But Why Isn’t Everybody Persuaded? (Part Two)

“Perikles hält die Leichenrede” (Pericles Gives the Funeral Oration) by Philipp von Foltz was undoubtedly inspired by, and modeled upon, my recent podcast interview. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

The interview that I did on Monday is now available for your viewing both at The Last Dispensation and at Christian Homestead. Watch it at your own risk.

And something interesting has just gone up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: “Conference Talks: The Story-Cycles of the Patriarchs and Temple Progression,” given by John S. Thompson

California's first and still biggest temple — The Los Angeles California Temple, where my family was eventually sealed together.
(LDS.org)

My wife and I went last night to a showing of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. It wasn’t bad; we enjoyed it. A bit formulaic, perhaps, something of a pastiche of past Indiana Jones movies — but then, those were pretty good movies. At one point, Indy declares that

I don’t believe in magic. But a few times in my life, I’ve seen things. Things I can’t explain. And I’ve come to believe it’s not so much about what you believe, it’s how hard you believe it.

His statement is worth pondering a bit. First of all, the last sentence is pure nonsense. The destructive power of the “Lost Ark,” for example, didn’t depend at all upon anybody’s faith. It was, within the parameters of the film, objectively real and objectively lethal. (Nazi faces really did melt.) It was a classic illustration of what people often mean when they refer to “magic”: The power of the Ark was intrinsic to the Ark as an object. In religion, “supernatural forces” (to use a very problematic term instead of magic, which is also highly problematic) are not automatic, they aren’t intrinsic to a material object or specific place. Rather, they are deployed by a divine Person or persons at the will of that Person or persons, generally in response to prayer, faith, supplication, or specific need. The genie of the magic lamp in the Arabian Nights is compelled to appear when the lamp is rubbed, and is obliged to grant the wish of his “master.” The good or bad character of the “master” is irrelevant — he can be either Aladdin or an evil sorcerer — just as the intrinsic occult power of the Ark (or the Dial of Destiny) might have served either Nazis or Allies.

But the more intriguing question for me is why, after all of his spectacular experiences with occult powers — experiences that have been dramatic enough to have furnished multiple blockbuster films and to have earned hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office — Indiana Jones flatly declares that he doesn’t believe in magic. Even within his fictional universe, that simply doesn’t make any sense. It’s rather like Agent Scully’s persistent skepticism in the face of innumerable encounters with weird and uncanny phenomena over season after season of The X-Files. Are such folks the Disney-filmic equivalent of the people that I mentioned in yesterday’s blog entry, “who so badly don’t want the claims of the Restoration to be found true that convincing them seems essentially impossible”?

In this context, I want to share a passage from Douglas Groothuis, Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith (Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, and Nottingham, England: Apollos, 2011):

One last criticism of theistic arguments is that they cannot compel belief; that is, they can be successfully resisted by rational people. If so, what worth are they in the overall case for Christian theism? Perhaps we should put our apologetic effort elsewhere or merely proclaim and live out the gospel instead.

In response, human reasoning is a complex things. Theistic arguments may be quite strong in themselves (as I believe the best ones are) yet not be recognized as such by people for a variety of reasons. First, if an argument cuts sharply against an individual’s worldview, the person will be (at least initially) reluctant to give up or significantly modify his or her beliefs. Second, someone may find such arguments threatening and simply avoid them for the sake of personal comfort in maintaining previously held beliefs. Third, a person may (for no good reason) raise the logical bar so high that no theistic argument can reach it. That is, he or she may insist that unless there is a deductively valid argument for God’s existence that relies on clear premises known to be true by everyone, there is no good evidence for God. Yet there are very few arguments in metaphysics — or concerning important matters in general — that compel universal assent. Yet that is no reason to cease arguing entirely. Many surgeries fail to accomplish their ends, but that is no argument against surgery. More to the point, many evangelistic overtures are declined, but that is no argument against evangelism. As in all things, even after diligent labor, Christians leave the results in God’s hands. (184)

Parallel illustrations could be multiplied indefinitely.

The polio vaccine, for example, is remarkably effective. Two doses of the inactivated vaccine are 90% effective in preventing polio; with a third dose, that protection rises to between 99% and 100%. Which is to say that, out of a hundred fully vaccinated people, one may still be at risk — at the very best — for contracting the disease. For such a person, the vaccine has failed. And if only two doses are given, fully ten out of a hundred people will still be at risk. Does the fact that the vaccine sometimes fails constitute a reason to cease vaccinations? Hardly.

Abraham Lincoln, who is arguably the greatest of our presidents, received only 39.65 percent of the popular vote in his first successful campaign for the White House; he won election because 1860 contest was a four-way race, with Lincoln as the Republican nominee, Senator Stephen A. Douglas as the (Northern) Democratic nominee, Vice President John C. Breckinridge representing the (Southern) Democratic Party, and Senator John Bell representing the Constitutional Union Party. In his run for re-election, even with the secessionist southern states having subtracted themselves from the voting totals by forming the Confederacy and even with only George B. McClellan (the nominee of the Democratic Party) as his opponent, Lincoln garnered just 55.03 percent of the ballots cast.

How could a decent, rational, responsible person fail to support Abraham Lincoln? Who knows? But the fact is that some such people evidently did fail to support him. In our entire presidential history, only George Washington (a rather special, indeed unique, case) and Donald J. Trump have won the votes of 100 percent of the American electorate.