How Do we Know God is not Evil?

I've seen atheists ask this in various forms. The most recent I've seen is "prove God isn't evil." I answered that with three arguemnts only to find the atheists pulling the old relativism thing. How do we know good and evil even exist at all they said? Well, first of all, in answering the question about "prove god is not evil," the challenge was in reference to Christian ideas. To even ask the question assumes a Christian framework. You can't say on the one hand "God might really be evil," then say "but there's no such thing as evil."  One get's the feeling of being set up for a cheap trick. Like we say "ok so God is evil in the sense that there is no such thing as evil. so what?" they say "O you admitted it, God is evil you said it ok that's the end of Christianity!" Those are two completely different questions to answer the one you must bracket the other. first I will present my arguments to prove that God is not evil, and to do that assume the Christian framework for good and evil. Then I will deal with the relativistic stuff (that there is no good or evil).
 ,,,,I am assuming there is such a thing as good and we all have a general idea of what that is. Now I also noted that many atheist in the discussion I allude to above (where the challenge was made "prove God is not evil") were assuming a contradiction in the Bible where on the one hand God says "love your neighbor" and on the other hand he says "slaughter the Amelekites kids." So there's the problem of a contradiction between the values God expresses and the behavior God exhibits. Thus we assume the values expressed are true values of good, and that is a meaningful term, but the question is does God seem to betray the very values that he instigates. Before giving three positive reasons to think God can't be evil, (that is a logical impossibility) we have to deal with the seeming contradiction in the Bible.
....The Bible seems to paint a picture, at least in the OT, that God is wiping out other groups of people and commanding he slaughter of their infants and so on. That is pretty strong reason to suggest that God might be seen as evil. He's doing things that the Bible tells us are evil. Then there is strong evidence that the Amalekite passage is added in latter. The text of 1 Samuel is one of the most heavily redacted in the Bible. As we will see, it's very presence in the canon has been brought into question, but the version we have is probably a corrupted second rate copy, and the LXX is closer, and Q4Sama at Qumran closer still, to the actual original.

Institutte Bibilcal Scientific Studies:

Biblical Archaeology, Dead Sea Scrolls and OT


"1&2 Samuel"

"For the past two centuries textual critics have recognized that the Masoretic Text (MT) of 1&2 Samuel has much textual corruption. The Samuel MT is shorter than the LXX and 4QSama. The Samuel MT has improper word division, metathesis, and other orthographic problems. Certain phrases and clauses go against the Hebrew grammar rules. Parallel passages vary from each other" (See Charlesworth, 2000, pp.227-8).

Redaction of Infant Slaughtering Passage


Notes in the New Oxford Annotated Bible on 1 Sam 15:1-35

"Another story of Saul's rejection: The late source. Compare this section with 13:7-15, Samuel, not Saul is the leading figure once more."

This is the very passage in which Samuel relays God's command to wipe out the infants. So even though I still need to find more specific evidence for that very passage, there is a good chance of proving redaction. While its true that I can't produce an actual MS showing no infant slaughter command, the passage in which that command is given has been redacted. The odds are very high that this command was not part of the original passage, or we can regard it as such. We know that slaughtering infants in evil, and we have no obligation to accept a command as divine that we know to be totally at odds with God's law and God's moral code.

All the other verses must be dealt with in similar fashion, one by one, and an overview entailing a theory of inspiration adopted so that one knows how to approach scripture. For an example on this one might consult my page on the nature of Biblical revelation as an example.

Now I present the three arguments that prove God is not evil:

I. Being is good.

Being is not evil. We are all part of being, we all engage in the act of being. We know from our existence that existing is good and it's not evil. There's no reason to think it is. It's hard for a lot of people to get thier minds around the idea of God as being itself. I've certainly spent a lot of time blogging about the concept. I wont go into it here. It can be found on Doxa in several pages. I'm also just finishing my second book which is on the subject. Wait a couple of years and it will be out.

syllogism:
*God is being itself

being is good.

therefore God must be good.

One objection to this is that some atheists tried to evoke the notion that life is not good. One cna mean this either in terms of "my individual life sux," or in terms of amorality or some form of relativism. That would be cheating the issues here becuase I explain above the original challenge assumes Christian categories of good and evil. Moreover, one can condemn the concept of life itself by one's own experiences. I can have rotten life (to some extent that's what I make it) that doesn't mean all life is rotten. There is a goodness about life itself. Here I take life as a pragmatic form of existence. Existence in and of itself is "good," if not in a moral sense (which is one confusion of the argument--the mixing of senses between moral and pragmatic) at least just in the sense of the (apparent) goodness of open ended possibility.


II. Love can't be evil.

This is one of those mysterious points that of which atheists are most incredulous. Almost every time they will say "you are logic is so bad" on this point. When pressed they never say why. they can't give me a rule of logic that's violated, nine times out of ten it's a matter of rejecting the concept of a priori. That unusually happens becuase they have self esteem problems, as atheists are known to have.

The nature of love makes it the very definition of Good. What is the nature of the good, it's what love is, being kind, being gentile, caring about others, giving to others, living for others. How do we know this? First we have to realize we are not talking about butterflies in the stomach. Many atheists try to lose the concept of love in the emotions that go with it, which they sweep away as the side effect of brain chemistry. The kind of love experienced in romance, puppy love,infatuation, lust, sexual attraction and the like is what is meant here by "love." Here I speak of agape. This is "God's love" sometimes translated "charity." Although that is not a good translation. Paul Tillich defines it as "the will t the good of the other." I think that is a most apt decryption. The Greek does imply the willingness to assign to others the human dignity due them.

It is more or less an axiomatic tenet that love is the background of the moral universe (consult Saint Augustine, and Joseph Fletcher). I am not sure it can be proved, thus making it "axiomatic." Like most axioms trying to deny it would be absurd. This is certainly true in terms of Christian theology.

1 John 4:

⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹ Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. ¹³ This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. ¹⁶ And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. ¹⁷ This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
¹⁹ We love because he first loved us. ²⁰ Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. ²¹ And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

,,,,Don't even think about trying to argue that "you are trying to prove the Bible by the Bible." I am not trying to prove the bible I'm demonstrating the Christian categories which the original challenge assumes (so I have to go by the to answer the challenge). This is exactly what atheists would do to try and prove than an idea was Christian. If we are considering Christian ethics then we must consider that love is the background of the moral universe. Love is the basis of God's character. That either the issue becomes redundant if we consider the relativist position (which we will soon enough) or it rebounds onto the Christian categories and becomes a matter of what we think about the Bible. With a fundamentalist view of inerrancy it's hard to see how there is not a contradiction in the categories, what God says and what God does. Yet of course that is not the only Christian answer; there are several other views that take up different approaches to the bible that serve as alternatives.
syllogism:

Love is not evil

God's nature is love and God is the original source of love

therefore God is not evil.


Thus, from the perspective of the Christian categories each of the above arguemnts individually prove that God is not evil and cannot be construed as evil.

III. Evil can't be the first thing.


Evil is the absence of the good. That means there has to be a good preceding evil to be departed from to create an absence. evil is rebellion against good. Evil is rejecting the good. all of this implies good is first.God is eternal so God has to be first. A lot of people reject the categories of good and evil becasue they don't like the way they are made. One of the major issues in atheism (even though many atheists don't realize it--a psychological problem) is self rejection leads to rejection of the idea that a loving God would make me the way I am. I was an atheist I know what it is to think that way. The old cliche "God is not finished with me yet" has it's uses and this is one of them.If you don't like the way God made you it's only becuase he's not finished yet. If you rebel against God you are not letting him finish you.

That means there has to be a good preceding evil to be departed from to create an absence.

Actual Atheist Objection:

"That doesn't follow. A hole is an absence of earth, the existence of a hole doesn't imply there was earth. Counter example to your premise." I this I argued "are you kidding? Isn't a hole defined by what's around it? That's like saying "I don't believe donuts exist, only the holes exist." A hole with nothing around it is nothing.

syllogism:

evil is falling away from, therefore, good is prior to evil

God is eternal and thus is prior to all things

therefore, God can't be evil.


Now we come to the issue of relativism. For those who do not hold to the Christian categories of good and evil but try to define them either by sweeping them away, or by using the terms relative to other standards, how does one come to ascertain the truth content of the Christian categories? The only way one can really do this is empirically. Of course this assumes there's a god. Though many atheists will try not allow such an assumption, it's pointless to ask about God's character if you don't assume there is a God, at least for the sake of argument. I have certainly spent enough time on this blog giving reason enough why one can assume God based upon any number of things. For those tempted to make comments and demand reasons I tell you now, see my 42 arguments, especially no 7 and no 8. I single out those two becasue they form the basis of the empirical approach. One might also see my essay on phenomenology and Method.
Certainly we are talking about taking religious experience seriously. The same reasoning that would allow one to understand God as reality would also allow one to understand God's character as love. It makes no sens to take up a challenge or to even issue one about God's goodness then turn around and say "you can't prove that becuase you can't prove god exists." Ok so that what sense would it make to argue "god is fictional but he's really evil?" The realization that leads to faith is the same realiation that allows us to understand God's love. It's simply an empirical matter. We experince God's presence, swe sesne God's love. In a life of 30+
years that has never been disproved. Even in times when I lost faith and thought God was disproved, even in times when I lost everything and thought God was evil, he was neither evil, or absent nor unfaithful. (see part 2 here).

excerpt from those last two links:

Looking back on it things actually were better after we left the house. At the time, however, we couldn't see that. Then it seemed like the end. We were scared, we were homeless, we couldn't find an apartment because we had "financial leper" on our credit. Since 9/11 getting an apartment in Dallas was next to impossible. When I first moved away form my parents and went to New Mexico back in 80, no one cared who I was or what my credit was. I gave them money they gave me an apartment. By 2006, however, in Dallas, it was next to impossible even if your credit was good. It really seemed like the end. I began saying "I am dead, I died, they just haven't told the corpse to lay down yet." I also began to say "God has cursed me." "God loves to crush his own guys, this is what I get for caring about my parents." You know I was practicing for the glee club. I was a tower of faith. We did find an apartment, we had a couple of thousand dollars from the guy who bought the house (because he was a Christian he said) even though the mortgage company actually makes them promise not to help the victim, not to give more than the mortgage price in a short sale. It's set up so the the victim losing the house can't get anything for his/her hard earned ears of struggle to buy the house. He bought the furniture and car and then let us keep them.

God was faithful to me even when I was not faithful to him. I was calling him a lair and shouting at him and I said worse than that. I called him a monster and told him he loved to hurt people. He didn't care, he's heard it all. I didn't shame God into helping me, he was working to help me anyway, I only held up the process and made it take longer by not trusting and not looking to seek the spiritual instead of freaking out because things didn't look good. Easy to forget, we walk by faith and not by sight. That means its' going to look grim. That doesn't mean anything you just have to trust God. Cultivate your spiritual relationship with God. Cultivate our inner life! It's a life long project, work on it every day.

That requires a life of faith to understand. The first step is to seek. Then it will fall into place. It wont fall into place when you renounce God and make skepticism your watchword. If your principle is to see through everyging, as C.S. Lewis said, you wind seeing nothing.

Pope Francis, In Shoes of the Fisherman, in Real Life

....Years ago I did a review of this film, one of my favorites, by a great Italian director (Victorio De Sica) for this very blog. It's about the first non Italian pope in several hundred years, who was from a communist country (the film was 20 years before John Paul II), and how he had to deal with world famine and a threat of nuclear war. In the end the new Pope makes the one historic gesture we would all like to see, giving up half the church's wealth to feed the starving masses of the world. It seems we might have a chance to watch a real life drama with a historic gesture equally as important and sacrificial in some future day with Pope Francis at the helm. First, two things to get out of the way. One, don't cal him "Francis I" he's not "the first" until there has been a second. Until then he's just "Pope Francis." Secondly, I'm not catholic but I not only like Catholics but I feel that the Pope is sort of for everyone in a way. It's at least historically important. I think us Prots wish him well.
....We have heard of his social activism, taking the bus when he was a Cardinal, washing the feet of drug addicts and aids victims (as a Cardinal), even walking dangerous streets alone at night. He has been described as a Champion of the poor. The foot washing thing wasn't just for show, yesterday on ABC news I saw an interview with a drug addict who claimed that he washed her feet on a deserted street as he walked home from the bus. He's also written books on spirituality and medication. He's also called "Theologian." He's opposed to abortion and guy marriage but also baptizes children out of wedlock and wants to use the wealth of the chruch to help people. "That's why he is frequently seen wearing a black overcoat. Also, when he was declared a cardinal, he decided not to buy new clothing. Instead, he ordered the clothing of the previous cardinal be mended to fit him," the newspaper says." (ibid). The Name Francis doesn't just reveal his love for all living things, but also refers to the vision Francis of Assisi had of God commissioning him to rebuild the ruins of the dilapidated chruch he found, saying "rebuild my church." This is taken as a metaphor for the chruch at large.

News.va
Vatican today

He was born on 17 December 1936 in Buenos Aires. He was ordained for the Jesuits on 13 December 1969 during his theological studies at the Theological Faculty of San Miguel.
He was novice master in San Miguel, where he also taught theology. He was Provincial for Argentina (1973-1979) and rector of the Philosophical and Theological Faculty of San Miguel (1980-1986). After completing his doctoral dissertation in Germany, he served as a confessor and spiritual director in Córdoba.On 20 May 1992 he was appointed titular Bishop of Auca and Auxiliary of Buenos Aires, receiving episcopal consecration on 27 June. On 3 June 1997 was appointed Coadjutor Archbishop of Buenos Aires and succeeded Cardinal Antonio Quarracino on 28 February 1998. He is also Ordinary for Eastern-rite faithful in Argentina who lack an Ordinary of their own rite.

....The election of Pope Francis represents the growing importance of Latin America, as well as the integral nature of liberation theology in that region. I am reminded of Liberation theologian whom I would bet Pope Francis knows, even though he's a Methodist, Jose Meguze Bonino.

Sam's Stroms
"Liberation Theology
March 9, 2009

Jose Miguez Bonino (b. 1924), a Methodist and the most prominent Protestant advocate of liberation thought. He was a special observer of Vatican II and served as president of the World Council of Churches. He is the author of Christians and Marxists: The Mutual Challenge to Revolution and Doing Theology in a Revolutionary Situation (1975)

They are both from Argentina. I will never forget the one time I saw Bonino. I was at SMU (graduate student in seminary at Perkins School of theology) walking back down the hill from the main campus to what we called "the God quad," I suddenly began thinking about political action in Latin America, death squads and people being tortured. It wasn't that odd to think about it, I was already an activist in the local Committee in Solidarity With the People of El Salvador (CISPES). I was dealing with such issues all the time. Suddenly it became extremely real to me. i felt I was there in Latin America. I looked up and coming toward me was a whole group of people were walking toward me. At the head of the line seemed to be this one guy who walked straight and proud, he was so forceful I could feel greatness radiating form him. That's the only way I can put it. He seemed really brilliant and important. As I approached him I sensed a palpable presence of the death squads and the murder and torture and poverty of Latin America. At the end of the long line (maybe a hundred people) a friend of mine pulled up the rear. I asked him who that was, it was Jose Miguze Bonino going to speak after confuting a seminar class.
....Table any implication of extra sensory issues, let's just assume that I was involved deeply in activism so I was thinking about that stuff all the time, the guy was surrounded by people following him so it was obvious he was forceful and important. The point is the new Pope is from a milieu that is so powerful and evocative in terms of psychological impression and real danger, he knows what it means to confront real danger. Now he's in the most sensitive job he'll ever have, and it's in it for the rest of his life. This guy needs prayer. He is clearly a good man for the job, we positioned to see some interesting things. This century keeps getting more and more interesting.

Probability and Resurrection

 

 

,,,,I oppose efforts to reduce religous belief and experience to calculations of probability. I oppose trying to say that the resurrection is probable or improbable. I don't even want to argue for the resurrection by showing it to be probable, or trying to. I certianly do not believe that showing it to be improbable disproves it. A few weeks ago I posted on the CADRE blog an essay on Bayes Theorem and why I think it can't be applied to a probability of God's existence.That was attacked by Secular Web founder Jeff Lowder. I answered him in two parts, part 1 here, part 2 here. Now I apply this to the resurrection. I want to say at the outset in the comment section of Lowder's blog someone ask about applying BT to arguments like fine tuning. I'm for that because that's a matter of empirical proof..

 ...I dont' really think I "beat" Jeff Lowder. I don't put good discussions into such crass terms. Here's why if we were debating in a tournament situation with a judge and possibility of winning or losing, I might have a good chance of winning: he never actually answered my major issue, that being, the inappropriate nature of reducing the dynamic of ultimate trnasformative experience to probabilistic calculation. On the other I may have been misleading in the way I approached it. I did not do it to be tricky but it my be my fault. I created the impression that I thought Bayes doesn't work by talking about it's nefarious reception among mathematicians and math professors. I wasn't trying to mislead. I didn't mean to say that the track record among Mathematics professors proves it doesn't work, only that it's not fool proof it's not absolute, it doesn't apply for everything.

....I'm all for it in terms of empirical evidence. Things are a lot more tricky when you try to team up God and empirical evidence.My major point was that no new information about God is going to come forth in manner that can be subjected to scientific scrutiny. God is not part of the domain of science. One must simply accept it. To bleieve in God is think there terms that are beyond the pale of scientific reductionism. Now that may strengthen the ideology of atheism becuase they are going to say "ah ha! see, ah ha! God can't be proved scientifically?" But in the long run it threatens to destroy the ideology of atheism, because it means that the area under the (supposed) control of atheist thinking can't be the only from of knowledge, thus the ideology is totally defeated then and there. The atheist ideology asserts that scinece is the only form of knowledge, once that is disproved then the whole ideology is automatically false a prori.

....Science itself is not defeated because science is not about these dippy games of "defeating" the other side. Science will go on finding facts about he physical workings of the world and leave those areas of knowledge beyond its scope to other areas of endeavor. For the ideology that attaches itself to science and tries to ride on it's coat tails the tails will be cut off. Lowder assumed that I don't like Bayes which is not true. He also assumed that we can compere belief and unbelief as competing hypothesis. My point was that we can't. Belief in God is not a competing explanation for the workings of the physical world, it's a complete world view. It's a world view unto itself but for the bit about the physical workings of the observable world it assumes the findings of scinece. Rather it leaves science to the proper domain.

....It has to be understood in terms of own inner logic and it has to be taken on its own terms. It's comparing apples and oranges. In terms of the resurrection one must compare things that are meaningful to compare to make a probability. We can't assume that it's meaningful to compare a miracle with naturalistic events because the miracle is supposed to be impossible. Naturally it is improbable. Being improbable doesn't mean it's not so. It means you have to take it on it's own terms.the thing about arguing for the resurrection, like with God argument I never argue for proof. It can't be proved that the resurrection hapepned. It can be argued that there's good reason to think it did. The evidence allows for that conclusion, meaning it doesn't disprove it. It doesn't prove it either.The proof is always going to be in the experiencing of God's reality in your life. 

 ....In arguing for the resurrection as an event in history one is not arguing matheamtical probablity but a  "reasonable status." There is good reason to believe X happened. It's not a matter of subjecting the possiblity to a calculation. Most of the standard arguments for the resurrection (such as McDowell's for example) work by ascertaining deduction based upon the circumstances of the evidence then eliminating alternate possibilities logically. It's not a matter of chances or odds. I'm not saying you can't attach a number based upon how alternatives one excludes, but there's no need to. The point is not "this is worth believing becuase it's the most likely thing that happened." It's not, it's the least likely thing. Who would think God would raise someone from the dead to undo what had beeb done and thus redeem the world from sin? While I'm not opposed to calculating probability for empirically determinable events, it doesn't make since to subject the resurrection to such calculation.

....What's the ultimate point of it all? If we calculate the resurrection and we find it's improbable, which we must because it's a miracle, that's supposed to mean it didn't happen, or that we shouldn't believe it happened because it's unlikely? How likely would it be to find a seminarian in a major liberal seminary who is a communist supporting the Sandinista, and at the same time a charismatic Christian who speaks in tongues? The probability is against it, yet in the late 80s I was that guy. Or I should say "comrade?"

 ,,,,Religion is about ultimate transformational experience. It's a dynamic of world view and understanding that culmenates in existential and phenomenological overhaul. It's on a different scale of both value and reality from the calculations of scientific reductionism. Trying to put it into those terms is only going to lose the phenomena and reduce the experience to something that can be charted and graphed but it's going to lack the phenomenological dimension that makes religion work. It's not something that can be predicted. That's not to say that there is predictive power in hypothosies drawn from study of the phenomena. We can predict things based upon the use of the M scale. But there's a huge difference in predicting a behavior and actually grasping the existential import of it. In the human era (1960s) people expressed a tentative acceptance and kind of distrust of computers with the phrase, drawn form instructions about old fashioned computer cards, "do not fold, spindle or mutilate." A lot of people made a metaphor about of that as though they were the computer card. Don't fold, spindle, or mutilate me, or the human spirit. The same applies to the human experience that is wrapped up on religious experience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An 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

JAT Robinson is very liberal. He's one of the primary people in the early 60s who started the idea of levels to Q. Ray Brown was farily liberal, he was one instrumental in starting the trend to study non canonical gospels.

Annoucnement: on CADRE Blog, My answer to Lowder part 2

My Answer to Lowder's part 2 (the discussion no Bayes) is up on the CADRE blog.

Miller's City Limit is a Must Read.

Here’s a book that has almost nothing to do with religion, but I recommend for everyone: City Limit:
 


 My attention was directed toward this work when I first learned that it is set in my old south Dallas area of Oak Cliff, right around the places where I grew up. It was a magical place and everyone who lived there loved it. We had creeks and hills and woods to play in. That's what got my attention, what makes me a fan of the work is an even more stunning surprise, the author is a great writer, the work has superior literary merit.

While it is a novel, it rings as true in a sense as any work of nonfiction out there.
This work is about the disturbing core of our society. Many of us assume our culture in the West, in America, is the best thing humans can manage, and I admit it has plenty of fine qualities that I wouldn’t exchange for anything. But then we get shocked time after time when yet another mass murder or other atrocity creeps up among us, yet then we proceed to forget about it until the next one and again we wonder, “How can it happen here?” 

By an inhabitant of inner-city America, this work can either really piss you off or, if you let it, bring you face to face with our present reality. At any rate, you cannot deny that, in its hideous world, it still has a heart. 

It concerns a boy at the unsightly core of the society that we steadily neglect in our daily lives, that we refuse to acknowledge. He hates the violence that surrounds him, the very guns that he repairs and sells just to stay alive, the drugs and insanity, but he has no choice but to bear through it, in some vague, unrealized hope that it is not necessary for human existence, even though he knows nothing else. 

I can only say that I, and probably many of you, may have felt that we have to bear through the onerous facts of our society, maybe less extremely than this boy does, but it constitutes some kind of oozy element we have to bear with to get to a better state. This is only my interpretation of the book—but even if you feel differently about our world, you should at least be moved by this frank, unsentimental, but emotionally deep journey through our inner urban depths.

This is a powerful first novel, from Lantzey Miller, which I cannot too-highly recommend. It is also worth a session of your book-reading group, one that can fire up plenty lively discussion. 


For further information, including excerpts, here are a couple of blubs from the publisher:

Miller is a terrifically talented new writer and City Limit is his harrowing debut. Lives at risk to the forces of crime and poverty are given their due, particularly one memorable teenage boy. This novel was hard to put down and impossible to forget.

Victor LaValle, author of The Devil in Silver (Publishers Weekly Best Book 2012)

A dark, gleaming jewel of a novel with dramatic echoes of Beckett and Dickens, about the harrowing life of a fourteen-year-old, virtually homeless boy growing up at the extreme edge of poverty and emotional deprivation. With the drug and illegal gun-sale world of South Dallas as a sharply delineated backdrop, this beautifully written first novel powerfully and unsentimentally describes, in crystalline prose, the costs of a no-childhood childhood.

Lis Harris, Columbia University, former New Yorker staff writer, author of Holy Days and Rules of Engagement

see: 
 http://grandviaduct.com/city-limit/

http://www.amazon.com/City-Limit-Lantzey-Miller/dp/0982408722/ref=la_B00AZYR4B4_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358278582&sr=1-1

My Answer to Lowder's Attack upon My Bayes Paper part 1

 


Jeff Lowder wrote an article attacking my criticisms of the use of Bayes theorem to plot the probability of God. "Is It a Crock to Use Bayes’ Theorem to Measure Evidence about God? Part 1
March 3, 2013." The point of my original article is that you can't apply scientific probably to something as basic and metahpysal as God, the ground of being, the basis of all reality. The nature of Bayes theorum is such that it only works where new information is obtainable. The sort of new information one can have about God is not available to scientific scrutiny and thus there is no new information. That means the "prior" (the prior probability that must be obtained tom make the theorem work) wont be accurate and thus the whole project is dubious. Lowder never actually comes to terms with this argument. Most of the arguments he makes are red herrings or white rabbits.
.... Lowder summarizes what he thinks I'm saying:

I think the point that Metacrock is trying to make is that, if we define “miracle” as an event which requires a supernatural explanation, then by definition a miracle is logically incompatible with metaphysical naturalism, which denies the existence of all supernatural beings, including God. So naturalists can’t remain naturalists and believe a miracle has occurred. The options seem to be: (1) give up naturalism, (2) deny the event took place at all, or (3) agree the event did take place, but deny it has a supernatural explanation.

That's part of what I'm saying but it's not the really crucial points that I made about Bayes.  It's not so much about supernatural as it is about metaphysics and scientific domain. I am not drawing upon the conventional misunderstanding of supernatural that pits a realm of magic against a realm of what atheist want to believe is "fact." Rather, the whole issue of epistemology and metaphysics is prior to scientific learning. Science requires epistemology and metaphysics to ground its assumptions. God is related to those aspects of reality, and thus not part of the scientific domain. In trying to make God an object of probability they have to reduce the concept of God to just another fact in the universe; something God clearly transcends. Lowder merely denied the circular reasoning but of cousre he would.It's not just a matter of bad reasoning, it's an ideological thing. Those are ho in throngs of ideological zeal can't step back from their ideology and critically evaluate their own thinking. They can critique all that is not the ideology but they can't criticize that. That was my point in talking about the circular reasoning naturalists employ in sweeping aside miracle claims: it is that they can't accept anomalies that would threaten the paradigm. Lowder quotes me in cautioning the skeptical attitude.

    So should we all be watchful not to believe too quickly because its easy to get caught up in private reasons and ignore reason itself. Thus has more than one intelligent person been taken by both scams and honest mistakes. By the the same token it is equally a danger that one will remain too long in the skeptical place and become overly committed to doubting everything. From that position the circular reasoning of the naturalist seems so reasonable. There’s never been any proof of miracles before so we can’t accept that there is any now. But that’s only because we keep making the same assumption and thus have always dismissed the evidence that was valid.

he adds: "I agree with everything Metacrock writes here, with two important exceptions. First, that metaphysical naturalists do, in fact, reason in the way he describes." That's becuase he reasons that way himself. He can see it's a mistake when called out but he can't see that his rejection of evidence for miracles is that kind of mistake.

 Second, that metaphysical naturalists rely upon “circular reasoning” to avoid the conclusion that a miracle has occurred. It is true, of course, that some individual metaphysical naturalists have made fallacious inferences about miracles. The same could be said about some individual theists. But so what? Metacrock presents absolutely no evidence to justify the assumption that such individuals are representative of the position they represent. Metacrock is attacking a straw man of his own creation.

....Presenting evidence would just be an obligatory task becuase we've all seen what they say about miracles and it's clearly ciruclar it's just that they don't step back from their ideolgoical assumptions to see themselves doing it. Look at Hume. "This does not happen enough." Well, we have lots of claims, when they are advanced the usual rejoinder is "this hasn't happened before, it just does not happen, we don't see it, so we have to assume this is not it (a miracle)." If you want to see this principle actions go to CARM and start arguing for the Resurrection. I've been doing this for 15 years and I've seen thousnds of such arguments iti's aburd to say they say that they say it all the time. Next he's going to tell me that they don't say "He must not understand this idea" when you disagree with them. That's another of their obsessions, if you really understood you would agree with me. He makes that very charge in this article. But then he tries to sweep it away by saying theists do the same thing. That's neither here nor there, the point is atheist arguments about miracles are circular reasoning. That's improtant to realize becuase the whole issue of trying to show the probability of God is based upon trying to treat God like another fact in the universe rather than the basis of reality. That's the root issue of the whole matter. When one understands God as the basis of reality one is apt to see the issues pertaining to God as much larger than just charting the probability of some particular item, just as the realities of miracles is more than just finding an anomaly.
....Now here's where he stops following my train of thought and starts interjecting a bunch of red herrings and a bait and switch or two. I brought up ECREE because given what I said above about about the fruits of skepticism I thought "this would be a good place where they might argue ECREE as a counter to the shortcoming of skepticism." Instead of dealing with that issue he goes off on a tangent defending ECREE when in fact I didn't say it was wrong. Here's a crucial point he misses. My position on ECREE is that it is dependent upon Bayes. As Bayes goes so goes ECREE. That means if Bayes is not suited to probability for God then ECREE is not a valid standard for God arguments. Rather than understanding this he tries to tie ECREE to Bayes even more tightly which would mean it's taken out if I can take out Bayes. It also tells me he's not really following my issues. let's look at what he says:

With all due respect to Metacrock, this statement suggests he does not understand ECREE. As I have explained elsewhere, the best interpretation of ECREE is the Bayesian interpretation. According to BT, the final probability of a hypothesis is determined by two other values: the prior probability of a hypothesis and the hypothesis’s explanatory power. Now explanatory power is, by definition, a measure of how well a hypothesis “predicts” (i.e., make probable) the data.

 ....There it is, he disagrees with me, therefore, he doesn't understand. The problem is it's Jeff who doesn't undersatnd. He thinks I'm saying that ECREE is no good. He focuses here on two things that make Bayes work: (1) the "prior," and (2) and explanatory power. The problem there is my argument hinges on how both of those rule Bayes out as valid way to understand God. I think that's what he doesn't get. I show that you can't set the prior for God, no setting will work; all settings for prior probability of God have the same flaw as the overall project, no new info coming in. All the things we can know of god we know through either deductive reasoning or experience of the divine on the level of the numinous. That means scinece can't handle it. It's outside the domain of scinece. Any setting of  a prior for God will be fraught with ideological needs. Ne never deals with that issue. Rather he brings in red herrings. Moreover the same limitation would also go for explanatory power. God can't give the kind of explanation we expect from scientifically verifiable data. Now the explanatory power of apophatic theology is fine with me. The explanatory power of the Jesus prayer works for me it's not gonna work for an atheist. That means no Bayes on God, no ECREE in relation to God.
....I had said that using ECREE in the way they do would cause one to remain skeptical even when the evidence is good. In fact that's what happens when they think in the ideologically circular way that says "we never accepted this stuff before so we shouldn't accept it now." They create a false record, "there have never been any miracles," based upon circular assumptions. He says it would be ambiguous to talk about "good" miracle evidence. Then he explains two reasons why. But  this is one of many red herrings. regardless of the quality of miracle evidence, that must be discussed in another venue about evidence. My only point was that the assumptions they make about naturalism that enable them to explain away God with Bayes also drive them to assume that their basic ideological assumptions are explanatory. An ideological truth regime is not explanation  it's only a reduction of all phenomena to that which can be controlled and pressed into service for the ideology. Of course he winds up diverting our attention with guilt by association trying to link miracle belief to Mormonism. I'm not going to bother to refute the statements about good miracle evidence because that can only serve to take us off the path.
...At this point he returns to ECREE and he assumes my answer about the meaning of extraordinary (as in "extraordinary claims") are irrelevant. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are totally relevant. The point I was making was that atheists try to present "extraordinary" as though Belief in God is some wired thing, or as though the kind of extraordinary evidence we need is on a level of Moses and the red sea. The fact of it is the kind of claim that is extraordinary in the sense of a Bayes theorem would be extremely ordinary. A finding that one has cancer when one has never had it before is statistically extraordinary. At that rate any probabilistic God argument we can pull, or the 200 empirical studies on mystical experience, are extraordinary evidence. He gives us a white rabbit to chase in another direction.

Again, with all due respect to Metacrock, this statement shows that Metacrock doesn’t understand ECREE. We don’t determine whether a belief is extraordinary by measuring the percentage of people who hold that belief. Rather, ECREE is epistemic in nature; it has to do with what we would expect to be the case based upon our background knowledge.

He's actually made the argument for me. I never said anything about extraordinary being defined by a percentage of people that believe it. My point is you can't subject the reality of God to empirical proof in a scientific sense. To the extent that we can establish a co-determinate that can be so subjected, such as religious experience being measured by the M scale, we can measure aspects of belief without claiming to measure God. ECREE is not epistemic it's a betrayal of the epistemic. We can't put over "what we expect to be the case God wise" and translate that into standard mathematical terms for probability. how could we do that when God is beyond our understanding? No new info on God is going to come in becuase it can only come from sources that science cannot trust, such as 'the heart.' How can we attach number and data to that? Epistemic issues can't be resolved by scientific reductionism or inductive empiricism. They are more basic than that. They can only be resolved through either logic, experience, or remain open ended. What all of this comes to is we can do two things: (1) we can keep it on a philosophical level and not try to pretend we've solved it. Or, (2) we can find a co-determinate and make phenomenological observations about aspects of the issues around faith and use that to extrapolate assumptions on the more subjective issues, we should not try to pretend that we have some scinece magic that will resolve all belief and make God vanish in a puff of science.
....AT this point he brings up several observations I made about the history of ECREE and Bayes. I'm not going to bother to correct his disagreement except to point out that I documented by sources and I used some of the most recent historians to write on the issue. I am sure he knows more ins and outs of the history than I do, but none of the information he presents are really relivant to my basic argument about probability and God. He tries to claim that Bayes is not in doubt, rather than disproving the history I brought he ignores it completely. It has been in doubt time and time again, it is professors of mathematics who doubted it. I documented that with McGrayne and he has nothing to say about that.[1] that's probably the most authoritative history about the BT. None of the issues he brings up historically disprove the history I listed. He merely shows additional examples of people who have accepted the BT. That's ust begging the question, they made the same mistake he is. He took the history to mean that I think Bayes isn't useful for anything but to argue for atheism. I did actually read the McGrayne book. Obliviously her point is that BT keeps coming back because it's useful. My argument is not that it's not useful. I never said Bayes is no good we can't use for anything. That is a red herring. It's good but it can't be used to tell us about God becasue God is not amenable by such methods. God is the unified field its so basic you can't get a microscope and find it. It's too basic as the same time too big. Too fundamental to reality to be just another thing we can subject to empirical measures. Now uses those red herrings to take us down to the path to a point where can try to use Chrsitain apologists to argue against me.

To cite the most obvious counter-example, has Metacrock never heard of Richard Swinburne or read any of his numerous books which use BT to defend Christian theism? (See here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.) Or seen Tim and Lydia McGrew’s impressive use of BT to argue for the Resurrection in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology? (See here.)

Obviously I have hard of them, I have to confess I don't read much of the apologists running around now days. I respect Swinburne. I probalby have missed lot by not following him. Most of the thinkers I use are those I read in Doctoral work when I studied history of science as Ph.D. candidate in history of ideas. Now Jeff sites apologists who argue for the resurrection using the BT. Arguing for the Resurrection is a different matter. That's not arguing for the probably of God. There might be tangible things to latch onto there. The resurrection is a physical event in space/time and it's not on par with God as the basis of reality. So it is anther fact in the universe. Thus it could be subject to empirical means. Natual theology also one can make the same point about that. then he says:

Metacrock is simply “barking up the wrong tree” on this one. I cannot think of any way to salvage his point.

I can think of a way. One might try to undersatnd what I'm real saying and deal with the one cogent point upon which my original paper is based: that God is not given in sense data, thus he cannot be subjected to probability. The Bayes theorem can be used for other things, some of those serve belief in God. That doesn't mean that God himself can be subjected to it.




[1] Sharon Berstch McGrayne, The Theory that would not Die: How Bayes’ Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011, 3.

Don't limit God

 


 ....Mixing it up from the abstruse Tillich stuff, let's talk the knitty gritty of faith. Someone on a board innocently asked me to talk about ways I think God is limited. I have said that God is limited by logical necessity. This question made me think "I don't wan to sit around thinking up ways God might be limited." That reminded me of a passage about when Jesus went back to his hometown.

 Matt 13:58.

Matthew 13:58 says: "And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith." I've always wondered this passage as a hint about this passage. The Greek sense here does not imply that he was unable to merely that he did not do them.

 I've often thought some occultist would make that into an argument for psychic powers. Why would unbelief limit God in what he could do? Yet it does. Our unbelief limits God why should it not limit Jesus? Perhaphs we could get some insight from this passage about prayer in general.
....The Greek says: epoihsen (Aor Act 3 Sg) meaning He-DOES, other terms imply "not many mighty works" the real point is the causal factor, it says "dia" meaning "through or by the agency of" their unbelief. We might say "he does not many mighty works as a result of or due to the agency of their unbelief." The thing that struck me was the implication is not on the issue of ability. It doesn't say "He didn't have the power to do it." it says "he was not doing them (mighty works) becuase of their unbelief." Why would unbelief limit Christ and why limit God?
.... I am sure that God would not find persuading me taxing. He made the entire universe would he find it taxing to persuade anyone? Yet I'm sure it would take less effort to do the latter than the former. The point is even though he's not taxed in power he may be taxed in  patience. Why do great works when the result will be denial? The atheist attitude of constantly doubt the attitude that as long as I can find one thing to dought all the evidence in the world for God is negated, is just negating the help they could have. Yet I wonder how much my own attitude is negating God's help though lack of faith and I don't even see it because I think of myself as a man of faith?
....When I argue that God is limited by logical necessity it's only becuase logical necessity marks the limit on what makes sense to talk about. It makes no sense to talk about self contradictory ideas. Saying that God is limited by logical necessity is just the same as saying that God can't do impossibly contradictory things like make square circles, smell next Thursday, or have his cake and eat it too. Although I think probably God could do that latter one. As for square circles one guy on my message board tried to show that one can encircle an objective point with a square arrangement of points. But that's not the issue, the issue is a round shape that is also square at the same time. Now those things are not possible to do, so in trying to limit God from doing them one is not limiting God in a way that would real constrain the divine will. I'm sure God knows he can't smell next Thursday and he doesn't care too. Of course it could be that we just don't know how to do such things because they are beyond us, God who is beyond our understand them can do them. If that's true, fine I wont be heart broken. If that is the case then I'm sure God can make a rock so big he can't lift it and still not violate the kind of omnipotence that atheists seek to trap him with. That's my point in answering that kind of atheist sophistry; it's nonsense and omnipotent doesn't mean "the ability to do nonsense."
....Most of the way we limit God are based upon our own limitations, not those of logic. Most of the secret limits we put on God but don't even think about or confront ourselves with are the limits of God's love of us. We can't imagine God could love us. At least not until we experience God's love first hand. Many studies have shown that  atheists have low self esteem and that people who have negative images of God also have negative self images. I think the basis for that is the kind of thinking that says "if he really loved me he would make me good enough that I wouldn't feel so bad about being me." The inability to accept ourselves leads to rejection of God, even though most atheists would never admit that. Moreover, pastors have told me that their parishioners will say God loves everyone but me. So we limit God in ways that accord with our own self esteem limits. One of the first thing that began change in my life after being born again was the statement by my friend Judy who led me to the Lord, "you can't love your neighbor as yourself without loving yourself."
....Then we limit God in ways that close off possibilities becuase society and perhaps our own experience tells us those avenues are closed. I'm talking about miracles and answers to prayer. When I've told the story of my father and the big Christmas miracle atheists will often say I'm lying. When I tell them the doctor who was not a believer said "this is the first time I've used the term miracle in my practice but his has to be a miracle," they say "O well he didn't really go to medical school." Or "he wasn't much of a doctor." As though one of the requirements for graduating from medical school is disbelief. What had happened? My father had a massive heart attack while in the hospital having had a smaller heart attack. He was 89 years old at the time. He was clinically dead for 11 minutes, then they shocked his heart and he came back. The miracle wasn't so much coming back but that he came bounding back with a strong rhythmical heart beat when it has been totally arrhythmical and weak as paper. For a guy his age in his shape it just doesn't happen.
....Every atheist I've told that too has acted like "I'm glad your had lived but there's no reason to see that as a miracle." Why not? Well becuase miracles just don't happen. That's circular reasoning. They are really just saying "because we have always disregarded what God does in our lives in the past then were are justified in continuing to do so." We limit God then say he doesn't do things like that. I just can't see purposely saying "God doesn't' do that." I can see working toward some end rather than just sitting there and hoping for a miracle but I can't see giving up hope to trust that God will work things out in some way. One of the first lessons on the road to faith has to be don't close off God's help by limiting God to your fear or your imagination.

The Question of Being, Brute Fact or Deep Structure?

 


....The meaning of the controversy is the difference between Paul Tillich's view of God as being itself, and the atheist understanding that "the universe just is." Tillich said that if we know that being has depth that it's not just "surface only" then we can't be atheists (Shaking of the Foundations, chapter seven). The atheist understanding has long been their answer to arguments like the cosmological argument. When theists divide up modes of being into necessary and contingent,the atheist merely says "well what if being just is, it has no meaning or reason for being its' just there?" Of course that's a possibility but it doesn't answer the question, and saying it doesn't make the depth we can see in being go away. What is meant by "depth" of being is that there is more to being than just the surface fact of things existing. That's what the concept of "the universe just is" tries to convey, the idea of no reason. The idea is not just that there is no scientific cause necessarily, although they do sometimes try to say that too. These are two totally diametrically opposed understandings. The atheist view says being just is, no reason, nothing to consider or worry about, it's just there for no reason, absurdity. The theists seems more to the nature of being than meets the eye from the surface level. There has to be more to it than just the fact of things existing.
....The cosmological argument, for example has different versions, but generally all cosmological arguments assert that there must be final cause to account for the existence of the whole of reality. The atheist's often counter this final cause with an infinite series of contingent causes such as the oscillating universe of big bangs and big crunches. This is called an infinite causal regression (ICR). The atheist asserts that the universe just happens to be for no reason and it's made up of a series of little universes that come in and go out of existence. The whole chain, contingent though it may be (some deny validity of the category "contingent") passes on existence to the next version in the form of a big crunch that then expands agian in another big bang. Some argue that the crunch (contraction of gravitational forces) becomes a blog hole and "punches out" the other side as a new big bang. This is not the only mechanism for ICR. They also posit the notion of quantum tunneling and string membranes. The oscillating universe, however, is the most popular form of ICR becuase it's the only one with proven potential, even though the evidence disproves it (scroll down to (2) Cyclical Universe). As ICR for origin of the universe quantum tunneling invovles self causation where the singularity, or some original element or fragment of reality keeps tunneling back to cause itself at another point in time. This would involve being just having no logical origin but causing itself over and over eternally. String membrane in the sense of ICR is more or less the idea of a floating dimension just drifting along, bashing into another floating dimension and causing a third dimension. Since it posits the idea of a dimension just floating for no reason (2 actually) why bother with the mess? Why not say the universe needs no origin?
....There's no absolute proof in any of this. If we want to get technical there's no actual proof that we are even living in a state of "reality." We assume the reality of the world, and thus our ability to study it and formulate hypothesis that "explain it" but if we want to start special pleading about explainations we don't like and just asserting the unproved nature of origins to hedge bets on those we do then we cant' be too picky when the other guy calls our bluff and says "now it's the skeptic's burden of proof." Why? Because presumption is on the side of explainations. Science assumes we need them. No one ever hears a scientist say "we don't need to explain that, let's forget it." The problem is atheists fool themselves. They demand science so much when they need to reach back to philosophy (Kant--the question about brute facts begins with Kant) it's reaching beyond science to philosohpy, which most atheists condemn anyway. There's a loss of credibility there. More importantly, they have already promised explainations then special plead and say "we don't need them in this area." Hey, for religious experiences we need them and they must be naturalistic!
....The idea of "the universe just is," in philosophical terms is called a "brute fact." It means there is no reason it's just there. The problem with brute facts is that philosophers usually avoid them because they are meaningless, and they beg the question, and are not satisfying. As stated, the explainable has been established as the proper procedure for dealing with unknowns, yet in this one reach of the metaphysical nature of being they are willing to just let it go. It's a true case of special pleading. The unsatisfying nature of the brute fact is set off against the basic intuitive sense of being meaning one finds in the question of existence. Meaning is part of the depth of being and we sense the depth of being in even asking the question "where did it all come from?" The issue seems like an arbitrary stand off, either there is a reason or not. Either there is meaning or not. We can't really tell why we should think there is when the only thing that we can be sure of is the blind random existence of what is? The scietnific evidence does suggest blind random accident and evolution.
....The problem is the brute fact in terms of ICR or universal origin is just made up of contingent things. The states of bang and crunch that make up the oscillating universe, for example, consist of Constituent parts such as space-time, gravitational field, and naturalistic things. Naturalistic things are contingent. To posit the whole totality of all universal meaning, eternal truth, the nature of all that is upon a meaningless happenstance that just happens to be, while everything else about existence requires explaining and implies something greater than itself (such as truth) creates a state of dissatisfaction. If we are disatisfied metpahyically we have the right to question that state. ICR and brute facts don't answer the questions we ask. The atheist is content to lose the phenomena and pretend there is no meaning and no answers but in so doing is no better off or no more intellectually justified than the faithful making excuses about "no one knows the mind of God." There is a deciding factor or two and they are a prori part of the basic fabric of the question. There's an aspect to the nature of the contingent happenstance that makes up the brute fact of existence that suggests depth of being in a greater sense.
,,,,The eternal and necessary nature being suggests the distinction between being as a brute fact and being as depth. The very mechanism the atheist seeks to ply against final cause is the disproof of the brutish nature of fact. To explain this I must explain the difference in my cosmological argument (CA) and that of others. For example the Kalam argument is a version of the CA. This says anything that beings to exist needs a cause. That argument, therefore, turns upon the nature cause. Thus arguments about Kalam revolve around efficient cause in nature, and thus ICR (if allowed to stand) is a valid answer. ICR contains cause even though it means an endless series of meaningless cause the whole of which cannot be explained, our own particular universe has its cause then in the previous big crutch and it's blowing back out as a big bang. My version of the CA, however, the Argument from Cosmological Necessity doesn't turn upon causes but upon attributes of God. The argument turns upon demonstrating that the attributes that make up the God concept already exist and are known to us as aspects of reality, thus it's just a matter of understanding their relation to being we can see that they spell out something deep inherent meaning in being that disproves brute fact. After all if being has a deep inherent meaning it can't be a brute fact, that is a prori truth. The deciding factor is the eternal nature of being. There is another version of the argument that turns upon the eternal nature of being.
....The reason it's not a moot stand off between the two concepts is because the ICR itself has to be eternal. the individual aspects of the regression that move from one universe to another are contingent and temporal, but the whole string in so far as it must stretch back eternally is both eternal and infinite. Both states evoke the sense of the numinous. That means it's a fit object of worship because anything that evokes the sense of the numinous is a fit object of worship since that state is the very reason religion exists in the firs place. That's what worship is, its the nature being moved by the sense that there is something profound and special in being. The atheist protest that "the universe just happens to be" is self negating becuase it's eternal and infinite nature suggest the quality of the numinous and are thus more in and of themselves than they perpetual to be. That in itself is depth of being. In seeking to posit the whole they actually must suggest something that triggers religious devotion and thus prove the depth nature of being.
....Atheists logically should have to support the concept the universe moving from a state of absolute nothing. This is because the ICR just moves the problem back eternally but never really confronts the issue of origins anyway. Since the atheists affirm the idea of brute fact, meaningless accident, irrational existence, and so on they should actually just take their lumps in abandoning ratinoal explanations. This is not all there, however, the issue is not a done deal. We can't just leap from eternal being triggers the sense of the numinous to "therefore God is real." We have to deal with the other attitudes. Even though they all actually flow out of the eternal nature of being, necessity is the more independent one of the lot. The attrubites I emphasis are:

Eternal
necessary
ground of being
first cause

I am also challenged by atheists constantly to include "consciousness" or "personal being." There is no necessity in theology to assume God is personal. Even though I do assume so that is not a priamry quality because other things are personal as well. I'm concerned with the qualitaties that make God God and that God can't share with anything else. Whatever is eternal is by definition necessary (at least ontologically so) because it's not dependent and can't cease to exist. Nothing else really is necessary in the sense that God is (totally, no nature as the effect of a prior cause), so these are primary qualities. If there is eternal necessary being then by definition it is the ground of being. That would only be logical to assume that it is the first cause since nothing else is on a par with it ti would be the best candidate to assume that all else has it's origin in that which is eternal and necessary.

Which God is it?

....


....There's a kind of atheist who thinks that any sort of difficulty they can come up with invalidates all of Christianity. So if you can't quantify which view of salvation by faith is right by the percentage points of it's truth content in comparison to other views then there's no point in being a Christian at all. One favorite gambit of these "difficulty atheists," is to ask "which God is it?" The implication being that if one can't show conclusively that the true God is something they call 'the bible God' then there's no point in belief in God at all becuase it easily be any God and there's no way to know.[1] This is a "pp" argument. The reason is obvious, any red blooded fundamentalist can give a 250 reasons why "The Christian God" is the true God. The problem is, and it's a problem for both camps, the Bible never uses the phrase "Bible God." Neither Jesus, nor Paul nor Moses nor any Biblical figure ever says "believe ye the bible God and no other." Even passages where God himself indicates "i am the Lord and beside me there is no other" he he doesn't say "I am the Bible God." In all actuality there is no such thing as the Christian God, that phrase is not used either, or the Bible God. There is only God, and all people have different ideas about God.
....It's not a matter of which God as though they are all competing for existence, it's a matter of which tradition do we think actually adheres more closely to the reality behind the constructs. That is the content that is hinted at in the phrase "the bible God."  What they are trying to awkwardly to say is that this is the set of God related concepts embodied in the traditions that stem from the Biblical text. That doesn't exclude the idea that other traditions have truth too, or that God is working in other traditions. These atheists usually want to keep putting it in terms of specific figures from various traditions such as Zeus or Odin or whomever. This is treating God as a contingency, as adding a fact to the universe. He's just one more personality. These are just place holders within a tradition, when people speak of God as the creator, the basis of reality, it doesn't make any difference what contingent concept they stick on it. Like Spinoza's argument about the triangle. There is one shape that is a triangle and that one shape is represented in many ways in many places but they all refer back tot he same idea. The red triangle I use to group my billiard balls is referring to the same triangle represented by the green plastic triangular law sprinkler or the white triangle drawn on the black board in math class.
....There is one reality behind all religious traditions. This is not say that all gods are synonymous with the God who whom Jesus prayed in the Garden, but it is to say that all god images and all concepts  of God point to the reality that stands behind them all. We can see this in the Bible. Paul said:

"To those who through persistence seek glory, honor and immortality he will give eternal life.But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the good and follow evil there will be wrath and anger...first for the Jew and then for the gentile; but glory honor and peace for everyone who does good. For God does not show favoritism. All who sin apart from the law will perish apart form the law and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.

Indeed when Gentiles who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirement of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences bearing witness and their hearts now accusing, now even defending them..." (Romans 2:7-15). New American Standard and other translations say "their hearts accusing, now excusing them..."

 Most Christians are afraid of this conclusion and they down play this verse. Often Evangelicals will come back and say "he makes it clear in the next passage that no one can really follow the law on their hearts." Well, if they can't, than they can't. But if they can, and do, than God will excuse them. God knows the heart, we do not. The verse clearly opens the door to the possibility of salvation (although by Jesus) through a de facto arrangement in which one is seeking the good without knowing the object one is seeking (Jesus). In other words, it is possible that people in other cultures who follow the moral law written on the heart know Jesus de facto even if they don't know him overtly. Paul backs up this conclusion in Acts 17:22 Paul goes to Athens as is asked by the Athenian philosophers to explain his ideas to them.
....These were pagan followers of another religion. Paul stood up and said to them, "Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious for as I walked around and observed your objects of worship I even found an alter with this inscription 'TO AN UNKOWN GOD' Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you."He basically says that they are worshiping God, they just don't know who he is. That's why he says "I will make it known to you." He doesn't say "you have the wrong idea completely." Most Evangelicals dismiss this as a neat rhetorical trick. But if we assume that Paul would not lie or distort his beliefs for the sake of cheap tricks, we must consider that he did not say "you are all a bunch of pagans and you are going to hell!" He essentially told them, "God is working in your culture, you do know God, but you don't know who God is. You seek him, without knowing the one you seek. He goes on,(v27)"God did this [created humanity and scattered them into different cultures] so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out and find him though he is not far form each one of us." This implies that God not only wants to work in other cultures, but that it is actually his paln to do things in this way. Perhaps through a diversity of insights we might come to know God better. Perhaps it means that through spreading the Gospel people would come to contemplate better the meaning of God's love.
....In any case, it does mean that God is working in other cultures, and that God is in the hearts of all people drawing them to himself. Of their worship of idols, Paul said "in past times God overlooked such ignorance but now he commands all people everywhere to repent" (v30). Now what can this mean? God never overlooks idolatry or paganism, in the OT he's always commanding the Israelite to wipe them out and expressly forbidding idolatry. It means that on an individual basis when God judges the hearts of people, he looks at their desire to seek him, to seek the good. That their status as individuals in a pagan culture does not negate the good they have done, and their ignorance of idolatry does not discount their desire to seek the good or the truth. IT means that they are following Jesus if they live in the moral life, even though they follow him as something unknown to them. IT also means that all of us should come into the truth, we should seek to know God fully, and when we do that we find that it is Jesus all along.
....Of course this doesn't mean that I'm worshiping other gods. It doesn't mean that if I see a representation of Shiva on a Hindu temple I'll pray to it and say it's pointing to Jesus. Why? Because that's not the cultural construct with which I identify and which is most meaningful to me. Neither will I spit on it or call it names or show contempt for it. I respect the traditions of other faiths as a matter of civilized discourse and Christian love. I do recognize it as pointing to God, the God my tradition, in a certain sense. This is another path and the view of those who follow it and the way they understand the reality behind all our paths. I must show it respect, but I don't have to worship it. So it's not a matter of trying to figure out which tradition is right or which one has the right God, if it were I could give you a long string of good arguments that's its mine, there's more to it than that. It's about understanding what a tradition says to us.We find the tradition that really speaks to us as respect the others as colleagues. I still believe that anyone who gives Christianity a fair chance and hears what its saying to us has a good chance of falling in love with Jesus and following him.
....People have always sought to find their place in the cosmos, that's what all the various forms of mythos are about. It's because we recognize that the thing we feel in our inner most begin when we we behold the star filled desert sky is the answer to that quest, "why am I here?" that we seek define who this is that's calling us to journey as Abraham did. It's more than just words on paper or stories in Sunday school abut an actual encounter with a reality that stands behind all reality and transcends all paths and all traditions. The Hebraic author knew when he quoted the prophet that it was more than a set of rules or a list of laws, but a realtinship with reality when Jeremiah wrote:

Heb. 8:10-12 "...I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts I will be their God and they will be my people. No longer will a man say to his neighbor 'know the Lord' for they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more."

 This passage promises a "personal relationship with God."The word for "to Know" is the Greek Term Ginosko, which means personal experiential knowledge. To give one's life to Jesus means to develop a personal relationship with Jesus. Jesus said (John) "My sheep know my voice..." Personal relationship means that it is more than a set of rules, more than an ideology or a belief system, but a matter of the heart, the emotions, religious affections. IT may not be through dramatic miraculous effects (although I do believe that that is open to all Christians) but it is deeper than mere rule keeping, and does make for a satisfaction nothing else can match.God acts upon the heart. Salvation is a matter of "knowing God" not of mere intellectual assent. What does it mean to know God? It means that being a Christian is a matter of experiencing God's love in the heart and of loving God and others. It is also a matter of being "led" by God through impressions upon the heart, and not merely a set of rules or a list of beliefs that one must check off. IT is the development of "religious affections."The excitement of knowing God is unequaled by anything else in this life.



[1] this can be seen argued by atheist Blogger Christopher Hallquist on is page "7.there are no good God arguments."