "simple" is "infinitely complex"?

Wallace then uses this pic, and I comment respectively:

First, calling the Comos a "room" logically implies there's an "outside the room", but the notion that there is any such place as "outside the cosmos" is foolish....I don't care how often you think about other dimensions, or how often you think your dead grandmother calls out to you from the clouds.

Second, the Big Bang is considered both unscientific and unbiblical even by Christian creationists and apologists. See above. Apparently, what exactly the bible teaches or doesn't teach on the subject is far from "clear" and only a stupid person would insist that somebody has an intellectual "obligation" to "correctly" understand unclear Iron Age texts on theology.

The universe does not appear fine tuned. The creation of stars and planets is understandable in completely naturalistic terms once you know what you are talking about. There is no such thing as full destruction of matter or energy. The carbon and iron which result from a dying star flying through space, degrade and eventually get used again in the formation of other stars and planets. See the First law of thermodynamics: neither matter nor energy can be created or destroyed. There is no such thing as brand new creation, anything that exists outside the mind is never more than just the reconfiguration of previously existing atoms.

Abiogenesis has not been proven yet, but the surprising results from the Miller Urey experiments showed that the building blocks of life did not need any intelligent designer to put them together. See here for a primer, see here for more scholarly stuff.

Personally, given the fact that life is purely naturalistic, while "supernatural" is plagued by incoherence at the definitional level), I don't find panspermia (life originated elsewhere and arrived on earth via aliens or comets) to be more improbable than "god did it". The truth is that the universe is infinitely large and old, which gives it plenty of time to eventually chance upon the right combination of materials that result in self-replication.

I cover the "limited universe" bullshit in my rebuttal to Frank Turek's objective morality arguments here.

See here for more of my answers to Wallace on similar issues.

If biological organisms display attributes of intelligent design, then apparently the reason carnivores inflict misery on other creatures is because god wanted them to be this sadistic before sin came into existence (see here). Genesis 1:31 says God's creation, before the Fall, was "very" good, and this has created a storm of controversy among Christian apologists and creationists, because if the old-earth creationist model be correct, then the pre-Fall world, which God was calling "very good" was at that time filled with carnivores inflicting misery on other animals merely out of need to eat (i.e., God thought a world full of carnivores that inflict misery on other animals was "very" good)...which conclusion the young-earth creationists insist makes God into an evil sadist, since they say carnivorous attributes didn't start forming in animals until after the Fall. See Kent Hovind clobber Dr. Hugh Ross on this point here at time code 1:28:00 ff. Hovind says he doesn't think it "very good" that a lion should rip the guts out of a zebra...to which Ross had nothing much to say except how that the new creation, still in the future, would be "better" (despite the obvious objection that if God is perfect, then whatever he created in a pre-fall world would have been not only perfect, but morally perfect, so that since nothing can be better than perfection, nothing in the future could ever possibly be "better" than the pre-fall state of life).

Wallace says 'evil and injustice persist' but this is only because he has a child's view of god's love...in the bible, the "loving" god sometimes takes "joy" in inflicting death, disease and torture on his followers when they stray (Deuteronomy 28:63). the Christians who blindly assume abortion is sin apparently never read that part of the bible where god credits himself with all death (and since god is perfect, anything that god does, is morally perfect, such as doing what he does behind the scenes to facilitate killing). See Deuteronomy 32:39. I do not ask whether God can be morally good to kill. I ask whether God can be morally good to cause one human to kill another. But if you say the mob boss was morally good to plan and authorize a killing, you just said the punk who actually pulled the trigger was doing something morally good. So that if you seriously believe that bible verse, then you are morally justifying all human murder, even if you don't realize it.

If you insist that the analogy to the mob-boss and his punk is not sufficient, maybe you should ask yourself why you bother attempting to use "human reasoning" in the first place, since in fact you'll quickly toss it out the window merely because it rebuts your theology. You are like a cashier who decides, based on her mood, whether or not she will employ correct math when handing change to the customer.

Wallace then says ""Outside" the natural realm"", apparently aware that the concept of "outside the natural realm" is incoherent and would only be found plausible by those who already believe such "place" exists, despite the sheer lack of evidence for any such thing.

Wallace then says transcendent objective moral truths exist, but I've already destroyed Christianity's most vocal champions on that point. Matthew Flannagan could not answer my criticisms of his objective-morality model and quietly stopped responding when I turned up the heat and asked him why he assumes child-torture is absolutely immoral. He simply thought his position necessarily true and those who disagree with it necessarily wrong, no need to actually prove anything See here. I also clobber Frank Turek's best efforts to show objective morality. See here.

Wallace then says "humans possess free agency", thus playing into a very popular concept held by people for reasons having nothing to do with actual study of philosophy. But the term "freewill" begs the question "free from what?". Free from the laws of the physics? Free from the brain?

The trouble for the libertarian and others who believe in genuine free agency is that such absolute freedom logically results in irrationality...that is...when you wish to eat fast food and on the way you eventually decide against Burger King and for Taco Bell, genuinely free agency means there was, ultimately, no reason that compelled you to choose the way you did. Your agency was just a coin standing on its edge, it happened to fall over toward the Taco Bell side of things, and there is no "reason" why it fell that way...just "just" decided at the moment to choose that choice. Thus to say our agency is truly "free" is to say it is also free from the laws of causation, which automatically puts the libertarians in the same fantasyland as Eden and "other dimensions", and therefore imposing not the slightest scintilla of intellectual obligation on the materialist atheist to bother with such stupidity.

Freewill is also refuted by the fact that individuals have consistent personality characteristics. Did you ever wonder why it is that kids, even twins, raised in the same house by the same parents, often display very different personalities even in infancy? Since you cannot blame their environment, you have no other option except to blame the only other possible culprit...genetic predisposition. This is why some kids survive abuse just fine, while others are turned into criminals because of it. While I understand crime victims who say 'I was abused as a child too, but I didn't turn into a criminal because of it", the scientific truth is that a person's ability to counter the influences of their environment cannot be anything other than their genetic predispositions..

Freewill is also refuted by the fact that ingestion of physical chemicals can cause us to make much different choices than we normally would. The child who climbs the walls all day long is doing so for chemical-brain reasons which we now call ADHD, which can be controlled by Ritlan. What...does Ritlan have a spiritual effect on a child's freewill? Did God invent Ritlan, or toss it down from heaven? Of course not, our decision- making mechanisms in the brain are nothing but pure electrochemical reactions. That's precisely why physical substances are capable of causing us to decide things in ways we normally wouldn't. Depressed people stop being depressed when they smoke drugs. The good girl can be convinced to act immorally at the party if she drinks enough alcohol. Calm people can be short-tempered if they drink too much coffee. Etc, Etc.

Wallace will say that the brain's being affected by physical substances doesn't completely cancel the possibility that perhaps the mind merely comes into the body using the brain as an interface, and when the interface is chemically damaged, the resulting choices and personality are too. But the stupidity of this response is found in the question "comes into the body from where?" You guessed it...from another dimension. Christians literally believe the mind originates in the twilight zone. They also believe in other stupid things...like the idea that atheists are under some sort of intellectual obligation to "answer" bits of ignorance like this.

Also, only stupid people think babies have freewill, so since everybody agrees babies don't have freewill, and most people think adults do, the question naturally arises: why don't human beings exhibit freewill from birth...if in fact freewill is "free" from physical limitations, coming as it allegedly does from the spiritual dimension? The honest answer is that our ability to make rational choices is an attribute we gain over time and growth, which therefore means the ultimate basis of our will is firmly rooted in the physical world, leaving Christians and their 'spiritual dimension' crap out in left field.

Finally, that the bible is of no help whatsoever in answering this question is clear from the fact that the bible did nothing to resolve the Augustine/Pelagius debates, and did nothing to resolve the Calvinist/Arminian debates, and did nothing to resolve the disagreement between Luther and Erasmus on the nature of the will, and has done nothing to reconcile the current church splits over this doctrine that these prior debates spawned.

Did those debates do anything to help today's apologists come to resolution on the issue? No. James Patrick Holding wants the world to view him as a "smart guy", yet adopts Molinism (the abused child produced by the Calvinist/Arminian stalemate), a stance that Calvinist "smart guys" Steve Hays and Dr. James White consider ridiculous and unbiblical.

And for the Christians who foolishly equate the mind with the spirit, they will find their dreams dashed under 1st Corinthians 14:15, where Paul necessarily distinguishes the mind from the spirit, which thus leaves open a biblical door to the possibility that the bible will allow for the "mind" to be purely and wholly physical.

And don't even get me started on the fact that Christians also disagree on whether the bible says man is a dichotomy (body + soul or body + spirit), or trichotomy (body + soul + spirit). Google "trichotomist debate".

So you are a rather stupid fuck if you think opening your bible will do anything toward guiding you toward "truth" about the matter of human freewill. What...maybe you think the Holy Spirit is more interested in guiding YOU into the truth of such matters than he was in guiding past Christian giants like Augustine, Calvin or Luther?

Finally, Wallace says "consciousness exists in the universe", but even pretending for the moment the naturalistic explanations for this are weak, "god" remains an incoherent concept, so that because the naturalistic explanations are less incoherent, the rational person should favor them above the "god did it" excuse. Learn how the advocates of various views respond to each other in Joel B. Green and Stuart L. Palmer, eds., In Search of the Soul: Four Views of the Mind-Body Problem (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2005; 2^nd ed., Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010). See Christians disagreeing with each other about trichotomy here.

And I do not concede the weakness of naturalistic arguments for consciousness. The discussion about freewill, supra, also shows the purely naturalistic and physical nature of the mind. If a person can undergo a major personality change due to brain injury or disease affecting the brain (Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, including old folks forgetting names of family and forgetting who they are or where they live), then we do not immediately leap to "but couldn't there be another dimension that the mind comes into the body from, and when the interface is damaged, it falsely makes the will appear to be physical only?"

Instead, we draw a conclusion similar to the one we draw when we notice that a person's bicep is responsible for their during curls in the gym, and when that muscle is severed or severely damaged, they can no longer do those curls: We conclude the basis for muscular power is purely physical...we do not conclude that maybe the muscle power comes into the bodily tissue from another dimension, and the physical injury giving rise to weakness merely inhibits the spiritual aspect from manifesting itself fully.

However, you can bet your life savings that if the bible had said the power of our physical muscles comes from the spiritual world, every Christian apologist in creation would be insisting my above-logic is merely "worldly" and "incorrect" and "not according to Christ".

Thursday, June 28, 2018

Cold Case Christianity: Yes, God’s Sovereignty Robs Us of Our Freedom

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Cold Case Christianity: Does God’s Sovereignty Rob Us of Our Freedom?

Posted: 27 Jun 2018 01:34 AM PDT

Christianity describes a God who sovereignly calls believers to repentance.

And apparently, the original Jewish church didn't realize, until Acts 11:18, that God had called the Gentiles to repentance, despite how often Jesus had previously preached repentance to the Gentiles (Matthew 4:12-17) and many gospel texts saying Jesus' popularity at a prior time was out of control and caused entire towns to trample each other just to go see him (e.g., Mark 1:45). Only desperate inerrantists would dare speculate that those texts were only talking about towns where no Gentiles existed.

Does this mean humans are mere puppets under the direction of an all-powerful Being who controls all decisions and dictates the final outcome?

Yes. Otherwise, you need to explain why god wanted the reader to visualize him putting a hook in a person's jaw and pulling them around, when he talks about the reason a future army "gog and Magog" decide to attack Israel. See Ezekiel 38:4. If those sinners had already freely decided for themselves to commit this sin, it is error to use the metaphor of "hook in your jaws" to explain. Hooks in jaws don't exactly bring to mind images of God respecting human freewill.

You also need to explain what God was doing to Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4:33, if it wasn't completely overriding his freewill. So if God can violate human freewill once, then you lose, and the "God respects our freewill" can no longer be the ultimate show-stopper you think it is when answering questions about evil. If God has no problems violating Nebuchanezzar's freewill, God cannot have any problems violating the freewill of a rapist just before they commit their crime. That's right, Wallace: Daniel 4:33 is the monkey-wrench in your "true love must be free to choose" bullshit.

And worse, sometimes true love will use force to prevent a loved one from the deadly consequences of their own rebellious stupidity, such as the father who has his 19 year old daughter involuntarily committed because she is so out of control and likely to hurt herself or others. If true love makes plenty of room to justify use of force, then presto, you can no longer argue that God's true love for the rapist require that He just sit by and let the rapist do whatever he wants. If God struck the rapist dead just before the act, nothing about "love" would be any more violated in this than in what God himself does many times throughout the bible, using force to overthrow and kill enemies.

Does the Christian God allow humans any freedom to choose for themselves?

Sure, some parts of the bible teach that. But those parts cannot be reconciled with the above-cited passages. It doesn't matter if God "usually" respects human freewill...his willingness to violate it takes away any intellectual justification you have to hide behind the "god respects human freewill" excuse, as if this was some monolithic unchanging truth.

The relationship between God’s sovereignty and man’s free will has been a topic of hot debate for two millennia; I doubt that I’ll be able to solve it in a blog post.

Good call.

But I do think the definition of free will lies at the root of the confusion and apparent dilemma.

It does. If God infallibly foreknows what you will choose to do tomorrow, well, HE doesn't think you could possibly deviate from that forecast, because HE doesn't think his predictions can be proven wrong, so if YOU believe you have freewill, it is only an illusion you entertain because you are ignorant of what's in God's mind. If you could know your own future as certainly as God does, you would not claim you have freedom to choose. You would instead claim that you cannot do anything other than make the precise choices God infallibly predicts you'll make.

Most of us would like to think that we are free to make any choice possible in any given situation, but if you think about it, that’s really not the case. Even the choices you thought you were free to make were limited by your pre-existing nature (your inclinations, desires, likes and dislikes).

Good call.

Have you ever cleaned out your closet and discarded an ugly shirt, tie or dress that was given to you as a gift? Why did you throw it away? You discarded it because it was taking up space. Every day, as you decided what to wear, you were free to choose that article of clothing, but you never did. Your nature (in this case, your taste in clothing) restrained your choice. In order to understand what the Bible teaches about “free will”, we need to distinguish between two concepts of freedom:

“Libertarian” Free Will:

This view of free will maintains that humans have the ability to choose anything, even when this choice might be contrary to our nature (our inclinations, desires, likes and dislikes). We might call this “Unfettered Free Will”.

“Compatibilist” Free Will:

This view of free will maintains that humans have the ability to choose something, but this ability is restrained by our pre-existing nature (our inclinations, desires, likes and dislikes). We might call this “Self-Fettered Free Will”.

But if God knows the future infallibly, then this would restrict your freedom too. Here's the syllogism:

Premise One: Infallible means "incapable of failing"
Premise Two: God infallibly foreknows that you'll steal a candy bar tomorrow.

Conclusion: Therefore, if God infallibly foreknows that you'll steal a candy bar tomorrow, your future stealing of a candy bar, is incapable of failing.

Here's the scary part: Suppose a man rapes a child. Did your god infallibly foreknow that this man would do this? If so, then because the man's action was incapable of failing, the man was incapable of doing otherwise. Sure, society as we know it would fall apart at the seams if we allowed criminals to go free since nobody can avoid making the choices they do, but then again, we've chosen to create a society that runs more on perceptions than reality. We hold people accountable because we need to in order to have the society we wish, not because ability to choose otherwise is some proven scientific fact.

Believing a person is capable of doing otherwise might be what we need to believe to keep America's justice system running the way it does, but expediency doesn't dictate actual truth. The wife can solve a lot of potential problems in her marriage by turning away from the evidence that her husband committed adultery, but her desire to retain consistency hardly determines actual reality. She can have her happy marriage if she wants, but she needs to be honest and admit its only happy because she prefers perceptions rather than actual reality.

Our practical experience tells us that we don’t make choices that are completely unfettered (unrestrained) by our nature. There is a local Volkswagen dealership in our area that specializes in manufacturing pink Beetle convertibles. That’s right: Pink. They make them one at a time and sell dozens each year, all to young women, according to the sales manager. I can honestly say that I would never purchase that car, and if I was given one, I would sell it. While I clearly have the freedom to purchase it, my nature (my inclinations, desires, likes and dislikes) prevents me from doing so. While I consistently choose what I want freely, I would never freely chose the pink Beetle. My will is “self-fettered”. I bet you’re just like me. Many of us would never choose to order an anchovy pizza. Many of us would never choose to cut our hair in a “mullet” hairstyle. Our natures (our inclinations, desires, likes and dislikes) restrain us.

But I can imagine you doing a publicity stunt and eating an anchovy pizza while you get your hair cut into a mullet while driving down the road in a pink Beetle...if you thought doing so would increase sales of your book. Now go have a private talk with your marketing director, and ask them whether the time has come to start taking bigger risks in order to keep the attention of today's attention-deficit "Christians".

The Bible recognizes God’s sovereignty and man’s “fallen” nature (our inclination toward rebellion and the denial of God’s existence).

But it doesn't recognize any sympathy for the fact that our fallen natures aren't our fault. God's constant bitching about sin leaves the distinct impression that he doesn't think the fallen nature can be blamed for sinful choices. It also leaves the distinct impression that God is less like an educated dictator and more like an irrational person who can solve a problem facing them, but who prefers to just back and bitch out it. If you ask me, God is a dumbass, who needs to shut the fuck up and start taking action.

And don't be deceived. The fallen nature of man is not the inevitable by-product of Adam and Eve's choice to rebel. You forget that the God answered the Fall with a "curse". It was God who decided that the earth should become a fucked up place requiring lots of human strain and effort to enable survival:

If God is free, then he could have chosen not to curse the world or humanity, in which case Adam and Eve's sinning wouldn't have had much more cosmic effect than what happens when a three year old steals a cookie before dinner. Sin? Yes. Inevitable degradation of the rest of humanity? No.

16 To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you."
17 Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it'; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life.
18 "Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field;
(Gen. 3:16-18 NAU)

Wallace continues:

We see descriptions of this reality in Jeremiah 13:23, Mark 7:21-22, Romans 3:9-12, and Romans 8:6-8. The Bible also teaches, however, that humans have the freedom and ability to choose the things of God, including the salvation offered through Jesus Christ.

A theory that cannot be reconciled with the puppet-notion that is absolutely necessitated by God's infallible foreknowledge. If God infallibly foreknows that Billy will hear the gospel but will always reject it unto death, then Billy doesn't have the freedom to deviate from his infallibly foreknown conduct, which would otherwise mean Billy doesn't have sufficient freedom to prove God's predictions wrong. Remember, whatever is infallibly foreknown is incapable of failing. That's the dictionary definition for "infallible". Google it.

This ability to choose is described in passages like Joshua 24:15, John 7:17, and John 7:37-39. So, how do we, as fallen humans inclined to deny God, have the ability to choose God?

That question is utterly irrelevant to people who reject the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. The Bible teaches God's full sovereignty and man's freedom to choose, because it contradicts itself. Only inerrantists find the least bit of sense in struggling to live fully in the shadow of obviously contradictory philosophy. Everybody else says "fuck god, he knows that I wouldn't deny him if he simply interacted with me directly the way a caring friend would." God's appeal to our 5 physical senses has no less possibility of getting us to change our minds, than the prosecutor's appeal to a juror's 5 senses: jurors change their minds all the time when convinced the empirical facts justify doing do. If we can make sacrifices in the effort to please other human beings who interact with our 5 senses, there is no reason to think we'd do otherwise if Jesus physically appeared to us and interacted personally with us the way real friends do. Only desperate apologists, knowing perfectly well that Jesus is no different than a fairy, blindly insist that no more effort on God's part could possibly be to our benefit. But on the whole, people are far more prone to change their wrongful opinions so as to accord with obviously established facts, when they can tell that doing so will substantially increase the likelihood they will avert disaster.

If God had no problems parting the Red Sea to Pharaoh's notice, he should have no problems giving us infallible visions of whatever terrible fate awaits those who reject the gospel (in light of Ezra 1:1, you cannot deny that god has magically coercive telepathic ability to get people to believe whatever he wants them to believe). Most people are sane and do not willfully defy common sense when they can tell that their intended course of action is proven to likely result in catastrophe.

Well it appears that God (in His sovereignty) works at the level of our nature rather than at the level of our choices. God changes our hearts first, so we have the freedom to choose something we would never have chosen before (because our nature prevented us from doing so). You and I then have the freedom to choose within our new nature, and we are, of course, responsible for those choices.

Only if you can prove that god has changed the nature of all sinners sufficiently so that they can freely choose a gospel call that they'd otherwise reject. You aren't going to do that, and it wouldn't matter if you did, you are never going to get around the problem of how God's infallible foreknowledge allofor our future choices to be any different than what God predicted they would be.

Monday, April 23, 2018

Demolishing Triablogue: God forced you to sin, but you still 'deserve' to be punished for it...and other dreck

This is my reply to an article by Steve Hays entitled

Accident of birth

    Stephen J. Graham
    @sjggraham
    Suppose God sent to Hell everyone who was born in South America before 10am. The rest of us go to heaven. Is there any reason on Calvinism to think there is anything wrong with God holding people morally accountable for being born in South America before 10am?
    Secular Outpost Retweeted

    Stephen J. Graham
    @sjggraham
    Can South Americans born before 10am complain to their creator "Why did you make me thus?" Who are they that they should talk back to God? (cf Romans 9:20)

    Stephen J. Graham
    @sjggraham
    I'm asking whether it makes any moral sense for God to hold someone accountable for something beyond their control. I don't think the issue is about divine command ethics.

I wouldn't normally comment on some random tweet by an atheist, by since this was retweeted by Jeff Lowder at the Secular Outpost, I'll bite:

i) God wouldn't be holding folks morally accountable for when and where they are born, but for their sin.

But under Calvinism, God caused them to sin no less than he caused them to be born in certain times and places. Your attempted distinction is illusory.

For instance, if an arsonist trips a silent alarm, and the police arrest him before he had a chance to get away, he wasn't held accountable for his poor timing. That's an incidental circumstance.

But if the police caused him to commit arson,it wouldn't make sense to hold him accountable. Yet police causing him to commit arson is more analogous to the Calvinist god who causes people to sin. Your attempt to justify the way God holds us accountable, fails.

ii) Since many South Americans are Christians, it would be morally wrong for God to damn them.

That is not consistent with the bible. Jesus did no sin (in your fable), yet God struck the shepherd. The baby born to David and Bathsheba hadn't don't anything to deserve death, yet God "struck" that child and forced it to endure a miserable sickness for 7 days before it died. No inerrantist has ever said Apostle Paul's sins were probably the reason God sent a "messenger from Satan" to buffet him as a thorn in the flesh, yet God caused that bit of suffering nonetheless. And you delude others with sophistry anyway, since your hypothetical isn't even a logical possibility, for under your Calvinism, your divine-command theory makes it impossible for God to be wrong, ever, for any reason.

For one thing, God would be breaking his promise to save those who trust in Jesus.

Thats' irrelevant, the pot is STILL never justified to say "why did you make me this way", regardless of what is actually true or not true.

ii) In addition, it would be wrong for God to damn those whom Christ redeemed. Since Christ atoned for the sins of Christians (i.e. the elect), there's no judicial basis for damning them.

Have fun trying to convince non-Calvinists that the branches in Christ that end up being heaved into the fire for destruction, were never legitimately growing in him. Read John 15 without wearing your Calvinist glasses.

Admittedly, some professing Christians are nominal Christians, but I'm referring to the elect.

iii) Hence, Rom 9:20 doesn't apply.

On the contrary, if Paul's analogy in that verse of men to pots and God to potter be fitting, then it would NEVER be morally good for the pot to say "why have you made me this way". That's the point of the analogy, the pot NEVER talks back to the potter, so to imagine this ever happening is perfectly absurd. If Paul pushed his analogy too far, which he did, that's your problem.

iv) Sometimes we're responsible for things beyond our control and sometimes not. Depends on the example. If a mother leaves her newborn baby on my doorstep, I'm not responsible for the child in the sense that I'm not its father. And I didn't create that situation. But having been thrust into a situation not of my own choosing, I'm responsible to see to it that the newborn doesn't die on my doorstep from exposure or predation.

Unless, in your Calvinist communication with God, He tells you that he predestined you to neglect the child to the point of death. If so, then you aren't allowed to use your freewill to overcome God's sovereign degree just so you can made the lemon you are selling look like a Ferrari to the customers. If God is a piece of shit, say he is a piece of shit. Don't dress him up in fear that his biblical ways will hurt your marketing prospects. Call it like it really is. Include "God ultimately causes all people to sin" when you evangelize, don't just limit yourself to the sugary crap western minds will likely be attracted to. But perhaps that's too demanding?

And by the way, you didn't provide any examples of how you could be accountable for things beyond your control. The baby on your doorstep becomes part of what you can control when you discover him or her. Regardless, on the basis of Romans 9:20, you have no theological warrant to attempt to justify God's ways. If people complain against god, its because he stirred them up to do this. Nothing is more funny than a Calvnist who believes like a supralapsarian, but who argues as if he supports the libertarian notion of freewill. And in your theological view, Paul's answer in Romans 9:20 has more divine inspiration in it than any of your own speculations. Apparently, neither you nor most Calvinist theologians actually believe the scriptures are "sufficient" for faith and practice.

Monday, January 22, 2018

Cold Case Christianity: If we can love god in heaven without freedom to sin, we don't need that ability here on earth

This is my reply to J. Warner Wallace who tried to get away from the serious theological problem of why we need freewill to love god here on earth, but we won't need freewill to authentically love god after we go to heaven.

#STRask - May 22, 2017

Melinda:
First question comes from evsp123 on Twitter. "If the ability to do otherwise is a requirement of love, then given our new natures, how will we love the Lord in the new Earth?"

Jim Wallace:
So I think it all comes down to the definition of what it is to have free agency. And if we pose it this way, the ability to do otherwise, it can put us in a conundrum

Melinda:
Exactly.

Jim Wallace:
But if we pose it in terms of the ability to do whatever it is you want to do. If you think practically, that is what free agency is. It's my being able to go out, and look at the set of options, and pick the one I want.

So what you are really doing is denying the libertarian notion of feewill, the one which Norman Geisler and William Lane Craig use to explain the problem of evil. They say we have to have the ability to do the contrary, otherwise, our love of God would be forced, not free. Along comes the skeptic and says if that is how you define authentic love, then the only way we could authentically love God after we get to heaven is if we retain our ability to sin. Feel free to deny the libertarian notion of freewill, but just recognize that the consequences of doing put you at variance with other more experienced and more educated Christian philosophers.

Pick the action I want, that I freely want. So now if that's the case, if that's the definition of free agency, well now I can kind of figure out how this might be reconciled to the sovereignty of God. If in fact, heaven is not a place where I'm limited, so I can't make options, but is instead a place where my nature has been so entirely renewed that my wants are now different, then I'm not going to sin because I no longer want that. So now I'm still freely doing whatever it is I want, what's been changed of course though is I no longer want to do what I ought not do.

If there is a form of "freewill" that allows for us to authentically love god while also preventing us from desiring to sin, why didn't God just infuse Adam and Eve with such will. Had he done so, all this mess of sin in the world would have been preempted.

So this kind of compatibilist view that kind of finds a way to find free agency in a very practical way. Because that's how we experience it, right? We just know that free agency is what we want to do. So I think what happens here, is if you change the definitions in such a way to create a conundrum, then you've got a conundrum.

Giesler and Craig are professional Christian philosophers who hold that only the libertarian notion of freewill is sufficient to explain evil (i.e., we need the ability to do the opposite of love).

But if you look at the practical definitions of free agency, and I think that really is the ability to do what it is you want to do freely. Then it's really a matter of what do I want to do?

Melinda:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jim Wallace:
And I think that's why I always say, no listen, you'll be able to do everything you want to do when you're in heaven. You won't feel restrained. Oh I can't do this, I can't ... No, you simply won't want to do wrong anymore because your nature will have been so utterly changed.

Why didn't God give Adam and Eve that superior nature in the first place, so that they could authentically love him while being yet guaranteed to never sin?

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Cold Case Christianity: Why Doesn’t God Reform People Rather Than Punish Them in Hell?

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Why Doesn’t God Reform People Rather Than Punish Them in Hell?

Posted: 01 Sep 2017 01:00 AM PDT

258Some struggle to understand how a loving God could create a place like Hell.

Your spiritually alive brothers and sisters called 5-Point Calvinists don't. They believe God secretly wills the teenager to steal a candy bar while telling her through the bible "thou shalt not steal". That is, they believe God causes people to sin. Apparently, your bible is not quite as clear on the "Christian" answer to the problem of hell, as you pretend it is. So unless you claim all 5-Point Calvinist Christians aren't truly born again, spiritual deadness cannot be the reason somebody thinks your brand of Christianity is total bullshit.

And the fundamentalists who struggle with how a loving god could create a place like hell probably struggle because they haven't seriously considered the arguments of the liberal Christian scholars who do a fine job showing that hell "fire" in the NT is mere metaphor. Also they probably struggle with the question since if Deuteronomy 28:30, 63 be true, their "loving" God takes just as much delight in causing women to be raped as he takes in causing prosperity to others. I recommend that fundie Christians first make sure the biblical portrayal of God is consistent, before they start asking the larger questions.

Either way, viewing the bible as the inerrant word of God does not appear to generate any more positive change in life than when one starts believing the Book of Mormon is the word of God.

Others, while understanding and accepting the relationship between mercy and justice, freedom and consequence, victory and punishment, still imagine a better way. If God is all-loving, why doesn’t He simply “reform” people rather than allow them to continue in their sin and eventually punish them in Hell? Even human prison systems understand the value of reform; isn’t a God who punishes his children in Hell a sadistic and vengeful God?

Isn't your God vengeful and sadistic for not only causing women to be raped (Deut. 28:30) but in taking "delight" to see this happen (v. 63)?

We expect that a loving God would care enough about us to offer a chance to change rather than simply punish us vindictively for something we’ve done in the past.

Then you apparently never read Romans 9, where Paul pushes the analogy of God/potter sinner/clay to such an extreme that concerns about freewill are preempted:

18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.
19 You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?"
20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this," will it?
21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? (Rom. 9:18-21 NAU)

Which marketing strategy makes more money? Providing the proper interpretation of Romans 9 to a modern audience who think human freewill is a foregone conclusion? Or providing arguments about God's respect for human freewill, to a modern audience who think human freewill is a foregone conclusion?

As it turns out, God (as he is described in the Bible) understands the difference between discipline and punishment,

Yes, for example, his causing sickness and suffering to a baby born to David and Bathsheba, so that the child suffered several days before finally dying. God causing babies to suffer when he can just instantly take their souls with no suffering, is the god you serve:

2nd Samuel 12:11-18
10 'Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.'
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.
14 "However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die."
15 So Nathan went to his house. Then the LORD struck the child that Uriah's widow bore to David, so that he was very sick.
16 David therefore inquired of God for the child; and David fasted and went and lay all night on the ground.
17 The elders of his household stood beside him in order to raise him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat food with them.
18 Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died. And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, "Behold, while the child was still alive, we spoke to him and he did not listen to our voice. How then can we tell him that the child is dead, since he might do himself harm!"

Oh, did I forget? God did this to the baby despite telling David that David's sin had been put away, see last clause of v. 13. The lesson we learn here is that even if God himself tells you that your sin of adultery has been "put away", that does not prevent God from punishing you and your children for it anyway.

Oh yeah, the bible god sure does know the different between suffering and punishment.

and He is incredibly patient with us,

Which is rather stupid given that if God is smarter than a con artist, he can quickly convince us, without violating our freewill, that Christianity is true, and any need for patience will be foreclosed. Even if you read divine respect for human freewill into Ezekiel 38:4, still, the whole idea that god is like a best friend who is trying to convince you of the error of your ways, is childish and unrealistic. If God really wanted you to do something, he could infallibly cause it to come to pass, whether to make you sin or do good. Notice what God says about two future armies, gog and magog, through Ezekiel. You'd think they were nothing but puppets on strings in God's hands:

3 and say, 'Thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, I am against you, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal.
4 "I will turn you about and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them splendidly attired, a great company with buckler and shield, all of them wielding swords; (Ezek. 38:3-4 NAU)

It doesn't matter if this is mere metaphor, which it is: the metaphor still puts images in your mind of God forcing other people to sin or do whatever he wants them to do, images that are wholly inconsistent with your childish pandering to modern society's individualist cult mentality that says God respects our freewill.

But it was never any secret that you are doing Christianity mostly because of the money you can make convincing people that God wasn't able in the past to do as much as he wished until you came along with your "forensic faith" marketing gimmick.

And if God is eternal, than his attributes will be eternal as must logically be the case in any other situation, which means his attribute of patience is no less eternal than his attribute of love. Feel free to trifle that an infinite being his a finite trait all because the bible presents him that way, but remember that you only sound convincing to your religious fanatic friends, nobody else. But that assumes you care about being wrong, when in fact it is clear you are more concerned with making money off of Christianity than you are in being correct

allowing us an entire lifetime to change our minds and reform our lives.

Not true, plenty of children die less than year after they reached the age of accountability, whatever you think that age is. Only a fool makes the generalized statement that God allows people a lifetime to change.

This is easier to understand when we think carefully about the definitions of “discipline” and “punishment”:

Discipline Looks Forward
All of us understand the occasional necessity of disciplining our children. When we discipline, we are motivated by love rather than vengeance.

That might be the politically correct party line, but the truth is some parents discipline their devil-children out of sheer exasperation, and desire to see the child suffer punishment and discipline at the same time.

We hope to change the future behavior of our kids by nudging them in a new direction with a little discomfort.

Most modern Christians think the the biblical model of beating kids with rods constitutes something more than a "nudge":

NAU Prov. 22:15 Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of discipline will remove it far from him.
13 Do not hold back discipline from the child, Although you strike him with the rod, he will not die.
NAU Prov. 29:15 The rod and reproof give wisdom, But a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother.

Wallace continues:

God also loves His children in this way and allows them the opportunity to reform under his discipline.

Which makes no sense once you remember that kids die at all ages all the time, and therefore, their dying shortly after the age of accountability occurs statistically just as often as kids dying in any other age-group. Your generalization is too hasty, you wouldn't be talking that way to a Christian family who just lost their rebellious 9 year old daughter in a bus accident. You'd have to tell them you believe that since he lived past the age of accountability and still wasn't a Christian, she is in hell right now...and that means you won't be achieving record sales of your books in her town any time soon.

This takes place during our mortal lifetime; God disciplines those He loves in this life because He is concerned with eternity.

Then he is stupid, because he has an infallible way of making sure they avoid hell: killing them within a month after they are born. If aborted babies go to heaven by default, then you need to remember infant death brings eternal good, as you sob about how abortion "kills". And abortions doctors cannot do any wrong: when they abort a baby, God takes the credit, because God takes personal responsibility for all murder:

39 'See now that I, I am He, And there is no god besides Me; It is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded and it is I who heal, And there is no one who can deliver from My hand. (Deut. 32:39 NAU)

Discipline, by its very definition, is “forward-looking” and must therefore occur in this world with an eye toward our eternal destiny:

Hebrews 12:9-11

Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

Punishment Looks Backward

There are times as a parent, however, when our loving efforts to discipline and reform are unsuccessful; our kids are sometimes rebellious to the point of exhaustion. In these times, our love requires us to deliver on our repeated warnings. Our loving sense of justice requires us to be firm, even when it hurts us to do so.

yeah, but you would never cause your rebellious teen daughter to be raped just because she is rebellious...but God causes women to be raped, and takes "delight" in this, in Deut. 28:30, 63. So your attempted analogy to human instances fails miserably, your God's ways are too extreme to permit analogy to any human instance, except perhaps deranged lunatics.

Our other children are watching us as well, and our future acts of mercy will be meaningless if we fail to act justly on wrongdoing. In times like these, we have no alternative but to punish acts that have occurred in the past. Punishment need not be vindictive or vengeful. It is simply the sad but deserving consequence awaiting those who are unwilling to be reformed in this life.

Hebrews 10:28-29

Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?

God is patient.

If so, it's only because sinful Moses talking some sense into the divine head:

9 The LORD said to Moses, "I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people.
10 "Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation."
11 Then Moses entreated the LORD his God, and said, "O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
12 "Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, 'With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth '? Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about doing harm to Your people.
13 "Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants to whom You swore by Yourself, and said to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'"
14 So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people. (Exod. 32:9-14 NAU)

He’s given each of us a lifetime to respond to His discipline and change our mind. It cannot be said that God failed to give us the opportunity to repent.

But it can certainly be said that God did not do everything he could possibly have done, to convince freewilled humans to do what he says. If he was willing to part the Red Sea in face of faithless Israelites and skeptical Egyptians, then God doesn't think doing monster-miracles violates anybody's freewill. Or he doesn't respect freewill the way you think he does.

And it is rather difficult to believe that after this particular miracle, the Israelites continued to complain against god (Exodus 16:3). If this part of the story is historically true, then God is stupid for "expecting" such human beings to materialize a strong faith on the basis of the 10 plagues and parting of the Red Sea, especially when he infallibly foreknow these miracles would not produce such a faith. Don't you worry though, these stories are just religiously embellished kernels of historical truth, for not more more purpose than religious edification of the tribes.

When we are rebellious to the point of exhaustion, however, God has no choice but to deliver on His warnings.

Not true, according to you and the bible, the Canaanites were sinful to the point of exhaustion for 400 years before god punished them:

13 God said to Abram, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.
14 "But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions.
15 "As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age.
16 "Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete." (Gen. 15:13-16 NAU)

In other words, God recognizes the Amorites as sinful to the point of exhaustion, both in reality and in his allegedly infallible foreknowledge, and yet doesn't act there and then, but waits 400 years, not for the Amorites to change their ways, but so their sinful iniquity will become "complete".

Sort of like you knowing you have a devil child who hurts others, but you still put him in the same room with other kids and then don't immediately punish him when he hurts other kids, because you don't think he iniquity is yet complete.

Let's just say that J.Warner Wallace's apologetics argument don't exactly cause me to break out in nervous sweats. And I say that after multiple demonstrations that his arguments are wrong and inconclusive on the merits.

turch is rong