2019-02-02T15:58:59-04:00

This is an installment of a series of replies (see the Introduction and Master List) to much of Book IV (Of the Holy Catholic Church) of Institutes of the Christian Religion, by early Protestant leader John Calvin (1509-1564). I utilize the public domain translation of Henry Beveridge, dated 1845, from the 1559 edition in Latin; available online. Calvin’s words will be in blue. All biblical citations (in my portions) will be from RSV unless otherwise noted.

Related reading from yours truly:

Biblical Catholic Answers for John Calvin (2010 book: 388 pages)

A Biblical Critique of Calvinism (2012 book: 178 pages)

Biblical Catholic Salvation: “Faith Working Through Love” (2010 book: 187 pages; includes biblical critiques of all five points of “TULIP”)

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IV, 17:24-28

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Book IV

CHAPTER 17

OF THE LORD’S SUPPER, AND THE BENEFITS CONFERRED BY IT.

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24. Other objections answered. No question here as to the omnipotence of God.

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This infamous falsehood cannot be completely wiped away without disposing of another charge. They give out that we are so wedded to human reason, that we attribute nothing more to the power of God than the order of nature admits, and common sense dictates. 

That is what Calvin’s logic regarding the Eucharist amounts to, yes. He is caught up into a limited rationalistic worldview without seeming to realize that he is. He’s a prisoner of his own false presuppositions. He lacks the perspective of Christian mystery, paradox, and miracle.

From these wicked calumnies, I appeal to the doctrine which I have delivered,—a doctrine which makes it sufficiently clear that I by no means measure this mystery by the capacity of human reason, or subject it to the laws of nature. 

What else can one call a view that wants to limit God by saying that Jesus’ Body can only be in heaven and not eucharistically present as well?

I ask, whether it is from physics we have learned that Christ feeds our souls from heaven with his flesh, just as our bodies are nourished by bread and wine? 

And I ask whether it is from logic and Christianity, this notion that we can eat the flesh of Jesus but not do so at the same time, because it is in heaven only?

How has flesh this virtue of giving life to our souls? 

The same way that the crucifixion and Jesus’ blood gave life to our souls.

All will say, that it is not done naturally. Not more agreeable is it to human reason to hold that the flesh of Christ penetrates to us, so as to be our food. In short, every one who may have tasted our doctrine, will be carried away with admiration of the secret power of God. But these worthy zealots fabricate for themselves a miracle, and think that without it God himself and his power vanish away. 

The Catholic view (and Orthodox and Lutheran and traditional Anglican), is simply taking Jesus’ words at face value and accepting them in faith. We’re not trying to rationalize them away.

I would again admonish the reader carefully to consider the nature of our doctrine, whether it depends on common apprehension, or whether, after having surmounted the world on the wings of faith, it rises to heaven. We say that Christ descends to us, as well by the external symbol as by his Spirit, that he may truly quicken our souls by the substance of his flesh and blood. 

The substance of flesh is actually physical flesh: but Calvin denies that, so his view is metaphysically (as well as theologically) nonsensical.

He who feels not that in these few words are many miracles, is more than stupid; since nothing is more contrary to nature than to derive the spiritual and heavenly life of the soul from flesh, which received its origin from the earth, and was subjected to death, 

This mentality would take out the incarnation and crucifixion and redemption and resurrection, too.

nothing more incredible than that things separated by the whole space between heaven and earth should, notwithstanding of the long distance, not only be connected, but united, so that souls receive aliment from the flesh of Christ. 

But we’re not limited by Calvin’s arbitrary restrictions of time and place. God is bigger than all that.

Let preposterous men, then, cease to assail us with the vile calumny, that we malignantly restrict the boundless power of God. They either foolishly err, or wickedly lie. 

Neither. Calvin is wrong, as shown by the Bible, Church history, and reason alike.

The question here is not, What could God do? but, What has he been pleased to do? We affirm that he has done what pleased him, and it pleased him that Christ should be in all respects like his brethren, “yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). What is our flesh? Is it not that which consists of certain dimensions? is confined within a certain place? is touched and seen? 

Jesus has shown that His Body has elements that go beyond dimension and the usual restrictions. The Resurrection, Ascension, post-Resurrection appearances, and the Second Coming are not ordinary physical events. Neither is the Eucharist. Calvin unnecessarily restricts his vision.

And why, say they, may not God make the same flesh occupy several different places, so as not to be confined to any particular place, and so as to have neither measure nor species? Fool! why do you require the power of God to make a thing to be at the same time flesh and not flesh? It is just as if you were to insist on his making light to be at the same time light and darkness. 

We don’t do that. We believe that it is His Body and Blood, but in a unique eucharistic fashion. It is Calvin’s word games and metaphysical hodge-podge that introduce contradictions and nonsense into the question.

He wills light to be light, darkness to be darkness, flesh to be flesh. True, when he so chooses, he will convert darkness into light, and light into darkness: but when you insist that there shall be no difference between light and darkness, what do you but pervert the order of the divine wisdom? 

None of this applies to the Catholic view . . .

Flesh must therefore be flesh, and spirit spirit; each under the law and condition on which God has created them. 

But Jesus’ flesh is a special case: He being God and having taken on a human body in the Incarnation.

Now, the condition of flesh is, that it should have one certain place, its own dimensions, its own form. On that condition, Christ assumed the flesh, to which, as Augustine declares (Ep. ad Dardan.), he gave incorruption and glory, but without destroying its nature and reality.

We will all have glorified bodies one day, so it isn’t implausible at all that Jesus Christ should manifest the extraordinary capabilities of a glorified body Himself: especially since He is God as well as Man. There is nothing in the slightest bit strange or contradictory or implausible in that. Calvin is straining at gnats.

25. Other objections answered.
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They object that they have the word by which the will of God has been openly manifested; that is if we permit them to banish from the Church the gift of interpretation, which should throw light upon the word. 

Interpretation has to be from within an existing Christian tradition: not the arbitrary ramblings of a revolutionary, who wishes to depart from all that and ignore what has been received and make his own opinions the unquestioned truth.

I admit that they have the word, but just as the Anthropomorphites of old had it, when they made God corporeal; just as Marcion and the Manichees had it when they made the body of Christ celestial or phantastical. 

And just as Calvin the semi-Nestorian had it when he tried to limit the glorified Body of Christ based on the restrictions of natural science and the omnipotence of God, and a lack of faith in the parameters of the miraculous.

They quoted the passages, “The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven” (1 Cor. 15:47): Christ “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:7). But these vain boasters think that there is no power of God unless they fabricate a monster in their own brains, by which the whole order of nature is subverted. 

How melodramatic . . .

This rather is to circumscribe the power of God, to attempt to try, by our fictions, what he can do. 

A perfect instance of Calvin projecting his own faults onto others . . .

From this word, they have assumed that the body of Christ is visible in heaven, and yet lurks invisible on the earth under innumerable bits of bread. 

That is no more implausible or impossible than an omnipresent Spirit-God making Himself somehow specially present in fire and clouds and burning bushes, or present in human form before the Incarnation, or in each Christian (the indwelling). If God can do that, He can also be present eucharistically. It is simply a further extension of the incarnation.

They will say that this is rendered necessary, in order that the body of Christ may be given in the Supper. In other words, because they have been pleased to extract a carnal eating from the words of Christ, carried away by their own prejudice, 

No; it is Calvin who assumes a carnal, cannibalistic, simplistic understanding of the whole thing, not us. He is like the ancient pagan Romans. He just doesn’t get it, and so he has to mock what he doesn’t have faith enough to understand.

they have found it necessary to coin this subtlety, which is wholly repugnant to Scripture. 

Calvin has been providing precious little Scripture throughout, to back up his heretical eucharistic theology, whereas I have been providing dozens and dozens of passages, and incorporating the overall biblical worldview all along.

That we detract, in any respect, from the power of God, is so far from being true, that our doctrine is the loudest in extolling it. 

One can say any phrase, but the concepts and beliefs have to also be behind the words and part of the worldview being offered.

But as they continue to charge us with robbing God of his honour, in rejecting what, according to common apprehension, it is difficult to believe, 

Lots of Christian beliefs are difficult to believe (and go far beyond mere reason). The curiosity with Calvin is: why does he accept many mysteries, yet balk at accepting the Real Presence in the Eucharist? Why does he draw the line here?

though it had been promised by the mouth of Christ; I answer, as I lately did, that in the mysteries of faith we do not consult common apprehension, but, with the placid docility and spirit of meekness which James recommends (James 1:21), receive the doctrine which has come from heaven. 

That’s correct. Would that Calvin would follow his own advice.

Wherein they perniciously err, I am confident that we follow a proper moderation. On hearing the words of Christ, this is my body, they imagine a miracle most remote from his intention; and when, from this fiction, the grossest absurdities arise, having already, by their precipitate haste, entangled themselves with snares, they plunge themselves into the abyss of the divine omnipotence, that, in this way, they may extinguish the light of truth. Hence the supercilious moroseness. We have no wish to know how Christ is hid under the bread: we are satisfied with his own words, “This is my body.” We again study, with no less obedience than care, to obtain a sound understanding of this passage, as of the whole of Scripture. We do not, with preposterous fervour, rashly, and without choice, lay hold on whatever first presents itself to our minds; but, after careful meditation, embrace the meaning which the Spirit of God suggests. 

Such reasoning has to be grounded in a biblical worldview. Mostly we observe Calvin pontificating out of his own head, under the influence of false philosophies and traditions of men. He talks a lot about Scripture, but doesn’t cite or interpret it much. This is obvious throughout this entire chapter.

Trusting to him, we look down, as from a height, on whatever opposition may be offered by earthly wisdom. Nay, we hold our minds captive, not allowing one word of murmur, and humble them, that they may not presume to gainsay. In this way, we have arrived at that exposition of the words of Christ, which all who are moderately versant in Scripture know to be perpetually used with regard to the sacraments. Still, in a matter of difficulty, we deem it not unlawful to inquire, after the example of the blessed Virgin, “How shall this be?” (Luke 1:34).

More words out of his head, that do nothing to further his case . . .

26. The orthodox view further confirmed. I. By a consideration of the reality of Christ’s body. II. From our Saviour’s declaration that he would always be in the world. This confirmed by the exposition of Augustine.
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But as nothing will be more effectual to confirm the faith of the pious than to show them that the doctrine which we have laid down is taken from the pure word of God, and rests on its authority, I will make this plain with as much brevity as I can. 

So after 25 sections, Calvin finally at length decides to go to the Bible to prove his case. Cool! Let’s see what he can come up with.

The body with which Christ rose is declared, not by Aristotle, but by the Holy Spirit, to be finite, and to be contained in heaven until the last day.

Where does it claim this? I’m unfamiliar with any such passage (perhaps that is why he hasn’t produced one).

I am not unaware how confidently our opponents evade the passages which are quoted to this effect. Whenever Christ says that he will leave the world and go away (John 14:2, 28), they reply, that that departure was nothing more than a change of mortal state. Were this so, Christ would not substitute the Holy Spirit, to supply, as they express it, the defect of his absence, since he does not succeed in place of him, 

Now Calvin shows his astonishing biblical ignorance, since it is not only the Holy Spirit Who indwells us, but Christ as well, and this is particularly seen in the very same chapter that Calvin cites. The Holy Spirit is not a “substitute.” It’s yet another “both/and” scenario; not “either/or”:

John 14:18 I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you. (cf. 14:16-17)

John 14:20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

John 14:23 Jesus answered him, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”

John 15:4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.

John 17:23 I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me.

Romans 8:9-10 But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. [10] But if Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness.

1 Peter 1:11 they inquired what person or time was indicated by the Spirit of Christ within them when predicting the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glory.

Moreover, God the Father indwells us as well (Jn 14:23; 1 Jn 3:24; 4:12-16). Scripture says many things about indwelling beyond just the Holy Spirit indwelling us: it refers to Jesus and the Father doing so (Jn 14:23), and the Father and the Holy Spirit (1 Jn 3:24; 4:12-16), and also “God” without specification as to Divine Persons (2 Cor 6:16).

St. Augustine makes the same argument in his Tractate 75 on John 14:18-21:

After the promise of the Holy Spirit, lest any should suppose that the Lord was to give Him, as it were, in place of Himself, in any such way as that He Himself would not likewise be with them, He added the words: I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.Orphani [Greek] are pupilli [parent-less children] in Latin. The one is the Greek, the other the Latin name of the same thing: for in the psalm where we read, You are the helper of the fatherless [in the Latin version, pupillo], the Greek has orphano. (1)

This is precisely the opposite of Calvin’s position. Calvin thinks that Christ wanted to “substitute the Holy Spirit,” but Augustine argues against “lest any should suppose that the Lord was to give Him, as it were, in place of Himself, in any such way as that He Himself would not likewise be with them”. St. Augustine incorporates all of the relevant biblical data, but Calvin sees only what he wants to see, to bolster his preconceived notions. This is classic, picture-perfect eisegesis, or “reading into Scripture what is not there.”

Furthermore, Calvin neglects or doesn’t comprehend an important and dogmatically accepted aspect of trinitarianism and Christology: what is known as the perichoresis (Greek) or circumincession (Latin). Fr. John A. Hardon. S.J., in his Modern Catholic Dictionary (Doubleday, 1980) precisely defines it, under the first Greek term and then the Latin word:

The penetration and indwelling of the three persons reciprocally in one another. In the Greek conception of the Trinity there is an emphasis on the mutual penetration of the three persons, thus bringing out the unity of the divine essence. In the Latin idea . . . the stress is more on the internal processions of the three divine persons. In both traditions, however, the fundamental basis of the Trinitarian perichoresis is the one essence of the three persons in God.

The mutual immanence of the three distinct persons of the Holy Trinity. The Father is entirely in the Son, likewise in the Holy Spirit; and so is the Son in the Father and the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit in the Father and the Son. Circuminsession also identifies the mutual immanence of the two distinct natures in the one Person of Jesus Christ.

For more on perichoresis, see my paper on that topic.

nor, on the other hand, does Christ himself descend from the heavenly glory to assume the condition of a mortal life. 

Eucharistic presence is hardly an instance of that, so this is a non sequitur.

Certainly the advent of the Spirit and the ascension of Christ are set against each other, and hence it necessarily follows that Christ dwells with us according to the flesh, in the same way as that in which he sends his Spirit. 

No; He dwells in us spiritually in the same way as the Spirit, but this doesn’t rule out a physical presence as well (“both/and” again), because it was Jesus, after all, Who took on human flesh; the Holy Spirit didn’t do that. Nor are the ascension and the indwelling set against each other, as I have just shown. The ascension makes the indwelling of all Christians possible (there is a chronological progression here), but it is not in the sense that Jesus is not also present within us.

Moreover, he distinctly says that he would not always be in the world with his disciples (Mt. 26:11). 

That is, in the sense of walking the earth as a man, just as we do . . . Hence his reference to His burial in the next verse.

This saving, also, they think they admirably dispose of, as if it were a denial by Christ that he would always be poor and mean, or liable to the necessities of a fading life. But this is plainly repugnant to the context, since reference is made not to poverty and want, or the wretched condition of an earthly life, but to worship and honour. 

To the contrary, the context is all about anointing Him for His burial (26:7-10, 12-13): it is about the ending of His earthly sojourn as a man, in the natural sense. It is in that sense that Jesus was not to be with them always. Jesus returned to His disciples in His post-Resurrection appearances, and these were physical. Hence, it makes sense that He would also return in the eucharistic sense, to maintain His physical presence with men (as He stressed in most graphic terms at the Last Supper and John 6 discourse). It’s a beautiful thing.

The disciples were displeased with the anointing by Mary, because they thought it a superfluous and useless expenditure, akin to luxury, and would therefore have preferred that the price which they thought wasted should have been expended on the poor. Christ answers, that he will not be always with them to receive such honour. No different exposition is given by Augustine, whose words are by no means ambiguous. When Christ says, “Me ye have not always,” he spoke of his bodily presence. 

Yes, but in the tangible fashion of walking about as we do: the natural sense. This doesn’t exclude the Eucharist. Calvin only thinks it does, because he is a prisoner of his own arbitrary restrictions on God.

In regard to his majesty, in regard to his providence, in regard to his ineffable and invisible grace, is fulfilled what he said: “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Mt. 28:20); but in regard to the flesh which the Word assumed—in regard to that which was born of the Virgin—in regard to that which was apprehended by the Jews, nailed to the tree, suspended on the cross, wrapt in linen clothes, laid in the tomb, and manifested in the resurrection,—“Me ye have not always.” 

“Me ye have not always” is not the same as “once I go you will never have Me physically again.”

Why? Since he conversed with his disciples in bodily presence for forty days, and, going out with them, ascended, while they saw but followed not. He is not here, for he sits there, at the right hand of the Father. And yet he is here: for the presence of his majesty is not withdrawn. Otherwise, as regards the presence of his majesty, we have Christ always; while, in regard to his bodily presence, it was rightly said, “Me ye have not always.” In respect of bodily presence, the Church had him for a few days: now she holds him by faith, but sees him not with the eye (August. Tract. in Joann. 50). 

Calvin cites St. Augustine on this point, yet St. Augustine believed in the Real; Physical presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, and eucharistic adoration, and the sacrifice of the Mass; so he is hardly a support for Calvin’s view. Once again it is the illusory appearance of support where there actually is none.

Here (that I may briefly note this) he makes him present with us in three ways—in majesty, providence, and ineffable grace; under which I comprehend that wondrous communion of his body and blood, provided we understand that it is effected by the power of the Holy Spirit, and not by that fictitious enclosing of his body under the element, since our Lord declared that he had flesh and bones which could be handled and seen.

Yes, in that earthly, natural sense. This doesn’t logically exclude further eucharistic appearances, anymore than God the father being a spirit only excluded His appearances before the incarnation as a man, and in physical things (clouds, fire, burning bush, or in conjunction with the ark of the covenant).

Going away, and ascending, intimate, not that he had the appearance of one going away and ascending, but that he truly did what the words express. Some one will ask, Are we then to assign a certain region of heaven to Christ? I answer with Augustine, that this is a curious and superfluous question, provided we believe that he is in heaven.

Calvin is not thinking according to a biblical worldview and biblical categories. His vision is arbitrarily restricted by unnecessary rationalistic elements.

27. Refutation of the sophisms of the Ubiquitists. The evasion of visible and invisible presence refuted.

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What? Does not the very name of ascension, so often repeated, intimate removal from one place to another? 

Yes. But this proves nothing one way or the other for the issue under dispute.

This they deny, because by height, according to them, the majesty of empire only is denoted. But what was the very mode of ascending? Was he not carried up while the disciples looked on? Do not the Evangelists clearly relate that he was carried into heaven? 

Yes, but the argument is much ado about nothing. It doesn’t exclude the Eucharist. Calvin falsely assumes that it does, and so he thinks he has a good argument.

These acute Sophists reply, that a cloud intervened, and took him out of their sight, to teach the disciples that he would not afterwards be visible in the world. As if he ought not rather to have vanished in a moment, to make them believe in his invisible presence, or the cloud to have gathered around him before he moved a step. When he is carried aloft into the air, and the interposing cloud shows that he is no more to be sought on earth, we safely infer that his dwelling now is in the heavens, as Paul also asserts, bidding us look for him from thence (Phil. 3:20). For this reason, the angels remind the disciples that it is vain to keep gazing up into heaven, because Jesus, who was taken up, would come in like manner as they had seen him ascend. Here the adversaries of sound doctrine escape, as they think, by the ingenious quibble, that he will come in visible form, though he never departed from the earth, but remained invisible among his people. 

He did remain invisibly or spiritually, as we saw above in the Indwelling passages. He also says:

Matthew 18:20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

Matthew 28:20 . . . I am with you always, to the close of the age.

And the Apostle Paul says about Jesus:

Colossians 3:11 . . . Christ is all, and in all.

As if the angels had insinuated a two-fold presence, and not simply made the disciples eye-witnesses of the ascent, that no doubt might remain. 

The angels didn’t have to do that, since Jesus already had done so.

It was just as if they had said, By ascending to heaven, while you looked on, he has asserted his heavenly power: it remains for you to wait patiently until he again arrive to judge the world. He has not entered into heaven to occupy it alone, but to gather you and all the pious along with him.

We do await His Second Coming. No disagreement there.

28. The authority of Fathers not in favour of these errors as to Christ’s presence. Augustine opposed to them.

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Since the advocates of this spurious dogma are not ashamed to honour it with the suffrages of the ancients, and especially of Augustine, how perverse they are in the attempt I will briefly explain. 

Calvin attempts all the time to “co-opt” St. Augustine for his heretical novelties, and fails every time. The present instance is no exception.

Pious and learned men have collected the passages, and therefore I am unwilling to plead a concluded cause: any one who wishes may consult their writings. I will not even collect from Augustine what might be pertinent to the matter, but will be contented to show briefly, that without all controversy he is wholly ours. 

That’s a convenient evasion . . .

The pretence of our opponents, when they would wrest him from us, 

The Calvinists never “had” St. Augustine to begin with, so how could we Catholics “wrest” him away?! This is a very clever use of a presumed truth that has not even been established, and is, in fact, a falsehood. I have documented the great father’s belief in the real physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist. In the next chapter it will be even more plain that St. Augustine also believed in eucharistic adoration and the Sacrifice of the Mass: things considerably more repugnant to Calvin than the Real Presence and transubstantiation.

that throughout his works the flesh and blood of Christ are said to be dispensed in the Supper—namely, the victim once offered on the cross, is frivolous, seeing he, at the same time, calls it either the eucharist or sacrament of the body. But it is unnecessary to go far to find the sense in which he uses the terms flesh and blood, since he himself explains, saying (Ep. 23, ad Bonif.) that the sacraments receive names from their similarity to the things which they designate; and that, therefore, the sacrament of the body is after a certain manner the body. With this agrees another well-know passage, “The Lord hesitated not to say, This is my body, when he gave the sign” (Cont. Adimant. Manich. cap. 12). 

I have shown in a past installment that for Augustine, sign and reality are not antithetical, as they are for Calvin. I gave not only my opinion, but that of Protestant historians discussing Augustine’s views.

They again object that Augustine says distinctly that the body of Christ falls upon the earth, and enters the mouth. But this is in the same sense in which he affirms that it is consumed, for he conjoins both at the same time. There is nothing repugnant to this in his saying that the bread is consumed after the mystery is performed: for he had said a little before, “As these things are known to men, when they are done by men they may receive honour as being religious, but not as being wonderful” (De Trinit. Lib. 3 c. 10). 

Calvin cites the following sentence from chapter 10, section 20:

But because these things are known to men, in that they are done by men, they may well meet with reverence as being holy things, but they cannot cause wonder as being miracles.

But in the next section (Book III, chapter 10, section 21), Augustine draws the same analogy to God appearing in physical things, that I have used in this respect:

What man, again, knows how the angels made or took those clouds and fires in order to signify the message they were bearing, even if we supposed that the Lordor the Holy Spirit was manifested in those corporeal forms? Just as infants do not know of that which is placed upon the altar and consumed after the performance of the holy celebration, whence or in what manner it is made, or whence it is taken for religious use. And if they were never to learn from their own experience or that of others, and never to see that species of thing except during the celebration of the sacrament, when it is being offered and given; and if it were told them by the most weighty authority whose body and blood it is; they will believe nothing else, except that the Lord absolutely appeared in this form to the eyes of mortals, and that that liquid actually flowed from the piercing of a side which resembled this.

St. Augustine — contra Calvin — casually assumes that it is the Body and Blood of Christ.

His meaning is not different in the passage which our opponents too rashly appropriate to themselves—viz. that Christ in a manner carried himself in his own hands, when he held out the mystical bread to his disciples. For by interposing the expression, in a manner, he declares that he was not really or truly included under the bread. 

Calvin seizes upon one word, to supposedly turn the issue in his favor . . . In this exposition on Psalm 34, St. Augustine makes it clear many times that he literally believes in the physical presence of Christ. He refers to the Sacrifice of the Mass:

Because there was there a sacrifice after the order of Aaron, and afterwards He of His Own Body and Blood appointed a sacrifice after the order of Melchizedek . . . (1)

He assumes throughout a striking literal eucharistic realism:

For very humility taught our Lord in His Own Body and Blood: because when He commends His Own Body and Blood, He commends His Humility . . . (3)

Or rather some spiritual Christian invites us to approach to our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. But let us approach to Him and be lightened; not as the Jews approached to Him, that they might be darkened; for they approached to Him that they might crucify Him: let us approach to Him that we may receive His Body and Blood. They by Him crucified were darkened; we by eating and drinking TheCrucified are lightened. (9)

Now will He speak openly of the same Sacrament, whereby He was carried in His Own Hands. O taste and see that the Lord is goodPsalm 33:8. Does not the Psalm now open itself, and show you that seeming insanity and constant madness, the same insanity and sober inebriety of that David, who in a figure showed I know not what, when in the person of king Achis they said to him, How is it? When the Lord said, Except a man eat My Flesh and drink My Blood, he shall have no life in himJohn 6:53 And they in whom reigned Achis, that is, error and ignorance, said; what said they? How can this man give us his flesh to eat?John 6:52 If you are ignorant, Taste and see that the Lord is good: but if you understand not, you are king Achis: David shall change His Countenance and shall depart from you, and shall quit you, and shall depart. (11; complete)

All this; yet Calvin (like all good sophists) seizes on one word and pretends that it proves his case over against Catholicism and the thoroughly Catholic St. Augustine. This is a classic example; Calvin constantly does this. It’s dishonest scholarship and deceptive toward his readers, to continually present highly selective facts to the exclusion of other equally relevant facts in context.

Nor is it strange, since he elsewhere plainly contends, that bodies could not be without particular localities, and being nowhere, would have no existence. 

That is no argument against eucharistic local presence. It’s an argument against no presence at all for a body; thus it is yet another non sequitur.

It is a paltry cavil that he is not there treating of the Supper, in which God exerts a special power. The question had been raised as to the flesh of Christ, and the holy man professedly replying, says, “Christ gave immortality to his flesh, but did not destroy its nature. In regard to this form, we are not to suppose that it is everywhere diffused: for we must beware not to rear up the divinity of the man, so as to take away the reality of the body. It does not follow that that which is in God is everywhere as God” (Ep. ad Dardan.). He immediately subjoins the reason, “One person is God and man, and both one Christ, everywhere, inasmuch as he is God, and in heaven, inasmuch as he is man.” How careless would it have been not to except the mystery of the Supper, a matter so grave and serious, if it was in any respect adverse to the doctrine which he was handling? 

Unfortunately, I can’t locate this letter online, so as to show how Calvin has distorted its meaning (as he always seems to do with the fathers, and as we saw again not far above).

And yet, if any one will attentively read what follows shortly after, he will find that under that general doctrine the Supper also is comprehended, that Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, and also Son of man, is everywhere wholly present as God, in the temple of God, that is, in the Church, as an inhabiting God, and in some place in heaven, because of the dimensions of his real body. 

Jesus is omnipresent in His Divine Nature. And He is locally physically present in the Eucharist.

We see how, in order to unite Christ with the Church, he does not bring his body out of heaven. This he certainly would have done had the body of Christ not been truly our food, unless when included under the bread. 

Calvin here merely assumes what he fails to prove.

Elsewhere, explaining how believers now possess Christ, he says, “You have him by the sign of the cross, by the sacrament of baptism, by the meat and drink of the altar” (Tract. in Joann. 50). How rightly he enumerates a superstitious rite, among the symbols of Christ’s presence, I dispute not; but in comparing the presence of the flesh to the sign of the cross, he sufficiently shows that he has no idea of a twofold body of Christ, one lurking concealed under the bread, and another sitting visible in heaven. 

This doesn’t follow at all; it is merely Calvin reading his own false belief into St. Augustine. The mention of “altar” in this section 12 of Tractate 50 on John 11 and 12 is without question a reference to the Sacrifice of the Mass. Altars always have to do with sacrifice:

If you are good, if you belong to the body represented by Peter, you have Christ both now and hereafter: now by faith, by sign, by the sacrament of baptism, by the bread and wine of the altar. You have Christ now, but you will have Him always; for when you have gone hence, you will come to Him who said to the robber, Today shall you be with me in paradise.Luke 23:43 But if you live wickedly, you may seem to have Christ now, because you enter the Church, signest yourself with the sign of Christ, art baptized with the baptism of Christ, minglest yourself with the members of Christ, and approachest His altar: now you have Christ, but by living wickedly you will not have Him always.

If there is any need of explanation, it is immediately added, “In respect of the presence of his majesty, we have Christ always: in respect of the presence of his flesh, it is rightly said, ‘Me ye have not always.’” They object that he also adds, “In respect of ineffable and invisible grace is fulfilled what was said by him, ‘I am with you always, even to the end of the world.’” But this is nothing in their favour. For it is at length restricted to his majesty, which is always opposed to body, while the flesh is expressly distinguished from grace and virtue. 

This is more Nestorian heresy from Calvin. St. Augustine points out elsewhere in the same larger work, in Tractate 27 on John 6:60-72 that “son of Man” (Jesus’ usual reference to His human Nature or the incarnational aspect) is referred to as in heaven, according to His unity of one Divine Person with two Natures:

And He said, It is the Spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing. Before we expound this, as the Lord grants us, that other must not be negligently passed over, where He says, Then what if you shall see the Son of man ascending where He was before? For Christ is the Son of man, of the Virgin Mary. Therefore Son of man He began to be here on earth, where He took flesh from the earth. For which cause it was said prophetically, Truth is sprung from the earth. Then what does He mean when He says, When you shall see the Son of man ascending where He was before? . . . Christ, both God and man, is one person, not two persons, lest our faith be not a trinity, but a quaternity? Christ, therefore, is one; the Word, soul and flesh, one Christ; the Son of God and Son of man, one Christ; Son of God always, Son of man in time, yet one Christ in regard to unity of person. . . . He was Son of man in heaven in that manner in which He was Son of God on earth; Son of God on earth in the flesh which He took, Son of man in heaven in the unity of person. (4)

The same antithesis elsewhere occurs, when he says that “Christ left the disciples in bodily presence, that he might be with them in spiritual presence.” Here it is clear that the essence of the flesh is distinguished from the virtue of the Spirit, which conjoins us with Christ, when, in respect of space, we are at a great distance from him. 

This is again in direct opposition to St. Augustine, whom he claims is on his side. The latter doesn’t make flesh and spirit antithetical, but joins them together:

What is it, then, that He adds? It is the Spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing. Let us say to Him (for He permits us, not contradicting Him, but desiring to know), O Lord, good Master, in what way does the flesh profit nothing, while You have said, Except a man eat my flesh, and drink my blood, he shall not have life in him? Or does life profit nothing? And why are we what we are, but that we may have eternal life, which Thou dost promise by Your flesh? Then what means the flesh profits nothing? It profits nothing, but only in the manner in which they understood it. They indeed understood the flesh, just as when cut to pieces in a carcass, or sold in the shambles; not as when it is quickened by the Spirit. Wherefore it is said that the flesh profits nothing, in the same manner as it is said that knowledge puffs up. Then, ought we at once to hate knowledge? Far from it! And what means Knowledge puffs up? Knowledge alone, without charity. Therefore he added, but charity edifies.1 Corinthians 8:1 Therefore add to knowledge charity, and knowledge will be profitable, not by itself, but through charity. So also here, the flesh profits nothing, only when alone. Let the Spirit be added to the flesh, as charity is added to knowledge, and it profits very much. For if the flesh profited nothing, the Word would not be made flesh to dwell among us. If through the flesh Christ has greatly profited us, does the flesh profit nothing? But it is by the flesh that the Spirit has done somewhat for our salvation. Flesh was a vessel; consider what it held, not what it was. The apostles were sent forth; did their flesh profit us nothing? If the apostles’ flesh profited us, could it be that the Lord’s flesh should have profited us nothing? For how should the sound of the Word come to us except by the voice of the flesh? Whence should writing come to us? All these are operations of the flesh, but only when the spirit moves it, as if it were its organ. Therefore it is the Spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing, as they understood the flesh, but not so do I give my flesh to be eaten. (Ibid., section 5: complete)

Protestants (following Calvin’s convoluted reasoning), unfortunately influenced by the heresies of Docetism and Nestorianism, typically misinterpret the flesh that is opposed to spirit in this portion of John 6 as proving that the Eucharist is not physically real. But Jesus is opposing a carnal understanding of flesh as dichotomized from spirit: the same thing that Calvin is asserting. Both Jesus and St. Augustine contradict Calvin’s understanding.

He repeatedly uses the same mode of expression, as when he says, “He is to come to the quick and the dead in bodily presence, according to the rule of faith and sound doctrine: for in spiritual presence he was to come to them, and to be with the whole Church in the world until its consummation. Therefore, this discourse is directed to believers, whom he had begun already to save by corporeal presence, and whom he was to leave in corporeal absence, that by spiritual presence he might preserve them with the Father.” 

In the sense of walking the earth, He is not with us. But again, this doesn’t logically exclude an additional sense of eucharistic physical presence.

By corporeal to understand visible is mere trifling, since he both opposes his body to his divine power, and by adding, that he might “preserve them with the Father,” clearly expresses that he sends his grace to us from heaven by means of the Spirit.

Scripture doesn’t completely dichotomize (as Calvin does) the Human Nature of Jesus and His power as a Divine Person, as well as majesty. It is true that He is not omnipotent in His human nature, or omnipotent, etc. (the Lutheran error of ubiquity), but on the other hand, there is no huge divide between His Human Nature, including His Body, and His power and majesty. We see this in the use of “Son of Man,” which clearly refers to His Human Nature, in conjunction with both heaven and power:

Matthew 13:41 The Son of man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers,

Matthew 16:27 For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done.

Matthew 19:28 . . . in the new world, when the Son of man shall sit on his glorious throne . . .

Matthew 24:30 then will appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory; (cf. 24:37, 39, 44)

Matthew 25:31 When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.

Matthew 26:64 Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, hereafter you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.

Mark 2:28 so the Son of man is lord even of the sabbath. (cf. Lk 6:5)

Mark 13:26 And then they will see the Son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory. (cf. 8:38)

Mark 14:62 And Jesus said, “I am; and you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”

Luke 21:27 And then they will see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. (cf. 9:26; 12:40; 17:30; 18:8)

Luke 22:69 “But from now on the Son of man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God.”

John 1:51 And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”

John 3:13 No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man. (cf. 6:62)

John 5:27 and has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of man.

Acts 7:56 and he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.”

Revelation 1:13 and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden girdle round his breast;

Revelation 14:14 Then I looked, and lo, a white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like a son of man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand.

All of this teaches the unity of person in Jesus: the Chalcedonian Christology, over against Nestorianism and Calvin’s quasi-Nestorianism and Docetic tendencies.

Jesus even refers to Himself as the “Son of man” giving us His flesh to eat:

John 6:27 Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give to you; for on him has God the Father set his seal.

John 6:53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you;”

Jesus is even “glorified” as the “Son of man” as well:

John 12:23 And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified.

John 13:31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of man glorified, and in him God is glorified;

Moreover, Jesus is repeatedly referred to as the “Lamb” in heaven (Rev 5:6, 8, 12; 6:1; 7:14; 8:1; 12:11; 13:8; 14:1, 4; 19:7, 9; 21:9, 14, 22-23, 27), even in the context of sitting on His throne and being honored there with all majesty and glory (Rev 5:13; 7:9-10, 17; 22:1, 3), and judging sinners at His Second Coming and Last Judgment (Rev 6:16; 7:9; 14:10; 17:14).

Nothing refers more to His body and Human Nature than the reference as “Lamb” (of God). That is the Human Nature, the crucifixion, and the Sacrifice of the Mass. Calvin would like to have everything in a neat little package, with Jesus glorified in heaven, and all the messy, incarnational, Human Nature stuff now over with, but Scripture is not nearly that simple or dichotomous.
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This same “Son of man” who comes again in glory, Who is glorified by God the Father, Who judges, sits on God’s throne, has great power even during His earthly life, who is Lord of the Sabbath, Who has power over life and death (He raised Himself: John 2:18-22; 10:18), and raised others from the dead), gives us His Body and Blood to eat for eternal life (Jn 6:27, 53). There is no big dichotomy between His body and heaven, and glory and majesty there, and His Body on earth, both during the Incarnation, and during His physical presence in the Holy Eucharist.

Lastly, Calvin referred to, above, Jesus’ “majesty, which is always opposed to body, while the flesh is expressly distinguished from grace and virtue.” Again, Scripture (which he has hardly brought to the table at all in this entire dispute) contradicts Calvin. It does not dichotomize Christ’s majesty from His role as Son of Man and Sacrificial Lamb and High Priest, or from His Human Nature and body:

Hebrews 1:3 He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

2 Peter 1:16-18 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. [17] For when he received honor and glory from God the Father and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” [18] we heard this voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.

Scripture even asserts that Jesus is a priest for us specifically because He is in heaven (Heb 8:4). A priest offers sacrifice, and the sacrifice that Jesus offers is Himself, as the Lamb of God (and He does so because He is a Man, with flesh):

Hebrews 8:1-4 Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, [2] a minister in the sanctuary and the true tent which is set up not by man but by the Lord. [3] For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; hence it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. [4] Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law.
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(originally 11-30-09)

Photo credit: Historical mixed media figure of John Calvin produced by artist/historian George S. Stuart and photographed by Peter d’Aprix: from the George S. Stuart Gallery of Historical Figures archive [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license]

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2019-01-18T15:54:15-04:00

This is an installment of a series of replies (see the Introduction and Master List) to much of Book IV (Of the Holy Catholic Church) of Institutes of the Christian Religion, by early Protestant leader John Calvin (1509-1564). I utilize the public domain translation of Henry Beveridge, dated 1845, from the 1559 edition in Latin; available online. Calvin’s words will be in blue. All biblical citations (in my portions) will be from RSV unless otherwise noted.

Related reading from yours truly:

Biblical Catholic Answers for John Calvin (2010 book: 388 pages)

A Biblical Critique of Calvinism (2012 book: 178 pages)

Biblical Catholic Salvation: “Faith Working Through Love” (2010 book: 187 pages; includes biblical critiques of all five points of “TULIP”)

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IV, 8:10 / 9:1-3, 6-11, 14 / 10:21

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Book IV

CHAPTER 8

OF THE POWER OF THE CHURCH IN ARTICLES OF FAITH. THE UNBRIDLED LICENCE OF THE PAPAL CHURCH IN DESTROYING PURITY OF DOCTRINE.
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10. The Roman tyrants have taught a different doctrine—viz. that Councils cannot err, and, therefore, may coin new dogmas.
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But if this power of the church which is here described be contrasted with that which spiritual tyrants, falsely styling themselves bishops and religious prelates, have now for several ages exercised among the people of God, there will be no more agreement than that of Christ with Belial. 

Nice melodramatic, rhetorical touch . . . this is how mere propaganda (as opposed to cogent rational argument and demonstration) proceeds.

It is not my intention here to unfold the manner, the unworthy manner, in which they have used their tyranny; 

Of course there is no antecedent question considered: whether Catholics en masse are indeed “tyrants.” Calvin has said so, after all.

I will only state the doctrine which they maintain in the present day, first, in writing, and then, by fire and sword. 

Ah, yes. And we all know that Protestants never hurt a flea, right?

Taking it for granted, that a universal council is a true representation of the Church, 

. . . which is what the Christian Church had always taught . . .

they set out with this principle, and, at the same time, lay it down as incontrovertible, that such councils are under the immediate guidance of the Holy Spirit, and therefore cannot err. 

That was the case with the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:25, 28-29), and all true councils. Why would Calvin think that this state of affairs is no longer applicable in the Church? Jesus (John, chapters 14-16) said we would have the Holy Spirit to guide us. Has Calvin lost faith in that ongoing guidance? It is a spectacle to behold such continual lack of faith in God’s promises and manifest examples in Holy Scripture. Man-centered outlooks descend to that level.

When one puts one’s faith in God, to guide sinful men for His sovereign purposes, it’s very different. Calvin wants to emphasize God’s sovereignty, which is good, but seems to repeatedly deny it when it comes to examining how God leads men for His sovereign purposes.

But as they rule councils, nay, constitute them, they in fact claim for themselves whatever they maintain to be due to councils. 

It’s not circular reasoning, as he implies, but a biblical notion, as just shown.

Therefore, they will have our faith to stand and fall at their pleasure, so that whatever they have determined on either side must be firmly seated in our minds; what they approve must be approved by us without any doubt; what they condemn we also must hold to be justly condemned. 

That is, whatever is believed by all, everywhere, from the beginning (apostolic succession). Calvin cleverly makes out that there is some sort of “epistemological equivalence” between the Protestant rejection of so many Catholic doctrines, and the Catholic position which had been consistently maintained for 1500 years. That is ludicrous in and of itself. But it plays well to the crowd, in making out that it is supposedly a matter of “arbitrary Catholic dogmatism and power vs. biblical Protestantism.” It’s superb propaganda, but it is nonexistent reasoning.

Meanwhile, at their own caprice, and in contempt of the word of God, they coin doctrines to which they in this way demand our assent, declaring that no man can be a Christian unless he assent to all their dogmas, affirmative as well as negative, if not with explicit, yet with implicit faith, because it belongs to the Church to frame new articles of faith.

The Church had always done this. Why should it cease now? Even granting Calvin’s perspective that his alternative Christian worldview and “system” is equally plausible as the Catholic Church, it is foolish to condemn the very notion of an enforced orthodoxy (by anyone), since, after all, Calvin’s “church” acted in exactly the same way, sometimes to the point of death for those who disagreed.

What he needs to do is show how some Catholic doctrine or other is false, from Scripture and history and reason. But that is too much work. Empty rhetoric suits his purposes just fine. The Institutes is nothing if not preaching to the choir and riling up the true believers to oppose Harlot Rome.
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[ . . . ]

CHAPTER 9

OF COUNCILS AND THEIR AUTHORITY.
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1. The true nature of Councils.
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Were I now to concede all that they ask concerning the Church, it would not greatly aid them in their object. For everything that is said of the Church they immediately transfer to councils, which, in their opinion, represent the Church. 

And Calvin thinks they do not?

Nay, when they contend so doggedly for the power of the Church, their only object is to devolve the whole which they extort on the Roman Pontiff and his conclave. 

Maybe they simply want to defend the way it had been for 1500 years? Since Calvin can’t accept that the historic Church was Catholic, and not even remotely “Protestant,” he must search for nefarious motives somewhere and make out that Catholic arguments are mere power plays.

Before I begin to discuss this question, two points must be briefly premised. First, though I mean to be more rigid in discussing this subject, it is not because I set less value than I ought on ancient councils. I venerate them from my heart, and would have all to hold them in due honour. But there must be some limitation, there must be nothing derogatory to Christ. 

And this clause “some limitation” is a loophole big enough for a truck to drive through, as we’ll see again and again, as we proceed.

Moreover, it is the right of Christ to preside over all councils, and not share the honour with any man. Now, I hold that he presides only when he governs the whole assembly by his word and Spirit. 

No man can preside at all? How can there be order or protocol if this is the case?

Secondly, in attributing less to councils than my opponents demand, it is not because I have any fear that councils are favourable to their cause and adverse to ours. 

Of course not . . .

For as we are amply provided by the word of the Lord with the means of proving our doctrine and overthrowing the whole Papacy, 

As we know, the papacy has long since been overthrown and Calvinism reigns supreme everywhere . . .

and thus have no great need of other aid, so, if the case required it, ancient councils furnish us in a great measure with what might be sufficient for both purposes.

Here is the familiar (but thoroughly erroneous) claim: that the ancient councils and fathers supposedly provide plenty of evidence for Protestantism; over against Catholicism.

2. Whence the authority of Councils is derived. What meant by assembling in the name of Christ.
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Let us now proceed to the subject itself. If we consult Scripture on the authority of councils, there is no promise more remarkable than that which is contained in these words of our Saviour, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” But this is just as applicable to any particular meeting as to a universal council. And yet the important part of the question does not lie here, but in the condition which is added—viz. that Christ will be in the midst of a council, provided it be assembled in his name. Wherefore, though our opponents should name councils of thousands of bishops it will little avail them; nor will they induce us to believe that they are, as they maintain, guided by the Holy Spirit, until they make it credible that they assemble in the name of Christ: since it is as possible for wicked and dishonest to conspire against Christ, as for good and honest bishops to meet together in his name. 

That’s correct; for example, the Robber Council of 449. But of course, the same criticism applies to various Protestant assemblies that adopted false doctrine. In the end, the discussion will always have to reference Scripture and prior received Tradition in order to determine true and false councils (and we contend, also, that popes have to ratify the decisions of true ecumenical councils).

Of this we have a clear proof in very many of the decrees which have proceeded from councils. But this will be afterwards seen. At present I only reply in one word, that our Saviour’s promise is made to those only who assemble in his name. How, then, is such an assembly to be defined? I deny that those assemble in the name of Christ who, disregarding his command by which he forbids anything to be added to the word of God or taken from it, determine everything at their own pleasure, who, not contented with the oracles of Scripture, that is, with the only rule of perfect wisdom, devise some novelty out of their own head (Deut. 4:2; Rev. 22:18).

And of course this is circular reasoning:

1) Catholics declare doctrine X that I disagree with.

2) Doctrine X is unscriptural.

3) Why is X unscriptural? Because I disagree that it is scriptural. My interpretation says that it is not scriptural.

4) I know my interpretation is correct because it disagrees with the Roman interpretation, which is a tradition of men, because it is a novelty devised out of their heads, rather than from Scripture.

Etc., etc. The circularity can be demonstrated in a number of ways, but this shall suffice for now.

Certainly, since our Saviour has not promised to be present with all councils of whatever description, but has given a peculiar mark for distinguishing true and lawful councils from others, we ought not by any means to lose sight of the distinction. 

Indeed. Not every council is true or Spirit-led.

The covenant which God anciently made with the Levitical priests was to teach at his mouth (Mal. 2:7). This he always required of the prophets, and we see also that it was the law given to the apostles. 

Of course, but by the same token, this also establishes authoritative teaching that is ultimately undermined by the individualistic notion of private judgment, and the denial of infallibility to the Church, and rejection of apostolic succession, etc.:

Exodus 18:20 and you shall teach them the statutes and the decisions, and make them know the way in which they must walk and what they must do.

Leviticus 10:11 and you are to teach the people of Israel all the statutes which the LORD has spoken to them by Moses.

Deuteronomy 33:10 They shall teach Jacob thy ordinances, and Israel thy law . . .

2 Chronicles 17:7-9 In the third year of his reign he sent his princes, Ben-hail, Obadi’ah, Zechari’ah, Nethan’el, and Micai’ah, to teach in the cities of Judah; and with them the Levites, Shemai’ah, Nethani’ah, Zebadi’ah, As’ahel, Shemi’ramoth, Jehon’athan, Adoni’jah, Tobi’jah, and Tobadoni’jah; and with these Levites, the priests Eli’shama and Jeho’ram. And they taught in Judah, having the book of the law of the LORD with them; they went about through all the cities of Judah and taught among the people.

2 Chronicles 35:3 And he said to the Levites who taught all Israel and who were holy to the LORD, . . .

Ezra 7:6, 10-11 this Ezra went up from Babylonia. He was a scribe skilled in the law of Moses which the LORD the God of Israel had given; and the king granted him all that he asked, for the hand of the LORD his God was upon him. . . . For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach his statutes and ordinances in Israel. . . . Ezra the priest, the scribe, learned in matters of the commandments of the LORD and his statutes for Israel:

Nehemiah 8:7-8, 12 Also Jesh’ua, Bani, Sherebi’ah, Jamin, Akkub, Shab’bethai, Hodi’ah, Ma-asei’ah, Keli’ta, Azari’ah, Jo’zabad, Hanan, Pelai’ah, the Levites, helped the people to understand the law, while the people remained in their places. And they read from the book, from the law of God, clearly; and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading. . . . And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them.

Acts 8:27-28, 30-31, 34-35 And behold, an Ethiopian, a eunuch . . . seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah . . . So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless some one guides me?” . . . And the eunuch said to Philip, “About whom, pray, does the prophet say this, about himself or about some one else?” Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this scripture he told him the good news of Jesus.

Acts 15:22, 25, 28 Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, . . . it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, . . . For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us . . .

Acts 16:4 As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions which had been reached by the apostles and elders who were at Jerusalem.

Ephesians 3:10 . . . through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.

2 Peter 1:20 . . . no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation,

2 Peter 3:15-17 And count the forbearance of our Lord as salvation. So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, beware lest you be carried away with the error of lawless men and lose your own stability.

On those who violate this covenant God bestows neither the honour of the priesthood nor any authority. Let my opponents solve this difficulty if they would subject my faith to the decrees of man, without authority from the word of God.

Obviously, both sides claim scriptural support. The argument has to be an exegetical one, not a “your dad’s uglier than mine” name-calling, schoolyard level. It is not the case that Catholics ignore Scripture in setting forth their theological views (agree or disagree), as Calvin would have it. But it sounds good, and he loves the black-and-white contrast, with the Catholics always being wicked and evil and unbiblical, so he continues to use the technique.

3. Objection, that no truth remains in the Church if it be not in Pastors and Councils. Answer, showing by passages from the Old Testament that Pastors were often devoid of the spirit of knowledge and truth.
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Their idea that the truth cannot remain in the Church unless it exist among pastors, 

It stands to reason, does it not, that if doctrinal truth is to be maintained, that someone in leadership must maintain it, no? If God is truly preserving His Church, this will always be the case, at least with some of the leaders. The Church can never completely fall away (institutionally) from truth. Calvin seems to think this is the case with Catholicism, but this is contrary to Jesus’ promises.

and that the Church herself cannot exist unless displayed in general councils, 

Acts 15 would seem to bear that out. Even Paul the Apostle went around proclaiming the binding decrees of the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 16:4 above).

is very far from holding true if the prophets have left us a correct description of their own times. In the time of Isaiah there was a Church at Jerusalem which the Lord had not yet abandoned. But of pastors he thus speaks: “His watchmen are blind; they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, they are greedy dogs which never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way” (Isa. 56:10, 11). In the same way Hosea says, “The watchman of Ephraim was with my God: but the prophet is a snare of a fowler in all his ways, and hatred in the house of his God” (Hosea 9:8). Here, by ironically connecting them with God, he shows that the pretext of the priesthood was vain. There was also a Church in the time of Jeremiah. Let us hear what he says of pastors: “From the prophet even unto the priest, every one dealeth falsely.” Again, “The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them” (Jer. 6:13; 14:14). And not to be prolix with quotations, read the whole of his thirty-third and fortieth chapters. Then, on the other hand, Ezekiel inveighs against them in no milder terms. “There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured souls.” “Her priests have violated my law, and profaned mine holy things” (Ezek. 22:25, 26). There is more to the same purpose. Similar complaints abound throughout the prophets; nothing is of more frequent recurrence.

Israel went through many periods of more or less complete corruption; this is obvious. But we are in a new dispensation now, after the appearance of our Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ: the Incarnation, redeeming death, Resurrection, and Ascension. We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and have the power of the sacraments, and we have God’s promises of guidance and protection. All of that makes the situation after Christ quite different from before the time of Christ.

We see the massive change, for example, in the conduct of Peter, before and after he was filled with the Holy Spirit. Before Pentecost, even the immediate disciples of Jesus were a pretty poor, miserable lot, barely understanding what Jesus was teaching them and failing to understand even the purpose of Jesus’ death on the cross.

After Pentecost, they went out joyously, and triumphantly conquered the world. Yet Calvin would have us believe that nothing whatever was changed from the Old Covenant times and corrupt priests in Israel? It is often thought by Calvin and Protestants that Catholics are stuck in a rut of the Old Covenant (supposedly believing in works-salvation, etc.: which mainstream Judaism did not and does not hold, rightly understood). But here it is obvious that the Catholic position is the progressive one, while Calvin’s Old Covenant redux position is regressive, and lacks faith in the power of God in the New Covenant, and in God’s promises for His Church, built upon Peter himself.

Moreover, this whole line of reasoning would prove too much, because if the idea is that corruption is well-nigh universal, then Calvin’s own version of “church” would be every bit as much subject to the same thing, and there would be no reason to believe that Protestantism is at all superior to Catholicism (if we stick strictly to the “sin” argument). Arguing from sin and corruption never accomplishes much, for this very reason. Calvin can try to maintain that Protestants are singularly freed from corruption and sin and religious nominalism, but it’s a futile effort.

If he wishes to argue a lesser claim: that institutional offices in the Church are null and void because of widespread corruption (real or imagined), then this, too, mitigates against his own position, as he was not opposed to abolition of all Church offices and positions whatever. The entire argument he wishes to make at this juncture is a dead-end. It accomplishes nothing whatsoever.

[ . . . ]
*
6. Objection, that General Councils represent the Church. Answer, showing the absurdity of this objection from passages in the Old Testament.
*

Hence it is easy to reply to their allegation concerning general councils. It cannot be denied, that the Jews had a true Church under the prophets. But had a general council then been composed of the priests, what kind of appearance would the Church have had? We hear the Lord denouncing not against one or two of them, but the whole order: “The priests shall be astonished, and the prophets shall wonder” (Jer. 4:9). Again, “The law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the ancients” (Ezek. 7:26). Again, “Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them,” &c. (Micah 3:6). Now, had all men of this description been collected together, what spirit would have presided over their meeting? 

Not a very good one; I agree. But I have already explained why these examples of Old Testament corruption are non sequiturs.

Of this we have a notable instance in the council which Ahab convened (1 Kings 22:6, 22). Four hundred prophets were present. But because they had met with no other intention than to flatter the impious king, Satan is sent by the Lord to be a lying spirit in all their mouths. The truth is there unanimously condemned. Micaiah is judged a heretic, is smitten, and cast into prison. So was it done to Jeremiah, and so to the other prophets.

Indeed. Men are sinners. If it weren’t for God’s grace, there would be no hope for any religious assembly whatever (including Calvin’s); let alone the Church of God.

7. Passages to the same effect from the New Testament.
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But there is one memorable example which may suffice for all. In the council which the priests and Pharisees assembled at Jerusalem against Christ (John 11:47), what is wanting, in so far as external appearance is concerned? Had there been no Church then at Jerusalem, Christ would never have joined in the sacrifices and other ceremonies. A solemn meeting is held; the high priest presides; the whole sacerdotal order take their seats, and yet Christ is condemned, and his doctrine is put to flight. This atrocity proves that the Church was not at all included in that council. 

Obviously not, as it opposed Christ Himself (at least not insofar as this particular ruling was concerned). Calvin’s difficulty, however, is that Jesus recognized the continuing authority of the Pharisees, and even told His followers to do what they teach them to do (Matthew 23:1-3). This shows that there was authority and truth retained, even within a corrupt institution (one that Jesus excoriated shortly after He said this), not that there was an absolute corruption, leading to a complete downfall or cessation of what once was. Paul recognized the authority of the high priest, even at his trial; even called himself a Pharisee (Acts 23:1-6). The early Christians worshiped at both synagogues and in the Temple.

But there is no danger that anything of the kind will happen with us. Who has told us so? Too much security in a matter of so great importance lies open to the charge of sluggishness. Nay, when the Spirit, by the mouth of Paul, foretells, in distinct terms, that a defection will take place, a defection which cannot come until pastors first forsake God (2 Thess. 2:3), why do we spontaneously walk blindfold to our own destruction? 

Christians should always be vigilant against falsehood and heresy and schism. Paul warned more about divisions than he did about almost anything else.

Wherefore, we cannot on any account admit that the Church consists in a meeting of pastors, as to whom the Lord has nowhere promised that they would always be good, but has sometimes foretold that they would be wicked. When he warns us of danger, it is to make us use greater caution.

This is obvious. A true council has to produce true doctrine. The tree is known by the fruit. Calvin, on the other hand, goes so far as to claim that even the Catholic “tree” has ceased to exist; let alone produce any good fruit. He’s taken the axe to the entire Church and has offered nothing of any particular legitimacy or authenticity to take its place. Whatever was true in Calvinism was merely retained from Catholicism (which is yet another proof that Catholicism had some measure of life in it, since it had preserved so much that even the so-called “Reformers” never dreamt of getting rid of). Self-contradictions abound in Calvin’s position.

8. Councils have authority only in so far as accordant with Scripture. Testimony of Augustine. Councils of Nice, Constantinople, and Ephesus, Subsequent Councils more impure, and to be received with limitation.
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What, then, you will say, is there no authority in the definitions of councils? Yes, indeed; for I do not contend that all councils are to be condemned, and all their acts rescinded, or, as it is said, made one complete erasure. 

Okay; this sounds good, and moderate, but how does it work in practice? The Council of Nicaea, for example, made certain decrees. If at length a Protestant today decides that certain of these decrees are falsehoods and insufficiently “biblical” etc., on what basis does he discard them? On his private judgment alone? If that is the case, several problems immediately arise. Why should his single opinion trump that of dozens or hundreds of bishops, as the case may be? Why should we take the opinion of the one over the opinion of the many?

But granting that such a scenario is acceptable, now (very often, given internal Protestant division and doctrinal chaos) we have two individuals (say, Luther and Calvin) who reject a council and substitute something else in its place with regard to some theological particular. But they disagree as to the substitute.

Now, then, we have an ancient council that is partially rejected, on the authority of a single individual. Two such individuals might very well disagree on the solution to the “error.” Whom do we choose? On what basis? Why should we assume that a lone individual has a superior interpretation of Scripture and theological tradition, over against an assembly of many learned bishops? Or if a group today (some dreaded committee of some denomination) decides to overrule Nicaea or Chalcedon, etc., why should we accept their corporate dogmatic authority more than Nicaea’s or Chalcedon’s (or Pope Leo the Great’s)?

We see, then, that it is arbitrary at every turn, and it always, inevitably logically reduces to radical individualism and doctrinal relativism, to reject the traditional understanding of Christian authority. It breaks down as soon as a few penetrating questions are asked. Calvin cannot give answer, but his followers today do scarcely better when confronted with such difficult conundrums, raised by their rule of faith.

But you are bringing them all (it will be said) under subordination, and so leaving every one at liberty to receive or reject the decrees of councils as he pleases. By no means; 

To the contrary, by all means . . .

but whenever the decree of a council is produced, the first thing I would wish to be done is, to examine at what time it was held, on what occasion, with what intention, and who were present at it; next I would bring the subject discussed to the standard of Scripture. 

Exactly. Calvin thus stands as judge over the council, and this contradicts what he just stated about it not being the case that “every one [is] at liberty to receive or reject the decrees of councils as he pleases.” Councils declare that such-and-such a doctrine is biblical and true; Calvin says it is not. And we are supposed to bow and accept his authority as God’s Oracle? And he complains about the popes having too much theological pull and power and say?

And this I would do in such a way that the decision of the council should have its weight, and be regarded in the light of a prior judgment, yet not so as to prevent the application of the test which I have mentioned. 

That has all sorts of practical difficulties of application, as we shall see again and again.

I wish all had observed the method which Augustine prescribes in his Third Book against Maximinus, when he wished to silence the cavils of this heretic against the decrees of councils, “I ought not to oppose the Council of Nice to you, nor ought you to oppose that of Ariminum to me, as prejudging the question. I am not bound by the authority of the latter, nor you by that of the former. Let thing contend with thing, cause with cause, reason with reason, on the authority of Scripture, an authority not peculiar to either, but common to all.” 

Yes; this was the case precisely because Augustine was talking to a heretic, who rejected the authority of Nicaea (just as Protestants selectively do with all councils). Maximinus was an Arian bishop. They had to argue from Scripture because that was what they held in common. That is exactly what I do with Protestants, who reject conciliar infallibility.

As a Catholic apologist “being all things to all people,” I argue from Scripture 98% of the time, because my Protestant opponents accept the authority of Holy Scripture. I do the same with Jehovah’s Witnesses: today’s Arians. One must either cite Scripture with them or internal inconsistencies and false prophecies in their own published works.

In this way, councils would be duly respected, and yet the highest place would be given to Scripture, everything being brought to it as a test. 

The above example doesn’t suffice to prove this, because it was a methodological decision by Augustine, not a rejection of the same council’s authority. This is so obvious it is embarrassing to even have to point it out.

Thus those ancient Councils of Nice, Constantinople, the first of Ephesus, Chalcedon, and the like, which were held for refuting errors, we willingly embrace, and reverence as sacred, in so far as relates to doctrines of faith, for they contain nothing but the pure and genuine interpretation of Scripture, which the holy Fathers with spiritual prudence adopted to crush the enemies of religion who had then arisen. 

Excellent. Then we must ask: by what principle are later councils rejected? They were convoked by the same principles and authority as these earlier ones. All of a sudden what was “sacred” authority becomes the opposite? If these councils were protected by the Holy Spirit from error, then it stands to reason that others, convened in the same fashion, were also. But these councils that even Calvin reverences were orthodox because all (by mere coincidence) were confirmed by popes as orthodox.

In some later councils, also, we see displayed a true zeal for religion, and moreover unequivocal marks of genius, learning, and prudence. 

Which ones?

But as matters usually become worse and worse, it is easy to see in more modern councils how much the Church gradually degenerated from the purity of that golden age. 

Which ones? Which doctrines? And how do we know this with certainty?

I doubt not, however, that even in those more corrupt ages, councils had their bishops of better character. 

But by his time, councils had become completely corrupt; so argues Calvin, while rarely producing hard evidences for this alleged total defection from the faith.

But it happened with them as the Roman senators of old complained in regard to their decrees. Opinions being numbered, not weighed, the better were obliged to give way to the greater number. They certainly put forth many impious sentiments. There is no need here to collect instances, both because it would be tedious, and because it has been done by others so carefully, as not to leave much to be added.

How convenient (and disappointing) . . .

9. Contradictory decisions of Councils. Those agreeing with divine truth to be received. Those at variance with it to be rejected. This confirmed by the example of the Council of Constantinople and the Council of Nice; also of the Council of Chalcedon, and second Council of Ephesus.
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Moreover, why should I review the contests of council with council? 

Because it is absolutely crucial to his ultimately “anti-conciliar” case.

Nor is there any ground for whispering to me, that when councils are at variance, one or other of them is not a lawful council. For how shall we ascertain this? 

By seeing what Rome determines, which was always the method (most notably with Chalcedon in 451, over against the Robber Council of 449.

Just, if I mistake not, by judging from Scripture that the decrees are not orthodox. 

Men disagree on that. There has to be a final say somewhere.

For this alone is the sure law of discrimination. 

But impossible to implement in practical terms without binding human Church authority . . .

It is now about nine hundred years since the Council of Constantinople, convened under the Emperor Leo, determined that the images set up in temples were to be thrown down and broken to pieces. Shortly after, the Council of Nice, which was assembled by Irene, through dislike of the former, decreed that images were to be restored. Which of the two councils shall we acknowledge to be lawful? The latter has usually prevailed, and secured a place for images in churches. But Augustine maintains that this could not be done without the greatest danger of idolatry. 

That was what the Mind of the Church decided. Idolatry is always a danger with some people, because it is an internal thing, and folks can always use images wrongly, in an impious or idolatrous fashion, if they so choose. That doesn’t make the image wrong in and of itself, as all things can be distorted and misunderstood.

Epiphanius, at a later period, speaks much more harshly (Epist. ad Joann. Hierosolym. et Lib. 3 contra Hæres.). For he says, it is an unspeakable abomination to see images in a Christian temple.

That’s odd, seeing that God Himself commanded this for His own temple. The ark of the covenant was certainly an image. It had carved cherubim (Ex 25:22; Num 7:89). God even said this is where He would meet with His people, on the mercy seat between the two cherubim (Ex 30:6). Joshua “fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the LORD” (Josh 7:6). Was this idolatry? The temple had huge images in it, by the express decree of God:

1 Kings 6:23-29 In the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim of olivewood, each ten cubits high. [24] Five cubits was the length of one wing of the cherub, and five cubits the length of the other wing of the cherub; it was ten cubits from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other. [25] The other cherub also measured ten cubits; both cherubim had the same measure and the same form. [26] The height of one cherub was ten cubits, and so was that of the other cherub. [27] He put the cherubim in the innermost part of the house; and the wings of the cherubim were spread out so that a wing of one touched the one wall, and a wing of the other cherub touched the other wall; their other wings touched each other in the middle of the house. [28] And he overlaid the cherubim with gold. [29] He carved all the walls of the house round about with carved figures of cherubim and palm trees and open flowers, in the inner and outer rooms. (cf. 2 Chron 3:7; Ezek 41:20,25)

The cherubim were angels (creatures): so use of them as aids in worship is precisely of the sort that Protestants object to in the case of a statue of a saint. But God commanded it. The very holiest places in Judaism (the temple, holy of holies, ark of the covenant) had images. The Bible often mentions praying or worshiping toward the temple (e.g., 2 Chron 6:20-33; Ps 5:7; Ps 28:2; Ps 134:2) or even bowing before it (Ps 138:2) and the temple had images. The temple wasn’t a plain white clapboard building, like New England Calvinist churches. Case closed. See much more on physical items as aids of worship in the Bible.

Could those who speak thus approve of that council if they were alive in the present day? But if historians speak true, and we believe their acts, not only images themselves, but the worship of them, were there sanctioned. 

The veneration of saints by means of an image is perfectly proper and biblical (as the Catholic Church has determined, lo these many centuries). See my papers:

Now it is plain that this decree emanated from Satan. 

It’s not “plain” in the slightest! Calvin has made a foolish, unwarranted, unbiblical conclusion that all images (not just corruption or inadequate understanding of the use of them) automatically reduce to idolatry. If that is so, then it would make God Himself a liar or incompetent judge of these matters, given the scriptural data outlined above. This was the flimsy rationale used by the early Calvinists to engage in iconoclasm and to smash stained glass and even statues of Jesus Christ, as if Catholics were worshiping plaster rather than our Lord Jesus.

This is one of the most curious, odd, altogether stupid manifestations of early Calvinism. It derives far more from Islam than from Hebrew-Christian tradition or the Bible. Historically, it flourished only after the arrival of Islam, because of that religion’s strong iconoclasm.

Do they not show, by corrupting and wresting Scripture, that they held it in derision? 

Anyone who does this is deriding Scripture. The dispute is about who is doing this? If Calvin takes an absolute view against all Christian images, it is He who wars against Scripture, history, and indeed God Himself. God would be reduced to a Being Who was too dumb to know that what He Himself commanded was idolatry, and against Himself. In other words, either God wouldn’t be God, or He would be a self-contradictory, wicked “god” at cross-purposes with himself.

This I have made sufficiently clear in a former part of the work (see Book I. chap. 11 sec. 14). 

Not if he offered no more argument than he has here, which was virtually none at all . . .

Be this as it may, we shall never be able to distinguish between contradictory and dissenting councils, which have been many, unless we weigh them all in that balance for men and angels, I mean, the word of God. 

That has already been done. Why should we renounce all this past established history of the Church and her decrees and dogmas, and now place all responsibility on upstart Calvin, and his “idol”-smashing minions? It’s as if the past means absolutely nothing. All that past generations of Christians have learned, led by the Holy Spirit, can be nullified by the stroke of Calvin’s mighty, All-Knowing pen.

Thus we embrace the Council of Chalcedon, and repudiate the second of Ephesus, because the latter sanctioned the impiety of Eutyches, and the former condemned it. 

That is correct. And the key figure who declared as much at the time, was Pope St. Leo the Great. If it were up to the eastern bishops, the heretical Robber Council of Ephesus (449) would have been accepted as truth.

The judgment of these holy men was founded on the Scriptures, and while we follow it, we desire that the word of God, which illuminated them, may now also illuminate us. Let the Romanists now go and boast after their manner, that the Holy Spirit is fixed and tied to their councils.

We do. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 is a superb example of that. I have used Calvin’s own method (recourse to Scripture) to show that his aversion to all images is most unbiblical. What does it say of Calvin’s exegetical acumen if he could overlook so much plain Scripture?

10. Errors of purer Councils. Four causes of these errors. An example from the Council of Nice.
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Even in their ancient and purer councils there is something to be desiderated, either because the otherwise learned and prudent men who attended, being distracted by the business in hand, did not attend to many things beside; or because, occupied with grave and more serious measures, they winked at some of lesser moment; or simply because, as men, they were deceived through ignorance, or were sometimes carried headlong by some feeling in excess. 

Did I not predict not far above that Calvin’s radical new anti-conciliar principle would eventually chip away at the authority of even those councils he claims to especially revere? It’s happening right before our eyes as we read. Everyone understands (if this is Calvin’s primary meaning) that there is human corruption in councils. The question is whether any of these human shortcomings corrupt the doctrines promulgated.

Of this last case (which seems the most difficult of all to avoid) we have a striking example in the Council of Nice, which has been unanimously received, as it deserves, with the utmost veneration. For when the primary article of our faith was there in peril, and Arius, its enemy, was present, ready to engage any one in combat, and it was of the utmost moment that those who had come to attack Arius should be agreed, they nevertheless, feeling secure amid all these dangers, nay, as it were, forgetting their gravity, modesty, and politeness, laying aside the discussion which was before them (as if they had met for the express purpose of gratifying Arius), began to give way to intestine dissensions, and turn the pen, which should have been employed against Arius, against each other. Foul accusations were heard, libels flew up and down, and they never would have ceased from their contention until they had stabbed each other with mutual wounds, had not the Emperor Constantine interfered, and declaring that the investigation of their lives was a matter above his cognisance, repressed their intemperance by flattery rather than censure. 

This is exactly what I referred to: human flaws and shortcomings were present, but they did not pervert the doctrinal decrees. The same thing applies to the more notoriously immoral popes. God manages to overcome these things by His power and providence.

In how many respects is it probable that councils, held subsequently to this, have erred? 

In hundreds of respects, but for the supernatural protection from God, which is the entire point.

Nor does the fact stand in need of a long demonstration; any one who reads their acts will observe many infirmities, not to use a stronger term.

No argument or particulars offered; so I’ll pass . . .

11. Another example from the Council of Chalcedon. The same errors in Provincial Councils.
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Even Leo, the Roman Pontiff, hesitates not to charge the Council of Chalcedon, which he admits to be orthodox in its doctrines, with ambition and inconsiderate rashness. 

Just one part of it, where Constantinople is placed on a level with Rome. Leo vetoed that, saying that Constantinople can never be made an apostolic see. It’s history was very recent. Popes were needed to oversee and rule as out of order the mere political pretensions and machinations of men.

He denies not that it was lawful, but openly maintains that it might have erred. 

That’s why we Catholics believe that ecumenical councils are only valid insofar as the pope agrees to all their decrees.

Some may think me foolish in labouring to point out errors of this description, since my opponents admit that councils may err in things not necessary to salvation. 

Indeed.

My labour, however, is not superfluous. For although compelled, they admit this in word, yet by obtruding upon us the determination of all councils, in all matters without distinction, as the oracles of the Holy Spirit, they exact more than they had at the outset assumed. 

Some Catholics may be guilty of this; sure. They are wrong.

By thus acting what do they maintain but just that councils cannot err, of if they err, it is unlawful for us to perceive the truth, or refuse assent to their errors? 

We claim more for ecumenical councils, not every council whatever. Like the fathers, we accept the received apostolic tradition, as manifest in such councils and made binding.

At the same time, all I mean to infer from what I have said is, that though councils, otherwise pious and holy, were governed by the Holy Spirit, he yet allowed them to share the lot of humanity, lest we should confide too much in men. 

That argument doesn’t work, since many of the Bible writers were great sinners, too (especially David and Paul). Calvin doesn’t conclude that the Bible is questionable because of that. In both instances it is God’s protection that overcomes these limitations.

This is a much better view than that of Gregory Nanzianzen, who says (Ep. 55), that he never saw any council end well. In asserting that all, without exception, ended ill, he leaves them little authority. 

I tried to locate this but the “Epistle 55″I found had nothing to do with this and was rather short. Without more information, I can’t comment further.

There is no necessity for making separate mention of provincial councils, since it is easy to estimate, from the case of general councils, how much authority they ought to have in framing articles of faith, and deciding what kind of doctrine is to be received.

Obviously, more local councils have less general authority.

[ . . . ]
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14. Impudent attempt of the Papists to establish their tyranny refuted. Things at variance with Scripture sanctioned by their Councils. Instance in the prohibition of marriage and communion in both kinds.
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But the Romanists have another end in view when they say that the power of interpreting Scripture belongs to councils, and that without challenge. For they employ it as a pretext for giving the name of an interpretation of Scripture to everything which is determined in councils. Of purgatory, the intercession of saints, and auricular confession, and the like, not one syllable can be found in Scripture. 

This is massively untrue:

25 Bible Passages on Purgatory [1996]

A Biblical Argument for Purgatory (Matthew 5:25-26) [10-13-04]

Purgatory: Refutation of James White (1 Corinthians 3:10-15) [3-3-07]

50 Bible Passages on Purgatory & Analogous Processes [2009]

50 Biblical Indications That Purgatory is Real [National Catholic Register, 10-24-16]

“Armstrong vs. Geisler” #1: Purgatory (Mt 12:32) [2-17-17]

“Armstrong vs. Geisler” #2: Purgatory (Lk 23:43) [2-17-17]

Does Matthew 12:32 Suggest or Disprove Purgatory? [National Catholic Register, 2-26-17]

25 Descriptive and Clear Bible Passages About Purgatory [National Catholic Register, 5-7-17]

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Bible on Invocation of Angels & Saved Human Beings [6-10-08]

Praying to Angels & Angelic Intercession [2015]

Asking Saints to Intercede: Teaching of Jesus [2015]

Dialogue on Praying to Abraham (Luke 16) [5-22-16]

Prayer to Saints: “New” [?] Biblical Argument [5-23-16]

Invocation & Intercession of Saints & Angels: Bible Proof [10-22-16 and 1-9-17]

“Armstrong vs. Geisler” #5: Prayer to Creatures [2-20-17]

Dialogue: Rich Man’s Prayer to Abraham (Luke 16) and the Invocation of Saints (vs. Lutheran Pastor Ken Howes) [5-3-17]

Dialogue on Prayer to the Saints and Hades / Sheol [12-19-17]

Prayers to Saints & for the Dead: Six Biblical Proofs [6-8-18]

4 Biblical Proofs for Prayers to Saints and for the Dead [National Catholic Register, 6-16-18]

Angelic Intercession is Totally Biblical [National Catholic Register, 7-1-18]

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Formal Human Forgiveness of Sins in the Bible [6-10-07]

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Confession and Absolution Are Biblical [National Catholic Register, 7-31-17]
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But as all these have been sanctioned by the authority of the Church, or, to speak more correctly, have been received by opinion and practice, every one of them is to be held as an interpretation of Scripture. And not only so, but whatever a council has determined against Scripture is to have the name of an interpretation. 

Individuals can just as easily declare that their view is the “biblical” one. Calvin does this all the time. I do it myself (most people who do any theology at all, do it), but the difference is that I submit my judgments to that of the Church, and where I differ from the Church, I submit my understanding to her.

Christ bids all drink of the cup which he holds forth in the Supper. The Council of Constance prohibited the giving of it to the people, and determined that the priest alone should drink. Though this is diametrically opposed to the institution of Christ (Mt. 26:26), they will have it to be regarded as his interpretation. 

There are straightforward biblical arguments for it.

Paul terms the prohibition of marriage a doctrine of devils (1 Tim. 4:1, 3); and the Spirit elsewhere declares that “marriage is honourable in all” (Heb. 13:4).

Paul also assumes and defends celibacy in those who want to fully devote themselves to the Lord.

Having afterwards interdicted their priests from marriage, they insist on this as a true and genuine interpretation of Scripture, though nothing can be imagined more alien to it. 

It’s plain as day in 1 Corinthians 7. Jesus also refers to “eunuchs” for the sake of the kingdom.

Should any one venture to open his lips in opposition, he will be judged a heretic, since the determination of the Church is without challenge, 

That is, the Church, in direct accordance with plain words of our Lord Jesus and St. Paul . . .

and it is unlawful to have any doubt as to the accuracy of her interpretation. 

Not if it is a tradition that has historical and biblical pedigree . . .

Why should I assail such effrontery? to point to it is to condemn it. Their dogma with regard to the power of approving Scripture I intentionally omit. For to subject the oracles of God in this way to the censure of men, and hold that they are sanctioned because they please men, is a blasphemy which deserves not to be mentioned. 

Scripture always has to be interpreted by men. The only question is who will do this, and how binding it will be.

Besides, I have already touched upon it (Book 1 chap. 7; 8 sec. 9). I will ask them one question, however. If the authority of Scripture is founded on the approbation of the Church, 

It is not. It is what it is, prior to the Church’s approval:Catholic Church: Superior to the Bible?: Does the Catholic Church Claim to be ‘Above’ the Bible and Its “Creator”? 

will they quote the decree of a council to that effect? I believe they cannot. 

Of course not, because it is not what we believe.

Why, then, did Arius allow himself to be vanquished at the Council of Nice by passages adduced from the Gospel of John? 

Because the Gospel of John is quite sufficient to refute Arianism.

According to these, he was at liberty to repudiate them, as they had not previously been approved by any general council. They allege an old catalogue, which they call the Canon, and say that it originated in a decision of the Church. But I again ask, In what council was that Canon published? 

The councils of Carthage in 393 and 397.

Here they must be dumb. 

Really?

Besides, I wish to know what they believe that Canon to be. 

The legitimate, genuine, inspired books of the Bible.

For I see that the ancients are little agreed with regard to it. 

All the more reason for an authoritative Church to acknowledge what the canon is and to end the discussion. Bingo!

If effect is to be given to what Jerome says (Præf. in Lib. Solom.), the Maccabees, Tobit, Ecclesiasticus, and the like, must take their place in the Apocrypha: but this they will not tolerate on any account.

St. Jerome submitted his judgment to that of the Church: just as every good Catholic does. Catholicism is not a “magisterium of scholars and Bible commentators” but of priests, bishops, councils, and popes.

[ . . . ]

CHAPTER 10

OF THE POWER OF MAKING LAWS. THE CRUELTY OF THE POPE AND HIS ADHERENTS, IN THIS RESPECT, IN TYRANNICALLY OPPRESSING AND DESTROYING SOULS.
*
21. An argument in favour of traditions founded on the decision of the Apostles and elders at Jerusalem. This decision explained.
*
It gives them no great help, in defending their tyranny, to pretend the example of the apostles. The apostles and elders of the primitive Church, according to them, sanctioned a decree without any authority from Christ, by which they commanded all the Gentiles to abstain from meat offered to idols, from things strangled, and from blood (Acts 15:20). 

Not according to Catholics, but according to the Bible.

If this was lawful for them, why should not their successors be allowed to imitate the example as often as occasion requires? 

Exactly! Why, indeed? Why should there be an example of a council in the early Church, in Scripture, if not as some sort of model for later Christianity? Is that not an eminently sensible, reasonable conclusion? That is the biblical model. Calvin’s model, however, is his casual assumption of his own authority — that he doesn’t in fact possess, and arbitrary decrees of doctrines and condemnations of existing Catholic traditions. If anything is unbiblical and contrary to previous Christian history, it is that, as opposed to Catholics daring to actually follow an explicit biblical example.

Would that they would always imitate them both in this and in other matters! 

The same applies to Calvin and all Protestants. If he wants to condemn Catholic instances of alleged or actual departure from apostolic and biblical and patristic precedent, then by the same token he ought to subject Protestantism to the same scrutiny and the same standard. But so often, of course, he does not do so. It’s all one-way, and winking at the glaring faults and false premises of his own general party.

For I am ready to prove, on valid grounds, that here nothing new has been instituted or decreed by the apostles. For when Peter declares in that council, that God is tempted if a yoke is laid on the necks of the disciples, he overthrows his own argument if he afterwards allows a yoke to be imposed on them. But it is imposed if the apostles, on their own authority, prohibit the Gentiles from touching meat offered to idols, things strangled, and blood. 

The Church has authority to make decrees, and to bind and loose. That came straight from our Lord Jesus Christ (Matthew 16:19, 18:18; John 20:23). Jesus even granted the Pharisees a continuing teaching authority (Matthew 23:2-3). But Protestants have to always maintain an unbiblical “loophole” by denying the infallibility of the Church and ecumenical councils and popes.

The difficulty still remains, that they seem nevertheless to prohibit them. 

What difficulty?

But this will easily be removed by attending more closely to the meaning of their decree. The first thing in order, and the chief thing in importance, is, that the Gentiles were to retain their liberty, which was not to be disturbed, and that they were not to be annoyed with the observances of the Law. As yet, the decree is all in our favour. The reservation which immediately follows is not a new law enacted by the apostles, but a divine and eternal command of God against the violation of charity, which does not detract one iota from that liberty. It only reminds the Gentiles how they are to accommodate themselves to their brother, and to not abuse their liberty for an occasion of offence. Let the second head, therefore, be, that the Gentiles are to use an innoxious liberty, giving no offence to the brethren. Still, however, they prescribe some certain thing—viz. they show and point out, as was expedient at the time, what those things are by which they may give offence to their brethren, that they may avoid them; but they add no novelty of their own to the eternal law of God, which forbids the offence of brethren.

In a sense it is new; in another it is nothing new; as is the case with all legitimate developments of doctrine and practice. How Calvin thinks any of this is somehow an argument against the Catholic Church, is a mystery. He surely doesn’t demonstrate such a glaring inconsistency here.

***

(originally July 6, 8-9, 2009 / 25 August 2009)

Photo credit: Historical mixed media figure of John Calvin produced by artist/historian George S. Stuart and photographed by Peter d’Aprix: from the George S. Stuart Gallery of Historical Figures archive [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license]

***

2018-12-14T16:30:14-04:00

The video under consideration was posted at You Tube on 3 August 2009.

Mitch / “ProfMTH” is about 46 years old and is an atheist and former Catholic. In his video, The Book of Job – Part One (at 0:57 – 1:03), Mitch says he was getting ready to graduate from high school in 1981 and at the same time “was considering entering religious life, to study for the priesthood.” In a comment under his August 2009 video, “The ‘Real’ Paul”, Mitch states, “I teach various law courses and courses on debate.”

As is usual with atheists, I have made five replies to his videos, and have not heard the slightest peep in reply back from him. Anti-theist-type atheists love to tear the Bible down and spread myths around about it. Very rarely, however, will they dialogue and interact with an informed Christian who takes the time to refute their contentions. It’s bad for “business” and the self-deluded triumphant anti-theist self-image, you see . . .

[Mitch’s words will be indented and in blue; all Bible passages: RSV]

* * * * *

In his summary of this video, Mitch writes:

Is the Paul portrayed in the Book of Acts the same as the Paul we encounter in the Pauline corpus? No. This video discusses one of the significant differences.

This is another classic example of a proposed “biblical contradiction” where there really is none, closely examined. To get a further picture of the nature of his argument, let’s look at what Mitch writes in comments in the ensuing discussion:

[Randy] “No doubt the real Paul had no scruples about telling somebody what they wanted to hear and no doubt this led to endless contradictions.”

That’s a very interesting take on all this, Randy, and quite plausible. Hmm. You’ve put a whole new wrinkle on this for me, which gives me something to think about for a while. . . .

If Acts is to be believed, Paul was willing to compromise or abandon about which he felt strongly in order to avoid problems.

The idea is that Paul had no scruples about bending the truth, according to his audience. Elsewhere in the comments, allusion was made to Paul’s statement, “I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (1 Cor 9:22). The implication was that this indicated Paul’s willingness to compromise even his own beliefs and bend as much as it took to convince any given audience (rather like many politicians do today: no names, of course).

But that is not what he meant at all. Rather, he was simply expressing practical wisdom: one argues in different ways according to one’s hearer. That is Debate 0101. It’s Persuasion 0101. It doesn’t entail to the slightest degree, dissembling or equivocation or false portrayal. I do this, myself, all the time, in my own apologetics. I utilize the premises and presuppositions of the person I am debating, in order to persuade them that they have gone astray at some point in the reasoning chain.

But of course, to one inclined to be hostile to anything Christian or biblical, this is the cynical interpretation that is made. Either Paul is dumb and contradicts himself, or the biblical writers (here, Luke) present unknowingly contradictory visions of Paul, or Paul is a liar who changes, chameleon-like, according to audience and setting, with little regard for consistency or truth or ethical principle. The actual biblical texts require none of these interpretations.

And:

[I]t’s your position that one can be both ignorant of X and know X. That, of course, is “Y” and “Not Y”, which is not possible. . . . That’s Paul in Romans 1. The Paul in Acts 17 does NOT talk about their having known and “exchanged” that knowledge. Rather, he speaks of their ignorance. Totally different — except in your mind. . . .

Your position is that one can be both ignorant of X and know X. If you don’t see that this is a contradiction, then you have a deeply adversarial relationship with your thinking cap. . . . Romans 1 says NOTHING about ignorance. NOTHING. Quite the opposite. “They are without excuse” 1:20; “they knew God” 1:21; “God made it evident to them” 1:19. For crying out loud, if you don’t believe your Scriptures, why bother calling yourself a believer in the first place?

This will be shown to be a false dilemma and ultimately a non sequitur. Mitch is barking up the wrong tree.

Now onto the video itself:

He cites the book Jesus, Interrupted, by Bart D. Ehrman. This is apparently where he received the inspiration (no pun intended) for the present critique. Atheist myths are, of course, endlessly recycled in books. The same old tired falsehoods are passed down, reformulated as the case may be. It’s not as if individual atheists (typically) sit down, read the Bible, and come up with yet another “biblical contradiction” that they themselves discovered.

Usually they are regurgitating arguments from books and online articles. At least Mitch is commendably transparent about naming his source, instead of acting like this was an original insight of his. The present argument comes from chapter three of Ehrman’s book. Mitch states (1:13 – 1:53):

Of course there are a number of differences between the Paul portrayed in Acts and the Paul we meet in his own writings. Perhaps the most striking difference is the substantially variant versions of Paul’s conversion to faith in Jesus. In Acts it’s a conversion attended by sound, light, and fury, while in the first chapter of Galatians, Paul describes his conversion in hushed terms. It’s an internal revelation. As Paul puts it, God “was pleased to reveal his Son in me.” [Galatians 1:15-16]

This is (to put it mildly) much ado about nothing. What is described as “perhaps the most striking difference” is in reality no contradiction at all. It is simply two descriptions of the same event, coming at it from a different angle. It’s classic atheist “pseudo-contradiction” anti-biblical polemics. Because there is some — any — difference of description, it is immediately proposed as yet another so-called “contradiction.” This won’t do.

It is self-evident that one can describe events (even momentous ones) in one’s own life in many different (non-contradictory) ways. In fact, I have experience with this very thing myself. I underwent a conversion from evangelical Protestantism to Catholicism in 1990, and it so happens that I have had the privilege to share about my change of heart and mind in public venues.

My story was published (with ten others) in a bestselling apologetics book, called Surprised by Truth. But that was just one version of it. I did a second, longer, more theologically technical version, that was published in two separate magazines. But it didn’t end there. I have also discussed my conversion on nationally syndicated radio on several occasions (at least four times). [see all the various accounts I have written or talked about on the radio]

These involved different emphases or aspects of my odyssey (conversion being a rather complex, multi-faceted intellectual / psychological / spiritual / emotional phenomenon in the first place). Using Ehrman’s and Mitch’s dubiously logical methodology, I’m sure one could come up with so-called striking differences” in my accounts (at least prima facie): perhaps “proving” that I was not, in fact, the author or speaker of one or more of them.

It’s just plain silly. If Mitch wants to assert actual logical contradiction then let him literally demonstrate this, side-by-side, rather than asserting alleged faux “contradictions.” He can’t do it in terms of Paul’s conversion accounts, and he fails also (in the same manner) in his main argument in the video, to be considered below.

A further absurdity of the “multiple conversion” argument as some disproof of biblical inspiration is that Paul himself repeats the “dramatic” account of the conversion in his own words, two times, later in the book of Acts (22:6-16 and 26:9-21), whereas earlier (9:1-19), it was given as a narrative account from someone else (presumably Luke). So it is not the case that narrator Luke gives one picture and “first person Paul” another in the epistles. Paul also presents the initial “Acts version” in his own words, twice in that same book.

But that will cause no pause from atheists like Mitch and Ehrman. They (and/or other atheists) will simply assert that it isn’t really Paul speaking in Acts 22 and 26, but rather a “fictional Paul” made up by Luke or later interpolations, to match the earlier account (just as they habitually do with the words of Jesus Himself).

By this “method,” one can arbitrarily explain away virtually anything and everything in the Bible. It is not even taken at face value and is seen from the outset as a dishonest fabrication and patchwork of cynically constructed mythology. It’s a wax nose, to be bent and deformed at the will of the atheist: molded (not surprisingly) into his own designs every time.

That’s not how far more objective Bible scholars or ancient near east historians or archaeologists approach the Bible (quite the contrary), but it is how polemical atheist “apologists” do, because they have an ax to grind, and facts are too often irrelevant and scorned if they interfere with the agenda.

Mitch (following Ehrman) then attempts to demonstrate an alleged contradiction between Romans 1 and Paul’s sermon on Mars Hill at Athens (Acts 17:16-31), particularly 17:30 (RSV):

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all men everywhere to repent,

Mitch opines (3:15 – 4:18):

This is a key verse. According to Paul, the pagans have worshiped pagan gods out of ignorance. They simply didn’t know any better. God has overlooked all that and given them a chance now to face the truth and to come to believe in him through Christ, who has been raised from the dead. What makes this point of view so interesting is that Paul himself speaks about pagan religions in one of his letters, and makes it ever so plain that he does not at all think that pagans worship idols out of ignorance or that God has overlooked their actions in hopes that they will repent. In Romans 1:18-32 Paul indicates quite the contrary: that the wrath of God is poured out upon pagans because they willfully and consciously rejected the knowledge of God that was innate within them.

After recounting the various repercussions of unbelief that Paul elucidates in Romans 1, Mitch concludes (5:18 – 5:57):

And so we have two contrasting portrayals of Paul’s view of the pagans and their worship of idols. Do they worship idols out of ignorance? The Paul of Acts says yes. Paul in his own writings says no. Does God overlook what they’ve done? Acts says yes! Paul says no. It appears that the Paul of Acts is not the same as the real Paul: at least not when it comes to this very fundamental issue of divine reaction to pagan idolatry.

The answer to this false dilemma and seemingly strong argument is to examine context. Contextual consideration is a fundamental aspect of any claim of contradiction, and of comparison of texts, since context has a lot to do with the meaning of what is being expressed in the first place.

Mitch’s fundamental error is one of category and situational context. It’s true that Paul was trying to evangelize the pagan Athenians, and therefore, took a more congenial, conciliatory tone in order to do that. I vehemently reject the cynical and unfair notion, however, that doing so necessarily or inherently entails dissembling, equivocation, dishonesty, unscrupulous manipulation, or anything of the sort.

It is a matter of the target audience and how one tries to convince them. This is the ancient art of rhetoric, that Paul was well acquainted with (since he shows much evidence of a profound familiarity with philosophy). It’s little more than what Plato and Socrates did, but with a Christian bent added onto it.

Mitch makes out that this is Paul’s opinion of all pagans, just as Romans 1 is also supposedly his view of all pagans (so that they would then plainly contradict). But he is wrong on both counts. Paul was talking to one particular group in Athens. He commended their religiosity (Acts 17:22). That doesn’t entail any self-contradiction. Jesus did the same thing with, e.g., the pagan Roman centurion (Luke 7:2-10), about whom he said “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith”. He later talked about “ignorance” precisely because of what it was (“the unknown god”) that they were worshiping:

For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, `To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.

It was because of this “unknown” aspect of their religion that Paul referred to “the times of ignorance” (17:30). Paul indeed does generalize at the end of his address, from the particular to a general principle (God doesn’t condemn folks who simply don’t know) but basically he understands his target audience and how to effectively persuade them of Christianity.

In any event, nothing in the text suggests that Paul is referring to “all pagans” or anything of the sort. If anything, he might be interpreted as making a reference to “all ignorance” but that is not the same as “all pagans being ignorant and therefore excusable.” The issue is far more complex than that.

But Mitch arrives at all kinds of sweeping conclusions that don’t follow, in order to present a mythical “divided Paul.” Everywhere he speaks in broad terms:

the pagans have worshiped pagan gods out of ignorance. . . . Paul himself speaks about pagan religions . . . he does not at all think that pagans worship idols out of ignorance . . . the wrath of God is poured out upon pagans . . . Paul’s view of the pagans and their worship of idols. . . . pagan idolatry.

It’s all sweeping terminology: no nuance, no acknowledgment of complexity or the multi-faceted nature of pagan religion and idolatry, or relative culpability based on sincere knowledge. The biblical data herein considered is complex but at the same time self-consistent.

Again, Paul was not talking about all pagans in his address to the Athenians. So he says, e.g., “Men of Athens . . . you are very religious” (17:22) and refers to “objects of your worship” (17:23) and “what therefore you worship” (17:23). He goes on to build his argument based on their premises: a technique every good debater is familiar with (and one I have habitually used myself in thirty years of apologetics). If Mitch teaches debate technique, he certainly understands this aspect of it. Yet he completely overlooks it in Paul’s case. Strong bias has a way of clouding logic.

Now, the claim is that the “Paul of Romans 1” is teaching something radically different and in contradiction to Acts 17 and Mars Hill. Mitch is wrong, first of all, in assuming that Paul is talking about absolutely every pagan in Romans 1, or even generalizing to paganism as a class or belief-system. This is simply not the case. What Paul has in mind is not paganism per se, but, as he says, “all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth” (Romans 1:18). He is generalizing to mankind as a whole. Hence, he writes in 2:1-3:

Therefore you have no excuse, O man, whoever you are, when you judge another; for in passing judgment upon him you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. [2] We know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who do such things. [3] Do you suppose, O man, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God?

There is nothing exclusive to pagan religion in any of this. Romans 2 (here we are back to basic contextual considerations) is in fact the key to demonstrate that Paul’s doctrine, whether in Acts or Romans or anywhere else, is perfectly harmonious and self-consistent. He reiterates the consequences of sin: not to pagans only, but all who sin: whether Christian, Jew, or pagan, Greek, or any category of men whatever. In fact, he says that God’s “wrath and fury” (as well as “glory and honor and peace” will be directed towards “the Jew first“:

Romans 2:6-11 For he will render to every man according to his works: [7] to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; [8] but for those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. [9] There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, [10] but glory and honor and peace for every one who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. [11] For God shows no partiality. (cf. 3:5-31)

Then follows the crucial passage, and arguably the “clincher” of the argument over against Ehrman and Mitch:

Romans 2:13-16 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. [14] When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. [15] They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them [16] on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

Note what Paul has done here. He has based salvation not on being a Jew or even a Christian, but on a grace-based following of the commandments of God. Gentiles (including pagans) can do this as well as Jews (2:14) because the law is “written on their hearts” and they have a God-given “conscience” (2:15). Therefore, they are not damned or condemned to a person simply because they are pagans, but are, rather (or can be) “perhaps excuse[d]” on the Day of Judgment.

Every man’s particular relation to God is his own. He or she is not judged based on what category they are in (i.e., as men habitually judge), but based on what they do and believe, according to what they know. And there are legitimate “excuses”. God determines those, not men.

Therefore, since Paul has in mind in Romans, chapters 1-3 not only pagans, but all men who are sinful and wicked and who suppress truth, and presupposes that there are also men who do not do so: a category that includes pagans as well (with all men judge by the same standard), Mitch’s generalizations fall flat. He has distorted Paul’s meaning in Romans and imagined a contradiction where there is none. The theology is identical.

There are many other indications of this as well. Paul’s letters to the Corinthians are especially relevant and informative, because they are the closest in nature to his speech in Athens: Corinth also being a Greek city. In his first epistle to the Corinthians, he echoed the Acts theme of “ignorance regarding idolatry”:

1 Corinthians 8:4-7, 10-12 Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” [cf. 1 Cor 10:19-21] [5] For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth — as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords” — [6] yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. [7] However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through being hitherto accustomed to idols, eat food as really offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.. . . [10] For if any one sees you, a man of knowledge, at table in an idol’s temple, might he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? [11] And so by your knowledge this weak man is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. [12] Thus, sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.

“Two” Pauls? Nope; just one. Christianity and Paul (notwithstanding this video) remain what they always have been. The pagans are ignorant about the idols they worship precisely because they have no real existence (or are, rather impersonating demons and not what they are mistakenly thought to be). Paul presupposes that the pagans, therefore, lack knowledge about the true reality of the situation: they worship mere “so-called gods” but not real entities. Therefore, he is making the same argument from ignorance as the one he made on Mars Hill. And this is in his “own letter” (a factor that Mitch seems to think is a big deal).

Paul reiterates the same thing: unwitting ignorance, in 1 Corinthians 12:2: “You know that when you were heathen, you were led astray to dumb idols, however you may have been moved.” In his letter to the Ephesians (2:11-13), he implies again that many pagans are more ignorant than they are willfully opposed to truth:

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands — [12] remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. [13] But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ.

Unwitting ignorance is a common biblical theme. St. Peter, addressing the Jews in the temple, largely excused even the killing of Jesus in the same fashion: “now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers” (Acts 3:17; cf. Jesus on the cross: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” — Lk 23:34). In one of his own epistles, Peter likewise stated: “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,” (1 Pet 1:14). And again: “For it is God’s will that by doing right you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men” (1 Pet 2:15). He casually mentions “the ignorant and unstable” (2 Pet 3:16).

But relentless manifested ignorance is something that should give one pause, since it can indeed lead to willful rejection of God and disobedience, as Peter argues in 2 Peter 2:10-22 (including Christians who fall away, in the last three verses). Peter refers to “reviling in matters of which they are ignorant” (2:12) and “waterless springs and mists driven by a storm” (2:17) and “men who have barely escaped from those who live in error” (2:18) and “slaves of corruption” (2:19).

Paul applied this state of mind or lack of knowledge to the Jews who rejected Christianity: “being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness” (Rom 10:3). Paul even applied it to himself, referring to his earlier persecution of Christians: “I formerly blasphemed and persecuted and insulted him; but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief,” (1 Tim 1:13). To be fair, Paul (like Peter above) does also tie in ignorance with culpable unbelief, in the following two passages:

Ephesians 4:17-19 Now this I affirm and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds; [18] they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart; [19] they have become callous and have given themselves up to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of uncleanness. (cf. 2 Tim 3:1-9)

I would contend, however, that these passages are merely additional instances of the sort of statement that Paul makes in Romans 1: not intended in the first place to be absolute or universal in application. The entirety of a person’s thought must be taken into consideration before we pontificate on the meaning of one instance of it. There are indeed people who have rebelled against God, and are, therefore, hardened and given over to self-conscious wickedness. They are referred to here.

But there are others who are simply ignorant. Since Paul (like Peter) refers to both classes, we know that he acknowledges both of them, and so we can’t sensibly take the view that Mitch does: as if Paul universally blames each and every pagan as culpably wicked and worthy of hell, and that he sees no other category where pagans (or today’s atheists, by extension) are concerned.

Paul says (again writing to highly pagan-influenced Greeks) that pagans did not “know” God or “know the truth” (in other words, they were ignorant):

1 Corinthians 1:20-22 Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? [21] For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. [22] For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,(cf. 1 Cor 15:34: “. . . For some have no knowledge of God. . . .”)

Likewise, elsewhere:

Galatians 4:3-9 So with us; when we were children, we were slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe. [4] But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, [5] to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. [6] And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” [7] So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir. [8] Formerly, when you did not know God, you were in bondage to beings that by nature are no gods; [9] but now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits, whose slaves you want to be once more?

1 Thessalonians 4:5 not in the passion of lust like heathen who do not know God; (cf. James 4:17)

1 Timothy 2:4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (cf. 4:3)

2 Timothy 2:25 correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth, (cf. Heb 10:26)

Men do not specifically know about the gospel of Jesus Christ; God uses Paul and others to spread this good news:

2 Corinthians 2:14 But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumph, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. (cf. 2 Pet 1:16)

What formerly was mysterious has now been made known:

Ephesians 1:9 For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ (cf. 1:17-18)

Ephesians 3:3-6 how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. [4] When you read this you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, [5] which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; [6] that is, how the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. (cf. 2 Pet 1:3)

Lastly, it should be noted that Jesus and Paul and John all rebuke those who falsely claim to “know” God, but who don’t prove it by their deeds (thus again illustrating that the real “line is not between Christian/Jew and pagan, but between the obedient and disobedient of all classes):

Matthew 7:21 “Not every one who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” (cf. 25:41-46)

Luke 6:46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?”

Titus 1:15-16 To the pure all things are pure, but to the corrupt and unbelieving nothing is pure; their very minds and consciences are corrupted. [16] They profess to know God, but they deny him by their deeds; they are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good deed.

1 John 2:3-4 And by this we may be sure that we know him, if we keep his commandments. [4] He who says “I know him” but disobeys his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him;

1 John 3:24 All who keep his commandments abide in him, and he in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit which he has given us.

1 John 4:8 He who does not love does not know God; for God is love.

1 John 5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.

We observe, then, that the Ehrman / Mitch thesis of a schizophrenic or chameleon-like or unscrupulous Apostle Paul (or an incoherent Bible arbitrarily presenting one or more of these pseudo-“Pauls”) vanishes upon scriptural (and logical) scrutiny. Rule number one in all dialogue and debate is to know and understand one’s opponent’s views.

Mitch and Ehrman fail miserably in that sense, and so it is seen that they are warring against straw men: a thing that impresses no serious thinker (let alone a logician as Mitch feels himself to be). With all due respect, they haven’t even gotten to first base in establishing these present claims.

Sad to say, these tactics and shortcomings are all-too-common in atheist contra-Catholic polemics (as I know full well, firsthand, from many debates). Nothing personal against Mitch: I’m merely critiquing his rather weak position regarding Paul, with all its hostile and fallacious premises lying just underneath the surface.

***

(originally 7-5-10)

Photo credit: St. Paul (c. 1608-1614) by El Greco, (1541-1614) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

***

2018-12-04T16:59:32-04:00

This took place on the Articuli Fidei blog, in a lengthy thread. Chris Smith’s words will be in blue. His blog is called mild-mannered musings [it appears to no longer be active]. Words of two other participants will be in green and purple.

* * * * *

Hi [former Catholic, now agnostic],

If God wants me to believe, I need a reason beyond reason, because reason stinks.

Then I would highly recommend reading folks like Pascal, Kierkegaard, or Muggeridge (insofar as you want to still read “thinkers”), as well as the spiritual masters (St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Therese et al), who approach the faith from a devotional and practical and mystical, rather than intellectual slant (insofar as you retain any curiosity at all in these matters).

Let me just add, too (as a general statement), that any apologist who thinks reason is the sum total of the Catholic faith, or even anywhere near its most important aspect, has no business being an apologist at all, as he is supremely ignorant of what Christianity (of any stripe) is. It is that fallacy that has led to the downfall of some who have tried their hand at apologetics: excessive rationalism, which is extreme and a falsehood.

Apologists deal with the issue of reason and faith, which is an important one. That’s what we do. But just because it is our area or field, it doesn’t follow that we are or should be reducing the faith to those things. Oftentimes, this is a caricature or stereotype imposed upon apologists, and sometimes a small number of nitwits on the Internet, claiming to do apologetics, unfortunately exhibit it.

Or we get folks caricaturing the enterprise of apologetics, when in fact, usually the critics who say these things have themselves been far more prone to such errors than someone like me or the great majority of my apologist colleagues (online and offline alike) ever have been. So it is often a case of projection.

In my own case (speaking of the place of reason in faith), I converted to both evangelicalism (1977) and Catholicism (1990) primarily because of the impulse of moral issues, that were highly intuitive and subjective and felt in the heart and spirit, and not solely “rationalistic” or “logical” or even primarily so.

Later I defended those things from more objective reason, assuredly, but they themselves at the time they moved my will and spirit, were more intuitive or mystical or experiential in nature.

There is a balance here, and those who perhaps didn’t realize that, and got into apologetics anyway, were placing themselves in spiritual danger, I submit. I don’t say this is the whole cause of later confusion, but definitely could conceivably be an important factor, and something to ponder.

Theological skepticism is a dead-end just as what we might call “metaphysical skepticism” is. It is the glory of Christianity that it does provide answers. The original Protestants all thought this and were passionate advocates of their own systems.
But because of ongoing sectarianism and increasing theological relativism within Protestantism, that notion has increasingly gone out the window, and now it is quite fashionable to speak the same skeptical, rationalistic language about theology as atheists do about God.

Catholicism and Orthodoxy continue in the same way that all Christians used to: offering answers that can be backed up by reason, experience, and the heart.

It is excessive rationalism that leads to a lack of faith, as we see in historic theological liberals, or a guy like the intellectually brilliant historian Joseph Dollinger in 1870, when he rejected papal infallibility and wound up excommunicated. He couldn’t grasp it because he wasn’t viewing it with the eye of faith and reason. He looked with reason alone: i.e., a post-Enlightenment over-rationalism.

But that is never an acceptable option for a Christian. We all must exercise faith, and that can never be proven with an airtight certainty. At best we can try to show that our faith is not inconsistent with reason and fact.

Then questions of plausibility and comparative systems come into play and stuff like Cardinal Newman’s “Illative Sense” or the positivist-smashing philosophical speculations of Michael Polanyi, or the sorts of warrant for belief that Reformed philosopher Alvin Plantinga discusses with great insight today.

If someone wants to be on the cutting edge of the legitimate relationship of faith and reason, I highly recommend reading folks like these. It will at least be challenging and interesting even if not persuasive in every case.

* * *
It is difficult to have a conversation with a guy who doesn’t think he can possibly be convinced otherwise. That goes far beyond my position as a Catholic, where I say that I could quite conceivably be persuaded that another position is true. Not likely at all, and I have faith that this won’t happen, but as a theoretical possibility, it is entirely possible, just as my change from evangelical Protestant to Catholic happened (quite unexpectedly and unpredictably).
* * *
Of course, anyone familiar with that book, knows that “Job’s comforters” (along with Job, too, to a lesser extent) were roundly rebuked by God at the end of the book, basically for being presumptuous loudmouths. In other words, there was a truth to be ascertained.

It wasn’t implying at all that the very pursuit of truth or answers was folly (quite the opposite!), and as is currently fashionable among semi-liberal Protestants these days. Hence God said to Job’s long-winded advisors:

Job 42:7-8 (RSV) After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eli’phaz the Te’manite: “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. [8] Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.”

* * *
Enlightenment over-rationalism . . . is never an acceptable option for a Christian. We all must exercise faith, and that can never be proven with an airtight certainty.
Is that really the problem for most doubters?

It can be; I suspect it often is, but every case is different, and I don’t know the percentages. I was referring specifically to Joseph Dollinger and that sort of thought, that has close ties to a sort of post-“Enlightenment” hyper-rationalism and positivism (Hans Kung exhibits it in our time). It is the lack of faith which is the problem, because now the equation is out of balance. Christianity is not merely a philosophy (hence subject to all the epistemological requirements of same); it is a religion.

That they expect the faith to be “proven with an airtight certainty?”

With Dollinger that was part of the problem, in terms of historical propositions. He didn’t look at the question of infallibility with the eyes of faith. He was in danger of reducing Catholicism to mere historiography at that particular point of his thought. This is what Cardinal Newman severely critiqued.

It was certainly never the problem for me. I am not so foolish as to expect such a thing.

Good for you. But (accepting this) you could still use rationalism in an excessive way in order to (consciously or not) cause some folks to lose faith, as you seem to have brought about to some extent in critiquing Newman’s conception of development.

I don’t contend that it was an insincere endeavor for you anymore than I would question David Waltz’s current struggles. You believe these things, no doubt (that’s not at issue), but I think you are mistaken.

On the other hand, I doubt that the contra-Newman arguments are by any means irrefutable. But in any event, I commend you for at least grappling with Newman and his ideas. So many folks want to bash him, while offering no alternative. Looks like (from glancing at your blog) you have done much more than that, and I truly respect that effort (as one whose favorite theological topic is development).

My general impression is that the accusation of “positivism” (i.e. the expectation of airtight proof before belief is warranted) is usually a strawman argument that mischaracterizes the real sources of most doubters’ doubts.

That could be, sure. In these matters, there is much subjective speculation. Most of my stated opinions in this thread are generalizations to some extent, by the nature of the case. To the extent that a person expects answers immediately amenable to their own reasoning and satisfaction, to all (or major, or many) theological issues, this factor could quite possibly be an important one.

If one doubts papal infallibility (as David has), then he has likely thought: “it fails because of historical counter-examples a, b, c, and d.” The pros and cons of each case could be argued, sticking mostly to historiography (that would be my methodology if it came to that), but the question must be asked, “why is it that one has placed their private judgment and personal doubts above the judgment of the Church in the first place?” That is a question of faith and of the rule of faith.

One has now assumed a Protestant stance of judging the Church (indistinguishable from Luther), rather than being judged by her, and giving assent, without necessarily having every jot and tittle of Catholic doctrine perfectly understood and tied in a neat little package with a shiny purple bow.

Doubters doubt because there are problems with faith claims, not because those faith claims cannot be proven.

The problems can also possibly reside in the doubter, due to false premises, rather than in the alleged thing in the faith that is supposedly worthy of being doubted or disbelieved.

Assume for the sake of argument that a thing is true; yet someone doubts it (say, a spherical earth). Obviously, in that case, the problem is in the doubter. not the thing doubted. That could be the case here as well. Since I believe in faith, with reason, that Catholicism is true, and that Newman’s theory of development is true, obviously, I think that is the case presently, and I am quite happy and willing to show why I think that.

This (problems in the doubter’s thinking) is what I have always found in atheists, for example (many of whom I have debated). Inevitably, their objection to something in Christianity or the Bible comes from misunderstanding it or from false premises. That is what caused the problem. They were fighting a straw man themselves. If I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen it a hundred times.

This mentality manifests itself, for example, in atheists or other skeptics who amuse and occupy themselves by finding scores of alleged biblical contradictions. In most cases, there is a glaring fallacy in play. Once identified, the whole thing comes collapsing down. I’ve done it many times myself (i.e., have identified the false premise in play, and provided the counter-argument from a deeper examination of the Bible). Atheist exegesis is often as dumb and clueless as the most wooden fundamentalism is. But I can solve one “problem” and they will simply come up with another one. It’s almost a game to them. It’s almost always the case.

That is because the problem is in the person’s excessive skepticism from the outset, which in turn came from somewhere else. Until that is dealt with, solving every biblical “contradiction” in the world won’t cause them to move one inch from their position.

At best we can try to show that our faith is not inconsistent with reason and fact.

And when you fail, then what?

You have to take the step of examining supposed instances of such failures. Someone has to make that judgment, and that judgment can be argued against by the next person, who remains a faithful Catholic. The person who is judging is certainly not infallible. There is no reason to think he is, whereas Catholicism has a notion of infallibility attached to it which is a supernatural gift, as seen in the Bible, that we believe is inspired on yet other grounds, and by faith.

* * *
The claim that “one of the leading factors that cause people to fall away is the Church’s moral teachings and/or struggling with sin” not only has no empirical foundation that I know of, but also rather strikes me as a ploy designed to trivialize other people’s religious decisions.

Hardly so, given the fact that there are many prominent dissidents right within the Catholic Church, who make it clear that they do not accept all of the Church’s teachings, and pick and choose. And by the strangest coincidence, many of the doctrines they dissent on are moral ones (particularly sexual).

This being the case, it could certainly be a fact that many people leave for moral reasons. The most common case is probably that of the “irregular” marriage situation. Folks find Catholic indissolubility and opposition to remarriage too difficult, so they split.

Same thing could hold for contraception, or pro-choice (witness the Kennedys, Pelosi and all pro-abortion Democratic and Republican politicians).

This happens in all (more traditional) denominations, in fact. C. S. Lewis wasn’t allowed to get married by his local Anglican vicar because his fiance (Joy Davidman) had been divorced. This was as recently as 1960. So he found another clergyman to do it (though he didn’t leave Anglicanism).

I work with people (as a staffer at the Coming Home Network) who want to become Catholics, but don’t because a spouse doesn’t agree. And often an irregular marriage is the problem. So even when a person is convinced of Catholicism, they won’t move into it because of moral issues in their marriage that are unresolved. The spouse doesn’t want do go through an annulment, or abstain during same, or to not contracept if they go Catholic, etc. Very common . . .

Far from being a “ploy,” this is rather common and almost self-evidently true. That said, I have no idea what was the cause in David’s case, nor is it any of my business. That may be partly it, but probably not. I think he can be trusted for the report of what the major reasons were for his change of mind.

I’m simply disagreeing with your sweeping disavowal of what Nick observed. I think what he said is quite true, and demonstrably so in lots of actual cases.

I appreciate your thoughtful comments. You are correct that many people leave their faiths because of disagreements with those faiths’ moral beliefs. In fact, that’s more or less what I argued in my response to Nick: that if people apostasize and then engage in activities the faith would call “sin”, it’s typically because the apostates no longer believe in the faith’s moral standards and thus no longer consider these activities to be sinful. I did not take that to be Nick’s meaning, however. He seemed to be saying that people leave because they want to sin. That is, they still believe in the moral standards of the faith, but just don’t care enough or aren’t strong enough to abide by them. If that’s not what Nick meant, then I apologize to him for the misinterpretation. It is unfortunately a pretty common accusation, and one to which I am emotionally attuned, so I may be inclined to see it where it is not really present.

* * *
Speaking of false premises, Chris has stated the following on his blog:

Ultimately, the claim that the Bible is inerrant is simply indefensible. The errors and contradictions in the biblical text are too numerous to count. The Bible itself recognizes the existence of such errors. It makes no claim of inerrancy for itself. And even if it did, the argument for inerrancy would be circular at best. I think it’s clearly time to leave this particular fundamental” behind.

Obviously, a person who thinks that about the Bible, which all traditional Christians believe is an inspired document, will believe all the more so that Catholic doctrine has “contradictions . . . too numerous to count” since we claim for Catholic doctrine mere infallibility: a gift lesser than inspiration.

So there is one of the hostile presuppositions that can cause problems, that I referred to above. These effect one’s reasoning. They are the backdrop; the context of reasoning and how we approach things coming in.

Not only does Chris question biblical inspiration, but also the New Testament canon:

[W]e evangelical types have been trained all our lives to believe that biblical books are better than all others. So we’re not exactly the most unbiased judges.

. . . There’s no way that the book of Revelation, a fairly run-of-the-mill apocalyptic pseudepigraphon, is more valuable than the Didache. Nor can I see the value in having forged and chauvinistic epistles like 1 and 2 Timothy or 2 Peter rather than a document whose authorship is known and respected like 1 Clement.

In response to your two most recent comments, yes, I am the epitome of the slippery slope (as Rory suggested in a previous comment). Although I was raised Pentecostal, I presently consider myself a Christian pluralist.

* * *
As to your question, “why is it that one has placed their private judgment and personal doubts above the judgment of the Church in the first place,” I’d ask you precisely the opposite question. Why is it that you trust the judgment of the Church in the first place?

It is a matter of faith supported by reason. Faith is a supernatural thing. It can’t be reduced to logic and reason. It transcends those things. I became a Catholic and thus submitted myself to accept all that the Church teaches, through faith: but a faith exercised because I saw a great deal of cumulative evidence that supports this faith: particularly of he kind that is typified by Newman’s theory of development, and an overall interpretive framework for the Bible that made eminent sense and was superior to alternatives.

Is it not because you have “judged” it to be trustworthy? Does not a measure of private judgment necessarily precede the affirmation of infallibility? If so, then isn’t it only natural that this initial judgment should remain open to re-evaluation?

The answer is yes, but that is not all it is. It’s an accumulation of all sorts of evidences and factors: some I suspect, perhaps not even on a conscious level. We’re back to the same dynamic of faith and reason and how they are related to each other. We g back to the teaching of Jesus; particularly His setting up of His Church with Peter as leader; apostolic succession, patristic teaching, the vicious internal logical problems of all forms of Protestantism, and many other factors.

This question of “using private judgment to reject private judgment” is a frequent argument of contra-Catholic polemics, and I have replied to it several times.

I’d suggest that if you really break it down, private judgment (and the other faculties of the person, whether inborn or acquired) is all we’ve got. We can lament its limitations and untrustworthiness, but there is simply no alternative. Belief in infallibility requires the exercise of private judgment just as much as rationalism does.

But it’s not “all we’ve got.” This is precisely the main problem as I see it. You have entirely neglected supernatural faith: on which alone Christianity ultimately rests. God draws us; we don’t figure everything out on our own, with our supposedly independent reason. If that were the cause of salvation and discipleship, then Pelagianism is orthodoxy. But all three major branches of Christianity have roundly rejected that.

You completely overlook faith because that is your presupposition coming into the discussion (the other major point I have been making in the last several posts). You’re making my argument for me, when I go to your site and see what you believe. On the question of faith (or lack thereof), for example, you write:

I’d like to suggest that this whole argument is a category confusion. There can be no ranking of Scripture above reason, experience, and feeling because the exercise of these three faculties is logically prior to the acceptance and comprehension of Scripture. We accept Scripture as authoritative because we have had the experience of being told that it is authoritative, and because we have reflected on this and felt or concluded that it is true. We comprehend Scripture only when the experience of reading it gives rise to feeling and reflection on that experience. The same goes for other authorities, whether they be Tradition, the Pope, or the Hare Krishna: their contents can only be accepted by means of the exercise of the three basic faculties through which the world is known: experience, reason, and feeling.

In other words, experience, reason, and feeling are in a category completely their own: a category that logically precedes the other authorities that are typically proposed. So the argument that Scripture can somehow be ranked above reason or experience can only lead to absurdity. A building cannot destroy its own foundation without destroying itself. The building can be viable only to the extent that its foundation is viable.

Faith is never mentioned once. You have no place for it. It is excluded by the supposedly comprehensive categories that you construct. This is hyper-rationalism: an absolutely classic, textbook case.

And this is what I have been contending: this lack of faith and belief that there even is such a thing (by appearances, anyway) leads to things like rejecting biblical inspiration, and the canon, and papal or conciliar infallibility. You’ve made reason your god, in effect. Without faith, no one will believe those things, because, as the Apostle Paul says, God’s wisdom is foolishness to men, and it is only spiritually discerned.

One can support the tenets of faith by reason (I do that all the time, as an apologist), but it is ultimately a matter of faith in what one thinks is true and plausible, for a variety of reasons.

Thanks again for the cordial and eminently reasonable discussion.

Thanks for your kind words and the same back atcha!

* * *
The abundance of heterodox notions on your blog continue to appear. I was wondering if you also denied the fall: without which the entire Christian scheme of salvation and redemption makes little sense. Sure enough, you have done so:

The reason that the narrative of the Fall has been so popular throughout Jewish and Christian history is precisely that it captures in mythic form our suspicions about the state of the world. So rather than ejecting the narrative altogether, I think it’s useful to provide a liberal reading of it. The Fall may not be historical, but it is nevertheless a powerful metaphor.

I think the advantage of the myth of fallen humanity, even if not literally true, is that it expresses the hope that human beings are capable of ideal behavior. If you believe that there is a fundamental capacity for goodness at the core of all of us, then the failure to realize our potential can be conceived of as a “fall” of sorts. But it’s a fall from an ideal standard rather than from one that has ever really been actualized.

What’s next: the Trinity; the deity of Christ; the incarnation, resurrection, ascension? With no fall, sin as we know it and redemption are fundamentally changed, and Christianity becomes scarcely distinct from, say, Buddhism. If you are right, Brit Hume wouldn’t have caught one-hundredth of the flak he has been getting. :-)

Sure enough, orthodox Christology has been ditched, too, in Chris’s religious “pluralism”:

These apparent problems cease to be problematic when we abandon the conservative evangelical perspective in favor of a more liberal one. I am not opposed to Enns’ hypothesis that Scripture incarnates a true, divine message but does so messily. Nor am I opposed to the implication that Jesus incarnated a divine reality but did so messily. Quite to the contrary, these are propositions I enthusiastically embrace. When the traditional “marks” of Christ’s and Scripture’s divinity are removed (as Enns has done), they begin to look less extraordinary. We can begin to imagine that perhaps other texts also mediate a divine message, albeit in a similarly messy way. We can begin to imagine that perhaps other people can also incarnate a divine reality, albeit in a similarly messy way. Christ and Scripture start to look less like unique and unreplicable examples of incarnation, and more like exemplary instances thereof. When they are so conceived, the way is open for us to affirm the universality of divine revelation and to find comparable instances of incarnation in many different times and cultures throughout history, including our own. The way is open for us to affirm the integrity of non-Christian religious experience rather than a priori repudiating it, and to find the divine perspective in the sum of all human perspectives rather than in a single, narrow, sectarian one. In short, the best way to resolve Enns’ dilemma is to embrace a pluralist worldview.

So it looks at this point as if just about anything is up for grabs in Christianity. You have gutted it at its heart if you go after Jesus’ divinity and the fall of man and biblical inspiration. Without a common standard or ground at some prior point in the discussion at the level of premise, fruitful discussion becomes impossible. If indeed, your discussions with David have been key in his new agnosticism as to the truth of Catholicism (as I have seen some indications of), I think he has to seriously ponder the sorts of presuppositions you were operating from and how that affected your reasoning and conclusions.

I’m not advocating the genetic fallacy: that what you say is untrue simply because you said it and because of these manifold heresies you espouse. I’m saying that the grounds for your contentions are questionable on many fundamental levels, and that if someone has accepted your conclusions, then by the nature of the case, chances are that they have uncritically taken in some of your false presuppositions as well (judged by basic Nicene Christian standards).

I don’t exclude the possibility that faith could be given supernaturally.

Glad to hear it. But you certainly made no indication of that whatever in your article I cited, and it belonged in the overall equation. To exclude it was very telling indeed.

But presumably you would agree that some kind of rational activity is involved in recognizing and/or accepting that faith, and in deciding what is its content?

I’ve never denied that. I’m an apologist, for Pete’s sake: why would I want to deny the importance of rational activity in theological matters? That would be ridiculous. What I denied was 1) this reasoning capacity as the initiator of faith and belief; over against Pelagianism, and 2)the exclusion of supernatural faith as an extremely important supra-rational factor in all (true) theological belief.

My concern was the de-emphasis of faith and the excessive emphasis on reason, in the hyper-rationalistic sense. Reason has to be put in its proper place. It’s because it is placed too high in the scheme of things, that folks can sometimes become disenchanted with apologetics: precisely because they didn’t keep the proper balance of reason, in league with other factors like experience, intuition, mysticism, faith, conscience, etc.

And presumably you would agree that supernatural faith is not given in such a straightforward and self-explanatory way that it is easily recognized as such, do you?

Supernatural faith, by definition, is a gift of God. Whoever receives it usually does not understand every jot and tittle of its rationale and justification. It is not the equivalent of an airtight conclusion drawn from a syllogism or other straightforward logical processes. Later on, a person may build up an intellectual apparatus by which they can defend the belief that they initially received by this faith, but to say that faith comes as a result of our profound reasoning efforts, is putting the cart before the horse and a fundamentally flawed analysis of the dynamics involved.

And surely you don’t deny that nearly every Christian sect would claim precisely the sort of faith-infusion you claim, right?

As I stated: all major branches of Christianity reject Pelagianism. It is only cults like Jehovah’s Witnesses (itself shot-through with a sort of naive and curiously inconsistent hyper-rationalism) that teach something akin to it.

So in terms of practical decision-making, we’re still only left with our own resources.

I think we can use reason to defend our own positions, yes. That is why I am an apologist. I don’t think it is all there is, or nearly the most important consideration.

Those resources may include only the things we were born with, or they may include some kind of acquired supernatural faith deposit, but either way the process of decision-making and private judgment still precedes the church’s infallibility.

If something is true, it is so independently of our reasoning by which we espoused it. That’s the point. If Catholicism is indeed the fullness of Christian truth, it is so by God’s design, and not because some sharp person “figured it all out.” We’re talking about matters of alleged or actual objective truth.

The Catholic comes to a decision to accept the Church and all that it teaches. He does so (hopefully, and as in my own case) by consideration of competing claims and reasoned analysis. But becoming convinced entails a lot more than mere reason. We believe that the Church is the fullness of the faith because we believe that was what was revealed to and by the apostles. We accept that in faith, passed down from them.

And presumably the person who re-evaluates his/her belief in infallibility is doing so with any faith infusion still in effect, so the re-evaluation is not qualitatively different than the initial evaluation. The same private judgment is employed in both cases.

I have explained the essential difference between Protestant private judgment and what a Catholic does in accepting the Catholic faith, in one of my papers I linked to above.

Which is all to say that your supernatural infusion of faith ultimately doesn’t suffice to get you out of the problem at hand: that private judgment necessarily precedes the acceptance of infallibility.

This goes round and round. Practically speaking, in terms of comparative theology and competing truth claims, we can all only give the reasons why we think our system is true or more true, defend our claims from critiques, and show how other systems lack proper biblical support, or are inconsistent and illogical at several points, etc. I’m more than happy to defend Catholicism and to discuss the reasons why I think no other Christian system provides the answers to the important questions as Catholicism does.

* * *
I’m an optimist in matters of reason and faith both. I believe that right reason can persuade people of the truth and remove falsehoods from their thought processes. I believe that David could be persuaded to return to the Catholic faith and to see the error of the incorrect positions he has accepted.

Because I believe in reason, I don’t have to denigrate it by ditching it and saying “faith only” (as Edward Reiss and much of Lutheranism seems to have done), or by going to “reason only” (as you have basically done, and which is the liberal path). Nope: the true state of affairs is faith + reason: both in their proper proportion.

* * *
Based on what you wrote above, I’m still not clear on how you think a supernatural infusion of faith gets you out of the logical and temporal priority of private judgment.

Insofar as everyone has to offer rational evidences for their own views (if they hope to persuade anyone else of them: on the human level), we’re in the same boat. I defend Catholic positions, and general Christian ones when I am debating atheists.

My main point previously, however, was to say that truth is not determined by our own logical processes. It is what it is. Our task is to find it. And without supernatural faith we can’t arrive at the true faith (using “faith” in two different senses there).

Anyway, I don’t talk much on my blog about supernatural faith, it’s true (mostly because I haven’t experienced anything that would obviously fit under that heading). But I am not a strict rationalist. I think that the whole person must be ministered to and that the whole person must be involved in decision-making.

I agree. Good. I get accused of being over-rationalistic, too, as do most apologists, because people confuse what we concentrate on with the notion that it is all there is: as if most apologists are foolish enough to believe such a ludicrous thing.

One thing I do talk about a lot on my blog is conscience, which as far as I can tell would not be all that phenomenologically distinguishable from your supernatural faith.

Yes. When it is truly conscience it is God’s voice and that is supernatural. But conscience also has to be informed by apostolic Tradition and the Bible. It can’t go off on its own and contradict those, or it is not what it is thought to be.

My conscience is actually one of the factors that drove me down the slippery slope rather than one that anchored me in the faith.

Many have taken that path; but if you are relying on an atomistically individual conscience, or one driven primarily by skeptical forces, at some point (in my opinion) it is invalid and one is being led by the Evil One, if it is in the direction of falsehood.

In other words, determination of truth is primary, and if a conscience leads to falsehood or wrong behavior or sanctioning of same, then it is not from God, and is diabolically supernatural, not divinely supernatural. Truth and factuality always constitute the bottom line.

He [Dollinger] couldn’t grasp it [Papal Infallibility] because he wasn’t viewing it with the eye of faith and reason.

[Tom: a Mormon] When I read this I find it easy to make a characterization of it and then dismiss it as unhelpful, but perhaps I do not understand what is being said here.

I’m glad you decided to ask for clarification. That is always better than taking the risk of misunderstanding someone, so thanks!

A number of folks on this thread (David W included) are searching for truth. Some of us have strong commitments to our traditions and others have more neutral stances. It would seem to me that from a neutral stance or from a commitment to another faith tradition, the appeal to look at Papal Infallibility with “the eye of faith” would ring rather hollow.

Of course it would, but everything is written in a context. There are several conversations in this thread going on simultaneously, and the subject matter is quite subtle, complex, and nuanced.

My comment there was in a specifically Catholic paradigm, but also placed within a larger overall point I was making about the necessity of supernatural faith: with which all Christian traditions agree. I have been arguing (over against self-described “pluralist” Chris) that Christian faith cannot be reduced to mere philosophy or reason. Nor can it be reduced to historiography.

And so the criticism against Dollinger that Cardinal Newman made in 1870 was along these lines: he thought that he couldn’t accept papal infallibility because he was thinking merely in historiographical terms and in effect reducing Catholic historical considerations to that. But one must also look at things with the eye of faith.

Dollinger was a Catholic, you see, and was an historian. He rejected papal infallibility on historiographical grounds. Newman responded (see above) that he wasn’t quibbling about bare historical facts, but rather, with how to interpret them. And the interpretive framework is what requires faith. This is not Catholic-specific: it applies to any Christian person or group who wants to interpret history “Christianly.”

I suspect this may be part of David Waltz’s rationale, too, for why he has concluded what he has. He seems to be reading some material that tends toward this over-rationalism and minimizes the place that every Christian reserves for faith: a thing that transcends reason without being contrary to it.

The whole point is that we are trying to know if there is something worth having faith in. Unless Catholicism holds some type of priority for us, it does not seem to me that it deserves this “leg up” any more than any number of paradigms.

That’s right. It has to be argued, with those persons who have not yet accepted it. It’s what I do as an apologist.

1. In my particular faith tradition, I speak of the overwhelmingly strong (to me) position associated with some unique aspects AND from this suggest that the most consistent view of the most difficult issues is one that either breaks the tradition (like being a Cafeteria Catholic) OR looks at the weak positions with a boost from the other strong points. If A being true entails B being true and the case for A being true is overwhelming, then one can infer that B is true even if it is unlikely but slightly plausible that B is true.

Yes, plausibility and belief structures all involve axioms, reasonable assumptions and preferability of one option over another. I feel strongly that Catholicism is true because of an overwhelming number of cumulative evidences all taken together: like the proverbial strands of a rope. Papal infallibility is an example of a belief thus confirmed.

This is my attempt at a rational argument for my faith tradition in light of difficult aspects.

The overall approach is agreeable to me. We would disagree on how it comes down, in conclusions.

2. A position that I believe has merit for me, but is of little apologetic value (with the exception of the fact that I believe it is most reasonable to conclude that there is a supernatural being who exists) is my personal witness from God for my faith tradition. If I didn’t think the above rational (attempted rational) argument supported the difficult aspects of my faith tradition, I could still suggest that those things that are plausible but unlikely are still true in light of the experience I have personally had. This of course does little for external dialogue, but IMO it is not an irrational (just and extra rational) position.

I think there are beliefs that are warranted, that go beyond reason, per Plantinga’s arguments for warranted Christian beliefs, properly basic beliefs, etc.

So, I quite expect that you would say that #1 is a good reason to accept what is merely plausible about Papal Infallibility, but your “eye of faith” argument looked much more like Catholicism should receive a preferential “eye of faith” where I doubt you would grant such to Mormonism. It sounded like your “eye of faith” was much more of a #2 than a #1 to me.

I hope I have explained sufficiently. I was describing the critique of one Catholic (Newman), whose development theory is presently being questioned by David W., to another Catholic (Dollinger) who refused to abide by the proclamation of an ecumenical council: a position that is indistinguishable, as far as it goes, with Luther’s stance.

I wasn’t implying in the slightest that this particular notion would be persuasive to anyone outside of Catholicism, except to note that all Christians have a place for faith. So this faith, within the Catholic paradigm, is applied to the papal infallibility issue as well as all others. It’s not reduced to merely historical argumentation. It’s not historical positivism. One must interpret, and that is always the more fascinating part of the process.

Anyway, I will be interested to see how you might flesh out “eye of faith.”

I hope I have helped you better understand where I am coming from. Thanks again for the opportunity and the good discussion.

Thank you for your comments. It does make sense to me that an “eye of faith” is important for difficult issues when one is part of a particular faith tradition. I would suggest that there are many different degrees of conviction however. I know that I once sustained my conviction with an over reliance (close to total reliance) upon reason (as I perceived reason). Evidence against my tradition, especially when it was associated with the reason(s) I believed in the first place could (and did in one instance) shake my conviction considerably. Today, in my occasional apologetic efforts, I offer reason and for me the case is still compelling. But were I to become convinced that reason did not strongly point me in the direction I have gone, I would then have a conflict between my spiritual witness and my intellectual witness. I, like Cardinal Newman during Vatican I, am thankful for the faith to see the landscape of my tradition in a way that aligns both my spiritual and intellectual witnesses. I, like Cardinal Newman respect those who struggle and feel bad when others think they must (1) leave the faith, (2) tolerate conflict between their intellectual witness and their spiritual witness, or (3) jettison significant (IMO) portions of the faith.

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I still think you’re coming very close to question-begging and a double standard. Pointing to supernatural faith is fine, as long as you only mean that people should take their felt conviction into account when making decisions (and as long as this standard is applied consistently to religious people across the board, and not just to Catholics). If the appeal to supernatural faith is used to exclude questioning and/or deconversion, however, then you have gone much too far.

But I’ve never done that. You keep implying that I have, and I keep saying it ain’t my view.

Your question to David earlier in the thread– “why is it that one has placed their private judgment and personal doubts above the judgment of the Church in the first place?”– leads me to believe that you are using it in this latter way.

The question makes perfect sense when asked of a Catholic, because a Catholic has already rejected private judgment insofar as it clashes with the Church: in faith. Therefore, it is perfectly relevant to ask by what process a catholic has gone from the Catholic rule of faith (infallible Church authority) to a Protestant one of private judgment.

I’d also add that the significance of supernatural faith can only be as strong as the experience of it.

It’s not an experience, but an act of God which is not necessarily consciously felt at all.

When I was a Pentecostal, our extra-rational justification was miracles. The nice thing about that was that it was fairly objective and observable (although many experiences were highly subjective as well, such as speaking in tongues, hearing God’s voice, etc.). Ultimately I decided that most of the experiences I had been socialized to view as miraculous were not really all that miraculous, so the extra-rational leg-up was no longer compelling to me. When I investigated Mormonism, I was told that I could obtain an extra-rational “testimony” experience if I prayed about the Book of Mormon. I did so, but obtained only weak and conflicting emotional sensations. So again, the extra-rational component was not deeply compelling to me. In the case of your “supernatural infusion of faith,” it seems like it would be difficult even to identify it as such.

That is not the ultimate criterion of proof, but rather, what the Bible says about it. One who believes it is already believing that the Bible is inspired.

And again, there is always the possibility that someone just won’t feel much in the way of supernatural faith at all, in which case the appeal to said faith won’t be a particularly compelling defense.

Again, you compare mere feeling with God’s sovereign actions.

* * *
I guess I’m still a bit confused as to what exactly your view is. Earlier in the thread you seemed to agree with me that supernatural faith is one of a number of different factors that must be kept in balance during our judgment-process, along with reason, experience, intuition, mysticism, and conscience. Now though, you seem to be denying that it is part of our conscious awareness, and more or less equating it with Providence. And I still can’t figure out, given either definition, how any of this solves the problem of the logical and temporal priority of private judgment to the acceptance of infallibility. And to complicate matters, you went on at some length about how your point was that truth is objective and external to ourselves, which I don’t really disagree with and which in any case doesn’t seem to have much to do with your points about faith and infallibility. Perhaps your real point lies in your statement that “a Catholic has already rejected private judgment insofar as it clashes with the Church.” Under this view, a Catholic by becoming a Catholic has forfeited his right to question the Church. I can’t figure out, though, whether this is a legal argument (i.e. “you made an oath, so your soul is ours”) or a sort of logical/developmental argument (i.e. “private judgment was an earlier, childlike state of existence, but now you have passed beyond it to the higher level of robotically accepting infallibility”). (Please forgive my wry and possibly offensive attempt at humor.) To the legal argument, I’d respond that our obligation to the truth is at least as important as our obligation to keep our oaths, so if we find out that an oath violates this other moral and legal obligation, then I’d view breaking the oath as the lesser evil. To the logical/developmental argument, I’d go back to the issue of the logical and temporal priority of private judgment. By denying the authority of private judgment to judge the tradition, the Catholic denies the very means by which s/he came to accept the tradition in the first place, and thus undermines his/her own position. Realistically, private judgment simply cannot be forfeited, because our reason/intuition/conscience/faith etc. are always with us, no matter how we may try to suppress them. I suspect God designed us that way.

You can have the last word on this.

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(originally 1-19-10)
Photo credit: Circe Denyer [PublicDomainPictures.NetCC0 Public Domain license]
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2018-11-27T14:37:47-04:00

From an atheist discussion list: 13 January 2002, uploaded with editorial permission from Steve Conifer, whose words will be in blue.

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I’d like to get down to basics and inquire as to the atheist’s (or agnostic’s) first principles, axioms, starting-points, premises, initial presuppositions or assumptions (pick your favorite term). Then I’ll play Socrates a bit if I may. :-) Just a summary is fine; I’m not looking for a treatise at this point, or even a bare-bones outline of atheist epistemology, or “atheology” if you will: just the very first premises you start from, such as, e.g., “I exist,” “minds exist,” “the senses can be counted on to accurately perceive external natural events,” “non-sensory ‘internal experience’ is inherently untrustworthy and hopelessly subjective,” “logic [as classically understood] is an immutable eternal principle,” etc.

I am assuming that atheists on this list are of the post-Enlightenment (usually positivist or analytical, and materialist) humanist variety, with no particular religious belief (as a working generalization). I realize that all belief-systems are more complicated once you look at them more closely, and the shortcomings of generalization, but as I said, I’m just trying to find out how these (various atheist) views are built up: what the starting-points are. I’m not trying to “do” technical philosophy at the moment (if I am ever qualified to do it). All positions (philosophical, religious, or otherwise) start with axioms — I think we can all agree on that; there is no escaping it.

Every atheist has positive premises that he believes. Nobody operates on a basis of simply “I don’t believe x, y, and z, and that is my axiomatic starting-point.” You believe something, in a positive sense. I changed the nature of my initial inquiry by acknowledging that, yes, there are many sorts of atheists (which I knew, anyway). Nevertheless, a certain type predominates on this list. So I changed the question to “what are your premises?” (i.e., any given individual).

Atheists start with first premises just as I do. It is foolish to think that in order for you to talk about your own beliefs, you must make mention of a God whose existence you deny. That would be like me as a Christian saying that in order to talk about my beliefs, we must start by discussing polytheism, or the nonexistence of spirits and the supernatural, tenets that I deny. I’m not interested in polemics and controversy at the moment: just the basis upon which materialism or naturalism logically builds itself up. You ought to welcome such an inquiry.

You are not merely operating on a minimalist premise of “I don’t believe in what doesn’t exist [God]; that is my starting-point.” You must affirm something without reference to that which you deny, in order to have any belief-system at all, in order to communicate in words at all, otherwise you are merely babbling nonsense (in its literal meaning).

Atheists must, at some point in their thinking, of course, diverge from theistic conclusions, but not necessarily in the beginning. On the other hand, even when an atheist states, “the universe exists,” the tacit assumption which lies behind that is, “the universe is self-existent and has no cause outside of itself.” In other words, how the universe came to exist at all is the question we all must ultimately deal with if we are curious about nature and reality.

When I wrote, “every atheist has positive premises that he believes,” I was referring to the atheist as a species of man, viz.:

1. Every person has positive axioms in his thought.
2. Atheists are persons.
3. Therefore, atheists have positive axioms in their thought.

I could just as well have said that “every gardener has positive axioms in his thought” or “every art museum curator has positive axioms in his thought.” Logically speaking, no implication is present which would require atheist presuppositions to be unique to atheism, or in inherent conflict with theistic presuppositions. That comes later (in the larger worldview), but not at the very beginning, as we are seeing now, with the first replies to my initial question. I, for one, am quite happy that there are many common beliefs which theists and atheists share.

Some questions and issues which might arise in the course of this discussion are:

1. How did the universe come to exist in the first place? And why do you believe it exists?

*

2. Why are the senses to be trusted to give us knowledge about the real world? For instance, sensory observations could be merely systematic illusions. A certain “logic” (or self-consistent alternate “worlds”) might be said to be present even in dreams which aren’t real, in terms of natural events corresponding to the “visions” therein. Arguably, truth also comes from inside our heads, from the very way we think, before we ever get to the “outside world.” It seems to me that we have to place an extraordinary trust in the reliability and accuracy of our senses (and in our brains, which process and organize the data received from sensory perception) to even be able to take in data of the scientific sort: that which is “publicly available” and “justifiable” and falsifiable, and replicable, and so forth.

3. We can agree on the necessity of logic, but we must keep in mind that all logic involves premises, as logic consists merely of laws of relationships of one idea to another. One must still begin with ideas which they take as unquestionable in order to do logic at all. So, again, there are implicit, unspoken assumptions behind all axioms.

4. Many of atheist’s axioms are commonly-held, more or less across the board (excepting perhaps, several eastern religious views, where the universe is an illusion, or maya, etc.). But how they are understood and applied will differ fairly quickly, between atheist and theist. Also, the epistemological grounds for holding the axioms in the first place may differ, perhaps greatly.

Furthermore, one can distinguish between the following two propositions:

A. All atheists have starting assumptions or axioms.

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B. All atheists’ starting assumptions or axioms are inherently atheistic (and therefore, unalterably opposed to theistic assumptions).

I accept A, but not B. Many atheists seem to mistakenly think the Christian is arguing B because they seem to be (I speculate) predisposed to think that all theist critiques of atheism see little or no common ground whatever between the two views. I agree that some strains of Christian apologetics or religious philosophy do that (one in particular is called presuppositionalism, which is dominant among Calvinists), but “mainstream” Christian apologetics and theology do not. And I believe that the Bible itself does not do this either.

The epistemology (or what might be called the “ontological framework”) which lies behind atheists’ vs. theist’s premises might differ widely. No doubt those factors will enter into this discussion in due course as well. One might ask why atheists and theists diverge in their beliefs in the first place. In a nutshell, I would venture to guess that it is because materialist atheists (which I understand to be the “standard” or most prevalent kind) deny the existence of spirit and the supernatural: a sort of intrinsic “anti-Platonism.” Everything is reduced to physical matter and the laws of nature. I think there is a failure of what might be called the “intellectual imagination,” whereby matter is seen as the be-all and end-all of reality. That is what I would regard as the fundamental mistake or error.

I would argue that this position is not as self-evident as most atheists seem to cavalierly assume. And the reason for that is the set of axiomatic assumptions lying behind scientific inquiry: that which bolsters, in the materialist mind, atheism, and supposedly mitigates against any non-materialist entities (science almost being tantamount, in effect, to “God” for many atheists). One has to make several assumptions to “do” science at all, none of which are airtight and unquestionable, for example:

1. The universe exists.
2. One’s own senses can be trusted to accurately perceive external events.
3. Uniformitarianism of natural law.
4. That order is “ontologically superior” to disorder and chaos.
5. That order is a real entity, existing outside our minds, etc.
6. Laws exist and can be codified and systematized.
7. There are such things as theories and hypotheses which may correspond to physical realities.

Etc.

Traditionally, Christians (and even some non-Christian cultural observers) have asserted that modern science in fact arose (and arguably, necessarily) in a Christian milieu, and that there was very good reason for that: science required starting-assumptions which Christianity provided. The above questions were resolved by recourse to God, who created our minds and made them able to perceive and conceive, and Who created the universe with laws so that it could be orderly and predictable and observable in the first place: Kepler’s observation that scientists were “thinking God’s thoughts after him.”

Why materialist atheists are so convinced that neither spirits nor miracles nor the supernatural exist, and how and why they think mind, intelligence, and things like DNA could evolve in a materialistic universe, are questions I am curious about. I hope to delve into those in due course.

Science is something all parties can largely agree on, since it is so verifiable and replicable. The differences really stand out when we talk about origins and First Cause and teleology; why and how the universe is here, does it have any “purpose,” and if there are entities which transcend matter and natural laws alike. We contend as Christian philosophers that God as First Cause is perfectly plausible, and at least as good, if not more so, than any other explanation of the universe, according to reason and modern cosmology.

We say that science cannot rule out spirits and God because they are simply not its domain, being neither physical, nor subject to natural laws. And we say that miracles (the supernatural) can be verified by observation, and thus cannot be so easily dismissed as philosopher David Hume and others seem to think. Lastly, we contend that God is as necessary for thought, intelligence, and the ability to be rational and to do science and philosophy, as logic itself is, because only an Intelligent Designer could put together all the marvels we see in the brain, things like DNA, and the universe as a whole, and make possible both the marvels themselves, and our ability to perceive and understand the workings (and for that matter, beauty) of them.

Here are “large” truths whose negations I take to be incoherent, hence truths which I regard as necessary:

(1) Something exists.
(2) Laws of logic cannot be violated; contradictions cannot be true.
(3) Incoherent propositions (e.g., Socrates is a prime number) cannot be true.

Good. I agree. But I am curious as to how and why something came to exist, rather than nothing.

I am toying with the notion of adding

(4) There is nothing that science could never (even in principle) discover and explain.

How in the world do you arrive at that conclusion? And why would you even consider it as an axiom? It seems to me to involve several intermediate assumptions and deductions.

Well, it is basically just a tenet of something like positivism or naturalism, a somewhat different way of saying that metaphysical sentences (e.g., “there is a personal being outside time and space”) are cognitively meaningless.

Another discussion . . . I don’t buy the concept of defining away metaphysical entities by merely playing around with words. That’s partially why I’m not that fond of the ontological argument, because it is so utterly unempirical. But it is infinitely superior to this sort of analytic positivist gobbledygook, which would rather render concepts like God “cognitively meaningless” than examine the possibility that God’s existence is perfectly consistent with a scientific view of the universe, and as plausible an explanation of origins as any other.

But for right now I will stick with just (1)-(3). It is with some hesitation that I affirm the necessity of even (1), and I concede that I may be wrong about that one. However, it is my contention that meaningful discourse with someone who doubts (2) would be impossible, and such discourse with someone who doubts (3) would be very, very difficult (if not impossible).

Absolutely.

What I doubt is the NECESSITY of (1), not the TRUTH of (1). That is, I have doubts that “something exists” expresses a proposition that MUST be true, but of course I unreservedly affirm that it expresses a proposition that IS true.

For what it’s worth, the Christian says that the existence of the universe is not a necessary state of affairs. So for a materialist, this belief would negate the necessity of #1. We do think that God’s existence is necessary, in order for anything else (material) to exist. But since for you spirit and supernatural are nonsense and gibberish, this whole paragraph is rendered null and void. :-)

I am sympathetic to calling (4) a necessary truth because I have great difficulty conceiving its negation, i.e., the proposition that there might be something which science could never (even in principle) discover and explain.

Why? You just gave several examples above of something quite near to this, if not fulfilling what you have “great difficulty conceiving”: e.g., “As for how the multi-verses came into existence, we might suppose that we cannot answer that because the explanation for it lies within the laws of the multi-verses themselves.” Then you stated, as to the mystery of why something exists rather than nothing: “In the final analysis, . . . the best answer at present is a supremely simple and thoroughly honest ‘we don’t know.’ ”

Yet you are tempted to call #4 a necessary truth, when you yourself refute it all through this post (self-refutations always make the critic’s job so much easier)? Science — by your own virtual admission — can’t even explain the origin of that which is its specialty and field of inquiry: the universe! Yet you want to believe that it can explain anything, despite any and all evidence to the contrary. Curious. Odd. And very revealing as to your presuppositional biases. Science, too, is a philosophy, and it starts with unprovable axioms. It’s not the sum of all knowledge. Not by a long shot.

After all, as Ted [Drange] recently queried, what is the (conceptual) difference between an empty jar and a jar containing only a necessarily undetectable existent? My answer is, “The difference between a world just like ours and a world full of magic that has no effects whatever on anything whatever.”

The fallacy here is in assuming (on what basis, I wonder?) that the supernatural would not and could not have an effect on the natural, or partake of observability, or (in its effects) be capable of undergoing observation (e.g., a medically-verified healing). The difference is the fact that the existent is in the second jar, of course. If you want to merely talk about “appearances,” I find that uninteresting philosophically. E.g., we can’t see natural gas, either (even the odor we smell is added so we’ll know it is present at all). Don’t mean it ain’t able to cause bacon to be fried indoors or help dry up a pair of wet socks.

Which is to say, there is no difference at all between the two. To put it (sort of) succinctly, to me the supernatural is impossible nonsense, and talk of the supernatural is meaningless gibberish,

I can see that, but why?, is the question? You having great fun poking holes in caricatures of what you oppose is one thing; explaining why you oppose it (i.e., the real thing, rightly understood) and how your view is epistemologically superior, quite another.

The supernatural is to me impossible nonsense because the idea of supernatural beings is incoherent. Therefore, talk of the supernatural is (cognitively) meaningless gibberish.

How is “the idea of supernatural beings” incoherent (it’s interesting that you used this word rather than “impossible”)? Because spirits can’t exist? Is that all you got for me: dogmatic assertions on no grounds other than unprovable axiomatic assumptions?

but psychologically and sociologically fascinating noise-making of the most urgent variety.

Atheism is equally fascinating from our standpoint, I assure you.

No doubt. It is, after all, rebellion against God Himself,

More like a revolt against reason and logic, judging by your present response. :-)

whose existence is so incredibly apparent in “nature and conscience” that no sane and honest person could rationally deny it.

There are many reasons, I think, why people come to have atheist beliefs, just as there are many for coming to believe in Christianity. There are non-rational, emotional, and psychological (even geographical and sociological) influences on both sides. To deny that for either is folly, in my opinion. I find the study of both processes equally interesting, myself. But I don’t by any means regard the average atheist as a dolt and gullible idiot (quite the contrary), let alone insane and dishonest, as so many atheists regard us. I think atheists have made honest or inadvertent mistakes in their reasoning process, and adopted inadequately established premises, which are at least as unprovable as our axioms (and, of course I believe, less plausible). Hence, the present thread. You are not disabusing me of my present beliefs on this matter at all thus far. :-)

Natural gas can be detected both actually (in various ways) and in principle. By contrast, a necessarily undetectable existent cannot be detected (even in principle).

The very statement presupposes that something exists (“existent”); therefore it could conceivably exist! Therefore it is not a meaningless or inconceivable object, because existence is a pretty important trait to have. Whether one can detect it or not is irrelevant, except as a practical matter. But as I reject the pragmatic criterion of truthfulness, that is of no import to me.

At any rate, you seem to have totally missed the point of my example, which is that to utter sentences like “there exists something that could never be observed, measured, recorded, etc.” is both vacuous and unintelligible.

Not at all. It only seems to be that to you because you axiomatically presuppose that only observable things exist in the first place. That is hardly compelling, being circular from the outset, and no real argument.

For such sentences lack content

Not at all; they merely lack empirical content. There is a difference, you know.

and nobody can understand what it would mean for them to be true, despite all that some might say to the contrary.

Nonsense. That was why I used my natural gas analogy. A better one might be one atom of ytterbium (Yb) floating around the room I am in. How likely am I to be able to detect it? Does that make it nonexistent? Appealing to sophisticated scientific machines does not overcome the analogy, because we’re talking about my perception. Just because I can’t perceive something (or even if it is flat-out impossible to perceive) does not necessarily make it nonexistent.

Thus, if science can’t observe a spirit, this proves absolutely nothing one way or the other about whether spirits exist, because no one who knows anything about science would expect it to be able to do so, as spirits are not matter, and science is the philosophy of matter (yes, it reduces to philosophy: its called empiricism). Science could observe the effect of a spirit or the supernatural, though; that gets back to the miracles discussion. In fact, science always does this because everything it observes was created by God, or that which is causally derived from same. :-)

There is just no proposition there at all;

No, there is no perception there at all. What is this?: the philosophical application of “out of sight, out of mind”?

there is only more of that meaningless noise-making that I referred to earlier.

It’s only meaningless if you presuppose that empirical observation is the key to all knowledge (and you must tell me why that would be). Otherwise, it is perfectly legitimate logic and possible reality. I’m quite surprised that you can’t see this, as sharp as you are.

As Dr. Drange writes in his book NONBELIEF & EVIL,

If a sentence is unintelligible, then either it does not express any proposition at all or else it expresses a proposition that is inconsistent or in some other way unthinkable. Therefore, it does not express anyone’s belief.

And if a sentence is deemed unintelligible because unproven and unprovable axioms render it that way from the outset, by arbitrary definition, then we can create nonsense in any sentence we like, can’t we Steve?

If people go around saying, “I believe there is a personal being who is outside space and time,” then my reaction is to deny that they really believe THAT. Rather, such people are apparently mistaken about their own beliefs.

Why, if logic and mathematics and geometry can be perceived as outside space and time, and eternal principles of the relationships of ideas? So now you’re telling me that in fact I don’t (and can’t) believe what I believe? That’s interesting. We must flesh that out sometime. But I always tire very quickly of the word-games of analytic philosophy. If I wanna spend my time playing around with words, I’d much rather play Scrabble or write poetry, or come up with clever aphorisms or limericks. No offense intended (you don’t think much of Christianity, either, so why beat around the bush?).

To have a belief requires more than just the disposition to assert given sentences. It is also required that there be some thinkable set of ideas to serve as the object of the belief. [end of quote]

That’s what we’re trying to get at with regard to your views, but as usual, it has already been switched around to the lambasting of theism.

But if a sentence is unintelligible, then it does not express any such set of ideas. It cannot express anything which anyone could entertain in thought and which could thereby be the object of a belief.

Yep. The question is what determines “intelligibility”? If you think it is some spectacular and irrefutable philosophical discovery to simply assume empiricism with no proof and then to go on and regard anything non-empirically ascertained as nonsensical and meaningless, then I must inform you that you have overestimated the strength of your position just a wee tiny bit. It’s another instance of building a house of cards with no very sure or solid foundation.

I have no idea what it might mean for a being to be necessary.

Do you have any idea what it might mean for logic to be necessary? If you do, please explain how such an analogous belief in God is intrinsically unthinkable or inconceivable?

As Hume noted, “There is no being the nonexistence of which entails a contradiction.”

I can conceive of God not existing. I have no problem with that. David Hume, remember, accepted God’s existence on the basis of the teleological argument, which he made himself, quite forcefully. Many atheists don’t seem to be aware of that, and I pointed it out last time I was here. So he is in our camp on this one, and very few atheists are willing to call Hume stupid or gullible, or one who believes in things which are “gibberish” and “meaningless nonsense,” etc.

It might be said that the best explanation for why things appear to exist in a certain way is because they really DO exist in that way, and that that is the best explanation because it is simpler than the skeptic’s alternative. Though it has its defects, I think there is great merit in this type of approach to the skeptic’s challenge.

My analogical mind latched onto this immediately. Try this:

It might be said that the best explanation for why belief in God is nearly universal and that God appears to exist in a certain way is because God really DOES exist in that way, and that that is the best explanation because it is simpler than the atheist’s alternative. Though it has its defects, I think there is great merit in this type of approach to the atheist’s challenge.

Why would this argument for God’s existence be less valid or sound than the way you use the exact same logic for existence of the physical world? In both instances we are dealing with a widely-perceived reality, held by the vast majority of people. Most people regard God as a necessary belief in order to get through life, just as acceptance of the physical world is required to get through life with “life and limb.” Atheists are in a minority amongst theists, just as absolute idealism or solipsism is a tiny minority amongst those who accept the material existence of the universe. What’s the logical difference?

Gotta love philosophy (actually logic) when it is this much fun :-)

If (1) [“something exists”] is indeed a necessary truth, as I believe it is, then it makes no sense to ask how the world (or the “first thing”) came to be. For it DIDN’T come to be.

On what basis do you believe it to be a necessary truth, though? Existence per se is a separate proposition from the possible beginning or eternality of existence. Existence and duration are distinct concepts. It seems to me that two possible scenarios can occur:

A. That which exists always existed, never did not exist, never had a beginning (nor will it have an ending) and is infinite in duration.B. That which exists began its existence some time in the past and is therefore finite in duration.

It simply is (or, alternately, there IS no “first thing”; the world is just eternal).

In a metaphysical philosophy conveniently disconnected from science, sure!

If, on the other hand, (1) is a merely contingent truth, then one possible explanation for the existence of the universe is that it began acausally. That is how most contemporary cosmologists (incl. Stephen Hawking, Alex Linde, and Andre Vilenkin) think the present-day universe was birthed.

Can you explain this curious concept in layman’s terms, so we can grasp more clearly what exactly you are talking about. How does something like the universe begin without a cause, and what is the evidence for such a remarkable assertion?

Another possible explanation is that the observable universe sprang from an (unobservable and possibly no longer existent) hyper-universe of sorts. Perhaps there are (or were) many such “bubble worlds.”

“I’m forever blowing bubbles . . . ” (God)

Do you consider this more plausible and rational than positing a God? It obviously is not a scientific belief at all, since the thing under consideration is “unobservable” and maybe non-existent. One wonders how the evidence which can be brought forth for God is any less compelling than this!

Contingently unobservable entities can be inferred to exist from their effects. (God, by contrast, is a NECESSARILY unobservable entity).

Effects of God can certainly be observed. They are called “miracles.” You simply assume (like Hume) that miracles are impossible, hence that God is “a NECESSARILY unobservable entity,” unlike your “bubble worlds.” You also seem to have forgotten that a certain man claimed to be the Christian God come in the flesh. :-) Just because you don’t believe something doesn’t make it “a NECESSARILY unobservable entity.”

As I understand the situation (which is pretty dimly), the theory of multi-verses is, like the notion of an acausal inception, quite popular among working physicists. As for how the multi-verses came into existence, we might suppose that we cannot answer that because the explanation for it lies within the laws of the multi-verses themselves; and, whether necessarily or due to empirical constraints, we lack knowledge of those laws.

But you’re willing to possibly accept this nonetheless, lest the alternative be the dreadful God-hypothesis, which is, of course, irrational, unbelievable, implausible, and unworthy of adherence, being far inferior to “multi-verses” whose laws cannot be known, and about which we can (by the nature of the case) know nothing or next to nothing. Talk about fideism! This puts the most childlike, gullible faith of the most uninformed Christian to shame. This is the sort of faith which is impervious to all disproof, since it has no proof whatsoever in the first place!

Yet another explanation is that the universe was brought into being by an impersonal mechanism of some sort, or a finite deity who is now dead, or an infinite yet largely malevolent deity who created the universe for the sole purpose of tormenting its denizens with things like earthquakes and plagues and tornadoes (from whose devastating results this wicked god derives boundless glee).

All options which are, of course, more plausible and feasible than the traditional God of Christianity. Of course . . . who could deny that?

In the final analysis, though, I agree with Mark: the best answer at present is a supremely simple and thoroughly honest “we don’t know.”

I deem that as infinitely superior to the other options you have presented, so I am delighted that you adopt it after the quick run-down of the alternatives (excluding theism, which is prima facie absurd and irrational).

Right now there is just too little information about the matter to make a reliable judgment concerning it. Though the best guesses of our brightest scientists appear to be on the right track, the fact of the matter is that the origin of the cosmos may be the last “Great Mystery.”

Fair enough.

In any case, it should go without saying that even the weakest of naturalistic explanations is ipso facto superior to even the simplest and most plausible of supernaturalistic explanations,

Only under materialistic and naturalistic assumptions, so this is not particularly compelling reasoning, unless we are first informed as to why naturalism is self-evident over against supernaturalist dualism or theism.

for the former is just naturally much less obscure and far less extravagant than the latter.

I often find truth to be rather extravagant. Occam’s Razor is nowhere near as impressive to me as the complexity of DNA or galaxies or even your average pretty sunset or woman. The more we learn, the less simple things get, so why would we cling to a maxim which touts the likelihood of simplicity being truth?

Furthermore, I do not even consider the “God Hypothesis” (i.e., the hypothesis that the universe was created by a timeless, bodiless, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipresent personal being) to be a viable candidate for the simple reason that it does not even meet the basic criteria of an explanation, namely, illumination and understanding. It is also unreasonable, anomalous, counterintuitive, and incomplete.

First of all, the “God of the philosophers” or philosophical theism is not, strictly speaking the Christian God. A Creator-God would have to, it seems to me, be timeless and a spirit and quite powerful indeed, and arguably personal (since He makes created personhood possible), but I don’t see how the four “omnis” are required for a minimally-conceived creator. The other negative qualities you see in the proposition merely follow from the axiomatic and often circular skepticism and materialism of your premises, so they are of little use to our discussion. With those qualifiers, I don’t see how the theistic scenario is a whit less plausible than your others, about which you admit we (and you) know little.

Where have we heard this chant before, of “there is no necessary need to posit a God”? Darwin, was it? Actually, it was the materialist evolutionist scientists after him (and after T.H. Huxley, who said that evolutionism didn’t necessarily imply materialism, by its very nature) who said these things.

One of my points (if we ever get back to my discussion of premises) is that our predispositions and biases constantly color how we perceive (and even conceive) the world. The atheist scientist will tend to readily adopt such a theory (as we observe Steve doing) because it upholds his prior notion of atheism. It may be weak or actually have some merit to it, but he will be almost inevitably be predisposed to adopt it, so that he can lessen his own “cognitive dissonance.” Likewise, the theist will be predisposed to accept what might be called “classic Big Bang cosmology” because it appears to him so consistent with monotheism and creatio ex nihilo. Bias is universal.

Bias among scientists (and philosophers, too, for that matter) is no novel concept. This has been examined at length by Thomas Kuhn and also much recently by Stephen Jay Gould. My interest in the present discussion is to determine why your particular axioms seem true and unquestionable to you, and (in due course) by what process they logically lead you to atheism (i.e., materialism, or secular humanism; whatever term you prefer).

. . . (Also, try reading the articles by Smolin and Linde, where the evidence for the model in question is meticulously examined.)

What I read (not in these articles, but in your earlier postings in this regard) was sheer and mere speculation, which seems not a whit more plausible to me than an Intelligent Designer who was behind all these marvels of what I call creation.

I never said that the given explanations are MORE plausible than the God Hypothesis (GH). However, certainly they are (at least) EQUALLY plausible.

Why? And try to answer without trotting out all the “omnis,” which are irrelevant to a bare philosophical theism, or deism. Simply put, theism is not Christianity. The latter is a far more developed version of the former, adding in the huge factor of revelation. But when making theistic arguments, there is no need at all to import all the “omnis.” Even a Creator need not be omnipotent, etc. You must know this. I can’t believe that you don’t. Philosophy is not religion. Even philosophy of religion is neither religion nor theology. It’s the gigantic distinction between arguing for theism and arguing for Christianity. I do the former here, most of the time. And if I get to Christianity in the course of discussion, I almost never argue for exclusively Catholic Christianity, because that is not my point here.

So, GH is NOT the best explanation for the existence of the universe; the other explanations are just as good. There is thus NO REASON WHATEVER for preferring GH over those (alternate) explanations. Naturalistic explanations are by their very nature simpler and broader in scope than supernaturalistic “explanations.”

So what? Why bow to the god of Occam’s Razor? Why should that be some unquestionable axiom? The more we know, the more complex the universe becomes. Mendel’s peas (and, for that matter, bare “natural selection”) have ended up in DNA, which is not a “simpler” explanation, but a vastly more comprehensively explanatory one. So God is complicated! Big wow! He’s no more complicated than, e.g., some entirely fanciful hypothesis of how life came (by purely natural, perhaps even random processes) from non-life, which materialist scientists still have little or no clue about, yet continue to believe, with no compelling positive evidence that such a thing could ever take place.

(I put quotes around “explanations” because I do not think something so obscure and unenlightening as “God did it” warrants the label).

No one is saying it did, so that’s neither here nor there. But it is a quick and easy way to make the theistic option appear inherently foolish.

They posit at least one fewer entity and do not introduce a bigger mystery (God and his nature and methods) than the mystery they were introduced to dispel.

Again, this “simplicity” mantra is not all that impressive to me. Science is simpler than, say, mythological creation myths, but matter itself (the stuff of science) is extremely complex, and the quick denial of any design or teleology (on circular materialistic grounds) simply doesn’t work anymore. Science has gotten beyond that point.

Because if an explanation x is simpler than an explanation y, then x is more a priori likely than is y;

Why? So Mendel’s pea experiments better explain genetics than DNA, because they are simpler? Newtonian physics is more true than relativity on the same basis? The Genesis creation account is far simpler than Punctuated Equilibrium, so it is obviously true, etc. ?

and, all else being equal, if x is more a priori likely than y, then x is more likely the case than is y.

Unless you prove why I should accept the premise, I reject the conclusion. I would opine that coherence and cumulative, comprehensive explanatory value is profoundly more evident as an indication of truthfulness than simplicity.

I never claimed that science could never (even in principle) explain the origin of the cosmos, should there indeed be such. Rather, I suggested merely that it cannot do so at present (at least not fully). The difference between being contingently unexplained and in principle inexplicable is vast indeed!

Agreed. But, you see, whenever a materialist grants that he can’t explain everything, he grants a little more (however little he may think it is) to the theist, because we, too, believe in some things we can’t fully explain or understand. Absolutely comprehensive understanding is not in the cards for any view.

If it was so obvious that God is not shown in creation, and that materialism could fully explain it, then wouldn’t you think that science could explain the universe and its origin more or less totally by now? But if there are intricate complexities, then it is reasonable to posit some Design: something other than sheer chance and randomly colliding atoms. One either grasps this or they don’t. But for those of us who do, we regard it as self-evident and intuitively true. Pick at that all you want, but you have equally unprovable assumptions, which is a big point of my thread. It is not a matter of gullible, irrational blind faith vs. science and reason.

My chief objection to the Cosmological Argument for God’s Existence could be formally constructed as follows:

(1) There are alternate (nontheistic) explanations for the origin of the universe that have NOT been shown to be inferior to the God hypothesis.
(2) Therefore, the God hypothesis has NOT been shown to be the very best
explanation for the origin of the universe [from (1)].
(3) For there to be a cosmological argument that empirically supports the
existence of God, it would have to be the case that someone has shown that
the God hypothesis is the very best explanation for the origin of the universe.
(4) Therefore, there is no cosmological argument that empirically supports
the existence of God [from (2) & (3)].

The premise that Dave was apparently inclined to attack is (1). Unfortunately, though, he never really made it clear just what is wrong with that premise. In response to each of the five alternate (nontheistic) explanations for the universe that I put forward in our dialogue- we might call them “the Brute-fact Explanation,” “the Acausal-inception Explanation,” “the Hyper-universe Explanation,” “the Impersonal-mechanism Explanation,” and “the Finite-or-malevolent-deity Explanation,” respectively – Dave simply complained that it is unscientific and no more plausible than the God hypothesis. I have several replies to that:

1. The Acausal-inception and Hyper-universe Explanations (as well as, arguably, the Impersonal-mechanism Explanation) are perfectly scientific, as both are in principle testable and falsifiable. Furthermore, while neither has been clearly or uncontroversially confirmed by empirical data and neither is universally accepted among cosmologists, elements of both can be found in the theories of leading physicists such as Stephen Hawking and Alex Linde, and both receive at least SOME support (albeit indirect) from science. Therefore, describing them as “pure speculation” or something of the like (as Dave did several times during our discussion) is patently wrongheaded.

2. Even if all five of my alternate (nontheistic) explanations for the universe WERE completely unscientific, that would NOT render them inferior to the God hypothesis and so would NOT suffice to refute premise (1). For the God hypothesis is ITSELF completely unscientific (in that it posits a cause for the universe which even in principle defies scientific investigation and which does not conform to the scientific method). It is also obscure, anomalous, unreasonable, counterintuitive, incomplete, and incomprehensible. In those respects alone it is explanatorily INFERIOR to even the weakest naturalistic explanation and so cannot be regarded as the best explanation for the universe.

3. In order for premise (1) to be true, it need not be the case that the given alternate (nontheistic) explanations are more plausible than the God hypothesis. It need only be the case that they are EQUALLY PLAUSIBLE to that hypothesis. Hence, Dave’s complaint that none of the explanations in question is more plausible than the God hypothesis is simply irrelevant to the above argument (as well as to our discussion).

It is clear, then, that Dave has his work cut out for him if he wishes to successfully defend the Cosmological Argument (or show that the atheist’s “axiom” that the universe can exist sans a divine being is somehow mistaken or flawed).

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Photo credit: posted by QuotesEverlasting (8-1-13) [Flickr / CC By 2.0 license]

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2018-11-26T17:02:40-04:00

From public discussions on an Internet List devoted to the question of existence of God: May-July 2001. Uploaded with the full permission of Sue Strandberg (who refers to herself primarily as a secular humanist). This was one of the best dialogues I’ve ever had with anyone (maybe my second favorite ever; and the other was with an atheist, too). Her words will be in blue:

*****

It is the hidden nature of the facts of religion, the revelatory truths that are not available to the nonbeliever, which can make it so incapable of resolution.

You are confusing esotericism (more common to the Gnostics and New Agers today) with revelation. Christian revelation certainly is available to the non-believer, in the Bible. But they (just like Christians) do need to learn how to interpret the Bible, as all literature needs to be properly interpreted.

And since religious claims often deal with which individuals or groups are especially wicked, spiritually depraved, unholy, unworthy, or damned, this inability to resolve conflict can become dangerous.

All groups of human beings have the unfortunate tendency to demonize “outsiders.” Atheists are no exception, even going after Jesus, making Him out to be a “bad” person. Christians (in the eyes of many atheists and skeptics) are one or more of the following: intolerant, hypocritical, holier-than-thou, ignoramuses, pie-in-the-sky simpletons, money-grubbers (the TV evangelists — some of that is true, sadly), closed-minded, gullible, irrational, women-haters (the abortion issue), “homophobes,” bigots, anti-Semites, cultural imperialists, snake-handlers, anti-scientific, Nazis, Fascists, and on and on. Take your pick.

I think this is a deep human problem (the dehumanizing of outsiders), not a specifically atheist or Christian one. There are those in both our camps who are of this sick mindset. If you say the Bible produces it in my ranks, I quickly respond that Marxist rhetoric or other ideologically-left, radical feminist, and secularist literature and teachings produce it among your comrades. So it’s another wash: why talk about it? The best in both our camps readily condemn this hatred and nonsense.

I agree with you here, that the demonization of outsiders is a human problem, one that is not caused by religion but which is often reflected in it. My point was that tolerance does not come out of certainty, but out of the willingness to doubt, to consider other viewpoints, and to value the diversity of ideas as a good in itself.

Technically, I don’t think tolerance requires doubt per se (skepticism), or relativism (of which “diversity” is often a synonym), but rather, a willingness to be proven wrong (even if the prospect of that is quite remote), and a deliberate attempt to grant the benefit of the doubt and good faith and will to the other, and the extension of charity at all times.

This basic tolerance is the foundation of Humanism, whether it be theistic or nontheistic. Not all humanists achieve the ideal, of course, but science, democracy, and humanist ethics all take respect for opposing opinions as a tenet.

In theory, yes, but people being people, there are all sorts of species of intolerance about, from the “right” and the “left” alike. These are so obvious that I need not even trouble myself to list any examples.

Religion, on the other hand, can easily define entire groups as being”against God” at one fell swoop — and being against God is so much more than having a false belief or wrong opinion. One should not tolerate evil, even evil that appears in the guise of good. The stakes have been raised.

I have tried to illustrate that biblical, apostolic Christianity is much more ecumenical and tolerant than that, via examples from the behavior of Jesus and Paul. I think one can speak of the state of being “against God” generally, but on an individual basis it is extremely difficult to have enough information to make that determination.

Certainly secularists can be irrational, but it is much harder to support a claim from a secular standpoint by arguing that one’s facts and evidence are “beyond science” and “above reason” and thus don’t need demonstration to others because these others lack the spiritual discernment to understand. There is a sacred “don’t touch me” quality to spiritual claims which all too often are not claims about the spirit world, but about this one.

Christians, unfortunately, are often guilty of ignorance of science and reason alike, and of a self-righteous “epistemology,” so to speak, but one must always judge a worldview by its best and brightest proponents, not its worst.

Marxism and radical feminism are so dangerous because they are secular philosophies which act as if they are religions, complete with sinners, saints, salvation, damnation, heresy, and all the attendant dogma.

Precisely; they involve a sort of sleight-of-hand, by adopting some of the worst abuses of religion in the service of what is claimed to be “science” or “philosophy.”

The religions and variations of religion which earn my respect the most are the ones that act as if they are secular philosophies.

But that would be the same error in reverse, would it not? Various “secular” modes of reasoning and argumentation can be utilized to defend Christianity, but in the end, Christianity is obviously not “secular philosophy” and must be approached on its own terms.

One can say that the Nazis were wrong on their facts because one can show that there is no good empirical evidence for either a Master Race or a Jewish Conspiracy. The justification for the Holocaust does not stand up to scientific analysis.

Nor does the justification for Marxism. Nor does the justification for radical feminism and its cultural fallout stand up to the best sociological analysis. Etc., etc.

I agree. Secular Humanists are as often in opposition to the irrational radical left as the radical right. We are not very popular with extreme feminists and postmodernists, to put it mildly.

I knew there was a reason why I liked you so much . . . :-)

Some feminists have developed a strong anti-science bias, a belief that reason and evidence are the means men have used to oppress women so they are wrong things in and of themselves, not simply wrong when they are used badly, which we can all agree on. This could also be because many of their claims lack sufficient support — or because the evidence goes the other way. The idea that sex is a purely social construct or that men and women have no differences in their brains is flat out wrong as viewed from the basis of empirical studies in sociology, anthropology, and neurology.

Amen, sister! Of course, Christianity goes even further and holds that gender differences are innate and built into creation, as a design of God. But what you say is close enough to our view.

There is a biological basis for male domination in the human species which can be modified if we desire but not simply eliminated by wishful thinking. Perhaps that is not what feminists want to hear, it might not even be what I want to hear, but tough: it is where the evidence leads.

Wow . . . I am impressed! Christians say that both men and women, being fallen creatures, have become corrupt, thus giving rise to all the abuses of male power-hungry brutality and female guile and conniving, shall we say. Both are equally fallen, but both are also equally capable of greatness as well.

Humanists are not under obligation to find the world as we like it, but as it really is.

As are Christians. Humanists are as unlikely to suddenly start believing in God as Christians are to stop doing so. So there are things both sides would be predisposed to resist with all their might.

And when people wish to keep their beliefs and don’t like the contrary findings of science yet can’t refute them with stronger evidence for their side, they often take one of two options: they can either claim that their beliefs are above and beyond what science can investigate, or they can claim that science is simply one culturally-driven method of social construct-making among many others, with no more validity than any other opinion. Or both.

But those anti-Semitic pogroms which took place over the ages due to a belief that the Jews were cursed by God rested not on empirical evidence in the world, but on religious claims about the next one.

To the best of my knowledge, the Catholic Church never formally or dogmatically taught this. There were individuals who were rogues, as there always are (usually political operatives, and nominal Catholics). Martin Luther made far worse statements in this vein (and you should see how he describes Catholics and their Church too!). If the Church did teach anything like this, it has certainly been overturned, and you see great efforts by the current pope to make overtures to the Jewish people. I already posted to this list what Pius XII did for the Jews: far more than all other relief groups combined. Sounds really anti-Semitic, huh?

If you want to talk about arbitrary, irrational grounds on which to commit genocide, you will have to talk about abortion, where the “crime” of being inside one’s mother’s womb is sufficient enough to warrant execution. And guess who is the greatest opponent of that? Guess who even opposes the death penalty? You got it . . .

— and I am not so sanguine as you seem to be that religious differences within Christianity can be eventually settled just by reading the Bible and consulting the Holy Spirit to discover what God really wants.

Already dealt with. My position on this is exceedingly more complex than you seem to think. But that’s okay. This topic is not a simple matter; not given to quick summary.

When we deal with disagreements in religion there is less common ground for arbitration because so many subjective factors are being brought in.

Yes. Of course you think the degree of this is far more than I do. Oftentimes, I think that when different sorts of Christians disagree on this and that, they are being inconsistent with the principles of their own group. My dialogues with Protestants are filled with these sorts of examples. But I readily agree that Christian differences are certainly a scandal and a disgrace. That’s a major reason why I am a Catholic.

I think those religions which insist on complete consistency with secular methods of demonstration are more likely to be trustworthy in moral issues. And when it comes to religions not your own, this would probably be what you yourself would feel comfortable with, too. Not much you can do about being accused of being a witch.

Theism does not give an account of this [morality and values] at all, because from what I can see there is no actual attempt to explain the “why” at all.

There is a very serious attempt. It is called original sin, or the Fall. And there is the concept of God, which can be arrived at through natural reason alone, to a large extent.

We got our values from a Being which has these values as irreducible components of its character. So why and how did this Being get to be this way instead of another way? It just is.

That’s right. God just is, because He is eternal and never had a beginning. If the universe can conceivably be eternal (as some – many? – atheists seem to want to believe, despite Big Bang cosmology), why not a Supreme Being Who is Spirit? It is equally plausible prima facie. Many great philosophers have thought so, of course. Even Kant was convinced of the moral argument for God. Even Hume was convinced of the teleological argument. And these two are regarded as the great Destroyers of many of the traditional theistic arguments.

We get love from a Love Force; we get morals from a Moral Force; we got life from a Life Force; we were created by a Creative Force. “Like comes from like” attempts to explain a mystery by ducking the ‘how’ question completely and gives no account, rational or otherwise, of origins.

The “how” is precisely located in the character, nature, or essence of God. It is a serious, coherent, and self-consistent explanation, whether one agrees with it or not. Your view starts with an axiom; so does ours; there is a certain epistemological equivalence. How one regards the relative plausibility of each theory will in large part hinge upon one’s larger philosophical view as to dualism, materialism, and so forth (none of which can be absolutely proven, either).

You talk of empiricism, but the ultimate epistemological grounds for that (and exclusion of spirit or of God) need to be explained and justified. I don’t see that materialistic evolutionary theory has yet explained the origins of, e.g., DNA, or even life in general, if we want to get nitpicky about explanatory value . . .

As for whether humanity ought to carry the values that it does, Theism can’t justify this any more than nontheism,

I maintain that it can, because it contains a non-arbitrary standard, to which all persons are bound. It seems to me that atheism cannot achieve that standard (I am trying to see if someone here can convince me otherwise).

because once again the problem jumps back a step and the question simply becomes “why ought we to care about God?” You can only attempt to answer this question by appealing to the very values that you are trying to ground.

No, not at all. We care about God because (if He exists in the first place — on other grounds) He is our Creator, and we were made to serve and love Him (just as a child naturally loves its parents. It doesn’t sit there and philosophize: “gee, maybe I should push away when mummy comes to hug or suckle me because I have no epistemological and non-circular justification for loving her.” :-)

We would, in this theistic scenario, have an empty “God-shaped void” inside of us that only God can fill. Again, this is already assuming God exists (on other grounds). But in my opinion it avoids the logical circularity you claim must exist, in order to answer the question, “why ought we to care about God?”

There is a problem here, I think, when we talk about the “God-shaped void” that humans have. We can point to experiences and elements in human lives which can explain our “need for God” without relying on the assumption that there is an actual God.

When I speak like that at this point, it is not an argument per se, but simply a presentation of the theistic worldview as an alternate to atheism. It’s like saying, “given A and B, C seems to be plausible and to make sense.” That’s not really an argument, as much as it is a bald statement and a willingness to argue the point; more like a provisional resolution to be discussed.

God is like a cosmic father: we have fathers, and can attempt to account for our attachment to parents through biology or other secular explanations. God is like an ultimate rescuer: we have all directly experienced the satisfaction and relief of being rescued from harm in our lives. God is like a personal explanation of the universe: we use personal explanations when we deal with people in social situations all the time. God is like an expression of love and virtue: we encounter the human emotions and behaviors of love and virtue in our dealings with each other. God is a mystery, and a mystery revealed: every human life has experienced wonder about the world, and the joy in its discovery. God is immortality: all of us live and want to keep on living, and have done so from moment to moment, capable of imagining the next moment before it happens.

From what I can tell there is nothing in the concept of God which is not directly experienced in some fashion in human lives. Thus, a “God-shaped void” CAN be explained as an extrapolation of common human circumstances from ourselves onto the universe as a function of our ability to form abstractions. The idea that the Universe is grounded on and involved with personal attributes and concerns can plausibly be regarded as something which has naturally flowed from Man outwards, as an expression of natural egocentrism.

It could indeed. But on the other hand, all this may also be construed to suggest God because He is there in the first place. We have all these personal attributes, so it makes sense (just as a theoretical plausibility-structure) that there is a Creator-Person from Whom the traits originated, and Who gives them “ontological” or “existential” or “cosmological” purpose and meaning. We have a need for God because He is really there, and in some sense must be there for humans to feel purpose.

Just because we also have needs for love and mothers and fathers does not suggest to me that therefore it is likely that God doesn’t exist, simply because aspects of piety and spirituality echo more mundane and ordinary and normative human attachments. This sword cuts both ways, so it is not a particularly effective argument.

If one has a need for water periodically (thirst) do we think that this indicates that water does not exist? We have needs for love or sex, so they, too, exist. Human beings seem also to have a nearly-universal need for some sort of God; a religious sense. So therefore, religion and God likely do not exist?!!!

The principle of analogy, then, is at least as satisfactory as the usual “psychological crutch” or “pie in the sky” or “projection” atheist theories. In fact, there is a whole argument to be made that the atheist very much wants (by predisposition and preference) for God to not exist, because if He does, that makes demands on their lives (sexual, moral) which otherwise could be rationalized away; God takes away “freedom” (or, as the atheist says, “self-determination,” as if this is some unquestioned, noble and good thing).

It need not be explained this way, of course: you can still insist that it flows the other way, from God to man.

I think that is every bit as plausible.

But it is nevertheless possible to give a secular account of a desire for God while working with the premise that “we would not have a need if it were not possible to fulfill it.” The needs we have which relate to God are also needs we have here on earth, and we have all experienced their fulfillment here on earth. God is simply the same thing, writ larger.

So, to me, that suggests that He exists, not that He probably doesn’t exist.

But what, then, of God? If you assume that we would not have a need unless there was something already there which would be capable of
fulfilling it — then how did God develop a need for human beings?

He has no such need (at least not in Christian theology).

God existed before there were human beings or anything else other than God. God was complete, perfect — and yet somehow from out of nowhere and for no reason it has a character which desires and wants something that does not already exist, and has never existed: someone else to love.

In trinitarian Christianity, this problem is solved: the Persons within the Trinity love each other from eternity. That is how God can be said to be love. But we stray into Christianity, and I want to avoid that at all costs in this thread.

The “God-shaped Void” in human beings can be explained without the existence of God because God is composed of many elements which we
experience in our lives. God can still be inferred as the source — but it need not be. But where did the “Human-Being-shaped Void” in God come from?

He has no need. But love would conceivably have an aspect of wanting to share the goodness and fulfillment of existence with creatures. So creation would flow from the nature of love, not some sort of “necessity” or “desire” which would not exist in a perfectly self-existent and complete Being.

If the one demands an explanation, so I think does the other.

I’ve done my best. Looking forward very much to your reply. I enjoyed this a lot. I really admire the way you express things, even though we have, of course, profound disagreements.

Thanks. And I think — and hope — that the disagreements we have are not as profound as they may seem. :)

Me, too. I look forward to reading your next reply.

There are many different definitions and versions of God, and only a few of them make sexual and moral demands that might be difficult or unwelcome (and keep in mind that most people find that self-sacrifice increases the value of whatever has been sacrificed for and thus the satisfaction of achieving it).

Fair enough, but that doesn’t rule out a desire for sexual freedom as a strong incentive for rejecting Christianity. That’s too obvious a point for anyone to really doubt. It doesn’t mean that every non-Christian does this, but it happens a lot more than atheists would ever want to admit. I vaguely recall some statement from Julian Huxley, I believe, where he actually honestly admitted this.

Atheists — at least, Secular Humanists — believe that demanding strong evidence even for very pleasing, gratifying, and comforting claims of the supernatural and paranormal is a form of discipline and responsibility that requires a strict intellectual integrity that is sometimes difficult to achieve and maintain. Neither side has an exclusive right on “accepting accountability.”

I agree with this 100%. But I do think that Christianity is more than philosophy and science, so that many in those fields will never accept it, because they (quite foolishly and arrogantly) won’t allow for any knowledge beyond the confines of their own field of study or inquiry. Not to mention the Christian doctrine of God’s free, unearned grace, without which no one could believe in the first place.

The belief that atheists refuse to accept reasonable evidence for God because they don’t want God to exist is, in my opinion, one of the most dangerous beliefs in theism.

Then why would not the converse charge of theists wanting God to exist not also be considered “dangerous”? If people can have one sort of psychological orientation, they can surely conceivably have the other as well. I think it is a wash.

I agree with you that relying only on psychological explanations for belief or nonbelief would be a mistake, but I also [think] that doing so for theism does indeed make sense if the theist is using — as one of his main arguments — the claim that if God doesn’t exist then this will lead to psychological discomfort. Atheists generally do not make the argument that there is no God because it would be uncomfortable if there was one.

Of course they don’t. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t true that they feel more freedom and autonomy given the assumption that God doesn’t exist. In fact, many of you candidly admitted as much in my survey. And for certain hedonistic or narcissistic approaches to life (none of you, of course), this would be a great incentive indeed.

You may infer or guess that this motivation is somehow hiding under the arguments we are making, but we don’t have to infer or guess at any such secretive, hidden motivation on your part if you walk right into it.

Such explanations are clearly possibilities for both beliefs. Many people do in fact use God as a crutch and sort of “cosmic bellhop,” and many spurn Him as a slave master or stern father-figure who “messes up” their freedom and – above all – their sexual freedom. But it is very difficult to establish this on an individual level, and little is achieved from arguing in this fashion.

The reason I think that it is more dangerous to mutual tolerance and respect when theists assume that atheists don’t want God to exist than when atheists assume that theists believe in God because they do want God to exist is because the moral and ethical implications are very different.

Theists are, at worst, being accused of being careless and sloppy in their methods, of allowing their personal hopes and desires to unduly influence their conclusions.

Oh, c’mon Sue. You must know we are accused of much more than that by your fellow atheists and humanists!

I was referring not to charges about subsequent behavior and actions, but to the specific instance of belief formation. It is a philosophical question in epistemology, one which can be explored through reason and science, and one that is like many many other questions.

And that’s precisely how I seek to analyze atheist beliefs.

This isn’t very epistemically responsible, perhaps, but we all do this at times in all sorts of matters, even atheists. This says nothing drastic about the character or worth of someone who does this. We have all loved and respected people whom we think have allowed their feelings to get away with them in some area, who have accepted theories which we don’t believe to be true. Even great heroes have their weaknesses, and even wise men can err. My own father believes that space aliens built the pyramids, but I admire him anyway Enthusiasm must be guarded against if we care about truth, but it’s hardly a bad quality in itself. It’s human, and may even be a sign of a loving heart which overrules a cautious head.

But what does it say if someone rejects a belief in God because they don’t WANT God to exist? What is the usual explanation for this among average Christians — or even some of the Christians on this list? What seems to be entailed by the basic assumptions of Christianity itself as informed by the Bible?

As I have explained on this list, the Catholic (and biblical) view concerning unbelief is very multi-faceted and – one might say – “tolerant.” I have always held that religious belief and its justifications and motives is an extraordinarily complicated affair, not easily summarized for any individual. The atheist has a host of assumptions which color his thought, just as Christians do. We believe many of these are false, so that it is not so much a rejection of God as we know and love Him, but a rejection of a “god” which is in fact not the God of reality at all, but a cardboard caricature.

The very arguments atheists use clearly demonstrate this. The Problem of Evil seeks to establish that God is either evil Himself or so impotent that He is not recognizable at all as the God we Christians worship. Steve [Conifer] and [another list member] have attacked Jesus Himself, as an evil or at the very least an exceedingly arrogant and strange, bizarre person. That is not the Jesus we love and worship. God is viewed as a capricious tyrant because of the doctrine of hell. Etc., etc. So we conclude that most atheists are rejecting what they severely misunderstand, and that it is a problem more so of intellect (and the will which is acting on this false belief) than of character defect.

I think you misunderstand the nature and intent of those arguments. They are not meant to claim that God is awful, therefore we shouldn’t believe in it. They are meant to show that the claims about some gods do not meet our observations, and thus there probably isn’t one like that.

Some definitions appear to contain logical contradictions when coupled with givens of experience.

“Appear” is the key word here.

I have written this before, but I’ll repeat it here. The most common argument I hear from theists in the religion debate rooms is not really the Design Argument or the Moral Argument or the Cosmological Argument, but the insistence that the nonbeliever simply doesn’t understand the DEPTH and GOODNESS of God. Their views are shallow, they either made them up or got them from equally shallow theists. And this seems to be true whether the atheist has a background in Fundamentalism or Taoism, Tillich or Aquinas, Mysticism or Evidence That Demands a Verdict. I call it the “Well – I – Don’t – Believe – In – THAT – God – Either” Argument. Everyone seems to make it. I bet that somewhere there is an atheist right now with a firm and clear grounding in Catholic apologetics being told that NO WONDER he is an atheist, Catholicism is sooo shallow

You guys say (I’m speaking very broadly again) we are ignorant of science and rationality and philosophy; why should it be so shocking to you that we would regard atheists as being ignorant of the true God, the Bible and theology?

You may be speaking broadly, but in doing so you I think you are mischaracterizing the atheist position, or at least the Humanist one. Science, rationality, and philosophy can’t possibly be our unique possession, because the whole point is that they are capable of being shared by everyone, and most everyone does indeed understand and use them to some degree. They are our common heritage because they are based on what is common to all human beings and observers. Our insistence is that you try to persuade us from the common ground, and how could we call it a common ground if we thought you were ignorant of science, rationality, and philosophy? From what I’ve read of what you have written you most certainly are not.

So are atheists ignorant of the True God, theology, and the Bible? That depends on whether you are talking about individual atheists or atheists in general.

Generally.

Some know theology and the Bible very well. And if God does not exist, then we know the True God better than you do. ;)

:-)

When I came into this forum, I was quite up-front about not being a professional philosopher. I recognize my limitations, and they don’t bother me. One can only do so much, and there is so much that interests me; if only I had the time.

But I have been repeatedly informed that anyone can easily interpret the Bible, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

Actually, I think our point has been the exact opposite: that it is far from the simplest thing in the world.

That was not the impression I got at all. I saw Ted Drange make quite dogmatic statements that the Bible teaches thus-and-so; also Steve Conifer and Nick Tattersall particularly.

If it was, there would be a consensus of reasonable, thoughtful, intelligent people on what the Bible means and we do not see that. I think that when some of the others on the list argue with you over the meaning of specific verses, their point is not so much to show that their interpretation is correct, but just that one can argue that such an interpretation is correct with enough justification that one can
hold it and still be a Christian. But that is their issue…

Anyone here is at least as good at hermeneutics as I am (probably better, because they are so “objective,” you see, whereas I am brainwashed with my Christian/Catholic presuppositions and predispositions). After all, I’ve only studied the Bible intensely for 20 years. I’ve only devoted my life to defending Christianity for the same length of time. Why would I know any more than your average atheist who blows the dust off his prized Bible, opens it up, and proceeds to give us the authoritative interpretation of verse x? Who could argue with that?

The Christian God is too specific, and thus its nature and traits are irrelevant to atheism as such.

If you’re going to argue against the biblical God, it would be nice to at least know what Bible-believers claim this God is.

What is the least common number of characteristics something could have in order to be considered a God, and how likely is it that this exists? That’s the first question, and the one that counts to most of us, or should. We don’t ask the nature of God, we ask the nature of reality. Is reality formed and controlled by a Mind or something with mind-dependent values — or is that an unnecessary and inconsistent assumption?

In terms of philosophy alone, I would agree. The “God of the philosophers.”

Of course, if it were true that atheists don’t believe in God because they misunderstand God and think it evil, that would seem to be to our credit morally, however detrimental it might be to our epistemic integrity.

Indeed, and that is one of my beliefs.

Rebelling against a God of Evil would be ethical: choosing to not believe in something because you would rather it wasn’t true is sloppy.

Yep.

Often this is explained by claiming that nonbelievers would literally rather die than have to live up to standards and principles of honor,
integrity, virtue, and obedience.

I have rarely seen such a view expressed. But I often hear the contrary expressed in Christian circles, where I have moved now for over 20 years. Natural law in fact presumes that all people have the knowledge of basic morality and the capability to act to some degree upon that, even before the reception of divine grace.

They want to have rampant sex and other pleasurable indulgences without any future accountability — they want to do as they please, they want to go without any rules, they want to live narrow and selfish and vain lives.

Well, we all have those tendencies, whether Christian or not. Original sin affects us all, not to mention our sex-crazed culture, which is doing nobody any good. We do believe that without God’s grace, it will be much harder for a person to resist these things. You can hardly be surprised that we would think that. It necessarily flows from our beliefs about grace and justification.

To explain the kind of people who do not WANT the embodiment of Love, Security, and Justice to be real — who blind themselves to His obvious existence and unselfish love and steel themselves against the promptings of their own consciences and hearts — we’re not just talking about “sloppy thinking” here, are we? We’re talking about the kind of degraded and determined sinful blindness that would merit eternal Hell — and the kind of people who might even prefer eternal Hell to a Heaven that does not give them egotistical priority.

Do you really see no difference between the two? And can you not understand why an atheist sees a very real danger in a religion which can so easily bring such ‘spiritual facts’ in to judge his character?

I can certainly understand that this sort of view would be offensive to you, and clearly it hurts you personally (even deeply, it appears to me). I am perceptive enough to see that. My main response would be to reiterate that the causes of unbelief are many and varied, and that anyone who makes such a rash judgment is not acting in accordance with either Christian charity or theology, rightly-understood.

Personally (I can always speak for myself), I think you are a delightful person, very intelligent and filled with helpful insights. I like you and enjoy our dialogues immensely. Given that, I could hardly make such rash judgments as to why you don’t believe in God. I don’t know why that is, except that I do know you were raised as freethinker and I know that childhood development plays a crucial role for all of us, whether we acknowledge that or not. In your case, you obviously don’t possess the animus and hostility that many people who were inadequately raised as Christians possess. I didn’t have that, either, in my secular/occultic period in the 70s because my Christian upbringing (Methodist) was so nominal and minimal.

One tends to develop such hostility when they are forced to engage in some religious practice or belief by hypocritical parents who do neither themselves, or when they are inadequately taught, especially in the realm of apologetics, which would naturally interest intellectuals, so that they can possess a rational belief-structure, and know why they believe what they are told to believe. I embraced all of my beliefs by choice, and upon becoming a serious Christian I studied apologetics soon thereafter, so that I could synthesize my Christianity with my other beliefs, particularly history and philosophy, and to a lesser degree, science (because I took less of that in college). I read C.S. Lewis early on, and he became a seminal influence on me.

On the other hand, I think you vastly underestimate the prejudice towards Christians (mostly that we are ignoramuses and intolerant bigots who wish to force our views on everyone else). Even within Christian ranks, there is the terrible divide between the (small minority of) anti-Catholic ranks among Protestants, and Catholics. I have been the victim of far more bigotry and sometimes outright hatred from anti-Catholic Protestants than I have ever received from atheists or secularists.

For example, the worst experience I ever had on a list was on a Calvinist one, where within two days (before I was kicked off) I was called everything in the book: a liar, deceiver, apostate, etc. It was the most outrageous and unfair treatment I ever received in my life. One person said that I was damned for sure, and urged everyone there not even to pray for me. All because I was a Catholic!

Heh, I can just picture that. Here you toddle in, all bright and shiny and filled with good will and tolerance — “come, we are all Christians, let us meet in the Socratic marketplace of debate and discussion and see if reason can help us arrive at a better understanding of God’s will!” — and WHAM, you run up against the wall that says that God’s will has been so plainly revealed already that you must have steeled yourself against Him by hardening your heart in order to believe the falsehoods you do. Yes, I can relate to this, as you may readily imagine.

You are very good at creating word pictures. :-) You even seem to be affectionately (gently) teasing me, which is cute. In my opinion, Calvinists cannot possibly be anti-Catholic without engaging in intellectual suicide; sawing off the limb they sit on. It is a compelling historical argument, I think. You might enjoy some of the exchanges I have had with these types, for your enjoyment on some boring, snowed-in evening. I have less than no patience with them at all, and no doubt it shows, but I think they deserve whatever anger they receive, because their views are despicable, and eminently unscriptural.

Would you respect and spend time talking with a flat-earther or a KKK bigot or a pedophile who sees nothing whatever wrong with what he does? I don’t have a problem myself with granting these folks free speech, much as I despise their positions and hatred (with regard to the latter). But spend time? Not I . . .

Heh. Well, this makes us different. I have indeed spent time with KKK bigots and pedophiles who argue for their position because I’ve spent time
in an internet chat room dedicated to debate and discussion and they come in. So far, no flat-earthers, though I’ve met New Agers who would probably be open to the concept if it was presented in the right way. Did run into a guy once who thought the earth was hollow.

The reason I bother to argue with bigots and pedophiles is that you can’t understand why they are wrong until you understand their position and why they hold it — and there is usually a grain of truth in there somewhere which you have to answer, if only to yourself. And the mere fact that they are trying to persuade me means that they must accept, even if only for the time, that I am enough like them that I can see their point. And once they are there they are enough like me that they may see mine.

Usually, if you understand the premises and assumptions someone is working from, you find that if you put yourself in their place the views they hold are perfectly reasonable and you would probably advocate them yourself. The problem is usually not the nature of the person, but the nature of their premises and assumptions. And if they are wrong they can’t just be wrong by my standards, but by their own, too.

We both admire Thomas Aquinas and think he was a good man in general, but in his Summa Theologica he speculated that the tortures and the punishments of the damned would have to be able to be directly observed from heaven “in order that the bliss of the saints may be more delightful for them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it” and nothing be missing from their felicities. I do not throw up my hands and give up on the underlying humanity of Aquinas despite this. Neither do you. People are not consistent and never have been — not even the saints, apparently.

Where I disagree with you perhaps is in your easy characterization of the Calvinists and Fundamentalists as being outrageous and unfair. From our point of view, perhaps. Humanism, founded as it is in Greek philosophy and science, rests on respect for the critical opinions of other people.

There is such a thing as an utterly unworthy argument, which doesn’t even merit the dignity of a reply, though, right?

No, I don’t think so. I think that if someone has given enough thought to an idea or belief that they can hold it sincerely and in good faith — and
if their argument seems persuasive to them — it always merits the dignity of a reply, because something somewhere in the argument has spoken to their own human dignity and thought, which I must share if I’m human.

Interesting. A lot of this judgment of mine is based on the necessity of proper time management. I have a day job, additional “job” of being a semi-professional writer, a wife and three children, and I am interacting constantly on the Internet, so I must “choose my battles wisely,” so to speak. I do commend you attitude of charity, though. It is pretty extraordinary, and I think it has affected my view on this matter somewhat.

But if you work on the premises of the anti-Catholic, anti-atheist mindset there is nothing bigoted or malicious about rejecting views caused by a will towards evil.

Rejecting views is one thing, but every Christian has the obligation to be loving, even towards enemies. One must charitably attempt to dissuade. The way these people act is a disgrace to Christianity. How can they expect to win over someone if they treat them with utter disdain? This is not Jesus’ way at all.

If one must always be loving towards enemies and charitably attempt to dissuade, then how can you argue that there are some utterly unworthy
arguments that do not even merit the dignity of a reply?

Well, I think you have a valid point. As I said, a lot of this is a matter of limited time, and the necessity to make a choice as to who to talk to. In that context, the flat-earther will be very low on my list of priorities, if not unworthy of a reply altogether. :-) If I don’t “have time” for him in the next ten years, the practical outcome is little different, anyway. :-)

First you put flat-earthers, bigots, and pedophiles in this group, and later you add Mormons and Scientologists. The Calvinists are only doing the same thing, adding in Catholics and atheists to the groups which don’t deserve the dignity of a reply because they are so outside of common sense that it isn’t worth talking to them.

Well no. They will talk to us, but they (the anti-Catholic faction) insist on constant insult and blatant demonstration of their profound ignorance where we are concerned. That is a lack of charity and personal insult, whereas refusing to deal with certain issues is (or may be) intellectual derision only.

Actually, I have a hypothesis about Calvinists in particular that I’ll share with you, just as a sort of side issue here. I haven’t tested it or anything, so it’s just a bare speculation based on some limited things I’ve seen and read. In my experience, Calvinists tend to be particularly nasty when they debate — even the intelligent debaters, the people who spend a lot of time on apologetics. There is a lot of taunting, goading, and ad hominems going on. Like you, this puzzles me because most people seem to recognise that you’re not going to win anybody over if you treat them with contempt. And yet they do.

But reading Calvinist theology I was struck by one of their major tenets: that reason cannot lead one to God. Natural theology and evidential arguments are useless because the nonbeliever (whether atheist or Catholic) has blinded and fortified themselves against the Holy Spirit through pride, and is not on the common ground where they can even be capable of understanding till they recognise this. The Calvinist is not trying to persuade so much as break through what is being suppressed.

Given this, it is possible I think that the Calvinist apologists are using insults, disdain, and mockery as a deliberate tactic designed to humiliate the other person so badly that their pride suffers — and thus give the Holy Spirit a chance to enter or be recognised. It’s a way of being cruel to be kind, a kind of “tough love,” if it’s seen in this sense. If our problem is self-esteem and self-pride, knocking us down a peg or two might be more efficious in attacking the real problem than approaching us with kindness and gentleness. Jesus, after all, went at some people with a whip. The point is to save your soul, not make you feel good about yourself while they are doing it.

This would make some sense, I think, though again I’m only going from a few personal experiences and might be giving too much credit to their good intentions and not enough credit to the fun and glee that comes from watching an enemy suffer. Goodness knows Calvinism contains enough other beliefs that can pretty easily de-humanise an opponent — or perhaps I should say “humanise” them, since it seems to be one of the varieties of Christianity most hostile to humanism as a view in general, just as Catholicism can be one of the varieties of Christianity that is the most sympathetic.

Extremely interesting hypothesis about Calvinists, Sue. Wow! You may very well be onto something here. I love new insights like that. We should actually ask a Calvinist this and see how they respond. That would be equally fascinating to see, I think.

If they are right and you ARE a liar and deceiver then they don’t have to entertain your arguments.

Correct. Just as I don’t entertain Mormon or Scientology arguments.

And God has spoken very plainly on this issue, and who are they to disagree with God?

They have no excuse at all on the lack of charity. If I am evil and going to hell, riding on the Scarlet Beast and Harlot of Rome, etc., then their duty (from their point of view) is to save my soul. And you don’t do that by lying about a person, their motives, and their beliefs, and their Church, claiming that they worship the pope and/or Mary, commit idolatry at every turn, etc. ad nauseam. One can tell when prejudice is afoot. Black people are very good at that. And I have become very familiar with it myself, after having converted to Catholicism.

You are dead in the water before you begin, because the well has been poisoned.

You got it. And in my first post to this list I criticized how Christians often do the same thing to atheists.

I don’t think other areas, such as political and social disagreement, engender quite the same kind of condemnation.

No, there’s nothing like the self-righteous indignation of the religious bigot.

Certainly it can be heated, I don’t argue with that. But a beginning assumption that the other person is against God can lead to an intractible, inflexible position on the character of this person that no argument or demonstration or reasonable rebuttal can mitigate. It raises the stakes. As you have seen.

Yes, I have experienced this myself. But I was equally opposed to such stupid, judgmental behavior before I suffered at the hands of anti-Catholic bigots. Jesus demands no less of any of His disciples. I simply understand the maliciousness of it better now, having been on the receiving end.

I harbor few illusions that my arguments for Secular Humanism will convert or change the mind of the True Believer towards the truth of their religion. My hope and goal is that they will better understand that my position is reasonable — that the existence of God or truth of Christianity or verity of their denomination is not the sort of obvious, self-evident claim that only the depraved would doubt. Atheism is an epistemically legitimate position that just may be right.

I can’t go that far, but I’ll say that most atheists I have encountered seem to me to be sincere and honest in their intellectual aspect. How they arrive at their views involves, I think, a long and highly complex process, to which I alluded earlier. But I agree with you insofar as my goal, too, is much more to persuade non-believers that my position is reasonable or at least that I am pursuing it with full vigor of reasoning and critical faculties as well as with faith.

Which I grant of course. :)

When Fundamentalists assume that the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon and a tool of Satan, good luck getting them to believe that you chose this Church rationally out of your honest and sincere effort to better understand the nature of reality and the nature of God. The argumentation of Athens has collided with the revelation of Jerusalem.

They are being irrational and allowing emotions based on false beliefs to entirely color their perceptions and behavior. They are irrational, but they don’t adequately represent true Christianity when they do that (not in that aspect). It looks like you want to make out that they are being consistent Christians (fideism, irrationality). I would vehemently deny that. They are acting like nothing more than the corrupt Pharisees which Jesus condemned in no uncertain terms.

I think it is possible to justify a lot of very inconsistent positions in Christianity by finding the common ground only in the basic beliefs and
then adding in interpretation. The behavior of the Calvinists can be seen as consistent with Christianity if you were to grant their premises.

Oh yes. I agree.

It does no use whatsoever to tell them to be kinder or more reasonable, since they are neither unkind nor irrational at all from their point of view and if we think about it we can see that. Their “unloving” behavior is like showing disgust for a pedophile, or perhaps being cruel to be kind, as I suggested.

Even if God made His will even clearer and more evident, you would obviously reject it, since you reject it now. Welcome to the club ;)

I agree totally with you on this point. One must always grant the intelligence and sincerity of the opponent, short of compelling, unarguable evidence to the contrary.

The same treatment (with different terminology) is very often directed towards political conservatives, pro-lifers, and critics of evolution, in academia, in the media, in the entertainment industry, in the political realm, and elsewhere, because all of these positions are not considered “mainstream” or “politically correct” in our secular society. They are unfashionable; not “chic”; not in vogue. So I’ve received my share of prejudice, too, believe me, because I am in all these categories, being the inveterate nonconformist and gadfly that I am. :-)

But I do accept and agree with your dislike of the tendencies you mention, and I would like to apologize to you on behalf of Christianity for any such treatment you have received in the past. That was wrong, and not in accordance with Christian principles. And the next time it happens, send the idiot who does it to me, and I will give them a severe tongue-lashing (“biblical rebuke”) for hypocrisy and lack of charity. :-) And for attacking someone I now consider a friend . . .

And I consider you a friend as well :) But I think you are a bit hasty when you say that the tendency to attribute bad faith on the part of atheists is not in accordance with Christian principles,

It is not. I pointed out somewhere how Jesus treated the Roman centurion. He was always gentle with anyone who was simply ignorant. He was merciful, kind, understanding, tolerant. This is our model, not John Knox or some flaming lunatic zealot who is every stereotype that non-believers have about Christians and more. Look how Paul spoke to the pagan Athenians (Acts 16). This is the very opposite of condescending derision. He recognizes their sincerity and religiosity, and tries to build bridges to Christianity, based on existing commonalities. Paul is our model, and Jesus. You are wrong about this. We can speak in broad generalities about hard-heartedness existing as a sin, but we can’t judge individual hearts.

and you are being a bit uncharitable towards the so-called bigot. The Fundamentalists are generally very good people with a sincere desire to love others: they are the victims not of ill will, but of bad theory.

But that doesn’t excuse their behavior. There is no way in heaven or hell that hatred and malice and lying can be synthesized with Christianity.

I do not consider you a bigot, and yet I recognise that as a Catholic you must at some point work on the assumption that since God exists and it is reasonably clear that He does, something is probably wrong not just with the intellect, but with the hearts and souls of those who seek to deny this.

Possibly; not necessarily. But I don’t have enough information to decide that in each individual case, which is the point. I do believe as a Christian that all of us suffer from the defects of original sin.

It seems very clear to me that the existence of God is not an obvious, self-evident, open and shut case so that only people who are somehow morally defective or sly and overweeningly stubborn would find it unconvincing. There is legitimate dispute on the issue in the same way there is legitimate dispute on free will and determinism, ESP and precognition, and other theories in science or philosophy. The existence of the Loch Ness monster is not an Animal Rights issue, but an empirical one. And the existence of God should not be made into a moral issue.

There are many reasons for both belief and nonbelief, and many proofs and disproofs on both sides. I refuse to adopt any single, simple explanation for either stance.

God is defined in most societies as a Direct Embodiment of Love, Fairness, and The Good who is concerned with the welfare and ultimate happiness of human beings (no, not all societies, but most that we on this list are familiar with.) The idea that there is a large class or group of people who would NOT WANT this Being to exist, who would not freely want to be enlightened as to the True Nature of Reality and would not freely want to be tenderly embraced within its all-encompassing Love Beyond Understanding for an Eternity of Bliss fills me with shock.

The numbers aren’t large, but relatively small, which is part of the point. Most people in all cultures and at all times, have been religious. Secondly, what is usually rejected is not this all-loving Being, but the tyrant who “damns billions of people to hell,” etc., etc., or the “Jesus” whom Steve [Conifer] constructed in his reply to my Survey (a “Jesus” thoroughly unrecognizable to me, one who is His disciple). I have always maintained that if indeed people knew that God existed and what His true nature was, that they couldn’t possibly resist Him. But unfortunately, people believe all sorts of wrong things about God, and so refuse assent (if an atheist) or obedience (if a non-Christian theist).

That’s one reason why I am so fired-up about apologetics, because many objections to Christianity are based upon pure stereotype, caricature, misinformation, old wives’ tales, passed-down bigotry, cultural mush religion, or flat-out untruths. Part of my job is to see that if someone must reject Christianity, that at least they know full well what it is they are rejecting. Apologetics thus deals with the aspects of religious faith or belief which have to do with knowledge and reason. It cannot touch the aspect of the will, which is another matter altogether. Nor can knowledge alone make people believe, because grace is also required. The apologist simply removes whatever roadblocks to faith (mostly intellectual, but also moral) he is able to remove.

Who would these incomprehensible monsters be? The inclusion of myself in this group leaves me almost speechless.

But I haven’t included you. I don’t know all the reasons why you don’t believe in God, and it would take a very long time of getting to know you very well personally to even venture a decent guess, if ever at all (I am very reluctant to ever make such judgments about individuals). I am discussing these matters (in the current instance) from a very broad social-psychological perspective, turning the tables on the standard “psychological crutch” argument.

What kind of religion would force nice, normal, ordinary people to believe this of me — and others — in order to make sense of a Hell for nonbelievers, and thus keep the integrity of the theory and system intact?

Again, this is only one possible reason among many, many extraordinarily complex reasons for belief or nonbelief. So you are being far too melodramatic.

A bad one, and a dangerous one, in my not so humble opinion.

And a caricature of the religion that believe in, in my still humble opinion.

I’m not sure I understand how you can claim that God “wants to share” with others but does not have a desire to do so. A love without need or desire seems to be a kind of contradiction, since love usually entails a strong yearning for the happiness and presence of another. This would have to be some new kind of love I am not familiar with, I think.

Well, most of us aren’t completely familiar with it, because it is beyond our normal experience as human beings. We aren’t self-sufficient, nor do we have perfect love, so only dim analogies at best can be applied. Mainly I meant to say that God has no need of creating humans, but did so out of love. But these are very deep matters and I don’t claim any particular expertise on them.

We can certainly understand loving without a need to do so. Say, e.g., I loved children and liked to babysit them. If I am babysitting 100 children, my need would certainly be met, and #101 would be unnecessary in that sense. But if #101 child shows up I could choose to exercise love and care for it even though I had no particular need to do so, which wasn’t already met.

I’m also not sure that you answered the question I asked. “Creation flows from the nature of love” doesn’t explain how or why God wanted to create something that never existed.

One of the essences of love is to give and to share, and creation is giving (life) and sharing (existence), wouldn’t you say?

A perfectly self-existent and complete Being would be complete and would not seem to be capable of having a “want” — especially for something that isn’t part of itself and never has been.

In that sense, yes, but we are speaking of an active love which is proactive and creative, not of any need.

Your claim is that we wouldn’t want there to be a God if there wasn’t already something there just like it that fits the bill — that our desires are a reliable indication that there is Something Out There which draws and attracts us to it.

Indeed.

God wanted humans, which must be why it created us. Where did this want come from, given that there was no one “out there” to attract it?

From His own nature, which is why we believe men are made in God’s image. Originally, I suppose, human beings were a sort of Platonic concept in God’s mind. So God made the image a reality; gave it physical being and a soul.

Why would it be part of its nature, which is already complete? Was God complete but unsatisfied?

No; He was complete, but loving, giving, and creative. Creation is a positive good. Human beings existing rather than not existing is a good thing, if creation is good. And it is very good because we are in God’s image, which is marvelous and wonderful. So God created. Love shares; love creates; love reaches out. That’s how I understand it, anyway. I’m sure a theologian like Aquinas or Augustine would explain it in infinitely more depth.

The yearning of man for God can be explained either through natural explanations concerning similar needs we evolved for security, justice, love, etc. here on earth OR through the theory that there is a Being out there which is drawing us towards Him.

Or both.

I still don’t see how you can explain the yearning (or “wanting to share”) of God for Man, given that God is supposed to be existing before Man and not only capable of being self-sufficient, but completely so as a matter of definition.

I hope I have explained it adequately.

The truly interesting thing to me is how to regard this huge divergence of perceived proof or lack of same. How should we interpret that (apart from the usual silly caricatures on both sides: atheists are evil conspirators; Christians are irrational and gullible morons, etc.)? The underlying assumptions and epistemological bases are what fascinate me the most in this whole larger controversy which we engage in here.

Yes, I agree — they are the same things that interest me. There is an interesting difference, though, in the way the two groups seem to approach the question. Since I do not think there is a God, trying to understand why so many think there is one will involve me in discovering and exploring how ordinary and intelligent people come to be so certain of things that aren’t so — and this understanding will range across not only religion but science, politics, social systems, psychology, neurology, etc. etc. God is only one question in the larger theme of man’s ability to err even while sincere and of good intention and character. And if I am wrong about the existence of God, I would appeal to these same types of explanations for why I made the mistake.

Many theists, however — since they believe there is a God to which all men of good will are naturally drawn in understanding — often try to understand why some men think there isn’t one by assuming depths of depravity and evil in the human heart.

We assume that about every human heart, not just that of atheists, so it can’t be used as a charge of selective application.

I think it is selective to an extent because in this particular question you make assumptions of extraordinary depravity . . .

Again, Christians believe all people suffer from “extraordinary depravity” apart from grace. It’s called original sin, and I’m sure you are familiar with the concept.

or willful blindness on the part of atheists in particular.

“Willful” is very difficult to determine. It certainly occurs, but ultimately God will decide when it does, not men, who can’t see into other human hearts. This is all biblical and Catholic teaching, not just the “exception” of “Dave the tolerant Catholic-despite-his-own-church”, etc.

When you assume that atheists haven’t reached their conclusions about God on the basis of evidence and argument but because of a psychological will to rebel against what they must know is true you have made them into a special case.

But I haven’t assumed or asserted this of any particular individual (though I might suspect it). I simply say that there are such individuals, atheists or otherwise. Christians are nearly as rebellious as any other group, because this is a universal human problem: the desire to be autonomous. I would never say an atheist has no evidence or argument which he thinks mitigates against God’s existence. I say that they are operating on false principles, premises, or shoddy logic somewhere down the line.

I think that with the atheist it is primarily an intellectual problem of misinformation and disinformation. Once it gets entrenched it is very difficult to dislodge. This false information in turn may produce an ill or bad will (or the latter may predispose one to the former). It could possibly become a ploy to avoid the obligations which accrue upon bowing to God. But I can’t know this for sure. I believe it occurs among some based on what I have observed in human beings, and because – yes – it is taught in the Bible as well, especially in Romans 1.

Certainly you can’t object to me explaining your disbelief by wrong information, logic, etc., as that would be exactly how Christian belief is explained away, no (at least in the more charitable instances)?

The premise that the Christian God exists allows you to bring in facts of the matter about what motivates atheists which you would not bring in if you simply saw the existence of God as being a question on the level of other questions in philosophy or science.

Of course revelation is also involved for any Christian. But this is too simple. The interrelationship of psychology and belief is extraordinarily complex, as indeed you yourself alluded to in an earlier comment. As a sociology major and psychology minor, I think I have a little better sense of that than the average person. These speculations are not simply brought about by religion and revelation but also by social psychology, even anthropology.

If this is not true for me, then it will be true for Nick or Ted or even (gasp) Steve. Or someone else.

It may be. I don’t assume that at all, as I engage in discussions. Mostly I observe obscurantism and obfuscation rather than bad faith or insincerity. But even those things I don’t claim are undertaken deliberately. I think they flow from the false beliefs and how they affect people’s thinking in a deleterious way. But you’ll note how some people here regard me. One person is convinced that I am a bigot with a closed-mind, insincere, and Lord knows what else. He is doing precisely what you and I agree is wrong, in our approach to others and their ideas and character. So this tendency works both ways, of course.

Where this point comes in will be related to how tolerant you are … and vice versa.

Indeed. I hope my present letter is “tolerant” in your eyes. I think your letters are uniformly excellent.

We do believe that the will and perhaps evil intent might lie behind unbelief, as with many other objective sins, but not necessarily so, as there is much intellectual confusion and misunderstanding also. For myself, I might generalize about atheists or other non-Christian categories (everyone does that about other groups), as to why they don’t believe, but I always try to extend the judgment of charity on an individual basis, and not to make charges concerning which I have too little evidence to make.

Which I think admirable on your part and does you credit. I have a question for you, one which I have asked on this list before, though not recently. I’ll make it simple, it has to do with how you explain atheism. Do you believe:

1.) God has placed undeniable, self-evident internal knowledge of His Presence in every heart, and those who claim to not have this are willfully lying to themselves and others.

2.) Evidence of God’s existence in the world is so clear and obvious that anyone who does not acknowledge it must be either perverse or intent on blocking it out.

3.) Evidence for God’s existence is ambiguous; a rational person with a good heart can honestly come to the mistaken belief that God doesn’t exist.

In other words, is the existence of God 1.) pregiven internal knowledge 2.) obvious conclusion 3.) neither internal nor obvious?

None of the above, as written, because you make a basic error. You incorrectly make deliberate intent a prerequisite for #1 and #2. I don’t believe that in most cases people are “willfully lying to themselves” or “perverse or intent on blocking it out.” I think that they (particularly intellectuals and more educated folks) believe certain things mistakenly, and then proceed to build a massive edifice of false belief with a weak (false, untrue) foundation.

Actually, since the three options were meant to be all-inclusive, I think you have opted for #3. Perhaps you misunderstood what I wrote, I may not have been clear. I was basically asking if it was possible for a reasonable person to come to a mistaken conclusion on the existence of God, not whether it is more reasonable to think that atheism is true.

I think I understood. But if #3 is deemed to be my choice (if one must be chosen), I would still state that what is “ambiguous” is (in the atheist’s case) the perception of the “obvious” evidence for God’s existence, not the evidence itself. That’s why I maintain that none of the three accurately portray what my opinion on the matter is.

There are Christians who believe that knowledge of God and/or evidence of God is so clear, obvious, and unambiguous to everyone that atheists are simply playing evil games with themselves, a perverse, unnatural, and deliberate attempt to defy God. It is possible to interpret the Bible in this way.

This is too philosophically and psychologically simple. Romans 1 and similar passages about willful unbelief are general statements; not applicable to each individual because we can’t read hearts to see if this sort of thing is in fact going on. One must also interpret it in harmony with other passages showing how Jesus and the Apostles actually approached unbelievers.

It is also possible to believe that while God can be found by searching within or by observing without, the evidence is not so clear that only the morally depraved acting with ill will and on bad faith would be — or, more accurately, pretend to be — an atheist.

The classic Christian position (Augustine, Aquinas et al) is that natural theology is sufficient for all to know that God exists. The particular characteristics of this God, however, are a matter of revelation and cannot be attained by natural reason alone, apart from faith, grace, and supernatural revelation, where God simply communicates to man His attributes and care for us as a heavenly Father and our Creator.

Obviously, the first interpretation is dangerous to mutual respect. And pretty much cuts off any debate.

Indeed.

The second interpretation, that this “might be true” in some cases, or even many cases, but not all, allows us to share a common ground, but the ground is a bit shaky.

This formulation is closer to my own opinion (which is the orthodox Catholic one, as far as I know).

The argument is always there waiting ready and prepared as a plausible final resort. The people in heaven and the people in hell, those in eternal bliss and those in eternal torment, seem to have such drastically different fates despite the fact that people here on earth seem to be basically the same kind of ordinary people, mixtures of good and bad.

That’s because God can see things in human beings in a much deeper way than we think we can conclude by limited observation, often distorted by jealousies, resentments, insecurities, condescension, prejudices, incorrect conclusions based on behavior, mistaken perceptions, and so forth.

It is very tempting to consider that perhaps they only SEEM to be the same kind of people, and use the first interpretation, in order to jibe with our sense of justice.

God will judge people based on what they knew, and what they did with that knowledge. One would have to truly know that God is Who He is, and reject Him, to be cast into hell. Ignorance is not a damnable sin. Willful rejection, disobedience, and rebellion may very well be. Invincible ignorance might go either way, depending on the person’s will and its role in the existing ignorance. There is a difference between people refusing to know and simply not knowing something, due to lack of information.

After all, belief in Jesus as Christ can’t be too unnecessary, or why the all bother on God’s part?

All who are saved will be by virtue of Jesus Christ. But they don’t necessarily have to have heard of Him, or what He did.

The first parts of #1 and #2 are true. Why people come to not believe or accept that is a far more complicated matter than your simplistic “willful lying,” “perversion” and so forth. Unbelief, I think, involves a long, complicated process of building up a paradigm and worldview, where atheism appears – in perfect sincerity – as more plausible than Christianity.

It involves things like tyrannical fathers (or no fathers) or teacher-nuns, lack of role models of real Christians (and the ubiquitous examples of “hypocrites”), lousy apologetics and catechesis among many, many Christians, traumatic childhood experiences, the favorable contrast of the “smart” college professor in contrast to the “ignorant backward” Christians, being forced to go to church by religiously nominal parents, cultural mores and trends, entertainment stereotypes, feminism, politics, peers, throughly-secularized public schools and whole fields (sociology, psychology, anthropology, political science, etc.) and on and on. All of these things create impressions and ideas in our minds. We then act upon them and develop our beliefs.

I understand something about paradigm transformations and what is involved because I have changed my mind on so many of these major issues myself. I know from my own experience that I was perfectly sincere in my earlier beliefs and acting upon the knowledge I had then, to the best of my ability. So I am not inclined at all to attribute ill will or bad faith. Yet I don’t deny that it happens.

I can easily see that most atheists on this list, e.g., don’t have the slightest clue as to what true Christianity really entails. That’s not meant as an insult, but actually a roundabout compliment (in the context of this dialogue). This very ignorance explains the vehemence and zeal with which you hold your opposition to Christianity. For how can one reasonably espouse what he has only the dimmest comprehension of in the first place? If I thought for a second that Christianity was what it is described to be on this list, I would leave it in the next second. And that gets around to the function of the apologist: to clear away all this massive amount of falsehood, distortion, cardboard caricatures of Christianity, straw men, and so on.

And what other claims would you put in the same category as claims about the existence of God?

Natural law (i.e., objective morality), the senses, consciousness of our mind and other minds and conscious beings, logic (with the aid of proper education, to some extent).

I’m not sure what you mean here. Most of these things are not in any dispute, they are readily available in our daily experience.

You asked me what I thought was in the same category; this is how obvious I think the existence of God is.

To deny that we have senses or that other people have minds or that logic works requires questioning the foundations of our experience of reality.

Precisely. That is how even an evidentialist like me views God also.

I’m not saying it ought not to be done, just that I would not include God in the same category as “the belief that we are conscious explains our experience of being conscious.” God is a much more complicated and remote explanatory theory than that.

I understand this is what you believe; I was simply expressing my view, since you asked me.

As for Natural Law/Objective Morality, that does seem more consistent with the type of questioning “does God exist?” involves.

Okay; good.

From what I can tell we both agree on objective morality. I know many reasonable people who disagree with us, some on this list. I suspect it may be a matter of definition, and also suspect that it may be resolvable over time by discussion — but admit it may not. And we might be wrong, of course. So I wouldn’t assume that there is a good probability here that Steve or Nick disagree with me on this point because deep down they know I’m right but want a relative, subjective morality so they can justify hurting other people without guilt. Or that anyone probably works like this on such a complicated issue.

People sincerely believe in false philosophies. Some may hold to relativism because of personal motives, but I think they are in the minority, and I can’t be sure that any individual believes this, short of the most compelling, undeniable proof.

If God has revealed itself adequately to everyone, then there must be some people who have a stubborn and willful ability to delude themselves against the acceptance of Ultimate Good.

This is true, but it is not the only factor.

If the best, most likely reason for atheism is a stubborn and willful ability to reject Ultimate Good, then there is something seriously morally wrong with atheists that can’t be said to be wrong with Christians and other theists, behavior aside. And it’s this “behavior aside” part that worries me.

Atheists — by and large — don’t reject what they believe to be “Ultimate Good,” knowing that it is indeed that. They reject what they believe to be non-existent (God) based on bad reasoning and a host of other factors, some of which I listed above. But the longer one lives with false beliefs, I would say the more susceptible they are of picking up bad habits of thought and behavior and slowly corrupting themselves (intellectually and morally), so that they become even less likely to accept what the Christian says is evident – all things being equal. Perhaps this is some of what is meant by the biblical phrase “hardening of the heart.”

Heh– this is not so different than the concerns many rational skeptics have. Living with the belief that faith is a final arbiter of truth and we ought to trust other means over and beyond reason can gradually corrupt one’s love of truth so that over time one loses the ability to distinguish between what is real and what feels “right” or good.

It could, but it doesn’t have to have that effect, if indeed faith and revelation are valid constructs, and if they can co-exist harmoniously with reason. Another instance of throwing the baby out with the bath water. Rationality can be equally as corrupted, if not much more so. Look at what happened in the French Revolution, for Pete’s sake. The “goddess of reason” and all that bilge . . . Marxism was supposed to be so rational and scientific (and atheistic) and it led to Lenin, Stalin, and Mao. Nazism adopted at least some ideas from Nietzsche (whether they distorted his views or not, I know not, but the point is that all these influences were non-theist and supposedly “rationalist”).

We lose our ability to think critically, because reason is seen as something that is in opposition to the heart — and public knowledge is seen as inferior in status to private knowing.

Only head-in-the-sand fundamentalists do this, or those in any Christian camp who don’t take the trouble to learn their faith and the rational justifications for it.

James Randi said “It is a dangerous thing to believe in nonsense.”

I couldn’t agree more.

It can be. Most people can compartmentalise their religious way of thinking from the way they come to believe in other things.

They do this precisely because that is how our secularist, humanist society (with its marvelous public schools) has taught them to think: that religion is a marginal, entirely subjective affair having little to do with reason. In other words, Christians have been educated into a stupor and propagandized with all these secular worldviews, and – being human – they start to show the influence of their surrounding culture. The medieval synthesis of Aquinas and the Scholastics was exactly the opposite view: that reason and revelation, faith and rationality can be entirely synthesized.

I have long argued that the excessive, silly hyper-compartmentalization of knowledge was a function of the abuses of already-rotten Enlightenment rationalism, where knowledge was no longer regarded as a unified thing. So Christians who exhibit these same tendencies are simply acting in the post-modern (even relativist) fashion, whether or not they are aware of it.

They will be skeptical about dubious and unproven claims in their daily life, and yet enshrine having child-like trust in religious claims.

There is such a thing as a rational trust or faith. Faith is not the equivalent of irrationality and gullibility.

But bad habits of thought, as you say, have a tendency to creep into other areas. You might call these areas superstitious nonsense, gullible quackery, and general flapdoodle (you can borrow that word if you don’t already have it!).

What a word! Is that an original? :-) My position is that there is much of this nonsense in Christian circles, but also equally as much in theist/secular/humanist/materialist scientific circles.

So might I.

You just did! LOL

We probably draw the line in different areas, though. ;)

I would suspect as much. LOL

By the way, I have heard many Christians complain about the growing view of God as Loving and Tolerant to a fault, the New Age version of a generic God that, like Mr. Rogers, loves us “just the way we are” … a slap happy vague everyone is going to heaven and will reach a higher plain of existence blah blah blah. I suspect you are familiar with this modern tendency.

Yes. I’m not so sure it is solely “modern” – human beings having the nature that they do.

Thus assertions that atheists don’t believe in God because they don’t want to be accountable or have to give up their vices makes little sense to me.

People – of any belief-system – come up with all sorts of rationales and justifications for their immoral behavior, be it sexual or materialistic (greed), selfishness, cruelty, refusal to take responsibility, skimming company funds, or what-not. I don’t see that it is arguable to deny that a belief in God would tend to mitigate against such behaviors, to the extent that God is perceived as “watching over” and disapproving of these things (the Ten Commandments alone would deal with most of ’em), or that He will judge them in the end, up to and including hell itself. Those beliefs are not conducive to a lifestyle which is deemed to be “free” and without “unnecessary constraints” (in other words, the typical 60s/libertarian/free love/whatever makes you feel good mentality).

If you think people are rebelling against all discipline then seemingly it would be so much easier and more comfortable to simply believe in a Nice God who will let us all live forever and loves everyone all the time and is Real Cool to boot (Buddy Christ, maybe .) Surely you think there is at least some kind of austerity and self-restraint in atheism, given that we might instead choose to believe in a god or goddess that wants us to live it up?

Cute and interesting. :-) I guess I would say that all the false ideas and cultural forces are arrayed against Christianity, rather than for this ridiculous sort of God, so that the atheist simply rejects theism, rather than adopt a nursery-school version of it. The atheist (especially the philosopher-atheist) is much more likely to adopt that view because it is taking a certain kind of post-Enlightenment skepticism to its logical conclusion. Philosophy is shot-through with this thinking. The long and short of it is again, intellectual influences reaping their fruit. But I do much prefer a convinced atheist (on a strictly intellectual plane) to a nominal or theologically-liberal Christian. I would suspect that the will is more likely to be awry in the latter than in the former, and that much less rigorous thinking is taking place.

This view that a God understood would inspire universal love seems to make a great deal of sense to me, if God is indeed what theists claim it is, the source and foundation of Love and Goodness itself.

Excellent!

It also goes along with what I have observed of your own kind and thoughtful nature.

Awwww; thanks. That’s very nice of you to say. I already said I liked you, so I guess we have formed a Mutual Admiration Society! :-)

But if this is so, then who is in Hell?

Those who knew what God was, and still rejected Him; in other words, pure rebellion with a full consent of the will and perfect knowledge of what is being rejected.

But this seems to be a contradiction. If all who truly understood God would love God

They will not, because they have free will. What I was saying was more along the lines that understanding is a prerequisite for a real love.

then it makes no sense to also say that many who understand God will not love God. If God is indeed the source and foundation of what all people are drawn to as Good then to say they can still know and reject this makes little sense.

Evil and rebellion against God never does, but nevertheless, some people reach this point.

I can understand it if you say people reject God because they don’t recognise the true nature of God, but not when you say that they reject God because they DO recognise the true nature of God but want to follow their own way. This is because God’s way WOULD be our own way, if we had a clear and true picture of God, given your beliefs.

Yes, but people manage to believe otherwise. You will not accomplish much if you try to analyze evil as a rational process. It is not. It is almost as illogical as it is immoral.

It seems to me that the only way to reconcile a fair God of Love with Eternal Damnation is to assume that there must be some people who — even if they knew for a fact that God existed and understood to a certainty that God was Good — would still be capable of resisting and rejecting God.

Precisely.

If God is to be made objectively Good then some people must be made objectively evil — not just ordinary human nature “sinful,” but different than those of “us” who are ordinary humans and yet still capable of knowing and accepting God. That this is so must just be one of those “spiritual truths” that are beyond science and reason.

It’s as simple as a rejection of someone on inadequate grounds, analogous to a spurning of a worthy lover or parent, for no really good reason. It comes down to a choice to separate oneself from God, and to choose oneself instead. Again, this is presupposing that one perfectly understands the choice made. They obviously would have to know that God exists, in order to truly reject Him.

That’s why I personally believe that many atheists are in a far better spiritual place than many, many Christians. Jesus treated the Roman centurion and the Samaritan woman at the well with far more compassion and understanding than he did the hypocritical Pharisees. That was largely based on what each knew, and what they did with their knowledge. The Centurion actually came to Jesus to request healing for his servant, and Jesus said that he had rarely seen such faith among the Jews. This is the true Christian approach to nonbelievers, not a smug, arrogant judgmentalism and assumption of the worst about the other person.

And this, I suspect, is why for many people the existence of God can’t simply be a scientific claim to be accepted or rejected on the evidence.

Including myself. I don’t claim that any theistic proof is compelling or undeniable. My view is that an accumulation of many and various proofs lead one to conclude that Christianity is quite plausible, and the best option to explain reality. Then faith comes in, and grace. One can never minimize the importance of those in Christianity.

And that is the problem as I see it. By insisting that faith and grace are necessary in order to accept the existence of God . . .

That is a clear teaching of revelation, and hence, of God.

. . . you put those who do NOT find the evidence plausible or convincing into an area of willful wickedness that would not apply if we were simply philosophers or scientists arguing with each other.

Not necessarily. You are painting with that broad brush of yours again. I like you a lot better when you use the dinky, fine little brush. The whole point as I see it here is that faith and grace are of a different order than reason. They are not contrary to reason, just different from it. The atheist is looking at plausibility, logic, and so forth but completely overlooking the central, fundamental role of faith. And no apologist can grant that faith. It comes from the Holy Spirit as a free gift (one can ask for it though). Christians believe that even the asking was a result of God’s enabling grace.

And this is what for Christians makes the question of the existence of God very different than other questions, and where the difficulties in relating to nonbelievers can creep in.

Not the existence (which can be known through natural theology and reason) but the attributes, the gospel, salvation, etc., which require revelation, grace, and faith.

If I am trying to decide a question over the existence of something which may or may not exist we never otherwise assume that the thing I am wondering about is capable of granting knowledge of it by a direct intuitive means, which seems to be what is involved in grace or faith as you’re using it here.

There is no other object I can think of which can give — or withhold — a direct, binding intuition or insight into its existence in this fashion. The closest I can come is in the realm of emotion — ie unless you have felt what it is like to love your newborn child you can’t directly know exactly what it is like to feel this love, for example. But the child itself isn’t allowing me to know that it exists by some means other than direct experience or reason.

Nor is God. But to fully know and love Him and have Him come into your heart (what we call the Indwelling), faith is required, and prior grace from God. What can I say? With God we are dealing with something exceptional by nature, so I wouldn’t expect there to be any other direct analogy.

So, if faith is fundamental to a knowledge of God,

No, to be a disciple and believer in God as He has revealed Himself in the Bible and Christianity.

and if faith is granted as a gift from the Holy Spirit, then why does the Holy Spirit decide to give it to some people and not others?

Of course, this is one of the deepest, most debated mysteries of Christianity, and not capable of a completely satisfying answer, as it involves the thoughts and ways of God, which are far above ours.

Is it an arbitrary matter, with little rhyme or reason? Few Christians would be comfortable with this, I think.

Certainly not. Even the more extreme Calvinist positions would admit that they don’t know why God chooses some, but that – in faith – His reason is just and not arbitrary.

Is it because some people have the kind of character that deserves or allows this gift, and others do not?

Absolutely not. No one deserves it by nature. That is what is known as the heresy of Pelagianism, which Augustine vigorously fought. It is pure grace.

Generally, that seems to be the belief most Christians are comfortable with.

Not rightly understood. The sheerly gratuitous nature of salvation is something many Christians poorly understand. Here is my own view. It is called Molinism, a position developed by the Jesuits over against the Thomist view:

Salvation is purely by grace. Yet it doesn’t annihilate or rule out human free will and choices (it is not irresistible, as Calvinists believe). God gives the grace to some, sufficient for salvation. But in so doing, He utilizes His middle knowledge (scientia media) whereby He – being out of time and omniscient – has the ability to know how certain people will in fact react to His grace, in all possible situations and contingencies. He then takes this knowledge into consideration with regard to whom He chooses to distribute His grace to. So salvation is totally caused and initiated by God’s grace, yet the response of human free will, and God’s foreknowledge of it, explains why some receive sufficient graces for salvation and others do not. It removes any arbitrariness or injustice in God’s election of some to heaven and others to hell.

Do good people always believe that good things are true?

No.

If atheists don’t believe in God because they lack the necessary faith and grace, then why do you bother bringing in human errors?

Both are relevant factors. But on a practical human level, we all have the choice to follow God or not. Election, predestination, foreknowledge, Providence and all that are almost abstractions in a very real sense. They’re fun to talk about, but we don’t know who is elect or not. We do know that we are free creatures, able to make choices. Catholics believe that God gives all men a chance for salvation, not just the elect. We deny the Limited Atonement of the Calvinists, where it is held that Christ dies only for the elect, not for all men. But free will necessitates that some rebel against God.

Why make an evidential case for God which attempts to prove God through reason and then, when the evidence is rejected as insufficient say “well, of course, you need faith and grace, that is central?” It can only be central if the evidence is inadequate, and if the evidence is inadequate then there is nothing seriously wrong with coming to the conclusion that God does not exist — nothing epistemically or morally wrong.

Again, your confusion is that you think Christians believe that God can only be known at all through grace. Most Christians would deny this, and appeal to natural reason and theology as a means to know of God’s existence. Even most Calvinists would agree, if I’m not mistaken. I think it is only a minority who would reject all natural theology altogether. So in dealing with an atheist, the Christian would naturally appeal to reason first, rather than to revelation, because the atheist rejects the authority of the latter. This is just common sense. It doesn’t mean, however that the apologist is rejecting the crucial role of grace (or revelation) for a second. If you now want to discuss grace, I would be more than happy to do that also. But that is pure theology and revelation; no longer philosophy.

I suspect that this is why faith and grace, when brought in, can lead to uniquely negative views of the atheist. Somehow, the atheist does not deserve grace or faith. Or is too hard-hearted to accept it. Or is too hard-hearted to give it.

One can’t make that determination very easily at all. We don’t know who is damned, and should never presume to know (though the Calvinists on the list I mentioned were “sure” of my supposed damnation). I’m convinced they would have burned me at the stake had they had the power and opportunity to do so. Frightening . . . The Catholic Church doesn’t claim to know that any particular person is damned, not even Judas Iscariot.

This may not be what you have concluded or believe. But it certainly seems to be what most Christians conclude, and I can see the power of their reasoning, if I grant their assumptions.

No Christian viewpoint has the wisdom to know who is damned and who isn’t. You can trust me on that one. All they can know is whether a person is out of line with a certain “orthodoxy” or moral code here and now, but they don’t know where that person’s soul would go when they die. Only God knows that.

The problem is that I can’t grant all their assumptions. I can grant for the sake of argument that there is a magical supernatural being which is capable of giving us direct revelation.

However, if this is so I can see that there are still inherent problems with being able to distinguish this “real” direct revelation from natural accounts of similar types of feelings of certainty that are not real direct revelations — and therefore the problem of being able to know that there is such a thing as “revelation” at all. The fact that I can see this and acknowledge this as a difficulty is not “hard-hearted” of me and I know this because I grant that I know my own heart. There is no hostility in me towards the idea of God in general and I see nothing hard-hearted or callous in the strict use of reason and science. It’s an attempt to be honest, and to be honest is a form of love.

I believe you. I can only direct you to reasons why I believe in revelation. These are many: documented miracles, fulfilled prophecy, martyrs, changed lives, the moral impact of Christianity on culture, religious experience, the fact that Christian moral teaching seems to be confirmed in practice again and again, the extraordinary person of Jesus, etc.

The documented miracles amount to anecdote, when all is said and done, and are not sufficient to establish the violation of accepted natural laws to people who are not already convinced of the truth of the religion. The fulfilled prophesies are not so clear and incontrovertible that they stand up to skeptical scrutiny, and the changed lives and confirmed moral teachings make as much sense if the religion is interpreted from secular assumptions as on the assumption that it is true. Which is all to say that your evidence is not of the kind that can persuade skeptics — even skeptics of good will — but of the kind that can inspire and confirm truths to believers.

*****

You want to stand on the common ground with Fundamentalists but find your arguments ignored because the real problem is that you lack the common ground of faith and grace, despite the fact that you consider Catholicism the BEST example of faith and grace you have found. You are being condemned here not for what you feel are your shortcomings, but for what you feel are your virtues.

Well put. But here it is a matter of sheer ignorance. The false beliefs, inadequately thought-through lead to the prejudice, in my opinion. The overwhelming ignorance is then covered with a veneer of highfalutin’ religious lingo, to try to make it appear respectable and of the highest purpose. I utterly despise this, and condemn it whenever I see it, because Jesus also did, and I try to imitate Him.

And this is how I feel as a Secular Humanist. I may be wrong, but if so I am wrong for the right reasons.

I agree with you. I get the feeling that you aren’t arguing with me, so much as with Joe Christian. I have already condemned these attitudes in my very first post. So I made your argument over 6 weeks ago. :-)

And the reasons matter more than the conclusion.

This is where I would start to disagree. I believe that we always need to examine our premises and beliefs and theories, to see where they might be wrong. It is not only the reasoning process which is so noble, but the conclusions we come to also. Reasoning is simply use of intelligence. Coming to true conclusions is knowledge. Applying the truth to real life is wisdom.

I don’t understand this. Isn’t the act of examining our premises, beliefs, and theories to see where they might be wrong called “reasoning?”

Yes.

Or are you trying to make the point that sometimes reason will lead us to the conclusion that we ought to decide a matter based on emotion? If that is a reasonable thing to conclude, then reason was still the method.

I was saying that knowledge and wisdom are different than mere reasoning process or logic.

What I was trying to say is that commitment to a careful process of reasoning in order to find out what is true is more important to our character than a decision to pick out truths that appeal to us. I know you agree.

Of course I do.

I think you would also agree that such discipline is also more likely to allow us to arrive at truth.

Yes.

No, not every time. But it’s the way to bet.

And the Christian thinks that revelation, too, is part of this truth we are both striving after.

If I miss evidence of God because I am too stringent and strict in my criteria, because I demand scientific evidence for what I feel is a scientific claim, then I am still right to do so. I ought to draw the wrong conclusion, because the evidence isn’t the kind that ought to persuade me, given my commitment to what I see as epistemic virtue.

You need to think about why you think science is the sum of reliable knowledge (assuming you do – it sure seems so to me).

This is why God can’t just be a metaphysical claim about the ultimate nature of reality which can’t ever be known one way or the other.

That’s right; this is fideism, which is very dangerous and has produced all sorts of nonsense and religious bondage.

There is no evil inherent in rejecting a scientific claim for epistemic reasons; there is no blame in choosing a metaphysical view that really doesn’t make a difference either way. And somebody has to be in Hell.

I’m not sure what you mean here.

I mean that reconcile them as much as you can, there will always be an ultimate tension between Athens and Jerusalem.

I think there can be paradoxes, but ultimately no tension (not in terms of contradiction). Reason and revelation, Christianity and science, faith and rationality, are all perfectly harmonious. There are problems to work out (as in all thoughtful views), but I have seen nothing sufficiently compelling to convince me that these syntheses are impossible or implausible.

I repeat myself more than I should . . . It may be that part of the reason I’ve rambled on is my knowledge that there is a possibility that you will put this on your very nice website and thus there may be curious Catholics who are looking at an atheist’s point of view for the very first time. I would hate to leave some vital point out or express something so poorly that they would be left with the impression that we’re on opposite sides of the fence in areas where I think we are not on opposite sides at all, but coming at the same truths from different directions.

There are so many very bad explanations for why someone would be an atheist in the theistic community, just as there are many bad explanations for why someone would be a Catholic in the Protestant community.

Yep.

Bottom line, we believe what we believe because we think it is true, if we give thought to the issue. I think what matters in the end can’t be whether we believe in God or not, but whether we commit to something greater that ourselves — and yet recognise that nothing is so “great” that it ought not to be questioned and explored.

Well, I appreciate where you are coming from, but of course I can’t agree to a notion that God is optional in any search after truth and reality. Nor can I agree that everything must be able to be “questioned” and that nothing could be in a category of unquestioned dogma. I have said that I am willing to overthrow any of my beliefs. But I still hold to the belief that certain things can legitimately be considered dogmas. All Christians must believe that. To not do so would be to cease being a Christian. So I can conceive of leaving Christianity if persuaded otherwise, but as long as I am here, I believe that some things are unquestionable, on a faith or religious basis. I hope I have expressed this clearly. I know it may appear contradictory, but it is not.

I do understand that in order to be considered a Christian you have to consider the existence of God and the inspiration of the Bible as unquestionable dogmas, as foundational truths. But in order to become a Christian one can’t start out with this, and it is this process of arriving at what is true that leads to our conflict.

You have stated elsewhere that Natural Theology demonstrates that the existence of God does not have to be accepted on faith but can be shown to be the most reasonable explanation for our existence and that of the universe. Not more reasonable than Naturalism, however, because without a means to distinguish between what we don’t know and what God has therefore wrought it is more prudent to assume ignorance on our part instead of activity on God’s. The natural universe we observe together is the mutual starting ground, the common point of agreement, and thus requires no such step.

It is not that I don’t see you as seeking truth passionately, nor do I doubt your commitment and sincerity. It’s just that I think that accepting faith and revelation at the outset shows that you seek truth a bit too passionately, and impatiently.

There is a famous Sidney Harris cartoon that skeptics enjoy. It shows two scientists in front of a blackboard which one of them has covered with mathematical symbols and scientific notations of proof — and there in the center of two arrows are the words “suddenly a miracle occurs.” The second scientist is saying to the first: “That middle step needs work.” And so it does, and so it should.

Naturalism is a reasonable belief even if it isn’t true because it rests on a consistency and coherency in method. Christians tend to respond by pointing out that if Naturalism isn’t true then we’re wrong to hold ourselves to a foolish consistency. Since God might exist, then we ought to entertain the idea that there are means of knowing that go beyond science, reason, and philosophy.

But God might not exist also. What happens when we go beyond our means of checking ourselves and allow ourselves dogmas which can’t be overthrown without overthrowing God? Faith is a kind of hubris that says we can KNOW because in trusting ourselves we are really just trusting God. We become gods in order to claim God. And I think that is not wise.

*****

The atheist feels that reality is greater than man, in that it does not go away or change itself based on whether we believe in it or not.

We agree totally with you so far.

A commitment to truth requires that we use methods that take ourselves and our “faiths” out of the equation as much as possible. The Humanist believes that the best way to live is to live in and with love — love for the truth, love for virtue, love for man, and love for the universe.

Perhaps that is why you seem to think that those who exercise faith must not, therefore, be seeking truth as passionately as those without faith are. The logic follows inescapably from your statement above (even if you did qualify it slightly). If you exclude faith (and/or revelation) from the outset as any sort of means to seek after truth, then inevitably you must question the validity of any person of faith saying that he is seeking after truth with just as much commitment and sincerity as you are. It is a category exclusion.

In a sense, we can say that this love is our “god.” The Christian often says that God is Love. Somehow this has turned into a debate where both sides are arguing that the opposite belief corrupts us. I think they are the same belief — whether there is a God or not.

Well, that’s not all bad, and far better than many secularist “religions” I have seen. I appreciate the search for common ground, as you know. My way of saying something similar from the Christian perspective is to state that the humanist is operating on the basis of a natural law (morality) and a conscience put there by God, and is made in the image of God (who is Love), even though he or she denies this, of course. That explains the commonality in a way that makes God absolutely necessary and the First Cause, rather than a mere optional belief.

*****
We maintain that all human beings have sufficient knowledge internally and from the external world to know that God exists, and that He is the Creator (whether He used evolution to create or not). But atheists disagree. How shall we figure out who is being more realistic about the degree of evidence actually available?

I think the evidence is quite compelling. I look at the universe. I examine how I think about morality and aesthetics and reflect upon my yearnings for a better world than what we have. I see the character of Jesus and hear about various substantiated miracles. I see lives changed for the better after believing in God. I look at how my own life has changed in a profound way. I observe how the moral laws given to us by God in the Bible seem to work far better in practice than secularist alternatives (e.g., many studies have shown that conservative Christian married couples have a far more satisfying sex life than their sexually-liberal, promiscuous counterparts). I look at what the Christian worldview has produced in culture and in history.

I think God has given more than enough, but it is not quite enough to be believed by all on the basis of reason alone. Why? Because some faith is required. It may be somewhat analogous to human romantic love. Each must have faith in the other. There is no absolute proof that a marriage will always be happy. But they believe it will be, based on what they do know of the other person.

If the atheist could assume for a moment that Jesus did in fact rise from the dead, that would be quite a compelling proof, would it not (at least as compelling as God writing “John 3:16” in the stars, which would convert hyper-atheists Steve Conifer and Ted Drange on the spot LOL)? Normally, when people die, that’s it. But assuming that for a moment, would this be a sufficient proof for an atheist? Jesus claimed to be God in the flesh, did miracles, said He would rise from the dead, and did. Some people believed; most did not. So the record (again, on the Christian assumption) shows that even extraordinary “manifestations” of God’s existence will not convince even a majority of the people.

Or say that this would indeed convince an atheist if and only if they saw it firsthand. Well and good. But then atheists and other skeptics will become severe Bible critics, ignoring all the overwhelming evidence of its historical trustworthiness (even short of its alleged inspiration) and therefore deny the historicity of what it reports. So the thing actually happened, but historical skepticism prevents those in later generations from believing it. Skeptics can always find ways to disbelieve something if they want to (the will), or else are beholden to a philosophy which doesn’t allow the thing to be possible or plausible in the first place (the mind). Therefore, that is not God’s fault, but human beings’ fault.

I view both atheistic and theistic beliefs as extraordinarily complex and varied phenomena. I do know for a fact that people have a great capacity for self-delusion. I know this from my own experience and from long and close observation of others, as a sort of armchair pop psychologist (I majored in sociology and minored in psychology). One of the few things Freud got right was his ingenious exposition of the subconscious and unconscious. I find those things to be profoundly true.

God has already has shown Himself in a general sense. He wants faith from human beings, not demands, as if He is some sort of dog doing a trick in obedience to His “master.” Immortality or life after death is regarded as an inherent need of human beings by Christians, for the following reasons (and others):

1. Existence is good (an axiom more or less assumed by all of us; we avoid death at all costs; we have a strong survival instinct; we cringe at terminal illness, etc.).
2. Therefore to cease existing or to not exist is less good, or, conceivably, not good at all.
3. To exist eternally in some conscious fashion is better than to cease existing.
4. Therefore, we desire to continue to exist as a function of our assumed belief that existence is good, and the cessation of it, bad.

I think it is as simple as that. Whoever cares little about their impending annihilation must not have given much thought to the value of their existence, in my opinion. And if their existence had little or no value in the first place, suicide would be quite a logical solution, I would think. Human needs at the deepest level are such that I think it is reasonable to apply them to all human beings. I think, e.g., that everyone needs to be loved by other people. Seeming exceptions to this can easily be potentially explained by the reaction of having been abused or hurt, by repression, by mental illness, etc.

*****

This truly is an amazing dialogue. Thanks so much. You’ll never know how much I appreciate such an enlightened, constructive discussion, conducted by you in perfect amiability and courtesy. I gladly attest to the fact that you are an excellent representative of your position, even though I remain unpersuaded of it.

I attest the same for your good self, of course. :) And I, too, am unpersuaded, but as a Humanist I perhaps represent the most fundamental spirit of the ecumenical approach you espouse, the promotion of unity and fellowship that comes from the acceptance of the common ground that applies to all people, not just to those in special categories of circumstance or belief. Fundamental to Humanism is a recognition that we begin together, as humans and as persons, and share far more than we do not.

I think it is sometimes difficult for apologists who are used to trying to bring together all Catholics or all Christians or all people who believe in God-However-They-See-Her to extend their ecumenism towards the ultimate outsiders, the atheists, and try to see things from their point of view at least well enough to argue them around. Suddenly the basic common ground — belief in God — is swept out, and you have to start from scratch. You’re doing an admirable job, I think, and I respect that. Listservs like this force us to examine –or curb — our dogmas — not just religious ones, but secular ones. And as a Humanist, I think that a darn good thing.

Peace, Love, Harmony, and All That Humanist (how many “Hippies” were accused of Scientism?) Crap,

Sue Strandberg (Sastra)

APPENDIX ONE: Worldviews Being Theoretically Disproven
***
I hold all my beliefs – however strong and epistemologically “certain” — provisionally, subject to correction by superior reasoning and additional factual data brought to bear (and for that matter, revelation newly understood) which may come around to overthrow it.

I’ve a quick question, just help me understand your position:

Sure, anytime.

Assume for the moment that you are mistaken not only about the truth of Catholicism and Christianity, but about the existence of God. That is, the universe is as we both agree it is, but God does not and never has existed. The universe is natural, and your experiences have all been natural experiences. What lines of reasoning or additional factual data would or could persuade you that this is the case? Thanks. :)

All of the arguments and evidences I put forth for the existence of God and Christianity would have to be overthrown, viz., the alternatives would have to seem superior and more plausible to me. This would include counter-explanations to the cosmological and teleological arguments (including macroevolution and cosmology), satisfying answers to the “problem of good” and the meaning and purpose of life, and the moral argument, and the argument from longing and desire, and what I call the “reverse pragmatic argument” (i.e., “Christianity isn’t true because it works, but it works because it is true”), Christian experience, transformed lives, the basis of aesthetics, the seeming universality of the religious impulse, the negative cultural and ethical results of secularism and atheism, and so forth.

Then all the historical evidences would have to be overthrown: explanations for Jesus, the Resurrection, heavily-documented and substantiated miracles, fulfilled prophecies, the continuing existence of the Jews against all odds, the uncanny accuracy and extraordinary nature of the Bible, the noteworthy cultural contributions of Christianity, answered prayer, the incredible institutional continuance of the Catholic Church, and on and on.

In other words, since the reason I am a Christian is a huge “cumulative amount of varying evidences,” all pointing to one conclusion, these would have to be overthrown one-by-one, shown to be inadequate or fallacious, and alternatives demonstrated to be more plausible. At the point that the alternatives seemed to have equal weight to my present proofs, then my paradigm would be in crisis (as I went through in my odyssey from Protestantism to Catholicism). If they started to become more weighty, then I would have to – as a matter of intellectual honesty – consider forsaking Christianity and becoming an agnostic and perhaps an atheist.

Let me ask you in return: “What lines of reasoning or additional factual data would or could persuade you that atheism is not the case”? And that some form of Christianity or other brand of theism is true?

APPENDIX TWO: Conscience: A Trustworthy Guide for Morality?

I was asked by an atheist about survivor’s guilt, or guilt after a sexual assault or the suicide of a loved one, and what those phenomena implied for the objective status of the conscience as a moral guide (the questioner thought this meant that conscience was “deeply flawed”). I replied as follows:

I would submit that such instances are much more so manifestations of emotion, than of conscience. Or perhaps they could also relate somewhat to one’s self-image, which is something other than conscience as well.

For example, with survivor’s guilt a person (I imagine) would simply feel really bad about the senseless, unexplained, or unjust death of friends or family and in trying to deal with that grief, they would tend to blame themselves: “who am I to live through this while x and many others had to die?” One feels that there is a certain unfathomable unfairness about the whole affair, which then translates into self-blame.

I think it may also partly be due to the tendency of human beings to think that – overall – bad people get punished and lead lives of suffering, whereas good people do not (an untruth dealt with at length in the biblical books of Job and Ecclesiastes, and somewhat in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount). A horrific event like the Holocaust, or the Vietnam War obviously brings harm to many “good” people. So in the survivor’s mind this “turns upside down” felt reality. If “good” people were killed, then maybe the survivor thinks, “well, I am no better than themI should have been killed too.” Or he could reason: “if bad things happened to good people, then good things must happen to bad people (such as myself).” And to make themselves “bad,” they then feel “guilt.”

In the non-rational (or supra-rational) world of emotions, this would be entirely possible. People don’t seem to be able to handle either extreme misfortune or fortune. In both cases, they tend to think “I don’t deserve this.” They feel they aren’t good enough to receive too many good things, or bad enough to receive really bad things. That, in turn, may tie into their self-image, which is sustained or harmed by many other events in their lives. In any event, in my opinion, survivor’s guilt is better explained by such emotional reactions brought on by extreme trauma or inability to comprehend or “process” what happened, rather than conscience per se.

In fact, I would say that the Christian view (or the religious Jewish one) would tend to mitigate against this, if believed and thought through properly (prior to the trauma). For Christians hold that all people are fallen sinners, but also potentially capable of much great good, by God’s grace; also, that being a good person doesn’t necessarily translate into having a trouble-free life (Job, again). Bad people sometimes (even oftentimes) get away with murder (literally). Good things can happen to bad people, and bad things to good people (as in the bestselling book by Rabbi Harold Kushner – I think that was his name). There is a certain disturbing “randomness” to suffering and evil, which doesn’t depend on the individual. We feel this to be most “unfair,” and so we explain it to ourselves by various techniques; this sort of “guilt” being one of them.

But (in the Christian/Jewish view) all will be set right with the Judgment to come in the next life. God will balance the scales. Furthermore, self-image is ultimately grounded in the knowledge that human beings were created by God in His image, thus giving every individual almost infinite worth, regardless of what anyone else thinks of them.

These sorts of concepts within Christianity (along with faith itself) might perhaps lead to less cognitive dissonance in the event of trauma, and hence, a lessening of survivor’s guilt. Yet emotions, surely, can easily overcome one’s theological or philosophical views.

The felt “guilt” after rape could be explained on similar grounds: the victim tells herself: “Something this horrible doesn’t happen to good people. Therefore, I must be a bad person. I caused this /[or] I am being punished.” Again, that sort of thought (apart from the completely understandable emotions from the trauma) isn’t consistent with the view just set forth above, because that view recognizes that horrible things can happen to relatively good people, so that it doesn’t have to be their fault. Observation alone would be sufficient to establish this, too, I think, wholly apart from Christian reasoning.

Child abuse (either beating or sexual) is another example. The child obviously wants to love (and be loved by) its parent (or relative or close “friend,” as the case may be). In a child’s reasoning (or even as an adult, thinking back), they would think: “parents wouldn’t do a bad thing like that unless the child deserved it. Therefore I must be a bad child.” Again, these things deal with very deep emotions and perceptions of wanting to be loved, and how things ought to be. They are far more emotional than based in a conscience.

For suicide, take the example of parents facing the horrific experience of their child killing themselves. It is only natural to feel/think:

1. I thought I was a pretty good parent.
2. Good parents produce happy and well-adjusted children.
3. But happy and well-adjusted children do not kill themselves.
4. Therefore, I must not be a good parent.
5. Ergo: it was my fault that my child killed himself/herself.

To the extent that this is guilt at all (it may be – again – merely the emotion resulting from trauma and grief), it is based in the conscience only insofar as it can be proven that the parents were clearly directly responsible for the child’s behavior. Say, they had kept them locked up in a closet for 10 years, or beat them with a 2 by 4 daily, or some other unthinkable behavior. Then they would truly be responsible, and whatever guilt they felt would indeed be a function of a normal conscience, whose purpose is to help us feel guilt when we ought to.

If, on the other hand, they weren’t moral monsters, but halfway normal parents, the “guilt” felt is arguably not guilt at all, and not derived from the conscience. People are free agents, and some go in a bad direction, and some in a good, positive direction in their lives, according to temperament, weaknesses, illness, experience, absorbing true and false ideas, jealousies, felt injustices, hurts, drug abuse; any number of things. One can’t automatically blame the parents. They might raise all their children the same, yet one or two goes off in a bad direction (such as in the movie The River Runs Through It). So obviously environment alone (how they were raised) cannot account for the anomalous behavior of one or more children.

Or, the common reaction of “I could/should have done more to help them” is a natural response, from love. We want to believe the best about the person, because that is the loving outlook (especially towards one’s children). So if they cause their own death, we will blame ourselves rather than them, because it is too unbearable and unthinkable to attach blame to them at all in such a situation (it’s very difficult to pity, regard as a victim, and also to blame). Again, this is the “language” of love and emotion, not conscience (unless one truly is a horrible, hideous parent, in which case it would be more applicable).

The long and the short of it is: I don’t think these scenarios pose any problem for the Christian position or for a developed notion of the conscience, primarily because this sort of “guilt” is usually no guilt at all, but rather, raw emotion, oftentimes indirectly based on fallacious reasoning in the first place.

***

(originally from 7-19-01; 21,270 words!)

Photo credit: TeroVesalainen (1-13-06) [Pixabay / CC0 Creative Commons license]

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2018-11-10T02:32:16-04:00

*****

Cassidy McGillicuddy, who goes by “Captain Cassidy” runs a blog called Roll to Disbelieve.  She describes herself and her views as follows: “I was raised Catholic by a very fervent family, converted to evangelicalism in my teens, and became a full-on fundamentalist shortly thereafter, . . . But shortly after college I figured out that my religion’s claims weren’t true. . . . I’m a humanist, a skeptic, a freethinker, and a passionate student of science, mythology, and history. . . . I care more about what people do than on what they call themselves. I don’t think of myself as having much of a specific religious or non-religious label beyond “ex-Christian,” . . .

Cassidy wrote a post entitled, “Why Christians Need Satan to Be An Idiot” (11-1-18). I love the little psychological judgment there. In it she takes me to task, by “critiquing” [???] an article I did about Satan: “Satan is Highly Intelligent—and an Arrogant Idiot” (National Catholic Register, 11-27-17).  As usual, I wasn’t informed of it so I could reply. I just happened to run across it last night. Her words will be in blue.

***

First of all, to get an idea of the polemical / insulting spirit in which Cassidy undertakes this criticism, I cite her comment in the combox under her post (11-4-18), with my reply:

I originally thought I must have banned him [i.e., me] from here already, but since we’ve never really delved into his blathering, he has no real reason to care about us so I probably haven’t. When I think about Christians who are bullies but wilt like orchids under a hair-dryer when they get pushback, he’s one of the first people I think of!

Really? That must be why I wrote 30 papers (yes, thirty: all on different topics he wrote about) in response to atheist Bob Seidensticker (at his initial urging), without one peep in reply: because I’m the coward and he is obviously intellectually confident . . .

Thanks for letting me know, by the way, about this piece, so I could reply. It’s a sign of your sublime intellectual confidence [sarcasm alert!]. I had to run across it. Having done so, it’ll get a full reply tomorrow. It looks to be a very fun piece. I look forward to it!

Will you flee to the hills, too, like Bob always does, after you are critiqued? Well, we’ll see, won’t we?

Now onto her paper itself:

When I was a Christian, every single Christian I knew had two completely contradictory opinions about Satan. First, everyone thought he was beyond infernally intelligent. But second, everyone thought he was a stone-cold IDIOT. 

It’s not contradictory at all: rightly understood. And I explained this in my article. There is intelligence / cleverness / brain power / ability to analyze and be subtle and sophisticated / high IQ. That’s one thing. And then there is wisdom and knowledge, which is the ability to arrive at truth and an understanding of reality as it actually is, as opposed to falsehood and pretense and self-delusion or plain befuddled ignorance.

Satan possesses the first quality, and utterly lacks the second. Thus, he can be described simultaneously asinfernally intelligent” (the perfect description of that) and an “idiot”: because they are referring to two different things. As usual, the atheist / skeptic thinks it is a contradiction when it is not at all (they love to do this with the Bible, and one of my sub-specialties is to refute such efforts).

Perhaps the reason that Cassidy doesn’t grasp this distinction (which isn’t rocket science) is because some atheists / agnostics / humanists have an outlook which is quite similar to Satan’s: the denial of God, or undue skepticism towards Him, while usually having above-average brain power, IQ, and “book learning.” They can’t see the forest for the trees: just as Satan couldn’t. They stand outside of reality, in terms of spiritual and metaphysical matters. More on this below.

And that may also (I speculate) account for Cassidy’s anger and insults in her paper. Perhaps she understands down deep that these same criticisms of Satan apply to her and other non-Christians (i.e., to the intransigent sorts among them, who have been informed of Christian truths and the gospel — have enough knowledge to understand and believe — and reject them). 

Catholic author, conspiracy theoristchest-thumper, and zinger-flinger Dave Armstrong somehow missed the message that Jesus wanted him to love his enemies and forgive seventy times seven. He finds way more pleasure in doling out abuse, dripping condescension, and blistering scorn.

Apparently, for Cassidy (follow her link above), any philosophical defense of Christianity (such as the teleological argument) is “conspiracy theory”. That would be news to the philosopher David Hume (often erroneously regarded as an atheist), who held to a form of the teleological argument, and believed in some sort of deity (though not the Christian one). I need not waste any more time with silly personal insults like this, which have no relation to truth. As for the charge of abuse and so forth, this is, in my opinion, essentially code language for “a Christian who dares to get uppity and critique atheism and their atheist intellectual superiors and overlords”.

Even this line of mine (the previous sentence) will be classified as a species of “abuse” because atheists usually are unaware of how condescending they routinely are towards Christians. Thus, when we fight back against lies told about us, we get this accusation (almost to the extent of atheist paranoia and abject fear of any serious criticism of themselves). We can’t win, no matter what we do. We either take the lies and do nothing, or if we oppose them, then we’re accused of yet more false charges. I’d rather stick to the issues.

(Sometimes he insults people who know far more about his chosen topics than he does, like John Loftus and Edward Babinski. The responses he gets are uniformly satisfying and educational to read.)

People may read my exchanges with Loftus (who exploded into the stratosphere and melted down to goo when I critiqued his deconversion story) and my discussions with Babinski (one / two / three), and make up their own minds. Cassidy thinks I got slaughtered (what a surprise). Whatever the case may be, I am happy to present both sides of these debates on my site. That’s what I do: I engage in debates and dialogue: just like this present effort. And I have scores and scores of debates with atheists (see my Atheism web page). Folks can read, use their critical faculties, and decide who made the more plausible case and arguments.

Armstrong decides Satan is “stupid.” Mainly, his argument consists of this following (and unsupported) burst of mental arithmetic:

  • Satan knew better than anybody what his god liked, wanted, demanded and expected.
  • He didn’t need to be “a rocket scientist” to guess what would happen to him if he didn’t fall into line.
  • He rebelled anyway.
  • What kind of nitwit even does that? Only someone really dumb!
  • Corollary: when TRUE CHRISTIANS™ like himself tell us unwashed heathens the totally-for-realsies penalties for rebellion and we reject their control grabs, we reveal to King Them that we are just as dumb as Satan is.

The first four points, notwithstanding some bias, basically present what I argued. The last one emphatically does not. Belief or nonbelief is an extremely complex matter, and it doesn’t help to caricature what Christians believe about it. I make a sharp distinction (following the New Testament) between “open-minded agnostics” (who aren’t sure God exists, but open to possible proof) and “rebellious” atheists (like Satan!): who know that God exists, but reject Him anyway.

I don’t hold that all atheists are automatically wicked and evil; quite the contrary, I contend that some atheists may be saved in the end, given certain conditions of invincible ignorance and what they have been taught (or not taught). I think my position is quite tolerant and irenic: compared to what many other Christians say. I base it on biblical teaching. Cassidy was in anti-intellectual fundamentalist circles in her past life (so she would have observed — and perhaps joined in on — a lot of Dumb Christianity™). I never was. Most Christians (the vast majority: especially through history) never were.

My view, then, is far from thinking all atheists are “dumb” and “evil.” Some are (just as some Christians are, too: and some of those will be damned). It comes down to each individual case. Our job (and particularly mine, as an apologist and evangelist) is to share the Good News of Christianity and the fullness of Catholicism. God goes from there, and people may accept what we share or reject it or remain undecided.

Cassidy says in her profile that “I’m generally friendly to the idea of spiritual stuff, but I want evidence for it.” I take her at her word, which means I would classify her as an “open-minded agnostic” rather than “rebel” (a la Satan).  She has not ruled God out altogether.

I’m focusing on this post because it reveals the toxic Christian playbook in such detail. Though nowhere near all Christians believe in Satan (or Hell, for that matter), the ones who do definitely qualify as toxic. Nor is this belief exclusively evangelicalplenty of Catholics just like Dave Armstrong believe in a literal Satan. So his opinion represents a commonly-held opinion in those nastier ends of Christianity. Indeed, I heard exactly the same sorts of statements about Satan in both Southern Baptist (SBC) and Pentecostal (UPCI) churches.

Note what she is saying: all Christians who hold to the actual historic teachings of Christianity: in this instance, the existence of Satan and hell, are bad people, and “toxic Christians.” Lest we miss what she means by this, let’s follow her link above and see how she understands it:

Zealotry demands control over other people’s lives even if those people aren’t even members of its group. It is not love but hate, though zealots may relabel hate as love to make its members think that by harming others, they are really showing love to them (though the people being harmed are not fooled in the least).

Zealotry doesn’t care about facts in its rush to push its bizarre understanding of “truth;” it will do whatever it must to spread itself, because spreading itself is what is important. Love, truthfulness, faithfulness, a servant’s heart, charity, none of it matters to a zealot. The ends justify the means. . . . 

So when I talk about a “toxic Christian,” I’m talking about that narrow subset of zealots who harm others in the name of their religion, want to force their narrow interpretation of their religion’s dictates on everybody else, confuse love with hate and abuse with caring, and care more about proselytizing than they do about following their religion’s primary commands. They are a poisonous cloud of gas seeping over every surface and poisoning everything they touch, and their form of religion just spawns more people like themselves: zealots ready for the cause.

According to her, any Christian who merely believes in hell and Satan (standard Christian beliefs) are “toxic” and hateful, despicable scumbags. But if we start discarding Christian beliefs, like good theological liberals and dissidents, then we are fine and dandy in her book, because we are more similar to her. Very charitable and tolerant, isn’t it? Contrast that with my irenic, ecumenical view that atheists might possibly be saved and should be treated with respect and charity and approached as sincere individuals.

Cassidy has decided beforehand that hundreds of millions of Christians are evil and wicked wascally wascals because they dare to accept the historic Christian beliefs about hell and Satan. Talk about massive bigotry! And this would explain her hostility to me, wouldn’t it?: since I believe in Satan, and critique his behavior. That means that I am a scumbag, by definition. And scumbags and morons need not be treated with civility and charity. All the while she lectures us Christians about charity and behavior . . . the ironies here are very rich and sad.

It’s not that there aren’t many millions of Christians who do a lousy job at both properly living the Christian life (trying to be Christlike) and at sharing (or bearing witness to) the faith. There certainly are, and I roundly criticize them all the time, because they give Christians a bad name. What is so objectionable and beyond insulting is that Cassidy classifies everyone who believes in hell and Satan as a “toxic Christian”: someone who hates others and is not Christlike at all. This simply doesn’t follow. Reality and the facts of the matter are not nearly that simple and simplistic. We can’t classify millions of people as morons simply because we disagree with them on some point of theology (or anything else). This is the classic bigoted or prejudiced outlook.

By the way, the United Pentecostal Church (UPCI) is not Christian, but rather, Sabellian heresy, which is a denial of trinitarianism and the orthodox doctrine concerning Jesus. This is apparently part of Cassidy’s background (we know she at least attended such churches), which would partially explain some of her confusion about and rejection of true Christianity.

Christians talk this way for a reason. They seek to reassure each other that while there’s everything to fear, they’re all perfectly safe because ultimately, Satan is easy to defeat because he is an idiot.

This isn’t true as a blanket statement. Mainstream Christianity (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant) teaches that he can certainly be defeated by Jesus and for us, through the power of the Holy Spirit granted to us as Christians, but not that this is easy-as-pie. Top the contrary, most Christian groups teach that we have to be constantly vigilant against the wares of the Evil One: against “the world, the flesh, and the devil.” It takes faith and work and perseverance.

Toxic Christians fear their enemies for their greater intelligence, popularity, and reach–and also for their apparent lack of fear of Christian threats and retaliation, which are such devastatingly effective tools in their culture. At the same time, they hate those enemies for what they see them as taking from the tribe.

The Goal.

Greed.

Fear.

Every terrible thing these Christians do is driven by one of those two emotions (and sometimes both at once). The harvest of those dark seeds is terror and rage. Indeed, terror and rage propel them. These emotions feel familiar.

Ideally, manipulating these two emotions will produce either a lessening in their own fear or an increase in others’ fear, which will bring about an increase in their own power and holdings–or a lessening in that of their enemies. That motivation about covers moral panics in general. But it applies beautifully to all the other awful stuff they do.

Faux-psychoanalysis from a hostile, bigoted perspective, rather than objective rational analysis, and so unworthy of a reply . . . Cassidy continues on in this vein. She’s in her own little world: thinking that all Christians are somehow like the anti-intellectual fundamentalist ones she used to be part of. It’s very common among atheists and agnostics: identifying the whole with a small, poor representation: throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Not only is Satan himself super-smart-but-abysmally-stupid, but so is anybody else who refuses to fall into line.

As I have already stated: this isn’t true: not for thinking Christians. It only is for lousy Christians who haven’t thought-through or loved their faith very well: again, the ones Cassidy used to be among. That is not — repeat, NOT — the whole ball of wax. But we can’t prevent her from employing this fallacy and this caricature and stereotype over and over, to the cheers of her fan club.

The rest of the post simply repeats ad nauseam the same fallacious views (repetition doesn’t make a flimsy, non-substantive pseudo-argument any better). Very disappointing. I was expecting much better, but I suppose the insults were a clue that it wasn’t to be.

***

Cassidy “responded” on her blog (after banning me there):

You are just one tiny piece of exactly why Christianity is declining. You, personally, shout to the whole world that absolutely no gods of infinite love and grace inhabit you, and that you can’t even take your own religion’s commands seriously.

It’d probably blow control-freak Christians’ little minds to realize just how little anybody cares about their various tantrums.

Abusive people are their own kind of drama. They can’t help but act out, but acting out makes their situation worse, which makes them act out worse… He’s exactly why his religion is failing. He shows us . . . that no gods of love inhabit him–and that his “faith” is really his permission slip to abuse others.

So I don’t care what this guy has to say. He offers nothing whatsoever of interest or value to anybody. He’s a hateful, spiteful, reactionary, vengeful, rage-filled bore just like the rest of his tribe, howling and beating their chests with their fists and lashing out at any criticisms. Hell, I won’t even remember he dropped by in a day or two.

It’s downright amazing to see their ingenuity in avoiding the commands attributed to Jesus himself. That wriggling comes in second only to their pretenses at rationality.

Christian hypocrisy just reminds me that Christianity is morally bankrupt. So many people just like this guy can operate in the religion and even flourish in it because there’s nothing real to its claims. It should be impossible for him to be like this. And yet here he is, and nobody will ever convince him that he is a stone-cold hypocrite who ought to be ashamed of himself for the way he sets back the cause of Christ. The ways of a man truly are right in his eyes, eh? This is why religion is poison. The foxes voted themselves long ago to be the keepers of the henhouse, and they don’t see any problem with that–and they sure don’t care what the hens might have to say about their self-granted liberties.

Who’d want to join a group that allows someone like that to run roughshod over people? Literally the only reason people put up with Christians is because we had to. We don’t have to anymore.

The fact that someone can be a Catholic author, fully complicit with all the ghastly things the Catholic church is doing and has done, and look down on others is just mind-blowing. But that’s how controllers and oppressors are. When they have no real defense, they hit offense as hard as they can.

***

Photo credit: Lucifer (1890), by Franz Stuck (1863-1928) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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2018-10-28T15:49:52-04:00

Atheist and anti-theist Bob Seidensticker, who was “raised Presbyterian”, runs the influential Cross Examined blog. He asked me there, on 8-11-18“I’ve got 1000+ posts here attacking your worldview. You just going to let that stand? Or could you present a helpful new perspective that I’ve ignored on one or two of those posts?” He also made a general statement on 6-22-17“Christians’ arguments are easy to refute . . . I’ve heard the good stuff, and it’s not very good.” He added in the combox“If I’ve misunderstood the Christian position or Christian arguments, point that out. Show me where I’ve mischaracterized them.” 

Such confusion would indeed be predictable, seeing that Bob himself admitted (2-13-16): “My study of the Bible has been haphazard, and I jump around based on whatever I’m researching at the moment.” I’m always one to oblige people’s wishes if I am able, so I decided to do a series of posts in reply. It’s also been said, “be careful what you wish for.”  If Bob responds to this post, and makes me aware of it, his reply will be added to the end along with my counter-reply. If you don’t see that, rest assured that he either hasn’t replied, or didn’t inform me that he did. But don’t hold your breath. 

Bob (for the record) virtually begged and pleaded with me to dialogue with him in May 2018, via email. But by 10-3-18, following massive, childish name-calling attacks against me,  encouraged by Bob on his blog (just prior to his banning me from it), his opinion was as follows: “Dave Armstrong . . . made it clear that a thoughtful intellectual conversation wasn’t his goal. . . . [I] have no interest in what he’s writing about.”

And on 10-25-18, utterly oblivious to the ludicrous irony of his making the statement, Bob wrote in a combox on his blog: “The problem, it seems to me, is when someone gets these clues, like you, but ignores them. I suppose the act of ignoring could be deliberate or just out of apathy, but someone who’s not a little bit driven to investigate cognitive dissonance will just stay a Christian, fat ‘n sassy and ignorant.” Again, Bob mocks some Christian in his combox on 10-27-18: “You can’t explain it to us, you can’t defend it, you can’t even defend it to yourself. Defend your position or shut up about it. It’s clear you have nothing.” And again on the same day: “If you can’t answer the question, man up and say so.” And on 10-26-18: “you refuse to defend it, after being asked over and over again.” And again:You’re the one playing games, equivocating, and being unable to answer the challenges.” Bob’s cowardly hypocrisy knows no bounds. He still hasn’t yet uttered one peep in reply to — now — 30 of my critiques of his atrocious reasoning. 

Bob’s words will be in blueTo find these posts, word-search “Seidensticker” on my atheist page or search “Seidensticker Folly #” in my sidebar search (near the top).

*****

In his article, “Top 20 Most Damning Bible Contradictions (3 of 4)” (10-24-18), Bible-Bashing Bob pontificated:

We’re in the middle of tossing Christianity’s dirty laundry onto the lawn for everyone to examine. Here are five more Bible contradictions that call into question foundational Christian claims . . . 

13. Who should the disciples convert?

At the end of the gospel story, Jesus has risen and is giving the disciples their final instructions.

Make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19).

This is the familiar Great Commission, and it’s a lot more generous than what has been called the lesser commission that appears earlier in the same gospel:

These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.” (Matthew 10:5–6)

This was not a universal message. We see it again in his encounter with the Canaanite woman:

[Jesus rejected her plea to heal her daughter, saying] “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.

He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” (Matthew 15:24–6)

You might say that a ministry with limited resources had to prioritize, but that doesn’t apply here. Don’t forget that Jesus was omnipotent. . . . 

Let’s revisit the fact that Matthew is contradictory when it says both “Make disciples of all nations” and “Do not go among the Gentiles [but only] to the lost sheep of Israel.” There are no early papyrus copies of Matthew 28 (the “Make disciples of all nations” chapter), and the earliest copies of this chapter are in the codices copied in the mid-300s. That’s almost three centuries of silence from original to our best copies, a lot of opportunity for the Great Commission to get “improved” by copyists. I’m not saying it was, of course; I’m simply offering one explanation for why the gospel in Matthew has Jesus change so fundamental a tenet as who he came to save.

This is a ludicrously easy so-called pseudo- [caricature of a] “contradiction” to “resolve”. Here is the answer in summary; then I shall document it in detail from Holy Scripture:

1) Jesus said He came at first to His own Jewish people, as their Messiah (seen in Bob’s citation of Matthew 15:24 above).

2) Accordingly, He at first told His disciples (all Jews) to preach the new Gospel to their fellow Jews only (his citation of Matthew 10:5-6). First things first.

3) This exclusivity was never intended to be permanent. It was simply the first step of the planned wider program of evangelism, which was soon to include the Gentiles, and indeed the whole world. This is indicated in many instances of Jesus Himself reaching out beyond the Jewish people: thus foreshadowing the Great Commission that He would give to His disciples.

Bob makes a manuscript argument for the supposed significant lateness of Matthew 28 (mid-4th century). Luke Wayne tackles this objection in his article, “Is Matthew 28:19 a later addition to Matthew’s Gospel?” He states, for example:

Justin’s student, Tatian, produced a harmony of the four Gospels into one narrative called the Diatessaron which contains the words of Matthew 28:19-20, including the Trinitarian formula. [I added links]

The Diatessaron is dated c. 160–175, so this is about 175 years before Bob claims that Matthew 28 first appears in the manuscripts. The Didache is even earlier: and most scholars regard it as a first-century document. It contains a trinitarian formula identical to Matthew 28:19:

[B]aptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit . . . (ch. 7, Roberts-Donaldson translation)

[B]aptize {in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit} . . . (J. B. Lightfoot translation)

[B]aptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit . . . (Charles H. Hoole translation)

Let’s examine whether Jesus reached out to beyond just the Jewish people. One of the better-known instances of that is the incident that Bob himself mentions: the Canaanite woman. But (true-to-form) Bob only cites part of the entire passage, thus taking it out of context. He even bolds the part that he thinks seals his case of a “Jewish-only / nationalist-type Jesus.” Here are the next two verses, that complete the story:

Matthew 15:27-18 (RSV) She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” [28] Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

How can this be?! After all, Bible-Bashing Bob told us that this was a contradiction and that Jesus refused her. At least that’s what one would think, reading his presentation, wouldn’t one? But with the whole passage (blessed context), we readily see that Jesus was merely asking (as He often did) a rhetorical question. In effect He was asking her, “why should I heal your daughter?” She gave a great answer, and He (knowing all along that she would say what she did) did heal her.

I fail to see how this passage proves that Jesus didn’t give a fig about non-Jews. He healed the Canaanite woman’s daughter! How does that prove what Bob contends? Jesus heals a Canaanite girl (after being asked to by her mother), and that “proves” that He only healed and preached to Jews; hence it is a “contradiction”? Surely, this is a form of “logic” that no one’s ever seen before.

Another example, even more famous, is Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:4-29). He shares the Gospel very explicitly with her, stating that He is the source of eternal life (4:14), and that He is the Jewish Messiah (4:25-26): a thing that she later proclaimed in the city (4:28-29, 39-42).

The text even notes that — normally — Jews avoided Samaritans: “The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samar’ia?’ For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans” (4:9; RSV). Strike two against Bob’s bogus claims. He’s very ignorant of the Bible. If only he would come to realize that, then he would stop repeatedly making a fool of himself.

A third instance of Jesus’ outreach beyond the Jews is His interaction with the Roman centurion:

Matthew 8:5-13 As he entered Caper’na-um, a centurion came forward to him, beseeching him [6] and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, in terrible distress.” [7] And he said to him, “I will come and heal him.” [8] But the centurion answered him, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. [9] For I am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, `Go,’ and he goes, and to another, `Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, `Do this,’ and he does it.” [10] When Jesus heard him, he marveled, and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith. [11] I tell you, many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, [12] while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.” [13] And to the centurion Jesus said, “Go; be it done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed at that very moment.

Note how Jesus not only readily healed the Roman centurion’s servant (8:7, 13), but also “marveled” at his faith and commended it as superior to the faith of anyone “in Israel” (8:10). And that led Him to observe that many Gentiles will be saved, whereas many Jews will not be saved (8:11-12). None of that is at all consistent with Bob’s silly claim that “This was not a universal message.” It certainly was. What more does Bob need to see, to understand that? But there is much more:

A fourth example is Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37). The whole point of it was to show that Samaritans were truly neighbors to Jews if they helped them, as the man did in the parable. I drove on the road (from Jerusalem to Jericho) which was the setting of this parable.

A fifth example is from the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus told His followers, “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14).

A sixth example is the common motif of Jesus saying that He came to save not just Jews, but the world (Jn 6:33, 51; 8:12 [“I am the light of the world”]; 9:5; 12:46 [“I have come as light into the world . . .”]; 12:47 [“to save the world”]; ). The Evangelists in the Gospels, and John the Baptist state the same (Jn 1:29; 3:16-17, 19).

A seventh example is Jesus praying for His disciples in their missionary efforts: “As thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent them into the world” (John 17:18).

An eighth example is the parable of the weeds, which showed a universal mission field fifteen chapters before Matthew 28: “He who sows the good seed is the Son of man; [38] the field is the world, and the good seed means the sons of the kingdom; . . .” (13:37-38).

A ninth example is Jesus’ statements that “all men” can potentially be saved (Jn 12:32; 13:35).

The book of Acts recounts St. Peter and St. Paul massively reaching out to Gentiles. I need not spend any time documenting that.

As anyone can see, the evidence in the Bible against Bob’s ridiculous critique is abundant and undeniable. Not that that will stop Bob . . . He wants to talk about “who he came to save”? I have just shown what Jesus Himself said about that. He never says (nor does the entire New Testament ever say) that He came to “save Israel” or be the “savior of Israel.” Anyone who doesn’t believe me can do a word search (here’s the tool to do it). Verify it yourself. He only claims to be the “Messiah” of Israel (Jn 4:25-26): which is a different thing. When Jesus says who it is that He came to save (i.e., provided they are willing), He states explicitly that He came “to save the lost” (Lk 19:10) and “to save the world” (Jn 12:47).

Likewise, St. Paul states that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). Last I checked, sinful human beings were not confined solely to the class of Jews or Israelis.

***

Photo credit: Appearance on the Mountain in Galilee (1308-1311), by Duccio di Buoninsegna (1255-1319) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

2018-10-26T12:06:42-04:00

Atheist and anti-theist Bob Seidensticker, who was “raised Presbyterian”, runs the influential Cross Examined blog. He asked me there, on 8-11-18“I’ve got 1000+ posts here attacking your worldview. You just going to let that stand? Or could you present a helpful new perspective that I’ve ignored on one or two of those posts?” He also made a general statement on 6-22-17“Christians’ arguments are easy to refute . . . I’ve heard the good stuff, and it’s not very good.” He added in the combox“If I’ve misunderstood the Christian position or Christian arguments, point that out. Show me where I’ve mischaracterized them.” 

Such confusion would indeed be predictable, seeing that Bob himself admitted (2-13-16): “My study of the Bible has been haphazard, and I jump around based on whatever I’m researching at the moment.” I’m always one to oblige people’s wishes if I am able, so I decided to do a series of posts in reply. It’s also been said, “be careful what you wish for.”  If Bob responds to this post, and makes me aware of it, his reply will be added to the end along with my counter-reply. If you don’t see that, rest assured that he either hasn’t replied, or didn’t inform me that he did.

But don’t hold your breath. He hasn’t yet uttered one peep in reply to my previous 28 installments. Bob (for the record) virtually begged and pleaded with me to dialogue with him in May 2018, via email. But by 10-3-18, following massive, childish name-calling attacks against me,  encouraged by Bob on his blog (just prior to his banning me from it), his opinion was as follows: “Dave Armstrong . . . made it clear that a thoughtful intellectual conversation wasn’t his goal. . . . [I] have no interest in what he’s writing about.” And on 10-25-18, utterly oblivious to the ludicrous irony of his making the statement, Bob wrote in a combox on his blog: “The problem, it seems to me, is when someone gets these clues, like you, but ignores them. I suppose the act of ignoring could be deliberate or just out of apathy, but someone who’s not a little bit driven to investigate cognitive dissonance will just stay a Christian, fat ‘n sassy and ignorant.” 

Bob’s words will be in blueTo find these posts, word-search “Seidensticker” on my atheist page or search “Seidensticker Folly #” in my sidebar search (near the top).

*****

In his article, “Top 20 Most Damning Bible Contradictions (2 of 4)” (10-22-18), Bible-Bashing Bob pontificated:

Addendum: Or maybe it’s repentance that saves . . . 

What if it’s repentance?

Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord (Acts 3:19).

Repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem (Luke 24:47).

This was stated after he did his usual dumbfounded, clueless woodenly “either/or” analysis of the faith “vs.” works issue, which I have already dealt with (in terms of his arguments), in installment #22. He pretends (what else is new with him?) that one thing contradicts another, when it doesn’t at all (or else he is too ignorant and biblically illiterate to comprehend that they don’t).

The Bible teaches that we are saved by grace through faith, with good grace-generated works (freely done) inevitably manifesting themselves and being the proof of genuine faith, in the regenerated person (and regeneration comes through baptism, according to the Bible). All of this is made possible by Jesus’ death on the cross, as mankind’s redeemer and savior.

Except for the baptismal regeneration aspect (rejected by a fairly small minority of all Christians — but not, alas, by Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism), virtually all Christians agree on what I summarized as the requirements and nature of salvation.

The many subtleties and fine points of how it works in standard Christian soteriology (theology of salvation) are clearly way over Bob’s head, but not over the heads of thoughtful, educated Christians, who (quite unlike Bible-Bashing Bob) actually seriously study the Bible. I write about all these things, in scores and scores of articles on my Salvation & Justification web page.

Repentance is clearly the initial human response at the beginning of the process of salvation, above the age of reason (around seven or so). We have to be sorry for our sins in order to be forgiven of them (it’s a two-way transaction): all the way to a hoped-for eventual salvation and entrance into heaven as a reward and fulfillment of all the deepest human desires and yearnings. The whole thing is enabled and made possible only, or ultimately, by God’s free gift of grace. That said: repentance is presented as the first thing humans do in the process: even before baptism (in the case of adults).

I fail to see why Bob thinks that this is a case of biblical contradiction. The Bible teaches that all these factors play into salvation. It’s not contradictory. I document this in my paper, St. Paul on Grace, Faith, & Works (50 Passages). It’s merely a case of many harmonious factors being involved in one broad thing that the Bible calls salvation or being saved; getting to heaven. Thus, the Bible presents repentance in conjunction with all these other variables: not as contrary to them. I shall now prove that, with the use of a handy Bible search tool:

Repentance and Faith

Acts 20:21 (RSV) testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance to God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 6:1 Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God,

Repentance and Works

Revelation 2:5 [Jesus speaking] Remember then from what you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

Repentance and Baptism

Acts 2:38 And Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Repentance and Salvation

2 Corinthians 7:10 For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death.

***

There is no problem whatsoever here, let alone a “contradiction” in the Bible” supposedly, between repentance and any of these other aspects of final salvation.

***

Photo credit: Mary Magdalen Penitent (1585-1590), by El Greco (1541-1614) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

***

2018-10-24T14:16:47-04:00

1. The Church’s Developing Understanding of Infallibility

A. Papal Primacy and the Universal Church (Catholic Statement) 

“We believe that the New Testament is given to us not as a finished body of doctrine but as an expression of the developing faith and institutionalization of the church in the first century.

“In many respects the New Testament and the doctrines it contains are complemented by subsequent developments in the faith and life of the church. For example, the statements of faith in the early creeds, though they are in conformity with Scripture, go beyond the words and thought-patterns of scripture. The church itself, moreover, had to take responsibility for the selection of the canonical books, no list of which appears in the scriptures themselves. Similarly, the church had to specify its sacramental life and to structure its ministry to meet the requirements and opportunities of the post-apostolic period.

“As Roman Catholics we are convinced that the papal and episcopal form of Ministry, as it concretely evolved, is a divinely-willed sequel to the functions exercised respectively by Peter and the other apostles according to various New Testament traditions.” (1)

B. Kilian McDonnell

“There are human factors which contributed to the evolution of the doctrine of papal primacy. There was a widespread conviction in antiquity that Rome was accorded special honor because it was the first city of the empire . . .

“The border between what is of divine will and what is of man’s making cannot be defined . . . The presence of political facts and the operation of human laws of social organization do not postulate the absence of divine intent . . .

“The church’s judgment on the contents of the canon is not based on any precise evidence coming from the historical Jesus. If a `special direct intervention’ of God is seen in the formation of the canon, . . . could not the same `special divine intervention’ account for the emergence of the Petrine office, for which there is some evidence in the leadership role assigned to Peter in the New Testament witness . . .” (2)

C. Jeffrey Mirus

“There seems to be a demand to see the thirteenth century papacy in the first and second centuries, before the Catholic claim can be accepted. But such a view is nonsensical. The conditions of the declining Roman Empire and the early, scattered Christian communities were conditions that made for isolation and a painful sort of local self-reliance. We would not expect to see a continuous stream of fully-developed papal administrative activity in the centuries of minority and persecution. Likewise, we would expect to find no pomp and glory in episcopal or papal carriage until Christianity became legal with the conversion of Constantine in the early fourth century. Thus, when Protestant and secular historians speak of the papacy being formed in the fourth and fifth centuries, they superficially refer only to its external estate.

“For as more and more evidence from the early years is uncovered, the record booms out the reality of papal primacy with greater and greater intensity. The bishops of Rome were continuous, and their authority was taken for granted.” (14:145)

D. Robert Hugh Benson

“By divine guidance St. Peter himself sought the city and established his See just where he would gain all the aid that natural and human surroundings could give him for the swift and sure development of the final supremacy of his Chair. This supremacy is no more the result of mere worldly circumstances than the healthy growth of a tree is the result of the mere soil in which its seed once found a congenial home. If the authority on the one hand, and the seed on the other, had not existed, neither the Chair of Peter nor the tree would have emerged.

“It was not, then, until the head had been fully established as supreme over the body that men had eyes to see how it had been so ordained and indicated from the beginning. After it had come to pass it was seen to have been inevitable. All this is paralleled, of course, by the ordinary course of affairs. Laws of nature, as well as laws of grace, act quite apart from man’s perception or appreciation of them; and it is not until the law is recognized that its significance and inevitability, its illustrations and effects, are intelligibly recognized either.” (6:109)

E. Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman

“Whether communion with the Pope was necessary for Catholicity would not and could not be debated till a suspension of that communion had actually occurred . . . It is a less difficulty that the Papal supremacy was not formally acknowledged in the second century, than that there was no formal acknowledgment on the part of the Church of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity till the fourth. No doctrine is defined till it is violated . . .

“Moreover, an international bond and a common authority could not be consolidated . . . while persecutions lasted. If the Imperial Power checked the development of Councils, it availed also for keeping back the power of the Papacy. The Creed, the Canon, in like manner, both remained undefined . . . All began to form, as soon as the Empire relaxed its tyrannous oppression of the Church. And as it was natural that her monarchical power should display itself when the Empire became Christian, so was it natural also that further developments of that power should take place when that Empire fell. Moreover, when the power of the Holy See began to exert itself, disturbance and collision would be the necessary consequence . . . St. Paul had to plead, nay, to strive for his apostolic authority, and enjoined St. Timothy, as Bishop of Ephesus, to let no man despise him . . . It was natural that Polycrates should oppose St. Victor; and natural too that St. Cyprian should both extol the See of St. Peter, yet resist it when he thought it went beyond its province . . .

“Supposing there be otherwise good reason for saying that the Papal Supremacy is part of Christianity, there is nothing in the early history of the Church to contradict it. . .

“It is the absolute need of a monarchical power in the Church which is our ground for anticipating it. A political body cannot exist without government, and the larger the body the more concentrated must the government be. If the whole of Christendom is to form one Kingdom, one head is essential . . . wherever the Pope has been renounced, decay and division have been the consequence . . .

“Doctrine cannot but develop as time proceeds and need arises, and . . . therefore it is lawful, or rather necessary, to interpret the words and deeds of the earlier Church by the determinate teaching of the later.” (4:151-152, 154-155)

2. The Definition of Papal Infallibility at Vatican I (1870)

A. The Definition

“We teach and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed: that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks `ex cathedra,’ that is, when, in discharge of the office of pastor and teacher of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, is, by the divine assistance promised to him in Blessed Peter, possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith or morals; and that, therefore, such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church, irreformable.” (3:256)

Constantly we hear the charge that the Catholic Church “invents” doctrines late in the game, which were not present in earlier centuries. In our present case, it has been shown by overwhelming scriptural and historical argument, that papal infallibility has indeed been in existence from the very earliest days of the Church, notwithstanding an expected development. In addition to the consensus of fathers and councils, we present one more example of the continuity of doctrine in the Church, in the form of St. Francis’s teaching, c. 1596, of papal infallibility, in order to illustrate the absurdity of claims that the “ultramontanes” in 1870 were out to subvert the Church by granting previously unheard-of prerogatives to the pope, purely out of a fanatical lust for monarchical power, a charge heard often today by large portions of the Church considering themselves “progressive”.

B. St. Francis de Sales

“When he teaches the whole Church as shepherd, in general matters of faith and morals, then there is nothing but doctrine and truth. And in fact everything a king says is not a law or an edict, but that only which a king says as king and as a legislator. So everything the Pope says is not canon law or of legal obligation; he must mean to define and to lay down the law for the sheep, and he must keep the due order and form .

“We must not think that in everything and everywhere his judgment is infallible, but then only when he gives judgment on a matter of faith in questions necessary to the whole Church; for in particular cases which depend on human fact he can err, there is no doubt, though it is not for us to control him in these cases save with all reverence, submission, and discretion. Theologians have said, in a word, that he can err in questions of fact, not in questions of right; that he can err `extra cathedram,’ outside the chair of Peter. that is, as a private individual, by writings and bad example.

“But he cannot err when he is ‘in cathedra,’ that is, when he intends to make an instruction and decree for the guidance of the whole Church, when he means to confirm his brethren as supreme pastor, and to conduct them into the pastures of the faith. For then it is not so much man who determines, resolves, and defines as it is the Blessed Holy Spirit by man, which Spirit, according to the promise made by Our Lord to the Apostles, teaches all truth to the Church.” (9:306-307)

3. Reasoned Explanations of Papal Infallibility

A. Robert McAfee Brown (P)

“If it is wrong to assert that a man (in this case, the Pope) can speak for God beyond possibility of error, it is also wrong to assert that a group of men (in this case, the writers of Scripture) can speak for God beyond the possibility of error. If papal infallibility is wrong, so is paper infallibility . . .

“[The Catholic position on infallibility] has many strengths. (a) It is clear-cut and unambiguous (particularly in comparison with Protestant hedging on the same issue . . . (b) It has an impressive degree of historical plausibility . . . (c) It has the theological advantage that it stresses the continuing activity of the Holy Spirit at all stages in the life of the church. (d) It has great logical appeal. It is logical that Christ should found a church to carry on his work, logical that he should provide for the continuation of that work through a direct succession, logical that one person should have this power rather than a group of persons who might disagree, and logical that God should endow the head of the church with infallibility, in order to protect his church from error.” (7:70, 174-175)

B. Peter Kreeft

“Papal infallibility certainly seems to be a specifically Catholic dogma that Protestants cannot accept. But they often misunderstand it. First, they often think of the pope as an autocrat rather than as the head of a body. (A head is part of a body, not floating above it in the air.) Second, they often think of the Church along political lines and want it to be a democracy. But Scripture thinks of the Church along organic lines, and no organic body is a democracy. Third, they often misunderstand infallibility as attaching to the Pope personally. In fact, it attaches to the office, not the person, and only when defining a doctrine of faith or morals.” (13:270)

C. James Cardinal Gibbons

“You will tell me that infallibility is too great a prerogative to be conferred on man. I answer: Has not God, in former times, clothed His Apostles with powers far more exalted? They were endowed with the gifts of working miracles, of prophecy and inspiration; they were the mouthpiece communicating God’s revelation, of which the Popes are merely the custodians. If God could make man the organ of His revealed Word, is it impossible for Him to make man its infallible guardian and interpreter? For, surely, greater is the Apostle who gives us the inspired Word than the Pope who preserves it from error . . .

“Let us see, sir, whether an infallible Bible is sufficient for you. Either you are infallibly certain that your interpretation of the Bible is correct or you are not.

“If you are infallibly certain, then you assert for yourself, and of course for every reader of the Scripture, a personal infallibility which you deny to the Pope, and which we claim only for him. You make every man his own Pope.

“If you are not infallibly certain that you understand the true meaning of the whole Bible . . . then, I ask, of what use to you is the objective infallibility of the Bible without an infallible interpreter?

“If God, as you assert, has left no infallible interpreter of His Word, do you not virtually accuse Him of acting unreasonably? for would it not be most unreasonable of Him to have revealed His truth to man without leaving him a means of ascertaining its precise import?

“Do you not reduce God’s word to a bundle of contradictions . . . which give forth answers suited to the wishes of every inquirer? . . .

“Is not this variety of interpretations the bitter fruit of your principle: `An infallible Bible is enough for me,’ and does it not proclaim the absolute necessity of some authorized and unerring interpreter? You tell me to drink of the water of life; but of what use is this water to my parched lips, since you acknowledge that it may be poisoned in passing through the medium of your interpretation?

“How satisfactory, on the contrary, and how reasonable is the Catholic teaching on this subject!

“According to that system, Christ says to every Christian: Here, my child, is the Word of God, and with it I leave you an infallible interpreter, who will expound for you its hidden meaning and make clear all its difficulties.

“Here are the waters of eternal life, but I have created a channel that will communicate these waters to you in all their sweetness without sediment of error.

“Here is the written Constitution of My Church. But I have appointed over it a Supreme Tribunal, in the person of one `to whom I have given the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven,’ who will preserve that Constitution inviolate, and will not permit it to be torn to shreds by the conflicting opinions of men. And thus my children will be one, as I and the Father are one.” (2:108-110)

D. Bishop Vincent Gasser (Vatican I)

“We do defend the infallibility of the person of the Roman Pontiff, not as an individual person but as the person of the Roman Pontiff or a public person, that is, as head of the Church in his relation to the Church Universal . . .

“We do not exclude the cooperation of the Church because the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff does not come to him in the manner of inspiration or of revelation but through a divine assistance. Therefore, the Pope, by reason of his office and the gravity of the matter, is held to use the means suitable for properly discerning and aptly enunciating the truth. These means are councils, or the advice of the bishops, cardinals, theologians, etc. Indeed the means are diverse according to the diversity of situations, and we should piously believe that, in the divine assistance promised to Peter and his successors by Christ, there is simultaneously contained a promise about the means which are necessary and suitable to make an infallible pontifical judgment.

“Finally we do not separate the Pope, even minimally, from the consent of the Church, as long as that consent is not laid down as a condition which is either antecedent or consequent. We are not able to separate the Pope from the consent of the Church because this consent is never able to be lacking to him. Indeed, since we believe that the Pope is infallible through the divine assistance, by that very fact we also believe that the assent of the Church will not be lacking to his definitions since it is not able to happen that the body of bishops be separated from its head, and since the Church universal is not able to fail.” (12:41-44)

E. Ronald Knox

“[It is a] quite unworkable idea that the authority of the Pope depends on the authority of the Council. There is no way of deciding which councils were ecumenical councils except by saying that those councils were ecumenical which had their decisions ratified by the Pope. Now, either that ratification is infallible of itself, or else you will immediately have to summon a fresh ecumenical council to find out whether the Pope’s ratification was infallible or not, and so on `ad infinitum.’ You can’t keep on going round and round in a vicious circle; in the long run the last word of decision must lie with one man, and that man is obviously the Pope. In the last resort the Pope must be the umpire, must have the casting vote. If therefore there is to be any infallibility in the Church, that infallibility must reside in the Pope, even when he speaks in his own name, without summoning a council to fortify his decision.” (1:130)

F. Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman

“If the Christian doctrine, as originally taught, admits of true and important developments, . . . this is a strong antecedent argument in favour of a provision in the Dispensation for putting a seal of authority upon those developments . . .

“What can be more absurd than a probable infallibility, or a certainty resting on doubt? – I believe, because I am sure; and I am sure, because I suppose . . .

“Those who maintain that Christian truth must be gained solely by personal efforts are bound to show that methods, ethical and intellectual, are granted to individuals sufficient for gaining it; else the mode of probation they advocate is less, not more, perfect than that which proceeds upon external authority . . .

“Nor can we succeed in arguing . . . against a standing guardianship of revelation without arguing also against its original bestowal. Supposing the order of nature once broken by the introduction of a revelation, the continuance of that revelation is but a question of degree; and the circumstance that a work has begun makes it more probable than not that it will proceed. We have no reason to suppose that there is so great a distinction of dispensation between ourselves and the first generation of Christians, as that they had a living infallible guidance, and we have not . . . Preservation is involved in the idea of creation. As the Creator rested on the seventh day from the work which He had made, yet He `worketh hitherto’ . . . As creation argues continual governance, so are Apostles harbingers of Popes . . .

“The supremacy of conscience is the essence of natural religion; the supremacy of Apostle, or Pope, or Church, or Bishop, is the essence of revealed . . .

“The common sense of mankind . . . feels that the very idea of revelation implies a present informant and guide, and that an infallible one; not a mere abstract declaration of Truths . . . This is shown by the popular notion which has prevailed among us since the Reformation, that the Bible itself is such a guide . . .

“If Christianity is both social and dogmatic, and intended for all ages, it must humanly speaking have an infallible expounder. Else you will secure unity of form at the loss of unity of doctrine, or unity of doctrine at the loss of unity of form; you will have to choose between a comprehension of opinions and a resolution into parties, between latitudinarian and sectarian error. You may be tolerant or intolerant of contrarieties of thought, but contrarieties you will have . . . The doctrine of infallibility is a less violent hypothesis than this sacrifice either of faith or of charity.” (4:79-80, 83, 85-87, 90-91)

SOURCES

1. Ronald Knox, In Soft Garments, Garden City, New York: Doubleday Image, 1941.

2. James Cardinal Gibbons, The Faith of Our Fathers, New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons, revised edition, 1917.

3. Dogmatic Canons and Decrees, Rockford, Illinois: TAN Books, 1977 (orig. New York: 1912) [Documents of Councils of Trent and Vatican I, plus Decree on the Immaculate Conception and the Syllabus of Errors of Pope Pius IX].

4. John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, Notre Dame, Indiana: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1989 (orig. 1845).

6. Robert Hugh Benson, The Religion of the Plain Man, Long Prairie, Minnesota: Neumann Press, 1906.

7. Robert McAfee Brown, The Spirit of Protestantism, Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1961.

9. St. Francis de Sales, The Catholic Controversy, translated by Henry B. Mackey, Rockford, Illinois: TAN Books, 1989 (orig. 1596).

12. Vincent Gasser, The Gift of Infallibility, translated with commentary by James T. O’Connor, Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1986 (Gasser’s Relatio from First Vatican Council, 1870).

13. Peter Kreeft, Fundamentals of the Faith, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988.

14. Jeffrey A. Mirus, editor, Reasons For Hope, Front Royal, Virginia: Christendom Press, revised edition, 1982.

FOOTNOTES

1. Paul C. Empie and T. Austin Murphy, Papal Primacy and the Universal Church, Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1974, 34-35. This book is the result of a joint official project of Lutheran and Catholic scholars.

2. Ibid., 177-178.

***

(originally compiled in 1994)

Photo credit: Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman [public domain]

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