Dating the Gospels, New Trend Toward Early Dates

John Rylands Fragment

In that debate with Doug Shaver on TWeb (I published here two different speeches of mine--the debate is now over if anyone wishes to imbibe the wisdom), Doug argued for dates of the Gospels way up in the second century. It always strikes me as hilarious when I debate Jesus mythers and they are so anti-academic and so opposed to the progress of modern scientific method of Bible study because they methods have produced some results that have not disappointed believers. It's ludicrous becuase the fundamentalist inerrency position is in shambles, at least for the Old Testament, but the out look for New Testament is not so bad. It's funny becuase the mythers have reached back into the nineteenth century while the new trend even among liberals is toward earlier dates not latter ones.

No disparagement intended against Doug, who I view as a friend, but it occurred to me that he really doesn't know how scholars arrive at their views on dating so he thinks they are just spouting dogma and he said as much (if one cares to look for it). When I say a trend to earlier dating I mean it's big. Here's an example of just the early dating on Matthew:
from a site called "Dating the New Testament"

BOOK			EARLY	LATE	AVERAGE
Matthew	Peter Ainsile, D.D. A.D. 48 to 69		48	69	58.5
Matthew	The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary Post 70 AD		70	70	70.0
Matthew	An Introduction to the New Testament, D.A. Carson Ph.D. & Douglas J. Moo, Ph.D. shortly prior 70 A.D.		69	69	69.0
Matthew	Apologetics Study Bible, A.D. 60's is not unreasonable		60	69	64.5
Matthew	Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible, A.D. 60's1		60	69	64.5
Matthew	Believer's Study Bible, W.A.Criswell, Ph.D., Editor, prior 70 A.D.		69	69	69.0
Matthew	Biblical Illustrator, N.T. Archbishop Thomson A.D. 58 to 60		58	60	59.0
Matthew	Craig L. Blomberg, Ph..D. A.D. 58to 65		58	65	61.5
Matthew	Blue Letter Bible, AD 55 to 60		55	60	57.5
Matthew	Raymond Brown, Ph.D. AD 80 to 90, give or take a decade		80	90	85.0
Matthew	F.F. Bruce, Ph.D. shortly after 70 AD		71	71	71.0
Matthew	D.A. Carson, R.T. France, and G.J. Wenham, eds. New Bible Commentary: 21 Century Edition, 80 CE		80	80	80.0
Matthew	Larry Chouinard, Ph.D. Likely after AD 70		71	71	71.0
Matthew	W.D. Davies, D.D. AD 80 to 100		80	100	90.0
Matthew	M. G. Easton M. A., D. D. Probably between AD 60 or 65		60	65	62.5
Matthew	James M. Efird, Ph.D. AD 70 to 80 ,Davies Professor of New Testament and Biblical Greek at Duke University		70	80	75.0
Matthew	English Standard Version Bible AD 50s or 60s		50	60	55.0
Matthew	David A. Fiensy, Ph.D. AD 50 to 55, yet 40 to 60 is possible.		40	60	50.0
Matthew	Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Ph.D. AD 75 to 80 Professor of New Testament at The Catholic University of America, Past President of the Society of Biblical Literature Chair of the Synoptic Studies Division of SBL. Author of the 2 Volume Commentary on Luke in the Anchor Bible Series. A well-known and leading Critical Scholar in New Testament Origins		75	80	77.5
Matthew	Norman L. Geisler, Ph.D. AD 50 to 55 Author of over 60 books and hundreds of articles. Founder of Southern Evangelical Seminary. In 2009 he co-founded Veritas Evangelical Seminary.		50	55	52.5
Matthew	Robert H. Gundry, Ph.D. A.D. 65 to 70		65	70	67.5
Matthew	Donald Guthrie, Ph.D. New Testament Introduction prior to AD 63, yet 50 to 64 is reasonable. President, formerly Vice-Principal and Lecturer in New Testament, The London Bible College		50	64	57.0
Matthew	Gary R. Habermas, Ph.D. A.D. 60		60	60	60.0
Matthew	Donald A. Hagner, Ph.D. pre AD 70		69	69	69.0
Matthew	William Hendriksen, Ph.D. AD 63-66		63	66	64.5
Matthew	A.E. Hill, Ph.D. AD 70 to 85 Professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College, author Guide to Bible Data		70	85	77.5
Matthew	Nelsen'sStudy Bible H.Wayne House, Th.D. J.D. Editor, A.D. 50 to 60		50	60	55.0
Matthew	R. Jamieson, A.R. Fausset, and D. Brown, eds. AD 37 to 60, Commentary Critical and Explanatory of the Whole Bible (JFB)		37	60	48.5
Matthew	Howard Clark Kee, Ph.D. AD 75 to 85 Professor of New Testament at Drew University		75	85	80.0
Matthew	Craig S. Keener, Ph.D. AD 70's , although this date is not certain.		70	80	75.0
Matthew	Werner Georg Kummel, Ph.D. AD 80 to 100 Late Professor of New Testament at Marburg, Germany		80	100	90.0
Matthew	John MacArthur, Ph.D .A.D. 50 to 70		50	70	60.0
Matthew	G. Maier, Ph.D. pre AD 70		69	69	69.0
Matthew	K.E. Malberg, AD 49 to 51 Bible Overview Chart		49	51	50.0
Matthew	Bruce Metzger, Ph.D AD 75 to 85 Professor of New Testament at Princeton University, Chair of the Editorial Board for the UBS and Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament. Senior Editor for the New Testament of the NRSV Translation Team. (Considered THE Dean of Textual-Critical studies today [since Aland's death])		75	85	80.0
Matthew	J.P.Moreland, Ph.D. A.D. mid 40's to mid 50's		45	55	50.0
Matthew	Leon Morris, Ph.D. perhaps the late 50s or early 60s.		58	62	60.0
Matthew	S.L. Peterson, AD 75 Timeline Charts of the Western Church		75	75	75.0
Matthew	John Nolland, Ph.D. Matthew is to be dated before the beginnings of the buildup to the Jewish war. Buildup started AD 66		65	65	65.0
Matthew	The Pulpit Commentary, A.D. 60 to 75		60	75	67.5
Matthew	B. Reicke, Ph.D. pre A.D. 70		69	69	69.0
Matthew	J.A.T. Robinson, Ph.D. AD 40 to 60		40	60	50.0
Matthew	T. Robinson, AD 85 The Bible Timeline		85	85	85.0
Matthew	Charles Caldwell Ryrie, Th.D., Ph.D., Ryrie Study Bible AD 50s or 60s		60	60	60.0
Matthew	Edward P. Sanders, Ph.D. AD 70 to 80 Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins, Duke University (Neither Mark, Matthew, or Luke show ANY sign of knowing of ANY of the events following 90 AD, hence they were written before 90.)		70	80	75.0
Matthew	William Smith, Ph.D. Smith's Bible Dictionary. A.D. 60 to 66		60	66	63.0
Matthew	H.D.M. Spenes, D.D. A.D. 60 to 75		60	75	67.5
Matthew	Carsten Peter Thiede, Ph.D. Prior to the mid 60s Director of the Institute for Basic Epistemological Research in Paderborn, Germany		60	63	61.5
Matthew	Edward J. Tinsley, Ph.D. AD 70 to 80 Retired Professor of Greek and New Testament, Cambridge University		63	63	63.0
Matthew	David L. Turner, Ph.D. prior to A.D. 70		69	69	69.0
Matthew	Joseph B. Tyson, Ph.D. AD 80 Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins, Southern Methodist University (Dr. Tyson is one of THE leading scholars in Luke-Acts, and is Chair of the Luke-Acts Division of the Society of Biblical Literature)		80	80	80.0
Matthew	Merrill F. Unger, Ph.D., Th.D., Aramaic A.D.40 to 45, Greek A.D. 50		40	45	42.5
Matthew	Robert Utley, D.Min. Possibly A.D. 60 or at least before A.D. 70, Retired Professor of Hermeneutics		60	69	64.5
Matthew	J. Wenham, Ph.D. AD 40		40	40	40.0
Matthew	Edwin Yamauchi, Ph.D. shortly after A.D. 70		71	71	71.0
Matthew	David Young, Ph.D. 70's		70	79	74.5
Matthew	Franklin W. Young, Ph.D. AD 70 to 80 Professor of New Testament at The Episcopal Theological Seminary		70	80	75.0
Matthew	J. Walvoord and R. Zuck AD 50 to c50 The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures		50	50	50.0
Matthew	Rev. A. Lukyn Williams, M.A. A.D. 60 to 75		60	75	67.5
	Date 8/30/2010 this is copyrighted material and it used by permission

All Four Gospels have a huge long line of Scholars pushing early dates. New Evidence has come out for Matthew in the form of Talmudic passage that seems to quote Matthew. The thing is scholar had previously judged when the dates were for the writing of that page and that Rabbi so that is not unknown to scholarship. Thus they can be fairly certain how far back it pushes Matthew. It pushes him back to about AD 72. Not much of cousre, the traditional view is 80. Of course there's all that pre Mark reduction that I've talked bout so we are only talking about redacting the final redaction, the versions we have now as we know the texts today. The pre Mark redacation pushes it back all the way to mid century.

For story on the Talmudic passage here is Southcoasttoday.com

An ancient Jewish parody that quotes the New Testament's Gospel of Matthew may refute a major argument by biblical scholars who challenge the credibility of the Bible.

For more than a century, liberal scholars have contended that the Christian gospels are unreliable, secondhand accounts of Jesus' ministry that weren't put on paper until 70 to 135 AD or later -- generations after those who witnessed the events of Jesus' ministry were dead.

Today's more liberal scholars say the Gospel of Matthew may have been aimed at Jews, but it was written in Greek, not Hebrew. They also believe that the Book of Mark, written in Greek, was the original gospel, despite the traditional order of the gospels in the Bible, putting Matthew first.

But a literary tale dated by some scholars at 72 AD or earlier, which comes from an ancient collection of Jewish writings known as the Talmud, quotes brief passages that appear only in the Gospel of Matthew. In his 1999 book, "Passover and Easter: Origin and History to Modern Times," Israel J. Yuval of Jerusalem's Hebrew University states that Rabban Gamaliel, a leader of rabbinical scholars in about 70 AD, is "considered to have authored a sophisticated parody of the Gospel according to Matthew." The Talmud, a text not often touched by New Testament scholars, also contains a number of obvious references to Jesus and his family.

Jesus is called a Nazarene as one of the names given him. Another dubs him Yeshua Ben Pandira, which means Jesus born-of-a-virgin in a combination of Hebrew and Greek. His father was a carpenter, his mother was a hairdresser and Jesus, the Talmud says, was a magician who "led astray Israel." And, it says, he was "hung" on the eve of Passover.

Gamaliel's tale, which happens to portray a Christian judge as corrupt, may be less valuable for its instruction than for casting doubt on the long-held theory that Matthew's gospel, though longer than Mark's, was written years later by someone after the apostle Matthew had died.

When Matthew's gospel to the Hebrews was written is important to biblical conservatives because an early Matthew would strengthen its credibility by making it possible, if not probable, that the tax collector whom Jesus recruited was the first to write and distribute his account of Jesus' birth, ministry and death. Most liberal scholars would say Matthew's gospel didn't come along until 90 AD or later and was in Greek, separating the apostle from the Jews as well as book that bears his name.
But if Gamaliel quoted the Gospel of Matthew, then Matthew "had to be before 70 AD," said Craig Blomberg, distinguished professor of New Testament at Denver Theological Seminary.
In Rabbi Gamaliel's story, a daughter whose father had died offers a golden lamp as a bribe to a Christian judge known for his honesty, seeking a decision that would allow her to share her father's estate with her brother. When the judge suggests that dividing the estate would be proper on the basis of a new law that had superseded the ancient Law of Moses, Gamaliel argues that the judge is wrong and loosely quotes a statement attributed to Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew.
"Look further in the book, and it is written in it, 'I have not come to take away from the Law of Moses nor add to the Law of Moses ... .' " Gamaliel replies, and wins the case on the basis of that argument or the bribe he gave the judge -- a "Libyan ass."
The Libyan ass itself is a reference to Jesus and the mount he rode into Jerusalem.
The late English scholar, R. Travers Herford, called Gamaliel's story a "brutal parody of Christian belief." In his book, "Christianity in Talmud and Midrash," he points to a second reference to Matthew, in the reaction of the woman who lost the case, despite the golden lamp she gave as a bribe. "Let your light shine as a lamp!" she says, throwing a sarcastic barb at the judge. At Matthew 5:16, just before Jesus said he came to fulfill the law, he tells his followers that the lamp of their belief should not be hidden but "let your light shine before men."

Neil Altman is a Philadelphia-based writer who specializes in the Dead Sea Scrolls and religion. He has done graduate work at Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, Conwell School of Theology, and Temple University. He has a master's degree in Old Testament from Wheaton Graduate School in Wheaton, Ill., and was an American Studies Fellow at Eastern College. David Crowder is an investigative reporter for the El Paso Times in Texas.

This story appeared on Page A6 of The Standard-Times on April 19, 2003.

Dating the Gospels is a scientific project. It's not just old guy preacher men spouting their views. They use basic guides just like archaeologists use pot shards for dating. They use the paper, the ink, the material in the text, the phraseology, the sentence structure. The events are among the major giveaways. One of the major principles for dating Gospels is the proximity to the fall of the temple (determined by it's mention in the text). Here are some issues that have grounded Roman Historian Colin Hemer to push for an earlier date for Luke/Acts. This is from an rticle by super conservative Norman Geisler:

1. There is no mention in Acts of the crucial event of the fall of Jerusalem in 70.
2. There is no hint of the outbreak of the Jewish War in 66 or of serious deterioration of relations between Romans and Jews before that time.
3. There is no hint of the deterioration of Christian relations with Rome during the Neronian persecution of the late 60s.
4. There is no hint of the death of James at the hands of the Sanhedrin in ca. 62, which is recorded by Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews (20.9.1.200).
5. The significance of Gallio's judgement in Acts 18:14-17 may be seen as setting precedent to legitimize Christian teaching under the umbrella of the tolerance extended to Judaism.
6. The prominence and authority of the Sadducees in Acts reflects a pre-70 date, before the collapse of their political cooperation with Rome.
7. The relatively sympathetic attitude in Acts to Pharisees (unlike that found even in Luke's Gospel) does not fit well with in the period of Pharisaic revival that led up to the council at Jamnia. At that time a new phase of conflict began with Christianity.
8. Acts seems to antedate the arrival of Peter in Rome and implies that Peter and John were alive at the time of the writing.

He lists 15 points in his article. He points out that the discoveries at Qumran helped to demonstrate the first century nature of John. One expects a conservative to support an earlier date. On the other hand liberals are not holding back. John A.T. Robinson who was one of the leaders of the God is Dead movement in the 60s wrote a whole book dating the Gospels earlier.

Robinson wrote a revolutionary book titled Redating the New Testament, in which he posited revised dates for the New Testament books that place them earlier than the most conservative scholars ever held. Robinson places Matthew at 40 to after 60, Mark at about 45 to 60, Luke at before 57 to after 60, and John at from 40 to after 65. This would mean that one of who Gospels could have been written as early as seven years after the crucifixion. At the latest they were all composed within the lifetimes of eyewitnesses and contemporaries of the events. Assuming the basic integrity and reasonable accuracy of the writers, this would place the reliability of the New Testaments beyond reasonable doubt.(from the Geisler article)

In Memory of John Hick (oct 22 1922--Feb 9 2012)

John Hick (1922-2012)



John Hick was a major philosopher of Religion. He was the last great Philosopher of what I call the "holders of the fort," the generation right before Plantinga and the back to God movement of the 80s took over the watch and brought Philosophical arguments for the existence of God back onto the battle field with a strong position. That means that Hick made a name for himself in the era when modern secular society and academia had decided that religion was a thing of the passing away. They didn't attack it with belligerence because they felt it was passing away. Other major holders of the fort included Father Frederick Copleston, Arnold J. Toynbee, E.L. Mascall*, Johnathon Wisdom, Etienne Gilson, and of these Hick was on the first rung. These were the guys who one found in undergraduate philosophy textbooks tucked into the section on philosophy of religion. Hick was one of the most often found in those sorts of anthologies.

He made waves in the 1980s when he moved away from Christianity and into a more pluralistic view point. While I can't agree with the Chrirstology that he adopted, I admire and respect his position on enlarging the sphere of faith to include those of other traditions. It's quite sad to see the official John Hick website, once covered with blurbs about his books, now with an obituary article. Hick was bron in Scarborough England, developed an interest in philosophy in his teens. He began at University of Manchester but changed to Edinurgh in 1941 after conversion to Evangelical Christianity. During his career he taught at Claremont Graduate University and University of Bermingham

From Wiki

Hick played important roles in a number of organizations centered around community relations. Non-Christian communities, mostly Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh, had begun to form in this central England community as immigration from the Caribbean Islands and Indian subcontinent increased. Due to the influx of peoples with different religious traditions, organizations focused on integrating the community became necessary. During his fifteen years at the University of Birmingham, Hick became a founder, as well as the first chair, for the group All Faiths for One Race (AFFOR); he served as a chair on the Religious and Cultural Panel, which was a division of the Birmingham Community Relations Committee; and he also chaired the coordinating committee for a 1944 conference convened under the new Education Act with the aim of creating a new syllabus for religious instruction in city schools.^[1]

Hick has been hailed as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, philosophers of religion of the 20th century (Smid, Robert (1998-1999). "John Harwood Hick". Boston Collaborative Encyclopedia of Western Theology. http://people.bu.edu/wwildman/WeirdWildWeb/courses/mwt/dictionary/mwt_themes_875_hick.htm#John%20Harwood%20Hick. Retrieved February 2008.). That doesn't mean his contributions to God arguments are better than Plantingas it means among philosophers who write about the problems of religion in a philosophical way, Hick was the best. Philosophically Hick was influenced by Kant, influences which helped to move him toward his position of religious pluralism.

One of the ideas he explored that was of greatest influence to me and I feel one of his greatest contributions was his answers to the issues of verification and religious faith. He advanced the idea of eschatology verification. Verification has to wait for the end of our lives, but we can falsify various claims. He is the author of one God argument on my life of 42 God arguemnts: No 34, Argument from Personal Origin:

Xenos Christian Fellowship
Theistic Apolgetics Dennis McCallum

The main critique of the cosmological argument is that it involves special pleading.

1. If everything requires a cause, then God requires a cause. If God requires no cause, then not all things require a cause.

• However, if it can be shown that the eternal existence of God is different than the eternal existence of the Universe, this argument might hold up.
  
  John Hick has argued that since God is personal, He is not subject to natural law, (e.g. thermodynamic laws) which apply to the physical realm. Therefore, there are fewer problems with His eternity than there would be with the eternity of the physical universe.[footnote 7] (John Hick, Arguments for the Existence of God. (New York: Herder and Herder, 1971) pp.34 ff. He also gives other reasons for distinguishing between God and the universe in the area of eternalness.)
  

He wrote a fine book, although short,on the issue of researchers who claim to evoke religious experiences by stimulation of the brain: the New Frontier of Science and Religion I drew upon that work in my research of the topic. As far as I'm concerned he uncovered a huge pool of bad research in atheist claims about brain chemistry and religious experience. His work The Many Faced Argument is one of the most lucid, through, and helpful books on the ontological argument, The Many Faced Argument. Hick rejected the modal argument of Hartshorne on the grounds that it deals with "logical necessity" whereas the faith of the Apostles was about ontological necessity. Whether that's a good argument I have my dobuts. The book is through and includes all the major developments form Anselm to Hartshorne.

Books by Hick

Articles by John Hick




Hick was one of the first great Christian thinkers I discovered early in my Christian Walk. I liked his philosophy and it meant a great deal to me to know that there were fine contemporary philosophers who were Chrsitians and were still writing. Whatever truth was disclosed thorugh the life of thought he lived, he now has eschatology verification. I mourn the loss of his ideas.



*The Wiki article on Mascall says so little about his work I used one that says more about it. For the details of his life see the Wiki article linked here.

(1) Wiki article sites:Hick, John. "A Pluralist View." More Than One Way? Four Views on Salvation in a Pluralistic World. Eds. Dennis L. Okholm and Timothy R. Phillips. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995. 27-59. Print.

Early Date for Mark

Most Jesus mythers and a lot of atheists take the old nineteenth century view that Mark was written in the second century. They accept modern scholarship when it ways Mark came first and Mat and Luke are dependent upon him, then shed modern scholarship when it says (and the vast majority do) that AD 70 was the Date for Mark.

I have argued that a new trend has emerged giving earlier dates for the Gospels. What do you suppose atheists said? I'm a liar of course! I will show that there is a much better basis for thinking of the gospel of Mark (I will just stick with Mark to makes things easier) as written before AD 70!

The major reason scholars put the date as 70 is the destruction of the temple. Mark records Jesus prediction that the temple would be destroyed. So most scholars today assume the naturalistic answer that they can't base dating on prophesy, so they have to put it after 70. It can't be much after 70 or it would cease to be very relevant. There are other and better reasons for putting around 70. That's the limit on how early they think it can be. they think it can't be latter than that becasue its too Jewish, the eschatology expectations doesn't match the second century.


there are good reasons to think Mark was written earlier than 70.

(1) The destruction of the temple does not have to be taken as a limit on the date. The problem is the basic assumption that no one expected the temple to be destroyed is wrong.

Jews of the first century had different expectations of the Messiah than do Jews today, or in subsequent centuries. Th view that has emerged from Qumran shows us that Jesus fit exactly what many Jews of the frist century expected. He doesn't fit the only profile but he does fit one profile that we know did exist, right down to the redemption. There was a view that saw Messiah as born, rejected by his people, executed, returns, and his death was redemption for the people.

Within that view they saw the temple's destruction connected with Messiah's birth. This is found in Yalkut the earliest volume of the Talmud, material from that segment goes back to the first century. This documented by Alfred Edersheim in Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah.



"Suffice it to say, according to the general opinion, the birth of the Messiah would be unknown to his contemporaries, that he would appear, carry on his work, than disappear--probably for 45 days, than appear again and destroy the hostile powers of the world..." (Edershiem, 436, Yalkut on Is. vol ii, )

"[Messiah]...his birth is connnected with the destruction, [of temple] and his Return with the restoration of the temple" (on Lamintations i.16 WArsh p 64 in Edersheim "He might be there and be known or the might come and be again hidden for a time" comp Sanhedirin 97a Midrash on CAnt.

So they already had the idea that the temple would be destoryed. If Jesus followers were expecting this, they would already be aware that since he had grown to manhood the destruction of the temple had to come soon. So they could have expected that before it happened, even by a couple of decades. This means the Evangelical apologetic loses a prophet fulfillment, but they have plenty of those to spare.

Other reasons for early date:

(1) The Jewish expectations of the Messiah are fit by Jesus in general and the view that fits him to a exactly is found at Qumran.


http://www.doxa.ws/Messiah/Messiah1.html


http://www.doxa.ws/Messiah/Fulfill.html

By the early second century this view was shifting away. Separation form the Gentile church, the bad blood that developed after the fall of the templ, the move away form the LXX and to their own translation that the Christians didn't use, made this view obsolete among Jews byt he early second century. Thus we can see the atmosphere and the Jewishness of Mark reflects an earlier period. It fits perfectly with the 30s, 40, 50s.


(2) The eschatology expectations fit the Jews of the first but not the second century. (see the links above)

The idea of the end times, the Messiah coming, the temple would be destoryed, this was all the sort of expectations they had int he time of Christ and even a bit before. But by the second century that gap with the Christians, the Jewish Christians didn't leave many writings from that period. The church was outgrowing those kind of eschatology by that time.

(3) different versions of Mark (used by Mat and Luke)

that means the date must be pushed back because you had to have time for different versions to develop.

"External evidence for two different versions of Mark circulating at an early date can be derived only from the observation that Luke does not reproduce the section Mark 6:45-8:26. Luke 19: 19= Mark 8:27 follows directly upon Luke 9:17= Mark 6:44. Luke may have used a copy of Mark that had accidentally lost a few pages. However there are some special features which differentiate this particular from the rest of Mark's Gospel. It begins with Jesus going to Bethsaida (Mark 6:45) and ends with the healing of a blind man from Bethsaida (Mark 8:22). Thereafter Jesus goes to Cesaria Philippi and the town of Bethsaida never occurs again the Gospel. This section is also of a number of other doublets of Markan pericopes. 6:44-54 the walking on the water is a variant of the stilling of the tempest (Mark 4:35-41). 8:1-10 the feeding of the 4000 is a secondary elaboration of the feeding of the 5000 (Mark 6:30-44)...The cumulative evidence of these peculiarities may allow the conclusion that an earlier version of Mark, which was used by Luke did not yet contain the Besiada section (Mark 6:45-8:26) whereas Matthew knew the expanded version which must have come into existence very soon after the original composition of the original gospel." (Koester, 285)."

Koester doesn't' argue for a complete UrMarkus ..as a more permeative version of the Gospel, but this evidence does suggest different versions of the same Gospel. While we can't find an UrMarkus, we can see clearly that the redactor who first formed the Gospel used several sources. The passion narrative has been mentioned, moreover, a miracle story source that is compatible with John, two written documents of saying sources are also recognizable. These include a collection of parables and one of apocalyptic material. (p.287)

But does this mean that Mark [the primary redactor] is merely a "cut and paste" which destorts previous sources and collects rumors and legends with no historical value? Where the skeptic sees this aspect, Koester does not. What Koester sees is a faithful copyist who has collected materials known to be of value to the community, and forged them into a certain order for the purposes of edification to the community.

"Mark [the primary redactor] is primarily a faithful collector. In so far as he is also an author he has created an overriding general framework for the incorporation of traditional material but he has still left most of his material intact.His Gospel is therefore a most important witness for an early stage for the formative development of the traditions about Jesus. The world which these traditions describe rarely goes beyond Galilee, Judea and Jerusalem, which is not the world of the author [primary redactor] or the readers for whom the book was intended. Mark's information about Palestine and its people is fairly accurate whenever he leaves his sources intact. But from his redaction of the sources it is clear that the author is not a Jewish Chrstistian and that he does not live in Palestine." (Koester p.289)

As for a trend to early dating Errantskeptic. org provides this list of both conservative and liberal scholars who are pushing toward earlier dates for Mark.

Mark

Believer's Study Bible, A.D. 65 to 68
Allan Black, Ph.D. early AD 60's
Raymond E. Brown, Ph.D. AD 60 to 75, most likely between AD 68 & 73
F.F. Bruce, Ph.D. AD 64 or 65
D.A. Carson, R.T. France, and G.J. Wenham, eds. New Bible Commentary: 21 Century Edition, 60 to 70 CE
M. G. Easton M. A., D. D. Probably about AD 63
James M. Efird, Ph.D. AD 65 to 70
David A. Fiensy, Ph.D. AD 66 or 67
Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Ph.D. AD 60 to 70
Robert A. Guelich, Ph.D. AD 67 to 70
Donald Guthrie, Ph.D. New Testament Introduction, 65 to 70 CE
William Hendriksen, Ph.D. AD 40 to 65, with the earlier date favored.
Martin Hengel, Ph.D. AD 69
A.E. Hill, Ph.D. AD 50 to 70
R. Jamieson, A.R. Fausset, and D. Brown, eds. AD 54 to 68
Howard Clark Kee, Ph.D. AD 70
Craig S. Keener, Ph.D. AD 64
Werner Georg Kummel, Ph.D. AD 70
William L. Lane, Th.D. AD 60 to 70
John MacArthur, Ph.D. AD 50 to 70
K.E. Malberg, AD 68 to 69
Bruce Metzger, Ph.D. AD 65 to 75
M.S. Mills, Ph.D. AD 68
N. Perrin, Ph.D. after AD 64/65
J.A.T. Robinson, Ph.D. Complete by AD 62
Edward P. Sanders, Ph.D. AD 65 to 70
Carsten Peter Thiede, Ph.D. Before AD 62 Director of the Institute for Basic Epistemological Research in Paderborn, Germany
Edward J. Tinsley, Ph.D. AD 60 to 70
Joseph B. Tyson, Ph.D. AD 70 AD
J. Wenham, Ph.D. AD 45
Franklin W. Young, Ph.D. AD 65 to 70

Was Creation Wroth the Pain? Theodicy Strikes Again

this is a post by "lance" on CARM

Atrocities are states of affairs, obtained by the intentions of free moral agents, which are so evil that they undoubtedly outweigh the moral worth of the freedom they are preformed in. Due to the severity of evil resulting from these actions, one would be morally obligated to violate on the guilty party's freedom, and ensure their intentions do not obtain.

(1) If one is aware of an intended atrocity and one is capable of stopping it, one is morally obligated to stop it
(2) God was aware of intentions to commit atrocities and God is capable of stopping them, God is morally obligated to stop them
(3) Atrocities obtain
(4) Therefore, God has failed in moral obligation

Foreseeable objections and responses:

Atrocities do not obtain: To say that atrocities do not obtain is to say that if someone were to turn a blind eye to an intended murder or rape and allow it to happen they would not be doing anything wrong. I think it's blatantly obvious that this is incorrect.

I reject moral realism: I'm not interested in arguing over moral realism here.

Morality is relative to persons, what's good for you is not good for someone else: Moral relativism is another thing I'm not interested in arguing over. I work off the assumption that for any two arbitrary moral agents, if one has a particular moral obligation so would the other given the same situation.

If God did not allow atrocities there would be no higher order goods: Not every evil is an atrocity and such evils could still be defeated which would result in a higher order good. So there really is no problem with that here. To continue on with this train of thought for a bit, though, it is highly unintuitive that higher order goods would be worth it. Lets take the case of a murder; is the good of justice worth murder or rape? If that were the case it would be a good thing to murder if the murderer was brought to justice. But this just isn't the case, justice is a 'patch up' or a fix to the problem, appending justice to murder does not result in a valuable state of affairs.

If God magically stopped an attempted atrocity or created a solution ex niliho it would make our world unreliable, or would make his presence too obvious when he wants us to search for him: God is all powerful, he is fully capable of seamlessly interfering with attempted atrocities in such a way that we wouldn't even notice.

none of the alternate choices given really fits my view. I would say of course free will is necessary to have a moral universe and to love. To allow free will God must allow the choices one makes for evil. Allowing that choice opens the door to atrocities.

Moreover, finding truth must take the form of a search due to the fact that the search causes one to internalize the values of the good. That is essential for moral universe that free moral agents must internalize the values in order to seek the good.





here's why I reject the choices you present.

Atrocities are states of affairs, obtained by the intentions of free moral agents, which are so evil that they undoubtedly outweigh the moral worth of the freedom they are preformed in. Due to the severity of evil resulting from these actions, one would be morally obligated to violate on the guilty party's freedom, and ensure their intentions do not obtain.

I don't think you can what outweighs. that's what God ahs to say. the variables are too complex for us. The choice is not the free will of those involved in an atrocity vs. the outcome but all free as a potential loss against any atrocity. I mean by that we must assume we really asking "why did God create at all?" The implication being that the nature of evil rules out the value of creation as a whole. I don't think any humans are qualified to say that.

these are a series of Lance's observations that I am refitting:

(1) If one is aware of an intended atrocity and one is capable of stopping it, one is morally obligated to stop it

Not necessary. We don't have an obligation to though our lives away on a hopeless task. God has no obligation to abandon the creation of all creation to avoid one atrocity.

(2) God was aware of intentions to commit atrocities and God is capable of stopping them, God is morally obligated to stop them

the upshot is no creation. we are not qualified to say this.

(3) Atrocities obtain
(4) Therefore, God has failed in moral obligation

false conclusion becasue we are not qualified to say if creation was worth but God is. Don't forget that love is at steak too. No free will means no love.

If God did not allow atrocities there would be no higher order goods: Not every evil is an atrocity and such evils could still be defeated which would result in a higher order good. So there really is no problem with that here. To continue on with this train of thought for a bit, though, it is highly unintuitive that higher order goods would be worth it. Lets take the case of a murder; is the good of justice worth murder or rape? If that were the case it would be a good thing to murder if the murderer was brought to justice. But this just isn't the case, justice is a 'patch up' or a fix to the problem, appending justice to murder does not result in a valuable state of affairs.

I'm not really saying has to be evil to have a higher order of good. I'm just saying there's more value in terms of even human happiness in creation with endurance of the evil than there would be in creation, or a creation with no free will. No love, no morals, no achievement; always winter and never christmas.

If God magically stopped an attempted atrocity or created a solution ex niliho it would make our world unreliable, or would make his presence too obvious when he wants us to search for him: God is all powerful, he is fully capable of seamlessly interfering with attempted atrocities in such a way that we wouldn't even notice.

my argument has nothing to do with reliability. The making him to obvious arguemnt you misunderstand. If every time any danger threatened a miracle happened to stop it there would be no need to search to learn the truth because the truth would be obvious. If that were the case no one would internalize the values. Its not a matter of reliability or higher degrees of good it's just a simple matter of internalizing values of the good.


The problem with your argument is the variables are too complex and interrelated for us humans to draw conclusions judging the value of free will. We do not have the brains or the right to say "it's not worth it to have creation."

It's a matter of faith in god that we must trust that he does and he would not have created unless the judgment warranted that it was worth. Ergo it must be wroth it.

you can't weigh just the agents involved in terms of a specific atrocity it's atrocious as a whole vs. everything else. Free will effects everything in life.

the consequences of no free will would be no moral universe, no joy, no place, no freedom no love.

yes love requires free will. Love is not in a vacuum it's not just feeling giddy the presence of the other. its' the will to the good of the other. You can't will the good of the other and not have freewill to will it and you can't will the good of the other if the other has no choice in loving you back.

Lance

I don't really see the point you're trying to make, which premise does this make false?

The whole argument really:because what could god do differently to avoid the issue? only one of two things:either not creation or not create free will. Both are bad choices. thus creation is wroth it.

the consequences of no free will would be no moral universe, no joy, no place, no freedom no love.

yes love requires free will. Love is not in a vacuum it's not just feeling giddy the presence of the other. its' the will to the good of the other. You can't will the good of the other and not have freewill to will it and you can't will the good of the other if the other has no choice in loving you back.

Lance:

I think Fat Joe and Ashanti said it best when they sang; What's love? Got to do, got to do with it babe.

everything.

the only reason god created us with the ability to understand that atrocities are bad is because he made it possible for us to value the good. Love is the basis of the good. If atrocities outweigh the value of love the very concept of the good is self defeating. and hence no reason to even create anything.

Culture Wars Have Left Deep Devide.

One thing I see from arguing with atheists on message board is that a certain segment of our population has no cocnept of God as the concept relates to Judeo-Christian theology. What is more telling is that this segment can't understand the concept of morality either. The first piece of evidence of evidence I would ike to sumbmit is A debate I was having on a message board about the moral argument. The issue that God is the perfect moral judge, and being all knowing has the ability to understand the heart. The issue became muddled because they kept expecting me to argue for "objective morality," which I don't do. The real issue came up when several of them kept arguing that God's "opinion" is no better than theirs! Several of them argued this way and seemed almost stunned that I "couldn't understand it." Nothing speaks like hte horses mouth:

Humble Thinker:
post 20

People claim that without warrant to conveniently support their argument. One could just as easily claim that He is simply treated as a super man, but a man nonetheless, but you obviously would not accept that. This is the "upshot" you are talking about. Why don't you understand that?

This guy actually wants to say that God is literally a man! When I try to point out that the Christain concpet of God is not only that God si "more powerful," not just the most powerful, but the basis of all that is, duh...water off a duck's back. Means nothing. They can't even ponder the phrase.

The related issue is that they can't understand morality. I can grasp consideration the question "why do we need an ought?" My definition of morality is "the realm of ought." morality is the area of ethics where oughts apply more stridently to personal behavior. X is what we ought or ought not do. Yet my moral arguemnt asserts as a premise that there is a universal sense of moral motions, that all cultures embrace the concept of the ought in behavior.

Argument:

(1) Humans are possessed of moral motions which we find to be real and important. We cannot deny the senes of moral outrage over "evil" or the sense that one "ought" to do that which we find "good."

(2) Such moral moral motions can be understood as grounded in terms of behavior in our genetic endowment, but no explanation can tell us why we find them moral or how to justify them as "ought's."

(3) Genetic explanations only provide an understanding of behavior, they do not offer the basis of a moral dimension.

(4) Social contract theory offers only relativism that can be changed or ignored in the shifting sands of social necessity and politics.

(5) matters of feeling are merely matters of taste and should be ignored as subjective (the atheist dread of the subjective).

(6) God is the only source of grounding which works as a regulative concept for our moral axioms and at the same time actually explains the deep seated nature of moral motions.


The augment turns on its explanatory value; this version is based upon C.S. Lewis with Kantian overtones.

That allows demanding of the argument, "prove there is a reason to attach an ought to behavior." Yet an atheist known as 1337 argues that it's begging the questoin to assume the ought.

Begging the question in my own words: The conclusion is embedded in the question/premise.

1337 (post 38)

Begging the question in my own words: The conclusion is embedded in the question/premise.This is what you have done here. You've assigned the word "ought" to morality which implies that there is a reason. You've discounted naturalism as a means to give reason for our morality and you can't have a reason for something above and beyond naturalism without appealing to god. So by assuming that we "ought" to behave certain ways is a premise that has god embedded in it already, but the premise hasn't been proven yet. It's like a loaded question.

I did in fact discount naturalism and I gave reasons as to why that was the case. I argued Hume's fork, you can't derive an ought from an is. Premise one "human are possessed of moral motions which we find important." Is not a logical proposition but an empirical statement. Thus it can't be begging the question because it's not a logically deduced premise. It's a statement aobut human behavior based upon observation of humanity. For evidence I site the list of cultures that place stricture upon lying, stealing, murder and other such disvalues, presented in the appendix to C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man. That removes it form the realm of questoin begging and makes it an observation tired to what people actually value.
This preempts asking "how do you know that the "ought" ought to be part of morality?" (dig the irony and self contradiction). I can understand the idea of asking such questions but the only real challenge would be to the empirical nature of the observation, which she doesn't do.

In both cases it seems both of these people have missed something foundational to Western culture that anyone in my youth would have understood implicitly. This is not to say taht kids in my young day did not question morality. Are you kidding? I was a kid in the 60s. this was the era of new morality. People back then certnly knew how to question authority. God is not just any authority. God is the basis of all authority. Yet it's more than just an issue of authority. It seems the very concept of God is missing from that guy's very brain. He wants to think that if we don't think of God as a big man then we are begging the question or special pleading (even stupider). No one who understands the concept can fail to see this si the nature of God belief. We believe God is the transcendent signified. this is what we believe in. This has been the concept of God for thousands of years, to think it was structured to avoid charges of special pleading which never eixted until modern tiems. is crazy. To think that God is a man is even crazier. They are actually trying to pull God out of haven and force humanity upon him so that he comes under the jurisdiction of science.

In addition to not understanding the concept of God they don't seem to understand the concept of ought or the concept of a phenomenological description. To say that the majority of humans value the concept of the ought is not something one can charge with special pleading. Either people do value the ought or they don't.If they do, the arguemnt assumes they do, so that premise stands. If it stands or falls it must do so on the basis of empirical data not logical heuristic. I have written on atheist watch why it's not special pleading either.

Not only is there good evidence that is empirical, regardless of social science's assertions to the contrary, but we also see the same value at work amid the very people who are trying to deny he value of morality. When the politically correct types insert tems such as "PC" they are basically making thier own version of the ought. "Correctness" is just another way of saying "ought." However it's phrased. If we say "it's immoral to be unfair to gays"or if we say "I's oppressive to be unfair to gays" we are still saying "one should not be unfair ro a certain group." There is an ought. For good old 1337 (such a beautiful name,I wonder if "she" (if she is a she) would let me call her "13") to say "this argument is a fallacy" is another way of sayign "one ought not to argue this." They are going t use their words to put themselves in control. yet the same concept is lurking behind their very critique of the concept.

This is the all the upshot of the culture wars. Those who opposes God and hate God belief are bereft of the concept and so removed form the former culture that they can't understand the issues because the basic ground level assumptions that stem from understanding the God concept are just not there. That is the great tribulation. Just as the images of the great trib depict total persecution of Chrsitians and total victory for the anti-Christ, that's what we see shaping up now. Not a literal fulfillment in end times senerios, perhaps, but the removal of the very cocnept of God such that they cannot comprehend what believers are saying. Another biblical metaphor would be Babel. The pride and arrogance of modern mans has so corrupted the language, language is culture, that even the very concept of God is gone! Even in such a stark time human nature still demonstrates the moral law written on the heart (Rom 2:6-14).

God is not a Plausible Explaination for the Universe: God is Truth

Atheists have often argued that God is not a plausible explanation for the universe. What they mean by that is that we don't know enough about God to judge the value of the explanation, and that issues such as the complexity problem prevent a clear understanding. The plausible explanation thing is not a very good standard by which to judge the efficacy of belief. The reason for religions is not a scientific motivation to explain the workings of the physical world. The reason religion exists is becuase we have an empirical sense of the numinous, a sense referred to as "the religious a priori." Religion is not intended as an explanation in the sense that scinece is. It's not meant to be a means of explaining the workings of the physical world. That kind of thinking went out with the nineteenth century.

The concept of God is that of the foundation of reality. There is no basis for a standard of plausibility in dealing with foundations of reality since we have no other examples of foundational reality to compare to. This observation in a nutshell beats all of their arguments about plausibility, because it says that plausibility is the wrong standard by which to judge the efficacy of belief. This observation leads to a realization that actually destroys most of the arguments made about God an probability and standard of scinece.

Science has to have two things: predictive power and falsifiability. That's in addition to replicator and representative sample and double all the together things all of those are made impossible if you don't have these two. Science can't prove it can only disprove. if there is no disproof it's not assumed proven it's assumed a match with theory then theory is assumed to be verisimilitude. Science is not the acquisition of truth its' verisimilitude.


Since God is synonymous with truth (according to the primordial assertion of belief--that's the foundational assumption made in belief--the religious a prori) God is not subject to falsification. God is not subject to predictability God is not a matter of empiricism becuase God is not a thing in creation. This idea that God is synonymous with turth is met with consternation by atheists, and one can understand why. One might think this is becuase since the atheist is dedicated to rejecting believe he/she can't very well accept a religious a priori that puts God in at the foundational level. Yet, there's a more basic reason than that why this idea is upsetting them. It's because it is predicated upon a different notion of truth than any that they understand or have been taught to think about. The typical atheist notion of truth is pretty much one of verisimilitude. It's surface level, it excludes any sort of depth of being. Things are not any more than they seem. There's no underlying issue with being it's just a surface matter of does X exist or not?

The notion of truth with which St. Augustine understood God's synonymy is a kin to the concept dreaded by Postmoderns, the "meta narrative." We are talking about Truth with a capital "T." In bold letters yet. This notion of truth is the overarching explanation for all of reality, depth and all, not just the surface explanation of the existence of a given X. This kind of truth is apt to be rejected by atheists because it hints at not only God but notions such as sin and judgment and virtue and the whole metaphysical nine yards. This is not only installing God at the epistemological and metaphysical level, without a fight so to speak, but it also excludes the replacement religion atheism turns to for substitution in the face of losing the advantages of God belief. In other words, one can't work the doings of science upon the epistemic foundation of reality becuase it's at a higher epistemological level than anything in science: it's not a matter of inductive abstraction.


Belief in God can be warranted or unwarranted, not proved or disproved.

Augustine never made an argument for the existence of God because for him God was known with certainty and immediacy. God is immediately discerned in the apprehension of truth, thus need not be “proved.” God is the basis of all truth, and therefore, cannot be the object of questioning about truth, since God is he medium through which other truths can be known.[1] Tillich said:

Augustine, after he had experienced all the implications of ancient skepticism, gave a classical answer to the problem of the two absolutes: they coincide in the nature of truth. Veritas is presupposed in ever philosophical argument; and veritas is God. You cannot deny truth as such because you could do it only in the name of truth, thus establishing truth. And if you establish truth you affirm God. “Where I have found the truth there I have found my God, the truth itself,” Augustine says. The question of the two Ultimates is solved in such a way that the religious Ultimate is presupposed in every philosophical question, including the question of God. God is the presupposition of the question of God. This is the ontological solution of the problem of the philosophy of religion. God can never be reached if he is the object of a question and not its basis.[2]

Augustine says God is truth. He doesn’t so much say God is being as he says God is truth. But to say this in this way is actually in line with the general theme we have been discussing, the one I call “super-essential Godhead,” or Tillich’s existential ontology. Augustine puts the emphasis upon God’s name as love, not being. Since he was a neo Platonist he thought of true reality as beyond being and thus he thought of God as “beyond being.”[3] This makes no sense in a modern setting since for us “to be” is reality, and to not be part of being would meaning being unreal. But in the platonic context, true reality was beyond this level of reality and what we think of as “our reality” or “our world” is only a plane reflection of the true reality. We are creatures of a refection in a mud puddle and the thing reflected that is totally removed from our being is the true reality. It was this distinction Tillich tried to preserve by distinguishing between being and existence.

Augustine looked to the same passage in Exodus that Gilson quotes in connection with Aquinas. Augustine’s conclusions are much the same about that phrase “I am that I am.” This is one of his key reasons for his identification between God and truth. He saw the nature of God’s timeless being as a key also to identifying God with truth. The link between God and truth is the Platonic “one.” Augustine puts the forms in the mind of God, so God becomes the forms really. The basis of this identification is based partly upon God’s eternal nature. From that point on it’s all an easy identification between eternal verities, such as truth, eternal being, beauty, the one, and God. The other half of the equation is God’s revelation of himself as eternal and necessary through the phrase, for very similar reasons to those listed already by Gilson, between I am that I am and being itself (or in Augustine’s case the transcended of being). “He answers, disclosing himself to creature as Creator, as God to man, as Immortal to mortal, eternal to a thing of time he answers ‘I am who I am.’”[4]

That means in accepting belief in god one is not merely adding a fact to the universe or accepting a proposition about the existence of another thing in the world, but accepting a concept of truth as opposed to other concepts of truth.

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[1] Donald Keef, Thomism and the Ontological Theology: A Comparison of Systems. Leiden, Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1971, 140.

The “two Ultimates” discussed are philosophy and Religion.

[2] Paul Tillich, Theology of Culture, 12-13

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[3] The quotation above from the Levenson and Westphal book says Augistine believe God was being itself, Marion seems to say that Augustine put God beyond being. I think it’s debatable as to which he did because he didn’t say directly which it was. I’m assuming Marion is probably right just because of the time in which he lived and because he was a Platonic thinker.

[4] Carl Levenson and Johnathan Westphal, ed, Reality:Hackett readings Philosophy. " New York: Hackett Publishing. translated by Edmond Hill, 54 see the link

Remember Your Creator: God is Necessary for Grounding Moral Axioms; this is not Devine Command Theory

Discussion on CARM with Poster "Lance:" he argues that we don't need God for morality because by imposing "moral realism" we can see moral axioms as "real" and true just becuase they are. The problem with this view, as I pointed out, is that you just can't stipulate that moral values are true merely because you want them to be. All values are subjective, all values are relative. That's why ethicist say we need to ground our axioms in something bigger than just the value itself (such as social contract theory, divine command theory, deductive logic or soemthing). Just imposing "we should" merely because we want too is violation of Hume's fork, you can't derive an ought from an is. I had contended that my reason for assuming God makes the rules is because he's the ground of being, he's the gate keeper of all that is. Not only existing things not exist without God, not only are they made according to God's purpose but they are not even potentially possible without God's thought making them potential. In my book that gives God a front row seat in deciding what's what.

(Side Bar Note to Atheists:don't borhter making a comment saying "you are assuming God exist in the first place!" Yes of course I am, becuase we are comparing grounding for moral axioms that means we have to reason "as if" each particular moral system were true to the see the consequences of it.) So this Lance fellow asserts his own ability to determine what's what and assumes that God's view is nothing more than a mere opinion no better than his own.

Originally Posted by Lance

Wow you can't keep a train of thought for even two posts can you. I ground my moral values in objective reality, like Shelly Kagan, so my moral values are real. You ground your morality in the opinion of another person, so your values are arbitrary and relative. You again and again demonstrate that you don't understand this topic, you should educate yourself before so aggressively pushing your silly ideas around.

Meta:wow you can't understand things when people say them clearly. read slow:

Grounding axioms in "objective reality" is an impossible task that doesn't work.

I already said this several times. I'm sorry you can't understand what you read. I sometimes forget atheist have trouble with reading comprehension and understanding concepts and I need to slow down for you. So let me take it more slowly:

(1) objective reality is an illusion.

(2) you are committing the fallacy of Hume's fork. you are trying to derive an ought form an is.

If we could understand objective reality, which we can't becuase we can't get outside of those old human perceptions that you don't trust (remember the "s' word? it starts with "sub..."?) if we could do that even so, you still could not ground axioms in any kind of "objective reality" because objective reality doesn't come with instruction books telling us about the ought.

that's what I meant when I said it's a value system. trying to ground a value system in something that can't be translated in to an ought is pointless.

On my boards Miles raises the problem that I'm verging on "divine command theory." I don't accept divine command theory either, although there are respectable thinkers who might. It is the view that says "God says so that makes it ture." That sounds like what I'm saying, but the problem is it means good is only good becuase God says so, so tomorrow if God says murdering babies for fun is good then it will be. That means God's views are just whims and they are only true becuase God has the power to hurt you if you don't agree. This also opens up the Euthephroe dilemma, that there's an independent standard higher than God.

My view is not the divine command theory, God's commands are not whims, they aren't merely right because God will hurt you if you don't agree but becuase the reason God gives them in the first place is that God is the true source of objectivity since he's all knowing and can understand your all feels of all sentient beings better than the beings themselves can. God's jugements are true becuase they are all knowing and because all reality is the expression of God's creative wisdom in the first place. Moraltiy is derived form love, love is the basic princile that animaltes the good; love is also God's basic character. So the "independent standard" is not independent but is God himself.

This is the difference in the atheist world and a world conceived with God in it: the difference between surface level and depth of being.

God = truth: and this is not merely divine command theory or some arbitrary thing where you have to believe because God said it. Lance and others are confused becuase they think God is just a big man with another opinion. At least it to me they must think this based upon what they say. they will say "I don't think the Christian is just a big man in the sky" but obviously they do becuase they feel perfectly justified in contradicting God's views and in saying he's just a big guy with an opinion like anyone else. I think this is exceedingly foolish.

That's not to say the alternative is divine command theory. Divine command theory would say X is good because God says so. that means if God says tomorrow that X is bad X will become bad. There's a link bewteen God's commands and truth and that link exists without God's commands being arbitrary whim that he can change. Austine argued that God is truth. Several theologians, Tillich among them, have noticed a link between love and being. Joel Gravure's summary of Hans Urs Von Balthasar's Retrospective of his theology (1988). So this means that the standard is not independent of God it is God: Love is the basis of the good, the moral, and God is love. Sicne God is truth and God is love and these part of being itself then intrinsic nature of the good is part of reality by virtue of being an expression of God's nature.


There's a reason why the Bible ways God doesn't change. he's not going to change his mind tomorrow and say murder is ok. It's not just so we can have a stable existence but because the reason he said it's wrong in first place is because his commands are consistent with the nature of love. Murder will always be unloving however you slice it.So then as it seems, it is not that God is necessary for morality, but love is necessary for morality and God is love.

For some strange reason I can't understand, when I argue this, Lance responded:"I would like to say, though, that if you believe that God is love or that God is truth, I would consider you just as much an atheist as myself. Albeit you have some very very strange metaphysical views, but your conception of God is something that I think any atheist could consistently accept."

My response:that really doesn't make much sense. you appear to be saying "if you have a more sophisticated version of God than the atheist straw man than you are an atheist" I guess the problem is you don't get what it means to believe in God. It doesn't mean belief in a big man with power. clearly that is your concept but that's a straw man argument. The result of taking the atheist straw man too seriously. The real difference in Atheism and belief is that belief in God sees a depth to being and atheism believes there is only surface. That's what you are saying when you see God as a big man with powers and refusal to think of god in those terms as atheism you are just saying "if there is no X then one doesn't believe in God" that has be becuase you ignore the possibility of depth in being. I think the atheist idea of love is surface level too. Don't you see love as just chemicals in your head?


Now the guys like Lance who are trying to do an atheist version of moral realism will say if murder is wrong then it would be wrong without God anyway. That's not true. the difference in God and not God is the difference in surface level existence and depth of being. Love comes out of the depth of being, which is what is: being itself means being more than just the existence on the surface of x,y,z but that there is something to the nature of being such that it does link up with things like turth and love.

Lance:

"You seem to be trying to say God's existence is logically necessary and that God is responsible for all things. Then to say that God is necessary for morality is tautologous."

Meta:

Greater precision in defining the meaning of statements is not a tautology. I don't know about logical necessity. God is ontologically necessary. That's all I can handle.

"The atheist does not, on the other hand, believe that God's existence is logically necessary (or even true for that matter). So the statement "God is necessary for morality" is only true if you already assume theism is true. If you do not already have the assumption that God exists then there is no reason to believe that God is necessary for morality."

Meta:

Well of cousre! no one is using this an argument for God's existence. I have a moral argument but this is not it. That should go without saying. You can't say God is necessary for morality then say that proves God exists. that would be circular.

I think he's also making a mistake in confusing "logical necessity" with empirical proof. Logical necessity means true by definition, that's what makes it tautology, but it can't be proved by observation of the world that's empirical that's a contraction to logical necessity.

The meaning of being lies in love, and knowledge is only explainable through love and for love. The will which exists in the object to open itself and the will which exists in the knowing subject to open itself in receptivity are the double form of the surrender which manifests itself in these two ways. From this follows the insight that love is never separable from the truth. Just as little as there could be knowledge with the will, so also truth is hardly knowable without love.

there we have a link between love and being itself. The two are connected. Also includes a link between love and truth. So therefore we are talking about truth, love and being itself when we speak of "God." As Garver points out (link above) we recognize our own fainted and contingency as well as the contingency of the world of things around us—and yet we are aware of being itself as something absolute and unlimited. Various philosophical and theological attempts have been made at explaining the problem of being. Some (such as Parminades) have tried to say that all things are infinite and immutable being, while others (such as Heraclitus) have said that everything is movement and becoming. The Parmenidean solution—which is also that of Buddhism and neo-Platonism—falters since anything finite must be non-being, an illusion to be discovered, and the One is attained only through mystical experience. The Heraclitean solution must end in contradiction, identifying life with death, wisdom with folly. We are left then with an inescapable dualism between finite and infinite, contingent and necessary, and so on.


In other words, Balthasar recognizes the link between love and being. That link is also the basis of knowledge, but all attempts to reconcile the sense of duality that emerges from the realization, outside of the Christian God have failed. The Christian God solves the problem through the Trinitarian solution, because God creates out a desire but not out of a need. Through Trinity God is self sufficient, containing both the other and the self at the same time. Thus, love, being, knowledge and community all wrapped up in one thing, and their place in world flows out of God's disbursement.

One final note, since we are making this connection bewteen love, being and truth, the reader might want to check out my view on "can the ground of being be personal?"