Dialogue w Friendly Atheist #3: Music, Longing, & Mysticism

Last updated on: August 14, 2017 at 4:55 pm By Dave Armstrong

Brünnhilde (1910), by Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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This is from a private correspondence with a very friendly and fair-minded atheist, who goes by the nickname, “Comrade Carrot-Blog Vegetarian.” He has agreed that it would be made public. Unlike the vast majority of atheists I have met online, he is actually curious about my spiritual journey and Christian viewpoint, minus any hint of condescension or the usual atheist views of Christians (that we are ignorant, anti-science, given to following a myth-like God akin to leprechauns, irrational, pretentious and bigoted, etc.). Bottom line: it’s great discussion within a friendship that has constructive value. This is what it’s about: simply talking and listening to each other. It’s entirely possible: at least with the right kind of person on both sides. His words will be indented.

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See previous installments:

Dialogue with a Friendly Atheist #1: My Pagan / Occultic Period (8-3-17)

Dialogue w Friendly Atheist #2: Music, Longing, & Mysticism (8-7-17)

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I actually have read The Everlasting Man, though I was about 20 at the time, and probably read it like a 20 year old. I had a Chesterton/Wodehouse phase around then. I owe it to myself to read it again. I quite like Chesterton as a writer — he’s a wizard with the English language and I’ll be lucky to die half as fluent as he was.

Very cool. You discovered him a lot earlier than I did.

Regarding your first set of questions, I do want to first highlight the distinction (at least here, where it’s relevant) between the aesthetic experience and the experience of sehnsucht, the former being a form of transcendent experience, and the latter being the torturous notion that one should be having such an experience, but isn’t.

Good and interesting distinction, but there is a big overlap or common ground there, it seems to me.

Most of my aesthetic experiences are indeed triggered by the class of things you mention. Music is the most common (mostly because of relative amount of time I’m exposed to it), but nature is definitely among them. I had quite a profound experience at the top of Stone Mountain in Georgia, gazing into the distance as a few faint skyscrapers from Atlanta and Buckhead rose out of an endless sea of forest. I recall I was the only one there (wife included) whose experience wasn’t being mediated by the black mirror of a cell phone screen. Dozens of people going to such effort to capture experiences that they aren’t actually having! We as a people really ought to be having a conversation about that.

I often think on vacation about that very distinction: enjoying the thing itself, as opposed to capturing it in a photograph. I love nature photographs (don’t get me wrong), but I also want to fully experience the thing as it is happening. We just drove to Alaska, so I had ample opportunity. I enjoyed the scenery; wife and daughter took pictures. But I want to see the pictures, too. I think it’s a “both/and” scenario.

Stories are another frequent source. I once played an indie game called To The Moon, which is a game about coming to terms with the past. While it would take too long to set up the context of this event in the story, there’s a point in the game when you find yourself watching, helplessly, as a man’s memories are systematically altered to erase every trace of his meeting and falling in love with his formerly terminal but now departed wife…under the assumption that he would prefer to die having never known her, than to die having known her, suffered with her, and lost her. The aesthetic experience of despair is something one doesn’t exactly come across very often.

It’s always better to have loved. I follow the philosophy that is the opposite of the one being critiqued in the Simon and Garfunkel song, I am a Rock. We just watched a film last night (Collateral Beauty), whose title reflects something like this. I won’t give it away, in case you haven’t seen it. It’s an excellent movie about grief and overcoming it. We watched Arrival before that, which also had fascinating elements somewhat of this nature.

I’m not sure that I have a precise explanation for what underwrites the experience on an atheistic view, though I think I have a sense of the experience itself. Thats not because there aren’t several good ones, or that I’m unfamiliar with them, but because I’m not sure which ones I find most convincing. I’ll get to that topic in a moment.

The general “formula” for these higher-order experiences seems to be that they are constituted of a network of more mundane experiences which contrast (but ultimately resolve) each other, such that the properties of the network as a whole are qualitatively different than the properties of any of its parts. In this sense, it’s something more like an experience of an experience.

Self-consciously analyzing one’s own experience . . .

As an aside, that’s generally the reason that analytical scrutiny of the experience, as we’re having it, quickly robs us of the experience. By focusing too intently on the properties of any component of the network, we cause it to appear unbalanced and unresolved (when in fact it is neither).

Well, that’s true too!

The wandering mind experiences pure joy, but then it says “look, it’s me, experiencing joy”, and then takes stock of the reasons for which joy has occurred, and considers any possible defeaters to the notion. All of a sudden, the joy is gone.

And in the Christian view, of course there is the diabolical counter-force, that works against our feeling joy or happiness for too long of a time. Devil or no, existing cynicism usually takes care of that by itself.

Presented with such a network of ostensibly contrasting experiences, our attention is arrested and we’re put into a state of deep reflection, detached from the self, as if confronted with some intractable moral dilemma that threatens to uproot our entire understanding of the world. For reasons I mentioned in my previous letter, this puts us directly into dialogue with the emotions or ideas contained in those experiences. The tension of this contrast is immediately brought to resolution, which brings us a certain sense of emotional and intellectual relief, and then immediately the resolution yields again to tension, brought on by the contrast. This push/pull induces a sort of euphoria which accompanies the intense emotional reflection. The end result is an experience that is conventionally pleasing, and profound, and then intellectually pleasing, because it is profound.

You have clearly thought about these issues in great depth. I am really enjoying your analysis. I can’t reply all that much to a lot of this, since I haven’t reflected upon these issues in anywhere near the depth that you have. So I’m mostly sitting here being the curious student! If we’re strictly talking about aesthetics, I have studied that topic very little, if at all (but have always wanted to). I think the closest would have been a Humanities class in college.

Back to what underwrites these experiences, the central debate is whether the crucial or defining aesthetic properties are properties of the experience itself, or properties of the object that prompts the experience. Are they grounded in the experience, or grounded in the object? If I were to play what I think to be the best hand, I would say that the crucial properties are in the object, but that our experience of the aesthetic value of the object or event is not identical to the value of the aesthetic experience. In other words, in talking about an aesthetic event, the “fullness” of the event can’t be explained simply by appeal either to the object or the experience. So, when I have an aesthetic experience upon observing a magnificent work of art, I am appreciating aesthetic value contained in facts about the work of art. But the reason that experience is aesthetically valuable has as much to do with the meaning imparted by the experience, which is, in part, a function of what the object represents, what emotions are being felt, the significance of those emotions to us as people, and the cultural and historical context that informs the way we engage with the these concepts.

That makes total sense to me.

My experiences with sehnsucht (at least Lewis’ conception by which it intrinsically points toward its own resolution) are about as fleeting as my experiences with hunger and thirst. I have them all the time, just not for long. When I long for transcendence, food, or water, I generally know where to find each, in all cases because I haven’t become encumbered with the sorts of conditions that would render them elusive.

When I was looking through the Arthur Rackham “classic” illustrations connected with Wagner’s Ring, for a photo for the second online installment of our dialogue, I had an experience of sehnsucht. And simultaneously with the experience itself, I had a realization that I had experienced these feelings much more in the past than I do now (and was sad that this was the case, and wondered why it was). And I felt the intensity and wonder of the past experience: exactly what it felt like at the time. All of this happened in just a few moments. Time seemed to be suspended (or transcended).

It was a sort of “double-sehnsucht” with an additional dose of extra melancholy or regret or sense of loss. The glorious Rackham images took me back to the imagination-world and sound-world of Norse mythology and Wagner. It’s some sort of very deep consciousness that these things represent (in my hypothesis). In my Christian worldview I naturally tend to think that perhaps it may be a foretaste of heaven. The myths and the music evoke something presently unattainable, yet nevertheless we feel it is attainable in some possible world. And we Christians say that that “world” is heaven.

I think it could also be a romanticizing of the past, or what we have been taught (through various filters) to think of as the past: particularly the idealized Christian Middle Ages of the fairy tale world and the various myths.

I suppose atheists could just as easily interpret it as visions of paradise or utopia or what-not, which are not likely attainable but at least thinkable of what conceivably could be: admirable goals to strive for and at least partially achieve.

As for a transcendence of time, there is an aspect in Catholic theology of the Mass being such a suspension. We believe that Jesus’ death on the cross is literally made present. It’s not a mere remembrance, or a “re-sacrifice” (as Protestant critics caricature it to be). It is the death on the cross made present in a miraculous fashion. In some research I have done regarding the Jewish Passover, I learned that Judaism also has a similar concept regarding that feast. Jews feel that they are present at the original Passover (or that it is made present to them). Thus, there was much tie-in to Christian views of Jesus’ death as the sacrificial Lamb (the Last Supper itself being a Passover meal).

Talk about intense experiences! I was privileged to be able to visit the actual spot where Jesus was crucified, in Jerusalem, in 2014. That was an amazing feeling indeed, and my wife captured it far better than I did, in the way in which she both experienced it and could describe it. I thought it was the best part of my book that I wrote about our pilgrimage there. We sat in our hotel room in Jerusalem at night, and I “interviewed” my wife and another woman who was with us, “drawing out” of them the feelings, so I could get them down on paper. They both told me that I did this, so it’s not just my description. They needed a bit of “encouragement” to be able to fully describe such deeply personal and moving experiences.

I’m rambling all over the place, but at least I came up with a few thoughts to offer. :-)

I have, however, experienced entire sets of very obscure (and sometimes slightly perverse) examples of sehnsucht that don’t, at least ostensibly, conform to Lewis’ conception. I could write a book’s worth of these. When I was in my late teens, I observed my father reconnect, in person, with a friend he hadn’t talked to in about 20 years. His entire personality reverted to an earlier state (a state of youth), as if dormant for that entire time and waiting to resurface under the conditions he experienced back then. I recall longing to know, first hand rather than historically, what my father was like when he was around my age, and realizing that I never will.

That’s really fascinating, and different . . .

I’ve longed for disaster – something catastrophic that rips the world apart, and strips us of our pretensions and our intense commitment to utter trivialities. I’ve never wanted that, I’ve just longed for it.

Even more different still!

I’ve longed to experience my past in the same way I experience the present or the future – to experience memories as events, and to experience them without having to place them in the broader context of my life, or of other events similarly-situated in time.

Have you actually ever pulled it off, for a fleeting moment?

I suppose we can discuss your deconversion at some point (if you want), but I don’t think now is the time, when we are having such a fruitful exchange regarding areas where we are largely in agreement, or at least equally fascinated by (in instances where we haven’t figured it out). I’ve been moving away from analyzing deconversions already, anyway. It offends most people, and they usually don’t understand my intentions and motivations for examining them. It’s just not worth the trouble. I’d much rather talk with atheists about competing interpretations of Scripture (alleged “contradictions”). That’s something objective that can be talked about, without the “personal” element. So, e.g., if someone says a reason why they rejected Christianity was because the Bible teaches that the earth was flat, I point out that it does no such thing, so that this was a mistaken impression. That gets it off of the person himself or herself and onto the objective texts of the Bible.

Regarding my “even though/because” distinction, I think I’ll kick that a few letters down the road (feel free to bring it up again), as it’s a dense topic and we have quite a few going already. But, in preview, I’ve heard it said that “atheism is the best practice of theism”, and while that (in any literal sense) is patently ridiculous, there’s a sense in which it’s quite a profound mystical notion and I have some real sympathies with it. More specifically though, something about the experiences I’ve had, my status as an “outsider” to the Christian conversation, or the fact that I’m not engaging Christianity in the tumultuous context of a Christian community has given me a certain appreciation for Christianity and a freedom to explore it that I can’t imagine I would have otherwise had. That’s not to diminish, by the way, the experience of any Christian – this is merely my own experience speaking.

Is it sort of like a divorced couple being able to appreciate aspects of each other, away from the commitment and intensity and constant togetherness that marriage requires? That makes psychological sense to me. Most atheists active online seem too active hating (and constantly misrepresenting) Christianity to be able to never even approach such a “distant appreciation” sort of outlook. I’m not surprised at all that you have it, since it goes along with your thoughtful and tolerant approach.

You’ve given me a quite a bit to listen to, some new to me and some I’d loved listening to in the past but nearly forgot about. I made a list for this weekend, when I get some time, to hunt some of this down and listen.

Fun! Alright! I’d be interested to hear about what you thought.

I’ve always loved the Beach Boys. I saw them on their 50th reunion tour in Chicago on an early date with my now wife. I’ll probably hang on to that experience forever.

I also saw them during that 2012 tour. We saw Brian Wilson in Ann Arbor in 1999: which is considered the first concert in his new trend of touring, and was even part of the recent biographical movie. I had seen the Beach Boys also in 1977 and 1978 (the former with Brian, the latter without). I consider Pet Sounds the greatest pop / rock album of all time and recently had fun putting together the most plausible (and best-sounding) original version of Smile. I’ve done similarly, off and on, with Dylan and The Band’s Basement Tapes. I visited “Big Pink” near Woodstock, New York, where it was recorded, in 1992. I was at a gas station and asked a guy where the house was, and he said, “I live there.” !!! So he led me back to it and there it was!

I was stoked to see you mention Stockhausen. Nobody ever mentions Stockhausen! He is among, if not the greatest experimentalists of all time in my estimation, and entire genres of music owe, if not their existence, their popularity to his work.

It was interesting. I didn’t particularly like it (too abstract for my tastes), but he does seem to have this influence on what came later.

Kraftwerk puts on a fantastic show – the visual imagery is expertly done, and probably the entire reason there’s a Blue Man Group today. People still go crazy for them. I have Min-Max, Kraftwerk, and Autobahn as well as several remixes in my general purpose library and the reception is completely unreal, every time.

Alright! I saw them in Detroit in 1981: literally at the very moment that their music (via Computer World) had an influence on the coming hip-hop and the electronic music scene in Detroit. Recently, I started discovering (through You Tube) related bands like Neu, Can, Ultravox, and Yellow Magic Orchestra. I was really into New Wave and post-punk, back in 1977-1983 or so.

Your review of the Sergeant Pepper remix reminded me to ask: How did you get into writing? You’re quite good at it, but you haven’t mentioned anything about your background that would explain why that is.

Thanks very much. I like your writing a lot, too. Not much in my background would have suggested that I would end up as a professional writer. I hated grammar (and generally, English classes) in school. I was a good student, and was on my junior high school newspaper. But my majors were avocational music (high school) and sociology / psychology (college). I probably did a few decent term papers in college.

Basically, I started writing as an aspect of my interest in apologetics and evangelism, with little handout tracts at first. None of those were particularly notable at all, in retrospect. In the mid-80s, a good friend and I started producing “comic tracts” in the format of Jack Chick’s anti-Catholic screeds. But I did mostly research rather than producing extended pieces of straight writing.

That seems to have commenced with my Catholic conversion in 1990. I immediately wrote an account of my conversion (which was published in a book that sold over half a million copies), and then treatises about Catholic doctrines that Protestants don’t accept. These treatises (which became my first book: also officially published, but way later: in 2003), and a few articles in magazines constituted my first major writing efforts, from age 32 onwards.

The next big development in my “writing career” was the Internet, which I joined in 1996. Since then, I have literally written constantly: almost on a daily basis (my website began in 1997 and received an award in the Catholic literary / apologetics world the next year). And I’ve written all kinds of things: besides apologetics and theology, I’ve done political analyses, musical stuff, satire, polemical as well as ecumenical material, analyses of comparative religion, and of atheism, the relationship of science and religion (philosophy of science), philosophy of religion, Church history, some sociological works, travelogues, sports pieces, Christmas poems; you name it!

I’d like to think that my style has been influenced by the great English Christian writers (Wesley, Lewis, Chesterton, and Newman, above all: I have compiled quotation books for all of them except for Lewis [copyright issues] ). Along these lines, I even compiled my own New Testament, which was drawn from six public domain versions: all produced in England. The idea was to update Elizabethan King James English to a majestic 19th century British English. Hence I call it Victorian King James Version. No one cares about it, but it was a great joy for me to compile: combining my love of the Bible and “high English” styles.

People usually love or hate my writing. There is very little in-between. But I write very fast (it just flows, if I know about the topic at all), a lot, and never get writer’s block. I’m told that all of these traits are fairly unusual, so I accept that these are God’s gifts to me, for use in my work. I don’t find it difficult at all. I often think of the comparison to composers: some (e.g., Beethoven) struggled tremendously in composing; others (e.g., Mozart) knocked off complex compositions almost as easily as breathing.The amount of labor involved seems to have no direct relation to quality or the final product; it’s just differences in how they work.

I’ve also often thought about full-time apologetics being a lot like the struggle of artists to be able to do for a living what they were meant to do, despite all kinds of opposition. Schubert is the most obvious analogy. Nothing in his life suggested that he would have any success as a composer. He heard very few of his own orchestral works performed in his own lifetime. Beethoven, who lived in the same city (Vienna) only became aware of him right before he died. Yet his circle of friends believed in him. He followed his “muse” (and I would say, gift and calling from God), and we can be thankful that he did. He had to suffer terribly in order to do it.

Artists, musicians, poets, writers, Catholic apologists (in the overlapping sense of being a writer and finding it tough to make a living), go through this. I’ve paid my dues a million times over. But I was finally able to settle into full-time apologetics in 2001 at age 43. I’m blessed to be able to do what I love (and what I believe God called me to way back in 1981). That gives me the time to devote to answering a wonderful letter like this, on a Monday afternoon. :-) I can’t think of any work I’d rather do, and to me it’s almost not even work, because I love writing and communicating so much.

Well, I was just dumbfounded reading through your wife’s account of her experiences. This is a notion seated directly in the middle of a topic I’ve been studying for years, yet I’ve never come across before; I feel a bit like a kid in a candy shop. So, the puzzle is this: Most art forms like film, painting, sculpture, and literature are almost universally today considered representational art forms. As such, while there’s lots of debate about how to interpret the work, it’s true of the work that it’s some kind of an imitation of some aspect or feature of the physical world. Music is generally considered sui generis among the arts, and while there are some representational theories of music, they don’t involve the claim that music imitates entire objects in the way it would need to in order to act as a conduit for visual imagery.

Yes: the task is to figure out how music can be transformed into imagery. I think it’s either through association, as I alluded to earlier (from TV and movies: soundtracks often have thematic elements: think of, e.g., western soundtracks or music regarding the ocean), or it is something far deeper and more mystical: that the beautiful harmonies and blends in music actually are directly related to the Beautiful as a notion or idea or experience already in our psyche or soul, and is then somehow “co-opted” by our inner sense of beauty / order / ideals, and makes us feel good, and in my wife’s experience, incorporates “induced” visual elements as well.

Thanks for another great letter!

Ecumenism vs. No Salvation Outside of the Church?

Last updated on: August 9, 2017 at 2:24 pm By Dave Armstrong

Jesus and the Centurion (c. 1571), by Paolo Veronese (1528-1588). Jesus was quite “ecumenical” with those completely outside the Jewish faith. [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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This is a good dialogue with a Protestant friend, Dustin Buck Lattimore, from my Facebook page. His words will be italicized.

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How are they [the Orthodox] not “separated brethren” when they deny all of the Catholic particulars concerning the papacy? I wonder if we (Protestants) will achieve an equal level of friendliness 500 years from now, when we have a nice 1000 year gap from our schism.

Well, y’all gave up a lot more doctrines than the Orthodox did. They mainly gave up indissoluble marriage and the papacy and we disagreed on fairly abstract points of trinitarianism. So it is quite a big difference in terms of what we disagree about.

Fair enough. I’m just observing that there was a lot of rancor (if something as serious anathematization as mere rancor) at the time of each schism, with tempers cooling and relationship being reestablished as time passed. I mean, 1000 years later and RC and EO are practically reunited. 500 years ago Protestants were damned, now we’re separated brethren.

Trent taught the validity of Protestant baptism, while Protestants were saying the pope was antichrist and that Catholics were semi-Pelagian heretics . . .

I never said the anathematization didn’t go both ways. And I do think there is a lot of work to be done within Protestantism to get people to A) acknowledge non-Protestants as legitimate Christians, and B) see reunification as in any way desirable.

The Catholic Church has, for example, cooperated with Campus Crusade for Christ in Poland, and the pro-life movement was so ecumenical that it was the cause of my meeting articulate Catholics, which led me to Catholicism.

If you somehow had come in contact with articulate Catholics nonetheless, do you think you still would have converted? Put another way, do you think you could have left Protestantism for Catholicism if you had lived before Vatican II? I have a theory that the relaxing of attitudes toward Protestants with V2 is a primary reason for the large numbers of Protestant conversions to Catholicism.

Yes, I would have, because the issues don’t change. Development of doctrine is the same issue whether there was a Vatican II or not. So are contraception and the nature of the Protestant Revolution. These were my three main reasons.

Vatican II changed only the approach to Protestants. It’s a manifestation of the Pauline “being all things to all men.” It didn’t change any doctrine. Put most broadly, Protestants are becoming Catholics because of 1) the massive internal contradictions within Protestantism, and 2) the discovery that Catholicism has maintained many aspects of historic (and apostolic and patristic) Christianity that have been ditched by Protestants.

“Separated brethren” as a term isn’t new, either. It dates back to at least 70 years before Vatican II.

Hmm… Thoughts are percolating… Perspective shifting…

Okay, so I had been (and still do) thinking of Roman Catholicism as another denomination. So ‘converting’ to Catholicism is really just changing one’s denomination.

That’s how Protestants view it, because you can’t get out of your own unbiblical paradigm of denominationalism. We see it as a matter of there being only one Church in the Bible. The task, then, is to determine what that is, and where it is (institutionally / historically / ecclesiologically) found. My conversion was changing from one particular Christian worldview or set of beliefs to another one. It was (as I put it) going from “very good” to “best.”

Now correct me if I’m wrong here on VII: before VII, ‘extra ecclesium nulam salus’ was much more strongly understood.

It was much more emphasized, for sure, and ecumenism has much more rapidly developed, post-World War II. But the teaching about salvation outside the Church has not changed [see three posts on this: one / two / three], and there were ecumenical motifs before Vatican II (indeed, in the Bible itself and strongly even in St. Thomas Aquinas). Even the Assisi Ecumenical Gatherings can be grounded in thought that was present in Aquinas. Trent did not anathematize all Protestants, as is often wrongly asserted.

Dominus Iesus (2000), put out by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), under Cardinal Ratzinger (later, Pope Benedict XVI), reiterated the doctrine of “no salvation outside the Church.” This surprised a lot of folks only because (like you) they were under the false impression that Vatican II had changed this. Another document from the CDF in 2007, dealt with some of these same issues. I had a good dialogue with a Protestant pastor on these same sorts of issues, in 2007 (allow time for it to upload).

To hear the radtrads I’ve talked to tell it, it was a glorious time when Catholics were right and Protestants were damned.

Yes. This is because they emphasize only one aspect of the total equation, and ignore the ecumenical motifs in Scripture and Aquinas and others, and the acknowledgment of Protestant baptism even in Trent. Trent taught Protestants were partially heretical, but still brethren in Christ by virtue of their baptism. Likewise, Luther and Calvin acknowledged Catholic baptism as valid (neither got rebaptized). They were much more against Anabaptists, whom they wanted killed, than Catholics. Luther was far more opposed to the “damned” Zwingli, who denied the Real Presence, than Catholics, who were still Christians in his opinion. Vatican II emphasizes our very significant common ground with Protestants. The reactionaries lack balanced teaching and misunderstand the Mind of the Church. This is why I wrote a paper (I can’t find it!) about how, if I had met radical Catholic reactionaries rather than a person who understood Vatican II, I wouldn’t have converted when I did (1990).

Now, post-VII, extra ecclesium nulam salus hasn’t been undone per se (salvation is still only through the church aka Roman Catholic church), but Protestants can be connected to the church (through baptism?)

As I explained to you already, Trent recognized Protestant baptism. So what you try to say is some new thing in Vatican II, was already there. Aquinas taught the same, and 800 years earlier, Augustine recognized the validity of schismatic Donatist baptism.

and still be saved, despite rejecting papal authority and all the rest.

We believe that if one truly understands Catholic teaching as true, and rejects it, that they cannot be saved. But of course there is massive, widespread ignorance about what we actually teach, and why. So in a purely subjective sense, there are a lot of “loopholes” involved. God judges us by what we know. Ignorance and lack of knowledge are very different from stiff-necked, hardhearted obstinacy and outright rebelliousness. And we believe that whoever is saved, is saved in some way through the Catholic Church, whether they are aware of it or not.

My entire premise hinges on this understanding of what VII did; if I’m misunderstanding, please correct me (and I know VII did much more than address Protestantism).

You have some incorrect premises, as shown. The whole thing is far more complex, nuanced, and subtle than you are making out.

So, pre-VII, why on earth would you change to a denomination that declared all other denominations heretical and most likely damned?

That’s a caricature of our view, as explained above. Your question doesn’t even make any sense. The person who converts to Catholicism does so because they have come to believe it to be the one true Church of the Bible, established by Our Lord Jesus Christ. It’s a change of rule of faith and view of authority (from sola Scriptura to Bible-Church-Tradition and infallibility of all three) and acceptance of all that Protestants reject (the saints, Mary, purgatory, the papacy, transubstantiation, infused justification, regenerative baptism, penance, absolution, sacramentalism, moral teachings such as contraception and prohibition of divorce, etc.). All of these factors are exactly the same, either before Vatican II or after it.

But post-VII, you are still free to hold your Protestant friends and family as brothers and sisters in Christ.

They always have been, insofar as they are baptized and accept many things that we do (Nicene Creed, etc.).

A stumbling block to conversion has been removed, opening the doors to greater Protestant conversion to Catholicism.

Not really, because one converts to Catholicism from Protestantism due to the recognition of much false teaching within Protestantism, and a “fullness” of historical, biblical, apostolic Christianity present in Catholicism.

However, if I think of it in terms of converting to another religion entirely, I can see how one would have to choose the truth, despite it meaning believing one’s family and friends are damned.

It’s not another religion. It’s one form of Christianity, just as Protestantism is.

It happens all the time when one person in a family converts to Christianity; I wouldn’t dream of telling them “Well, you should really stick with your family on this”, because their eternal destiny is on the line. So I can definitely see one converting to Catholicism if one really believes it to be True, despite the ramifications for one’s family.

It’s the fullness of Christian truth, and going from “very good” Christianity to the “best” and most fully true and error-free version of Christianity.

So again, it seems to me that pre-VII, converting to Catholicism was similar to converting to another faith entire, and after VII it was more like changing to a new denomination (yes, I know Catholics don’t consider themselves a denomination) within the same faith.

It was more so towards that kind of thinking, but not quite in reality.

Here’s how I see it: VII was great because now Catholics can hold Protestants as brothers, which in turn allows Protestants (charitable ones, at least) to hold Catholics as brothers.

Neither thing is anything new at all. Only the strong ecumenical emphasis is new. But even that was only a revival of certain aspects of the teaching of Augustine, Aquinas, and many fathers, and of biblical motifs.

It also deincentivizes me from ever needing to convert to Catholicism, as my eternal destiny is no longer on the line. Even if I’m wrong in my Protestantism, I’m still a member of the body of Christ.

That’s how you can rationalize it in your head if you like. Your eternal destiny would be on the line if you knew that our teaching was true, and you rejected it. If you are curious enough about Catholicism to wonder whether we might be right on various issues that divide us, then you will pursue study of those issues and make a determination. Ask God to reveal to you the truth of these things. It’s all by His grace. He is the One Who opens eyes and hearts. For most of us converts, we started seeing over and over that the Catholic Church had a superior, more biblical and historically plausible, substantiated position (I converted due to moral theology and historical arguments, not biblical arguments). One sees so many of those and then, out of the cumulative effect, they can believe in faith, by God’s grace, that the Catholic Church is what she claims to be. At that point, it is moral and intellectual duty to accept and join it.

I was happy and content as an evangelical. I loved that period of my life and have only find, warm memories of it (and indeed, a strong gratefulness). But I discovered more Christian truth to be had, and I’ve always tried to follow truth wherever it led; so here I am!

Thoughts on my thoughts?

I hope my replies have been thought-provoking!

Thanks for clarifying my misunderstanding of what Vatican II did and did not do. So my salvation would only be on the line if I became convinced by the various historical and exegetical arguments made by the Catholic church and still rejected it? That is to say, as long as I remain unconvinced (as I do), I’m “in the clear”?

Not just “arguments” but rather, you have to decide whether to accept or reject the Catholic Church’s claims for itself: the one true Church of the Bible, established by Christ and institutionally continuous since His time. This would require you to change your notion of authority and the rule of faith, and renounce all in Protestantism that is contrary to Catholic teaching.

So do you take that knowledge and now decide to be willfully ignorant of Catholicism, so you can remain Protestant and still make it to heaven? :-)

If you are fair-minded and/or curious, the Catholic Church will still draw you in and you’ll want to pursue comparative studies. Chesterton noted how it was impossible to be fair to the Catholic Church without being inexorably drawn to it. That’s your crossroads right now. Do you keep studying it, in suspicion that it might possibly (in some alt-universe) turn out to be the fullness of Christianity, or do you split and end the whole inquiry pronto?

There is little in-between. You already know too much. :-)

Chesterton is the main reason I’ve even given Catholicism the benefit of the doubt. :-) So far I remain unconvinced. And just to clarify: the issue is not my understanding Catholic claims and then rejecting them; it would be my believing Catholic claims and rejecting them that would damn me? Because I’m getting a firmer hold on what Catholics teach, and I wouldn’t want to understand too much if it would put me in jeopardy. :-) (but seriously) . . .

Only God knows for sure whether someone truly knows something to be true and is obstinately rejecting it. We believe that if a person does that with regard to Catholic claims, they would be damned.

If you believe something is true, it then becomes your intellectual duty (being honest with yourself) to believe in it. So the two come together at that point.

Completely agree.

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Dialogue w Friendly Atheist #1: My Pagan / Occultic Period

Last updated on: August 8, 2017 at 1:05 am By Dave Armstrong

+ Circumstances and Factors Regarding my Evangelical Conversion in 1977 at Age 18 and Catholic Conversion at Age 32

Yours truly (center) in April 1977: right before my existential crisis, leading to my evangelical conversion, with my brother Gerry and sister-in-law, Judy (both, sadly, deceased). That’s about the longest I ever grew my hair, too!

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This is from a private correspondence with a very friendly and fair-minded atheist, who goes by the nickname, “Comrade Carrot-Blog Vegetarian.” He has agreed that it would be made public. Unlike the vast majority of atheists I have met online, he is actually curious about my spiritual journey, minus any hint of condescension or the usual atheist views of Christians (that we are ignorant, anti-science, given to following a myth-like God akin to leprechauns, irrational, pretentious and bigoted, etc.). Bottom line: it’s great discussion within a friendship that has constructive value. This is what it’s about: simply talking and listening to each other. It’s entirely possible: at least with the right kind of person on both sides. His words will be in blue.

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I don’t have any intention of opening up a debate on the topic of conversion/deconversion accounts generally, or about the extent to which any particular one is warranted. I mostly wanted to pick your brain a bit as to one or two of the experiences I imagine you would have had at certain points in your own journey.

While I don’t have much of an interest in conversion and deconversion stories generally, I have become quite interested in forms of Christianity and pseudoChristianity that lie at (or just beyond) the margins of “mainstream Christian thought” (fully aware, by the way, just how loaded a phrase that is). Sometimes people come to rest at one of these views, but more often they hold them briefly in the transition to, or away from Christianity. A lot of these have been so extensively documented as to become trite (people often shuffle between worldviews that are well-established and widely held, for reasons which are obvious). But, the nominal Christian occult-dabbler is a new one for me.

I would predict that there was a brief time in transition (if not an extended time) where you thought that occultism was compatible with Christianity, or maybe even that it was the proper application of Christianity. If I’m right about that (and perhaps even if I’m not) I’d be interested to hear your take on what a “Christianized occultism/’occultanized’ Christianity” looks like. What ostensibly incompatible concepts did you take to have reconciled at the time? Which ones did you hold in tension? What was the role of occultism in your understanding of fundamental Christian doctrines like sin, atonement, and divine revelation? What (if any) sources were you consulting at the time as you tried to piece together a coherent “hybrid” worldview?

The move from backslidden occult-dabbler to Evangelical is a pretty sharp one, so I would imagine that was more of an epiphanic conversion with little to no transitional period. If not, however (which is to say, if there was an occultist Evangelicalism) that would be even more interesting to hear about!

I’ll tune some of the dials on my questions if needed, but that’s the crux of what I’m curious about.

I’m afraid I can’t help you much as regards an occultic / evangelical hybrid, because I never did that. I’m assuming you must have read one of my early accounts. The only implausible hybrid I tried to do was to blend very liberal views on sexuality with evangelicalism for about four years (ages 19-23). :-)

I was a profoundly ignorant, nominal Methodist, but became interested in the occult because I’ve always been an intellectually curious person (TV sparked it), and in retrospect, I was (specifically) spiritually curious, too (the “spirit world” and all that), due to being taught so little in Methodism. I would say that I was starved for spirituality, and since I didn’t receive it in Christianity for my first 18 years (because of not being taught), I filled that gap with occultic stuff and a strong Einstein-like nature mysticism (though never pantheist as his views were).

The “light show” portion of 2001: A Space Odyssey literally blew my mind. That was my religion in 1968, at age 10: “what was that all about?!” “How did the universe come to be?” Etc. In 1974, hearing Richard Wagner’s Ring music for the first time blew my mind again, in a somewhat similar way, and was a quasi-religious experience. How can mere music do that? I don’t know (it’s a bit like the imaginative power of poetry), but I highly suspect that it has to do with associations built up through the years in TV and movies. In any event, hearing Wagner was almost a mystical experience, in a way that no other music ever has been (Mahler, though, comes close).

But nothing ever came of that (I didn’t get into Norse mythology as a result, as, say, C. S. Lewis did). It just stood by itself in isolation. I would also say in retrospect that these experiences were manifestations of what is called the “argument from longing / desire.” C. S. Lewis writes a great deal about it: what he and others call sehnsucht. It’s fascinating. Atheists don’t think much of it, but they thumb their noses at all Christian arguments. What else is new? What I do know, however, is that I intensely felt these experiences at a very deep level (whatever the explanation). If they were “mythological” then (as Tolkien famously convinced Lewis) there was such a thing as a “true myth”: and that is Christianity.

But getting back to your question (I was having fun reminiscing!): I never sought to make any synthesis between occultism and Christianity because they didn’t overlap at all in my own odyssey. I was only interested in the occult when I was exceedingly ignorant about Christian theology (I didn’t even know that Christians believe Jesus to be God in the flesh). So the occult interest ran about 9-10 years (and I was quite serious: I tried to do telepathy and to astral project myself). Then I had an evangelical conversion which was quite the epiphany at the time.

Once that happened, I gave up the occult altogether, since my brother Gerry (who had converted six years earlier) had been warning me about it all along as dangerous and inconsistent with Christianity. I took his word, since I believed he had been right about the truthfulness of evangelicalism. In a few years, I would learn myself how inconsistent it was, as I studied the cults (groups like Jehovah’s Witnesses and also a bit about the New Age Movement) and started to seriously learn theology.

Next question?!

So…definitely a different experience than what I expected, but fascinating in some ways I didn’t expect. I had assumed a thicker sense of “nominal Methodism”…something more like “a weak commitment to a clear Christian worldview” rather than “A Christian-themed (but ultimately unclear) worldview”. It appears you had more of a “tabula rasa” upbringing than I imagined.

It was simply a matter of more or less total ignorance of the religious belief-system I was ostensibly part of. No Sunday school to speak of, no education at home. I never read the Bible. The sermons were boring (and probably were mostly about social issues anyway). Religion has to be made interesting somehow. Once I “caught” some interest in 1977 I never looked back. It did indeed speak to something deep inside of me that was lacking, and subsequent history proves that I merely had to have Christianity presented to me in an appealing (and intellectual) way. But from 1968-1977 I was a “practical atheist” (I lived as if there was no God; it made little difference in my life). My family stopped going to church in 1968 when I was ten, and I had hated it when we did go. I still remember waking up with dread on Sunday morning, with the nice clothes at the end of my bed, put there by my mom.

That’s a fair bit outside the range of my own experience. I don’t recall a time when I didn’t have an operable worldview of some kind. What was it about the (or your) Methodist church that inclined you to seek spiritual growth outside the church rather than in it?

I would say it was almost like a default choice. Occultism filled the vacuum because it sparked my curiosity. It was shows like One Step Beyond and Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits and experiences with Ouija Boards with friends and cousins that drew me in.

Did you believe Christianity to be ill-equipped for this? Did your church actively discourage this sort of thing? Did you genuinely not know which sorts of things were inside the church and which were outside it?

I didn’t think about it enough to even get to any of those points. I simply went where my curiosity led me. I instinctively felt that there was something more to existence than only material things. There was “spirit” in some sense, too. It was just “there.” Christians believe that God puts an innate sense of the supernatural and the spiritual within us: almost like a Platonic outlook, I think. In my opinion, human beings unlearn that as time goes on (unless religion is cultivated). And then we tell ourselves that it was just childhood fantasies and fairy tales. In fact, I say it is just the opposite: children are closer to spiritual truths and then move away from them into more fantasy as time goes on (if they become secularized or become agnostics and atheists). Those are the real fantasies, from where we sit.

I understand the dramatic, born-again experience quite well, so your conversion to Evangelicalism itself isn’t a mystery. It does strike me as a odd that you would have found contentment in Evangelicalism for as long as you did (clearly you ultimately didn’t).

Once I was a Christian, I really was one: a radical Christian with full commitment (minus, of course, the usual set of flaws and sins that we all struggle with). Otherwise, I wouldn’t have bothered to undergo the conversion, if I wasn’t serious. I was never totally discontented with evangelicalism. It was a very fruitful and happy time of my life. I look at it with great fondness and have warm memories. Becoming Catholic wasn’t so much a rejection of that, as it was moving into a greater fullness of Christianity. Catholics often refer to our view as the “fullness” of Christianity. I had added the Church, sacraments, Church history, the saints, the pope,and other Catholic distinctives to an already robust view.
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Conversely, we look at Protestantism (good as it is in many many ways) as a “skeletal” or minimalistic version of Christianity. It removed things that had always been believed. It’s stripped-down Christianity: just the basics. It’s like eating bread and water rather than a huge feast. But I had spiritual experiences within evangelicalism. It wasn’t devoid of that at all.

The set of spiritual satisfactions on offer in the Evangelical tradition seems to me to be quite distinct from those you were seeking prior to your conversion.

Again, I wasn’t seeking so much as simply experiencing things that came my way: that surprised me. Both the profound impact of 2001 and the music of Wagner were both like that: a bolt out of the blue that bowled me over. The biggest thing I actually sought was nature mysticism. But it was very nebulous and undefined. I felt something very real and profound in nature. I wouldn’t have been able to explain or articulate it then; nor could I do so very well now. But it’s real. Whatever is going on there, it’s a real thing. No atheist will ever convince me that it was just fantasies in my own brain.

The rote, reductionist liturgy of the Evangelical tradition has become so engorged from the fruits of enculturation that it has crowded out the “contemplative” aspect of the mystikos.

Not within the charismatic, Jesus People tradition that I was part of! True, it wasn’t big on mysticism and contemplation, but I got enough of that through various writers. I was always trying to draw from different Christian traditions. Lewis was my bridge to “higher” Christian traditions, and Chesterton later on.

It seems as if a person genuinely longing for transcendence and for a “filling out” of their mystical experiences would be left utterly unsatisfied with Evangelicalism, and spiritually-alienated by Evangelical culture. You wanted to connect with the transcendent, not grow it out of the ground and decode its genome.

That wasn’t my experience. All of that fit (my Romanticism and nature mysticism) in with my evangelicalism. It wasn’t “ruled out.” I would put it that way. Catholicism seems to have a much deeper sense of it, though.

The suggestion in Lewis wasn’t merely that the desire for the satisfaction of an X points to an actual X, but that there was a deep (almost visceral) tension between the recollection of a prior experience of X…and X. When it not there, it’s clearly not there. No famished man, having feasted to satiety, wonders whether he’s still famished.

Well, I think it’s both. Sehnsucht (what he also called joy) was for him what you refer to, but he also develops the argument from longing (as an indication of God and spirituality) to some extent. You sound like you have some firsthand experience of some of this stuff.

Could you talk more about that? Am I completely off-base? Were you generally content as an Evangelical?

Yes, I was, because it is the most true worldview apart from Catholicism. It’s still Christianity, and it satisfied me till I found a fuller, more plausible and historical expression of the same religion. I wasn’t “unhappy” at all.

If so, were you content for the same reasons by which you were not content as an occultist/mystic?

I was content then, too, for the most part! I was just going along. Part of that is my happy-go-lucky even temperament, I suppose.

Did this factor into your eventual move to Catholicism?

That’s a whole different thing. I became a Catholic because of moral theology and a study of history (development of doctrine and the Protestant “Reformation”: so-called). My Catholic conversion was very intellectual in a way quite different from my evangelical conversion (which came in the middle of a deep depression and a sense of existential despair and ultimate meaninglessness). I was already an apologist as a Protestant (13 years later), and so I approached the comparison between the two very intellectually and “theologically.” But the issue of contraception was actually what sparked my interest, combined with meeting a Catholic (rarity of rarities!) who could actually articulate and explain his faith in an appealing way to a 31-year-old zealous evangelical apologist.
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This is fun! Not sure where it will go, but it’s a great “ride” and so refreshing to not have to hear all the usual condescending analyses, so common among atheists in approaching Christians and Christianity (often amounting to all Christians being dishonest gullible idiots who follow the equivalent of tooth fairies and leprechauns). All I’ve ever wanted to do with atheists is just talk person-to-person, as equals and fellow human beings who think about life. I’m just as interested in your stories, too. Thanks!

So, you’ve covered everything that I was, initially, curious about…but now there’s a quite a bit of new stuff to get to! A coffee shop and some sort of translocation device would come in handy right about now :-)

Well, old-fashioned letter-writing is a lost art too! I enjoy it, as one would expect, since I write for a living. I was just working on the online version when your latest letter came in. I’ll answer for now, the portions where you are asking about my experience.

I’ll focus on a couple of the questions that stood out to be while I chew over the rest.

Sounds good.

You cited the phenomenological experience of music several times, with particular respect to Wagner. I’m a musician myself, and can absolutely relate.

What kind of musician? I am an avid collector of all kinds of music. Lately, I’ve been buying used classical vinyl, and managed to recently obtain the entire Ring in vinyl. Many consider the VPO/Solti set the greatest recording ever made. I agree. And it’s the best brass I’ve ever heard recorded. I used to play trombone in the symphony band and symphony orchestra at a nationally renowned public high school in Detroit: Cass Technical. I had to take lessons with the first chair in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra before I even got there, in order to be in the Symphony Band. That’s how high the standards were.
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My favorite periods by far are Romantic (I like Romantic, not classical Beethoven) and Post-Romantic music (up to about 1920 or so).

Wagner has a habit of doling these experiences out by the truckload.

Yes he does! What an amazing composing talent. Not so amazing as a human being (as everyone knows). But artists are not particularly renowned a saints.

I’m curious if your conversion to Christianity changed your relationship with music in any way.

Not that I recall. Being a romantic and semi-mystic has remained pretty constant all my life, through all my changes of worldviews, so I think it feels the same, in terms of enjoyment of music. It’s fascinating to listen to that sort of music, to see what it makes one’s imagination conjure up. My wife Judy and I will sit and listen to a piece and she’ll say that she had all these dreamlike visions in her head. What fascinates me to no end is: how can music do that: especially if it has no “program note” connotations to it? On what basis do some musical notes beautifully blended together in orchestration create images in our minds? It could just be association (movie and TV scores, as I said before) but I think there is something deeper there. My favorite instrument to listen to is actually the French horn.

Do you think Christianity provides you with an better understanding of the foundation, or ontological character of that sort of experience?

I haven’t thought much about it. Perhaps God put love of music into us as a prelude for whatever music there will be in heaven. He created us to instinctively, naturally like it, as part of the enjoyment of the senses, just as we enjoy looking at a sunset or beautiful mountain range (I just traveled to Alaska!), or eating fine gourmet food. I would say that it reflects the beauty of God’s creation and goes back to Him. But I can’t say that I have thought about it much.

I suspect this is something that you’ve thought about (and which doesn’t get a lot of serious treatment in Christian literature, insofar as I’ve read). I’m really interested to hear you expand a bit on that.

I should do more of it, but I haven’t thus far. I would find it very difficult to write about. It would take more of a poetic / fictional writing approach, which is not what I do at all (apart from yearly Christmas poems). What little I do have is collected on my Romantic & Imaginative Theology web page. I would highlight, from that material, C. S. Lewis and the Romantic Poets on Longing, Sehnsucht, and Joy (compiled in Nov. 2001), and The Relationship of Romanticism to Christianity and Catholicism in Particular (compiled in Dec. 2001). Allow time for the latter to upload from Internet Archive.

What books/authors in the mystical tradition were you reading during your time as an Evangelical?
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Not too many. I started reading Thomas Merton shortly before I became a Catholic; Thomas a Kempis (The Imitation of Christ), Rudolf Otto (The Idea of the Holy), and A. W. Tozer, insofar as he has some mystical streaks in him. Then there was C. S. Lewis’ autobiography, Surprised by Joy, which really got me thinking about mysticism and the argument from desire.

Also, what beliefs and concerns were at the foundation of your experiences of meaninglessness and existential despair prior to your conversion? These feelings are often presented as the products of a lack of good reasons not to feel them (reasons presumably supported by a robust worldview).

It’s wrapped up in my deep depression, which I went through for six months in 1977, at age 18-19, so it’s difficult to separate psychological factors from worldview considerations. I was lonely, didn’t know what I was going to do in my life (didn’t have a clue about a career), had held in my emotions way too much (going back to difficulties with my father).
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I majored in sociology and minored in psychology, so I recognize that those sorts of factors were central in the whole experience. But it went beyond that. I felt that the universe was meaningless. The vague occultism and nature mysticism had all of a sudden become “not enough” to get me by anymore. Nor was my naturally sunny, happy-go-lucky temperament. It all collapsed in a heap, and quite quickly. There was some kind of Christian spark still inside of me: small though it might be. I would go to my brother’s church occasionally and sit there and squirm, feeling that the pastor was right in what he was saying, and that eventually I needed to deal with that. But I’d forget as soon as I went out the door. God was after me, letting me know (through pain as well as “persuasion” through people), that I needed to accept Him and let Him into my life.
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When I got very deeply into despair, I yielded. I realize that the atheist mind will simply dismiss that as infantilism and seeking a mythical God (or comforting authority figure or what-not) out of psychological or emotional necessity. I understand why they would think that, but we counter that by saying that psychology is not all there is, and that God can reach us in all kinds of circumstances. He’ll accept us even for the foolish reason that we have no other choices to come up with: the “default” acceptance of God, for lack of any better “solution.” That’s what I did. But the thing “caught” and my life was eventually transformed: especially three-four years after that, when I experienced various personal revivals.

From the accounts that I’ve read, I’ve found that there are actually several positive beliefs behind them: Assumptions about the way the world is supposed to work, views on the nature (usually the primacy) of the self, views on what meaning should be thought to entail…etc. What sort of things were going through your head at the time?
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Not much more than the above. It was a fairly non-intellectual conversion and much more about how to overcome the felt meaningless of my life and the universe. I had lived ten years as if God didn’t exist, and now He was showing me that that game was up. In fact, I did need Him to provide a framework of meaning and purpose. And in my case, it became my career, too. I started doing apologetics in 1981, and became a campus missionary from 1985-1989. That collapsed (an additional , but much lesser existential crisis!), and I did unrelated delivery work from 1991-2001, then went back to full-time apologetics as a Catholic in December 2001, when I lost my delivery job. I had finished my first book (of Catholic apologetics) in May 1996. It took me seven years to get it “officially” published.

One interesting area of overlap is that moral theology featured heavily in my own experience (and, frankly, my continuing experience). Obviously the set of concerns which would arise from Evangelicalism and result in Catholicism won’t be identical to my own, but I’m extremely interested to hear you go into detail about what problems you were wrestling with, the extent to which you have or haven’t resolved them, and what their genealogy was. I take it they weren’t present from the beginning, and arose in response to some particular thing or set of background events?
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That gets into detailed issues that I have written about elsewhere (in several versions of my Catholic conversion story: see that web page). But the immediate catalyst was the issue of contraception. I was very active in the pro-life movement, and started meeting some Catholics, and I challenged them on the matter of contraception. I was a typical Protestant and saw nothing wrong with it whatever, and was very curious why Catholics did. One day my friend told me that no Christian group ever accepted contraception as morally permissible until the Anglicans did in 1930, and even then, for “hard cases only.” That was a thunderbolt. And it was because I had a high respect for the history of the Christian Church (in a still-Protestant sense) and so it was very impressive to me to learn the history of that particular moral doctrine.
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Beyond that, my concerns at the time had to do with what I saw as a slippery slope of Protestant moral theology, which has a strong tendency of “conforming to the world” (in theological terms), or becoming secularized over time (the sociological approach). And those were usually the sexual and life issues (abortion, euthanasia, premarital sex, divorce, homosexuality, etc.). Catholics have a saying that “all heresy begins below the belt.”
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What I increasingly sought was a consistent moral theology that existed in an unbroken chain back to the apostles and Jesus, and after much study, I determined that only Catholicism fit that bill. Orthodoxy was next best, but I knew that it had compromised on contraception and also on divorce. I was always against the latter on biblical grounds, and now had come to see that the former was also wrong (i.e., unbiblical and unapostolic).
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This tied into the authority of the Catholic Church. I concluded that it had the best moral theology. But I still had to work through the issue of infallibility (that I vigorously opposed, tooth and nail), and the nature of the so-called “Reformation”: which I started to study from the Catholic perspective (most treatments of it being Protestant or secular). I was led to Cardinal Newman’s book on the development of doctrine and that was the final straw that broke my “back” of resistance to Catholicism.

One thing that occurred to me to ask was how you would characterize, on a more personal level, the difference between converting primarily as a response to emotional considerations, and converting primarily in response to intellectual considerations? I don’t so much mean “what’s the difference between these forms of engagement with faith” — that part is clear — I’m more interested to know what the difference was, for you, on the ground. How did the fact that you were able to approach Catholicism having your emotional and existential needs largely satisfied already, change the experience of converting to Catholicism compared to the experience of converting to Evangelicalism?

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Great question. The difference was one of choosing God Himself and resolving to be a committed disciple of Jesus in 1977: a beginning of an entirely different approach to life and the Ultimate Questions, and moving from within the Christian paradigm to another alternate place. The first conversion wasn’t intellectual per se. It was more emotional and “mystical” (in the sense we have been discussing), and also had a strong moral component.
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When I got to considering Catholicism in 1990, all of that was strongly in place. It wasn’t a question of “following Jesus” or not, but rather, of how to best follow Him, and how this thing called “the Church” tied into that: how does one worship God in community, rather than merely as an individual? (the “rugged individualist” American and low church Protestant thing). To me, it was a lot like choosing alternate theories of history / theology, and was very intellectual in that way (like a conversion of positions within the framework of philosophy or science or historiography: except mine had to do with systematic theology, ecclesiology, and Church history).
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History and music were my “first loves” long before theology, so Church history was inevitably gonna come into focus at some point of my Christian journey. I was interested in examining Catholic historical claims that were being presented to me, to see if they could hold up, and of reading Catholic takes on the Protestant “Reformation.” I never imagined that they could or would, but lo and behold, they did, when I read Newman on development. That was an intellectual / theological feast far beyond — exponentially beyond — anything I had ever read or heard of before.
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His philosophical work (Grammar of Assent) is equally amazing and so deep one can drown in it (in a good way!). It anticipated Michael Polanyi’s “tacit knowledge” and Alvin Plantinga’s “properly basic belief” 75-100 years earlier, and Newman wasn’t even a philosopher. He wasn’t technically a theologian, either. He was originally an Anglican priest and Church historian. Personally, I think he’s the greatest Christian thinker since Aquinas, and far more wide-ranging and deep than St. Thomas, and he’s my “theological hero.” I’ve collected three books of his quotations: I think they are the best ones currently available. I even went through 33 volumes of his letters. If he’s ever declared a saint (as he should be), I’ll actually make some money from these books, too!

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So, in a nutshell, the common thread of my Catholic conversion was a determination of which competing theory was the best, with regard to history of ideas / history of doctrine and moral teaching, within Christianity. I concluded that Catholicism was superior in all three areas that I examined: 1) development of doctrine in the early and medieval Church, 2) the more cogent position over against Protestant 16th century innovations, and 3) development of moral theology, going all the way back to Jesus and the apostles. I thought it had much more truth, and greater fullness of truth, minus the many internal contradictions that are present in Protestantism (even in its very rule of faith: sola Scriptura: which I have written two books about [one / two] ).
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I’m also curious as to what insights psychology and sociology brought to bear on your engagement with faith questions, and (perhaps more interestingly) the other way around. My educational background overlaps those fields a bit, but I don’t have a lot of formal experience with either, especially with respect to how they, as disciplines, approach questions of faith. What was made different about your experience of faith and your study of psychology/sociology, by the fact that you were engaged in both?
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They tied into my two conversions very little. Mostly, my college education taught me how the secular mind thinks, and I was basically of that mind myself until my senior year. That’s what I got out of it, in retrospect. I understand secularism and social science, and the psychological analysis of human beings. It has helped me, however, in categorizing groups (which is almost all that sociology does!). So, for example, in my early apologetic studies of non-Christian (non-trinitarian) cults, my knowledge of sociology tied in; also in referring to various aspects in comparative religion, and sub-groups within Catholicism. And I use it a lot in my societal / political analyses, such as causes of inner-city blight, poverty and broken homes as the leading indicators of a life of crime and misery, etc. Growing up in Detroit is a virtual case study in all of that as well. Analyses of the relentless secularization that has gone on for 150, 100, 70, or 50 years: depending on how one defines the influences, also tie into that.
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I think a “sociological mind” gives one the ability to both be in a group and simultaneously be able to “step out of it” and analyze it more objectively. And one can recognize patterns of behavior. For example, John Loftus has this argument where he talks about how Christians only believe as they do because of the environment that they grew up in. I actually agree that this is the case for probably a majority of believers. They may develop more rationales later, but that’s usually the initial entrance. I think those Christians need to know apologetics (my field), so they can know why they believe what they do. It’s a quintessentially sociological argument. What I’ve done is to start to develop an argument of turning the tables back to the atheist: noting that most become atheists only after immersing themselves in atheist materials and people. Then, after a while, “they are what they eat”: just as Christians are. Theologically, it’s quite the opposite dynamic, but sociologically, it’s pretty much the same.
*
So I actually do utilize sociology and sometimes psychology in my analyses: especially of competing views. Atheists often use those kinds of arguments, and I turn it right back on them, because they are no more immune to illogic and shoddy arguments or few justifying arguments at all, than we Christians are. But atheists are far less used to Christians challenging them, because they usually feel themselves far superior intellectually (and in many cases, that’s true, because they are disproportionately academics and thinkers, which often leads to what I would critique as hyper-rationalism, scientism, etc.). So I apply my college education far more in this way than to my own faith. Philosophy and historiography would be more closely related in that way, rather than sociology and psychology.

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See the next installment: Dialogue with a Friendly Atheist #2: Music, Longing, & Mysticism [8-7-17]

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Catholic Questions Regarding Protestant Ecclesiologies

Last updated on: July 31, 2017 at 4:45 pm By Dave Armstrong

Photograph by “skeeze” (11-17-14) [Pixabay / Pixabay license]

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(6-5-03)

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These questions and comments of mine came about on a public Catholic Discussion Board, in dialogue with a Reformed Protestant.* * * * * Are we to believe that the Bible presents or teaches no single ecclesiology? Is the governance of the Church of Christ is strictly a matter of relativism and individual choice and happenstance (sort of like secular democracy)?

I find it fascinating that our Lord Jesus and the apostles could not (in this scenario) come up with a scheme of government that would hold for all time in Christianity. They couldn’t even devise a system as “absolute” and continuous as, say, the American form of government or as self-evidently necessary as the organization of any company, city, or state whatever. What about the Jerusalem council? Was that meant to be some sort of ongoing model or merely a one-time event?

*
What about Nicaea and Chalcedon and other generally-respected early ecumenical councils? If they were so important why would we think today that we can make do with the Bible alone and no longer need authoritative, binding councils? By what criterion did the conciliar principle change so that it is no longer relevant to any Protestant body in the present time (or for that matter, episcopacy)?

How and why did the normative patristic principle of apostolic succession change or get thrown out as a binding authority? Does the Bible (applying the principle of sola Scriptura) teach authoritatively about ecclesiology or are we all on our own?

If the latter, how many other aspects of doctrine in Christianity are also not authoritatively determined by Holy Scripture?

And if it is up to groups and individuals, how does the individual determine which is the best tradition of ecclesiology? And how can such necessary contradictions (e.g., episcopacy vs. congregationalism) indicate the presence of ecclesiological truth, since a contradiction necessarily entails a falsehood, and all falsehood is not of God?

I think it is good to discuss the fundamentals of ecclesiology, so people can see that the issue is not simple, but quite complex. Here are yet more questions that Protestants need to answer:

1. If ecclesiology is not based on biblical teaching (or, similarly, if the Bible is not sufficiently clear enough for Christians to arrive at a conclusion concerning what it teaches on ecclesiology: a sort of “hermeneutical or systematic theological agnosticism,” if you will), then on what is any particular brand of ecclesiology based?

2. If it is fundamentally (if not entirely) based on your “whole lot of tradition and history,” then haven’t you already left the realm of sola Scriptura because you have admitted that the Bible cannot tell us which ecclesiology is correct, so that you are forced to rely solely or primarily on tradition and history (much like the Catholic rule of faith, over against the Protestant)?

3. If it is based on a “whole lot of tradition and history,” then you have to identify which history and tradition it will be based on, since (as you love to point out) there are competing schemas or at least interpretations of Church history. How does one do that? How do you arrive at the conclusion of which history is the “orthodox” one or most “respectable” one?

4. How is this not merely “traditions of men” if you can’t trace this to the Bible and are forced to rely on men’s traditions apart from the Bible, which cannot resolve this issue? How many other such exceptions are there to the principle and modus operandi of sola Scriptura?

5. If these matters are merely contingent, and not at all a matter of biblical revelation, or unable to be determined by that revelation, whence comes your constant objection to the papacy-as-developed-in-actuality and/or the Catholic position on the papacy and ecclesiology in general, since I think even you would agree that at least we have one schema of Church history that has some credibility and plausibility (agree or disagree)?

In other words, how can you argue and rail against our ecclesiology, if indeed all ecclesiologies are merely tradition-based and not biblically-based, so that they are all (in the final analysis) epistemological equivalents? How can one be better than another? On what basis can one judge between them, apart from an ultimately arbitrary recourse to subjective personal opinion?

Further comment on question #5: It seems to me you would have to then treat the Catholic conception of the papacy with equally as much respect as non-denominational congregationalism (where the pastor is too often a de facto dictator) or Anglican episcopacy or the Landmark Baptists, who claim to trace their lineage through people like the Cathari and Albigensians (i.e., anyone they can find throughout history who isn’t a Catholic).

6. If indeed ecclesiology is merely a “contingent” matter, where differences are allowed by God and that’s all fine and dandy and normative, and to be expected, can you point to a biblical passage which verifies that stance? In other words, is ecclesiological “diversity” (I say, “relativism”) expressly taught in Holy Scripture? Is theological diversity, period, taught there? If not, what does it teach about ecclesiology? Will you contend that we can learn nothing in Scripture about these matters?

7. This would seem to be the case, according to Protestantism, with regard to a number of areas; the most notable (besides ecclesiology) being baptism. Protestants are forced to conclude that the Bible has no clear or perspicuous teaching on baptism, since they can’t agree, and split into five major camps:

a) Infant, non-regenerative baptism (Presbyterians)
b) Infant regenerative baptism (e.g., Lutheranism and Anglicanism)
c) Adult non-regenerative baptism (Baptists, most pentecostals and non-denoms)
d) Adult regenerative baptism (e.g., Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ)
e) No baptism (Quakers and Salvation Army)

But, of course, that takes us into deep waters of the self-defeating nature of perspicuity itself (to which I have never received even a remotely satisfactory response from Protestants).

It seems to me that at some point — given all these unresolvable difficulties — sola Scriptura and perspicuity themselves need to be seriously questioned, or else (even more fundamentally) one is left with a weakened view of biblical authority, whereby Scripture cannot teach us truth in so many areas, and is thus (practically-speaking) insufficient for the purposes of establishing Christian orthodoxy.

These are, in a nutshell, the objections I would have to the Protestant notion of permissible “diverse” ecclesiologies. We need to get down to the premises of all this. I always do that, and am now asking for responses to my questions.

Unless axioms and presuppositions are examined, the danger for all is to build castles of sand, with questionable foundations. I think any Protestant ecclesiological system can be shown to be disturbingly incoherent, per my questions and whatever answer a Protestant could give. If you guys play along with me on this, I’ll be happy to demonstrate exactly why I feel that way, by going through the process of examination with you.

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Reply to Atheist JMS Pearce: “Contradictory” Genealogies?

Last updated on: December 21, 2018 at 5:20 pm By Dave Armstrong

King David (ancestor of Jesus), by Rembrandt (1606-1669) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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This is my third installment of replies to atheist Jonathan MS Pearce skeptical series, Debunking the Nativity. I have previously responded to his claims about the alleged mistranslation of “virgin” (Isaiah 7:14), and supposed irreconcilable differences regarding the death of Herod the Great and biblical chronology. Presently, I am responding to two of his papers (both posted on 12-12-16): “Contradictory Genealogies” and “Conflicting Genealogies of Jesus and the Thesis of a Matrilineal Bloodline Refuted.” His words will be in blue.

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First of all, I’d like to emphasize that Christians have no problem freely admitting that there are “difficulties” to be resolved as regards the two genealogies. Our view is not to pretend that there are no “problems” to be resolved with Bible scholarship, learning more and more about ancient Near Eastern culture, and further study of various sorts. We welcome that; we love to learn more and more about all the relevant data.

That’s different, however, from the positive (or should I say, “negative”?) assertion of the definite presence of demonstrable “contradiction” in the two genealogies. Christians have offered many possible solutions to the various issues raised and considered. Of course, atheists will then say (fair and charitable as they always are to Christians): “see how many explanations there are?! Christians can’t agree! Therefore, we conclude that this evident chaos suggests no explanation, and rather, mere special pleading and rationalization.”

Atheists very often don’t even consistently follow their own inclinations when it is virtually any other subject matter. Take, for example, theories on the origin of life or of the universe. Scientists don’t have any definite solutions to those things (within the “orthodox” materialistic perspective). But they have many proposed explanations. Atheists think that that means the scientific explanation will one day be nailed down. They don’t assume that a diversity of theories proves “chaos” or special pleading. They don’t ditch scientific method or question its usefulness simply because science doesn’t provide every answer to every “anomaly” in nature.

We might also mention the absence of the vaunted “Grand Unified Theory” in particle physics. Scientists thus far have been unable to synthesize what they believe they know into one unified theory. Wikipedia states that “Several such theories have been proposed, but none is currently universally accepted. . . . There is currently no hard evidence that nature is described by a Grand Unified Theory.” It doesn’t follow, however, that such a theory is either unthinkable, inconceivable, or unattainable.

But when it comes to the Bible and Christian theology, atheists think that any multiple theories suggest no resolution (because of prior hostility). Multiple theories are just as likely indications that one of them (or a combination) are true, rather than that all of them are false. Physicists used to suggest multiple theories of the origin of the universe, such as “steady state theory” and “Big Bang” (formulated by Catholic priest-scientist, Georges Lemaître, by the way). It turned out that the latter became accepted by the vast majority of scientists. Scientists never thought that there was no possible solution merely because there were multiple theories.

If Christians didn’t have any theories about the genealogies, atheists would surely be on our backs for total ignorance, and reiterate that they believe that Christians don’t “think” or speculate about issues: that we are against reason itself. If we have many, this also proves that we must be wrong: it indicates rationalizing and incoherence and implausible solutions. In other words, we can never “win” no matter what we do. But (contrary to some jaundiced, triumphant atheist claims) we have no difficulty admitting that there are exegetical difficulties to resolve:

Christian apologist Glenn Miller includes in his extensive treatment these words:

The difficulties in the genealogies are numerous, but the only thing that ‘outnumbers’ them are the possible ‘solutions’! . . . every potential problem has many, many proposed solutions–some smooth, some weird, some tortured. But we really do not have enough data to really ‘catch these guys’ at historical error. . . . [my italics substituting for his all caps, as throughout] [1]

Likewise, The Catholic Encyclopedia (1909) starts out its article on the topic by stating:

It is granted on all sides that the Biblical genealogy of Christ implies a number of exegetical difficulties; but rationalists have no solid reason for refusing to admit any of the attempted solutions, nor can we agree with those recent writers who have given up all hope of harmonizing the genealogies of Christ found in the First and Third Gospels. [2]

Jonathan’s inclination (what a shock!) is to think that the genealogies were “created” or “contrived” out of whole cloth. And so he writes:

In reality, the Gospel writers, in all probability, had no great desire to fulfil historical accuracy; they had an agenda. These genealogies, like much of the infancy narratives, involved using mechanisms to derive symbolic truth claims. And when such mechanisms are shown to be problematic, so too, then, are those theological truth claims.

As usual with atheist “exegesis” he starts out assuming that the Bible writers are trying to pull a fast one on us, trying to hoodwink readers with mere propaganda. And, of course, if any passage suggests otherwise from atheist preconceived notions, they can always wave the omnipotent magic wand of “oh; that passage was clearly added later.” For the atheist every Bible difficulty (real or imagined) has a quick, easy answer. It’s sort of like eight-year-olds in the school playground: everyone knows everything, when in fact, few of them know much at all. Atheists (when doing their butchery of the Bible) are like the most confident, obnoxious 8-year-old kid, who thinks he knows everything. I know firsthand what I’m talking about (believe me). I’ve interacted with atheists on these topics many times, for many years now.

Jonathan has, of course, his laundry list of biblical difficulties (oh, how atheists love those!). Here’s one:

There is a genealogy in 1 Chronicles 3 which overlaps Matthew’s and it seems like he has omitted three names (Joash, Amaziah, and Azoriah) which undermines one of the two lists. This is probably Matthew’s doing—it could well be an opportunity to lose a few names for numerical reasons, and these kings were particularly wicked, coming to infamous ends by God’s will. Also, two Jeconiahs seem to have been melded into one. The fact that the genealogies differ from the Old Testament list is telling, though.

Glenn Miller [1] responds:

Matt[hew]’s has a rhetorical/pedagogical structure to it. In other words, it was designed for memory-retention (common practice in his day — cf. Keener, Bible Background Commentary–NT loc. cit.). The omissions are simply to make the list easier to learn and/or memorize. . . .

His word choice for ‘begat’ simply means ‘progenitor’ and allows considerable gaps to exist without it being an inaccuracy. (E.g. my great-great-great-grandfather ‘begat’ me, in Matt’s word-choice.)

What this means is that ‘omissions’ in Matthew are not ‘problems’ at all.

The Catholic Encyclopedia explains how omissions were not at all uncommon or regarded as “dishonest” in Hebrew genealogies:

Before the introduction of writing, two devices were employed to aid the memory; either history was versified, or the facts were reduced to certain standard numbers. This second form was in use among the Scriptural nations. There were ten antediluvian Patriarchs, ten postdiluvian; seventy descendants of Jacob are named on the occasion of Israel’s going into Egypt, though some of them were dead at that time, others had not yet been born; the ethnographical list of Genesis enumerates seventy nations, though it gives some names of little importance and omits others of great importance; 1 Chronicles 2:3-55, gives seventy descendants of Juda; 1 Chronicles 8:1-28, seventy descendants of Benjamin. This device guarded against arbitrary insertion or omission of any name, though it did not fully exclude the substitution of one name for another. . . .

It cannot be denied that some of the genealogical links are omitted in the Biblical lists; even St. Matthew had to employ this device in order to arrange the ancestors of Christ in three series of fourteen each. At first sight such omissions may seem to be at variance with Biblical inerrancy, because the single members of the genealogical lists are connected by the noun son or the verb beget. But neither of these links creates a real difficulty:

The wide meaning of the noun son in the genealogies is shown in Matthew 1:1: “Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham”. This phrase prepares the reader for the view that the noun son may connect a person with any one of his ancestors, however remote.

As to the verb beget, some writers maintain that the Hiphil form of its Hebrew equivalent refers to the immediate offspring, while its Qal form may denote a more remote generation. But this contention does not rest on any solid foundation. It is true that the Hiphil form occurs in Genesis 5 and 11; it is also true that the successive links of the genealogies in these two chapters appear to exclude any intermediate generation. But this is only apparent. Unless it be certain from other sources that the Hebrew in question signifies the begetting of an immediate offspring, Genesis 5:15, for instance, may just as well mean that Malaleel at the age of sixty- five begot the grandfather of Jared as that he begot Jared immediately. The same holds true of the other Patriarchs mentioned in the above two chapters. Nor can it be urged that such an interpretation would destroy the chronology of the Patriarchs; for the inspired writer did not intend to transmit a chronology. [3]

Matthew used three sets of 14 in his genealogy for a specific reason:

In Hebrew gematria (a type of numerology very popular in ancient Judaism) the value of David’s name, obtained by summing the value of its three consonants, is fourteen (dalet=4, vav=6; thus D+V+D = 4+6+4). [10]

In a long, fascinating article devoted to such alleged “gaps” or “omissions” (filled with many biblical proofs of this casually accepted practice in ancient Hebrew culture), Presbyterian theologian William Henry Green observed:

It can scarcely be necessary to adduce proof to one who has even a superficial acquaintance with the genealogies of the Bible, that they are frequently abbreviated by the omission of unimportant names. In fact, abridgment is the general rule, induced by the indisposition of the sacred writers to encumber their pages with more names than were necessary for their immediate purpose. This is so constantly the case, and the reason for it so obvious, that the occurrence of it need create no surprise anywhere, and we are at liberty to suppose it whenever anything in the circumstances of the case favors that belief. . . .

The result of our investigations thus far is sufficient to show that it is precarious to assume that any biblical genealogy is designed to be strictly continuous, unless it can be subjected to some external tests which prove it to be so. [4]

Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin adds similar information:

Ancient Jewish genealogies often skipped generations, in part because there were no terms for “grandson” and “grandfather.” Any male one was descended from was one’s “father,” regardless of how many generations back he was. Similarly, any male descended from you was your “son,” no matter how many generations down the line he was. This is why the Hebrews were called “the sons of Israel” hundreds of years after the original Israel (Jacob) died. [6]

Here is also a specific reply to the charge that Matthew “shouldn’t” have omitted the three names that Jonathan refers to:

It is objected that Matthew omits three kings, viz. Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah (comp. 1 Chronicles 3, and 2 Kings 8), from his second series. In reference to this objection, it might suffice to say that Matthew, finding fourteen generations from Abraham to David inclusively, contracted, most likely in order to assist memory and give uniformity, the second, and possibly the last series. If we compare Ezr 7:1-5 with 1Ch 6:3-15, it will be seen that Ezra, in detailing, with apparent particularity, his own lineal descent from Aaron, calls Azariah, who was high-priest at the dedication of the first Temple, the son, not of Johbaan his father, but of Meraioth, his ancestor at the distance of six generations. Doubtless the desire of abridgment led him to omit those names with which there were connected no very remarkable associations. Some of the early fathers, however, give a different solution of this difficulty. Hilary (in Mattum, cap. 1) says: “Three generations are designedly passed over by Matthew, for Jaras is said to have begotten Ozias, when, in fact, he was the fourth from him, i.e., Jaras begat Ochazias from the Gentile family of Ahab, whose wife was Jezebel.” That the omission of the three kings was a punishment inflicted upon the house of guilty Joram to the fourth generation is the view yet were pointedly put forth by St. Jerome also, and by many of our own best commentators. [9]

One problematic Messianic obstacle for Matthew’s genealogy is the curse of Jeconiah. Reported in Jeremiah 22:24-30, this is where God cursed Jeconiah and all his descendents (“Record this man as if childless, a man who will not prosper in his lifetime, for none of his offspring will prosper, none will sit on the throne of David or rule anymore in Judah”). This rather puts paid to Messianic claims derived through Matthew’s claimed lineage since Jesus is clearly of the offspring of Jeconiah. Some apologists claim that the curse was limited to Jeconiah’s lifetime whilst others claim that Jesus is disqualified as an ancestor with Messianic properties.

Jeremiah 22:30 (RSV) Thus says the LORD: “Write this man down as childless, a man who shall not succeed in his days; for none of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David, and ruling again in Judah.”

Glenn Miller provides a pretty definitive solution to this pseudo-problem:

The context of the passage seems to limit the scope to just his immediate descendants:

1. The phrase ‘in his lifetime’ (lit. “in his days”- yom) focuses the passage on the immediate future;
2. the “for” word connects the ‘no man of his descendants’ with the ‘in his lifetime’–the strong casual relationship between not-prospering-now and his descendants is strong evidence for an immediate future context;
3. the ‘again’ word (‘od) is not the “big” forever word: ad-olam or le-olam.
4. Immediately after this passage, Jeremiah relays a promise by Yahweh to raise up ‘a righteous branch to David’ [Jer 23:5-6] –a promise of the continuing line of David! Could Jeremiah have been so blind as to not notice such a contradiction (if the preceding passage referred to the ‘end of the Davidic line’?!) It looks much more likely that this is a deposing of Jeconiah, and a promise of a better king from the stock of David (maybe even from non-immediate/non-physical descendants of Jeconiah?). . . .

But many commentators understand the curse to have been rescinded by God in Haggai anyway:

“Jehoiachin’s name appears in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus Christ (1:11, 12), and some contend this contradicts Jeremiah’s oracle of judgment against the king’s descendants (Jer 22:30). Yet it is possible to understand Haggai’s blessing of Zerubabbel (2:20–24) as the rescission of Jeremiah’s curse and the reinstatement of Jehoiachin’s line on the Davidic (and ultimately Messianic) throne (cf. Is 56:3–5).” [Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible.].

Rabbinic tradition generally agrees with this as well:

“for no man of his seed shall prosper -In this, too, no man of his seed shall prosper, namely that no one will occupy the throne of David nor rule in Judah. Although we find that Zerubbabel, his great grandson, did rule over Judah upon the return of the exiles, the Rabbis (Pesikta /’Rav Kahana p. 163a) state that this : ‘was because Jehoiachin repented in prison. They state further: Repentance is great, for it nullifies a person’s sentence, as it is stated: inscribe this man childless.’ But since he repented, his sentence was revoked and turned to the good, and he said to him, “I will take you, Zerubbabel, and I will make you a signet” (Haggai 2:23). . . . [Judaica Books of the Prophets, in loc]

[Notice how this parallels the known case of Manasseh, the evil Davidic king who was exiled by Assyria to its southern province in Babylon, and who then repented and was restored to rulership in Judah–2 Chron 33.10-13.]

This highly-probable understanding completely removes any problem with Jeconiah in anyone’s geneaology. [1]

Conditional prophecies are very common in the Bible (i.e., “if you obey and do A, then you will prosper, but if you rebel and do B I will cast you out . . .”). See my related paper: God’s “Punishing” of Descendants: Is it Unjust and Unfair? (Exodus 20:5: “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation”).

These two genealogies disagree with these lineages. But more damning is that they also disagree on who Joseph’s father was! Even Augustine recognised a problem here. There are some Christian harmonisations such that he could have two fathers (legal and natural). These are weak and unsubstantiated.

There is a possible explanation involving the Jewish levirate law (which Augustine later adopted himself, after reading the historian Julius Africanus):

In Luke he [Heli] is said to be the father of Joseph, while in Matthew 1:16, Jacob was Joseph’s father. The most probable explanation of this seeming contradiction is afforded by having recourse to the levirate law among the Jews, which prescribes that when a man dies childless his widow “shall not marry to another; but his brother shall take her, and raise up seed for his brother” (Deuteronomy 25:5). The child, therefore, of the second marriage is legally the child of the first (Deuteronomy 25:6). Heli having died childless, his widow became the wife of his brother Jacob, and Joseph was the offspring of the marriage, by nature the son of Jacob, but legally the son of Heli. It is likely that Matt. gives the natural, and Luke the legal descent. [5]

This is not merely “desperate” speculation, for any possible solution. Jimmy Akin provides historical background, as to why this is the most accepted theory regarding Joseph’s father:

Julius Africanus [c. 180-c, 250] . . . records information given by Christ’s remaining family in his day. According to their family genealogy, Joseph’s grandfather Matthan (mentioned in Matthew) married a woman named Estha, who bore him a son named Jacob. After Matthan died, Estha married his close relative Melchi (mentioned in Luke) and bore him a son named Heli. Jacob and Heli were thus half-brothers.

Unfortunately, Heli died childless, and so Jacob married his widow and fathered Joseph, who was biologically the son of Jacob but legally the son of Heli (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 1:6:7). [6]

Africanus was an important enough historian to make it into Encyclopaedia Britannica, which states: “His work raised the prestige of early Christianity by placing it within a historical context. He also wrote a critical work on genealogies of Christ as found in Matthew and Luke.” The 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia also praises him:

Byzantine chronographer, noted for his surprisingly lucid interpretations of some Biblical questions; . . . These relations with the Orient explain his knowledge of Syriac, . . . His works in Biblical criticism indicate that he knew Hebrew also. . . . All the works of Africanus, which are of course especially important for Christianity, are also highly interesting for Judaism.

Jonathan’s second, follow-up article mostly argues against the hypothesis of Luke’s genealogy being maternal (i.e., the ancestral lineage through Mary). He even favorably cites the historian Africanus and quotes his own words. I haven’t followed that theory in my replies (in effect agreeing with Jonathan), so I need not refute it, except to document some corresponding disagreement over against that view, among sources I have found and/or utilized (along with a little bit of respectable agreement):

[A]ccording to Patrizi [Jesuit exegete: 1797-1881] the view that St. Luke gives the genealogy of Mary began to be advocated only towards the end of the fifteenth century [c. 1490] by Annius of Viterbo, and acquired adherents in the sixteenth. St. Hilary mentions the opinion as adopted by many, but he himself rejects it (Mai, “Nov. Bibl, Patr.”, t. I, 477). . . . Both St. Matthew and St. Luke give the genealogy of St. Joseph, the one through the lineage of Solomon, the other through that of Nathan. [2]

The Catholic Encyclopedia, in its entry on him, is very critical of historian / archaeologist Annius of Viterbo:

He is best known, however, by his “Antiquitatum Variarumö, 17 vols. (Venice, 1499, et sæp). In this work he published alleged writings and fragments of several pre-Christian Greek and Latin profane authors, destined to throw an entirely new light on ancient history. He claimed to have discovered them at Mantua. This work met at once both with believers in the genuineness of his sources, and with severe critics who accused him of willful interpolation, or even fabrication. The spurious character of these “historiansö of Annius, which he published both with and without commentaries, has long been admitted. It would appear that he was too credulous, and really believed the texts to be authentic.

The presentation of facts in the above citation, however (about Patrizzi), are a bit too sweeping and sloppy, according to the analysis of Catholic biblical and patristic scholar, John F. McCarthy:

Francis Xavier Patrizzi, in an elaborate treatise on the genealogies of Matthew and Luke published in 1853, claims that Annius of Viterbo was the first writer who attempted to show that Eli of Lk 3:23 was the biological father of the Virgin Mary and the biological grandfather of Jesus. Subsequently, many Catholic and Protestant exegetes adopted the theory, including Cornelius a Lapide, as stated above. In his treatise, Patrizzi severely criticizes this hypothesis, not for seeing the ancestry of Mary within Luke’s genealogy, which Patrizzi himself upholds along with many before him beginning in ancient times, but solely and simply as understanding Eli to be the Father of the Virgin Mary. Patrizzi claims that this is an unacceptable reading of the text. . . . [cites five of Patrizzi’s arguments]

Patrizzi’s arguments batter the idea of a Marian link to Eli, but they do not utterly destroy it. [the he provides five possible counter-arguments] [8]

McCarthy’s take is an exceptionally subtle, thorough, and interesting one. He doesn’t cavalierly dismiss the “Mary” theory of genealogy altogether, and entertains five different theories of interpretation: maintaining that all five have many elements in which they converge. He refuses to rule out the fact that Mary’s lineage may be included somehow within Joseph’s:

The Marian reading of Luke’s genealogy is weak in the plain reading of the text, but it converges with the levirate and the adoption theories after two or three generations, because of the factor of consanguinity. Therefore, there is a deeper Marian meaning beneath the genealogy of Luke and possibly also of Matthew. . . . What comes forth from a consideration of all of the theories is the split-level meaning of the genealogies, even in their literal sense. The fact that the genealogies are of Joseph does not mean that they are not also of Mary. [8]

Jimmy Akin flatly rejects the theorized matrilineal descent:

[B]oth genealogies trace Jesus’ lineage back to David, but through different sons. Matthew has Christ descending from David through Solomon, while Luke has him descending from David through a different son, Nathan. [Felix Just (source #10) concurs]

This is not itself a puzzlement since David had more than one son, and a later individual can be descended from more than one of them. The question arises when the two lines meet up again. . . .

Some have tried to deal with the issue [Joseph’s father] by saying that Luke’s genealogy really doesn’t give Jesus’ lineage through Joseph at all, but through Mary. It is true that Mary was a descendant of David (cf. Rom. 1:3), but neither of the lines given in the gospels is her line. The text does not support that idea. Luke states that Joseph was the son of Heli, not that Mary was the daughter of Heli, . . . [6]

Evangelical scholar R. P. Nettelhorst suggests a “two variations of Joseph’s lineage” theory, as follows:

Both genealogies are clearly through Joseph. I propose that one traces the lineage back through Joseph’s father, and that the other traces back through Joseph’s mother. The maternal genealogy, however, drops the name of Joseph’s mother and instead skips back to her father. Which is which? I believe that the genealogy in Luke is through Joseph’s father and that the one in Matthew is through Joseph’s maternal grandfather.

That Matthew should skip Joseph’s mother in the genealogical listing is not peculiar since it is readily apparent that Matthew skips a number of people in his genealogy . . . Matthew left names out in order to arrive at the structural symmetry he desired . . . [7]

Conclusion: thus far, I see no absolutely irrefutable “contradiction” in the accounts. There are several other “problems” brought up, too. If Jonathan makes those arguments, I’ll give replies to them, too. I agree with apologist Glenn Miller:

I do not want to give anyone the impression that there are no difficulties in these genealogies. They are full of issues, ‘surprises’, perplexing items. But, at the same time, we have so many proposed explanations for each of these, that we are simply not in a position to criticize (much less decide against!) the historicity of these accounts. Indeed, we have solid answers for the more difficult and perplexing ones, which gives us a qualified optimism about those that are still somewhat obscure. [1]

[1] “Problems in the Genealogies of Jesus” (Glenn Miller, A Christian Thinktank) .

[2] Catholic Encyclopedia: “Genealogy of Christ”.

[3] Catholic Encyclopedia: “Genealogy (in the Bible)”.

[4] “Are There Gaps in the Biblical Genealogies?” (William Henry Green, “Primeval Chronology” Bibliotheca Sacra [April, 1890], 285-303).

[5] Catholic Encyclopedia: “Heli”.

[6] “The Genealogies of Christ” (Jimmy Akin).

[7] “The Genealogy of Jesus” (R. P. Nettelhorst, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society: June 1988).

[8] “New Light on the Genealogies of Jesus” (John F. McCarthy, Living Tradition, May 1987).

[9] “Genealogy of Jesus Christ” (McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia, 1880).

[10] “The Genealogies of Jesus” (Felix Just, S.J., Ph.D.).

See also (not cited): “Genealogy of Jesus Christ “(International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, 1939).

Books (available complete online):

The Genealogies of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (Arthur Charles Hervey [Anglican], Cambridge: Macmillan, 1853) [rejects Heli as Mary’s father theory]

The Genealogy of Our Lord, as Recorded by St. Matthew and St. Luke, Harmonized & Vindicated Against Objections (Johannes Wiplech [former rabbi], Sheffield: Loxlety Brothers, 1862) [accepts Heli as Mary’s father]

Reply to Atheist JMS Pearce: “Mistranslation” of “Virgin”? (Isaiah 7:14)

Last updated on: July 27, 2017 at 7:18 pm By Dave Armstrong

[many thanks to Glenn Miller of A Christian Thinktank for his extraordinary biblical research, which I’ve massively utilized]

Virgin and Child with Four Angels, by Gerard David (c. 1450/1460-1523) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

*****

Jonathan MS Pearce has written a series, “Debunking the Nativity”: in which he offers up a series of weak, fallacious, highly selective arguments, that he believes are decisive refutations of Christian and biblical contentions regarding the birth and infancy of Jesus. I’ve already dealt with his argument concerning when Old Man Herod died (he thinks the data contradicts Matthew). Now, I am replying to his piece on “The Mistranslation of ‘Virgin'” (12-7-16). His words will be in blue.

*****

Jonathan lays out the basic data and dispute:

[T]he original Hebrew books were translated into Greek anywhere from the 3^rdCentury BCE to as late as 132 BCE. Isaiah 7:14 uses a particular word, almah, whose meaning is variously “young woman”, “girl” or “virgin”. Jewish and secular scholars have argued that it is this word which has caused much trouble in the interpretation of the prophecy of Isaiah 7:

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good. For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken. (7:14-16)

Alright. Now what arguments can he bring to bear? He utilizes very few, briefly explained. I will bring many, profusely argued. Readers can then determine the relative strength or plausibility of each competing argument.

His general skeptical thesis is as follows:

Remaining on the subject of the virgin birth, it is worth noting the issue involving the mistranslation of the very word “virgin”. . . .

This translation used by Matthew, according to skeptics, is erroneous. This translation made by Matthew is incorrect it is claimed, since the original Hebrew word almah means young woman in the same way that elem, the equivalent, simply means young man. Matthew uses the Greek word parthenos which exclusively means virgin. The more proper Hebrew word for virgin is bethulah, it is similarly claimed. . . .

In order to translate it as “virgin” one has to take the prophecy well out of context and use the word in its more unlikely form. . . .

I posit that the Septuagint translators and Matthew mistranslated the passage and Matthew misappropriated the passage from Isaiah for his own theological ends.

As usual, he thinks the Christian arguments are easily disposed of (or else he is counting on his atheist and skeptical readers to be blissfully unaware of the mountain of Christian “counter-research” on the topic: as if it is nonexistent). In fact, the debate is extraordinarily more complex than he makes out. For Jonathan, it’s simple: Matthew “mistranslated” (and he appears to perhaps also insinuate that this was intellectually dishonest). In Jonathan’s opinion, even the 72 Septuagint translators (who weren’t the despised Christians, since there were none yet) were incompetent. Well, we’ll see, won’t we?, as we examine this issue in the depth it deserves — as opposed to Jonathan’s cursory dismissal. He proceeds to particular arguments:

One problem Christians face is that if “virgin” is the translation it has a definite article (”the”) rather than an indefinite article (“a”) required by “a virgin” meaning that a reference to an unknown woman in the future is less likely.

Gesenius Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon (Samuel Tregelles, translator, Baker: 1979) states along these lines:

Peculiar to Hebrew is the employment of the [i.e., definite] article to denote a single person or thing (primarily one which is as yet unknown, and therefore not capable of being defined) as being present to the mind under given circumstances. In such cases in English the indefinite article [“a”] is used.

Hebrew doesn’t have indefinite articles. See a collection of the statements of Hebrew grammatical works on the topic of usage of definite articles, and also much related material in a source I use below (use a word search for “definite article”).

It certainly seems like the prophecy has been forcefully co-opted, shoehorned even, into predicting Jesus as Messiah. . . .

Given that it quite obviously seems that this passage is a prophecy involving Ahaz and not Jesus, then it seems more likely that almah does actually refer to “young woman”. . . .

It has been claimed that this prophecy, then, was a dual prophecy predicting two different outcomes. However, dual prophecies have no precedent—there are simply no other examples of such a thing.

To the contrary, dual application or dual fulfillment or “double reference” of prophecies is a fairly common occurrence in biblical prophecy (particularly in messianic prophecies). An article on biblicalresearch.info website explains this and provides many examples. This notion also overlaps with the common biblical motif of prototypes and types and shadows. For example, David was a prototype of the Messiah (as were Joseph, Moses, and Joshua to a lesser extent), and Elijah was a prototype of John the Baptist (as Jesus alluded to in Matthew 11:7-14: “he is Eli’jah who is to come”).

Thus, the fact that Isaiah 7:14 makes reference to Ahaz as a subject does not rule out a possible messianic application. But even if not regarded as a “dual application” it can be plausibly argued that the passage as read simply has a wider application than only Ahaz (i.e., it has more than one subject). Thus, apologist Glenn Miller (more on him below) elaborates:

The prophecy is given to not just Ahaz, but to ‘the house of David’–the ‘you’ in v.14 is plural, and Ahaz is addressed as a representative of the line (whereas in 7.1-9, the phase ‘house of David’ is described as ‘Ahaz and his people’–v.2). The point here is that the message is addressed to a historically-larger group (i.e. the dynasty and lineage of David) than a simple ‘local’ fulfillment would suggest. . . .

It might be worth pointing out that even historical, non-messianic prophecies (esp. of national or international scope) often reached beyond the lifetime of the specific historical ‘addressee’. Even in this section of Isaiah, Ahaz is promised that “Within 65 years, Ephraim will be too shattered to be a people” (7.8)! Ahaz would never live long enough to see the fulfillment of that prophecy (he would see the beginning of it, but not the end). Prophecy is often a process–not simply an event.

The upshot of all this is this: In response to Ahaz’ failure to exercise his royalty in line with Davidic mandates of loyalty and trust, God will step in to provide a true Davidic king, Immanuel. This king will appear after the consequences of the failure of Ahaz and family have manifested themselves in history, with the invasion of Assyria extending even to Judah (but stopping short of Jerusalem–cf. 8.8c). This Immanuel-child will appear with a ‘larger than life’ birth (to an unknown virgin) and manifest a ‘larger than life’ set of abilities/responsibilities, and function as a sign to the entire House of David, that God is active in delivering his people (in spite of Ahaz’ unbelief).

This understanding of the text seems to do the best justice to the various historical contexts and literary details in the passage [notice, without invoking notions of ‘double fulfillment’ , ‘multiple senses’, etc. . . .]

The standard Christian defence of this is that in other instances where almah is used to refer to a young girl, the person has on occasion at least incidentally been a virgin. Moreover, they claim that bethulah itself can sometimes refer to women who are not virgins (such as Esther 2:8-17) and is sometimes used with a phrase to clarify that the woman has not known a man. However, for critics, the use of almah in Isaiah would suggest a correct translation would be young woman as opposed to virgin since it appears to refer to a wife of King Ahaz. Importantly for the translation of the Hebrew word almah, the Aramaic and Ugaritic cognate terms are both used of women who are not virgins, more commonly in the context of age. [Footnote 1: For example, the Revised English Bible, the Revised Standard Version, James Moffatt Translation and the New Revised Standard Version.] . . .

The debate is still strong, since many Bible translations use “young woman” as opposed to “virgin”. . . .

It is interesting to note that most Bible translations (apart from, for example, The Revised Standard Version) which include the New Testament translate almah in Isaiah as “virgin”.

There are many besides RSV that translate it “young woman” (e.g., Good News, NRSV, REB, NEB, Moffatt, Goodspeed, and Knox, in effect the same idea, with its “maid”). That’s eight that do not have virgin, alongside eleven major translations that do (KJV, NIV, ASV, NKJV, NASB, NAB, Douay-Rheims, Confraternity, CEV, ESV, Young’s Literal). Amplified Bible has both notions: “young woman who is unmarried and a virgin.” But since it includes virgin, I’ll classify it with those versions making it a 12-to-8 ratio of 20 major translations (60% to 40%). Big wow. We Christians can disagree on translation matters (I have all the versions above in my own library, save for Young’s).

It’s another thing altogether, however, to make the claim that one party is utterly unjustified in their preferred rendering. I don’t see that such a negative appraisal is warranted in this instance at all. But atheist polemical criticism of Christianity demands it, I reckon. I prefer to give folks (including even Bible writers) the benefit of the doubt, as to knowledge and (if indeed this is also being questioned) honesty.

However, translations of the Hebrew Bible which do not include the New Testament merely translate the word as “young woman”. For Jewish translators, as mentioned earlier, youth is what is implied by the term and not virginity.

All this shows is that the Jewish community appears to lack diversity in scholarly views as to translations. Who is being more “dogmatic” here?

As Messiah Truth, a Jewish source, claims, “Other more accurate vocabulary was available to Isaiah had he desired to specifically refer here to a virgin—the Hebrew term (b^etulah) means a virgin.”

Now I shall massively respond to the heart of his argument (from choice of words and linguistics), utilizing the spectacularly researched, almost magisterial article on Isaiah 7:14 (virtually book-length) by Christian apologist Glenn Miller, who runs the fabulous Christian Thinktank site. He starts out with a nuanced disclaimer as to the relative apologetic strength of the argument, that I fully agree with (his all caps changed to italics, and added bolding for emphasis removed, as throughout):

Within the Christian worldview (which for me is validated by other means than the fulfilled prophecy of Is 7.14!), I accept the messianic status of the passage on reasonable grounds [his italics], relative to my paradigm community.

Now, outside the Christian worldview, in perhaps the realm of apologetic discussions, Isaiah 7.14 is not a passage I would adduce to prove either the supernaturalness of the Bible (from fulfilled prophecy) nor the messiahship of Jesus. The data it gives us is too easily ‘suspended’ on the basis of general exegetical considerations, . . . To at least my Western mind, the connection does ‘jump out at me’ like perhaps Micah 5. 2 or Zech 11. So, although I will interact with Jim on this passage (for I do think the data is against his grounds for dismissal of it), I do not want to give the impression that I consider this passage a strong argument for Christian claims.

Miller tackles the meaning of the Hebrew bethulah:

Bethulah is often connected with ‘virginity’ in the lexicons, but TWOT [Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Waltke et. al)] points out that this is now questionable:

Virgin, maid, maiden; probably from an unused verb baµtal “to separate.” Although Hebrew lexicons and modern translations generally translate bethulah as “virgin,” G. J. Wenham (“Betulah ‘A Girl of Marriageable Age,’ ” VT 22:326–48) and Tsevat (TDOT II, p. 338–43) contest this as the general meaning but prefer “a young (marriageable) maiden.” But whereas Wenham does not concede the meaning “virgin” in any text, Tsevat allows this meaning in three out of its fifty–one occurrences (Lev 21:13f; Deut 22:19; Ezk 44:22). In any case, a strong case can be presented that bethulah is not a technical term for virgo intacta in the OT, a conclusion that has important bearing on the meaning of almah in Isa 7:14.

[Abbreviations: TDOT II = Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament: 11 volumes]

Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament states about Isaiah 7:14:

Like Greek parthenos, Latin virgo and German Jungfrau, betula originally meant “young marriageable woman” but since she was normally a virgin it was not difficult for this meaning to become attached to the word. This more technical meaning is a later development in Hebrew and Aramaic and is clearly its meaning by the Christian era. When the change took place is not clear.

What is clear is that one cannot argue that if Isaiah (7:14) in his famous oracle to Ahaz had intended a virgin he could have used betulah as a more precise term than almah.

New Bible Dictionary (Third Edition. I Howard Marshall, A.R. Millard, J.I. Packer, D.J. Wiseman. IVP:1996) — article, “Immanuel” — comments as follows:

Why did Isaiah designate her by this particular word alma? It is sometimes said that had he wished to teach a virgin birth there was a good word at his disposal, namely, b^et_ula. But an examination of the usage of the latter word in OT reveals that it was very unsatisfactory, in that it would have been ambiguous. The word b^et_ula may designate a virgin, but when it does the explanatory phrase ‘and a man had not known her’ is often added (cf. Gn.24:16). The word may also designate a betrothed virgin (cf. Dt.22:23ff.). In this latter case the virgin is known as the wife (ishah) of the man, and he as her husband (ish). But the word b^et_ula may also indicate a married woman (Joel 1:8).On the basis of this latter passage a tradition arose among the Jews in which the word could clearly refer to a married woman. [TankNote: later Jewish tradition made this word into ‘non-menstruating’, applying even to menopausal women–cf. Vermes, Jesus the Jew, pp.218ff] Had Isaiah employed this word, therefore, it would not have been clear what type of woman he had in mind, whether virgin or married. Other Heb. words which were at his disposal would not be satisfactory. Had he wished to designate the mother as a young woman he would most likely have employed the common term narah (‘girl’). In using the word alma, however, Isaiah employs the one word which is never applied (either in the Bible or in the other Near Eastern sources) to anyone but an unmarried woman. This unmarried woman might have been immoral, in which case the birth could hardly have been a sign. We are left then with the conclusion that the mother was a good woman and yet unmarried; in other words, the birth was supernatural. It is the presence of this word alma which makes an application of the passage to some local birth difficult, if not impossible.

After presenting this data and many other similar massive citations (that can be read at the link), Miller concludes, as to bethulah:

Now, the data up to this point about bethulah indicates that virginity is not an implication from the word, with the core meaning of the word being that the woman still lived under her father’s sponsorship, roof, and legal authority. In that day and age, this would sometimes imply virginity (with the concomitant notions of respectability and chastity), but it would not have been the main focus of the word at all. Modern scholars tend to accept the arguments of Wenham and Tsevat, and see bethulah as referring to a ‘girl of marriageable age, living in the household of her father’.

The two main passages that are generally used to “prove” that virginity is NOT the core concept (or even an implication from the word) are Gen 24.16 and Joel 1.8. . . . [extensive commentary then is cited]

In short, it is incorrect to say that “bethulah” is the word that would have been used, if ‘virginity’ was a major issue of the passage. It generally means ‘young woman, living in the household of her father’ (with OR without virginity)…

He then turns his attention to the Hebrew almah, which is used in Isaiah 7:14:

The linguistic data is fairly straightforward. This word, in contradistinction to bethulah, is never used of a non-virgin (either in the OT or in ordinary cognate usage). It still generally means ‘young woman’ but always includes the notion of virginity and non-marriage.

For relative brevity’s sake, I’ll cite two sources of the five that he provides:

The rarity of its usage makes determining its meaning very difficult. The masculine <elem occurs only twice and is translated, “lad,” “stripling,” or “youth.” This may suggest that almah is another term denoting a girl of a particular age — but of what age is uncertain. In Ex. 2:8 the girl could be younger than a teenager, but in Gen. 24:43 Rebekah is already of marriageable age (cf. v. 16 [bethulah]). In no case is it clear that an almah is married: indeed, Cant. 6:8 contrasts the king’s wives (“queens” and “concubines”) with the “maidens [alamoth] without number.”. So possibly almah means “virgin,” since all unmarried girls in Israel were expected to be chaste. Often it has been argued that since bethulah denotes “virgin,” almah cannot have this technical sense. But if bethulah means “teenage, nubile girl,” then it is not impossible that almah means “virgin.”…It would certainly help the discussion if the meaning of almah were clearer. Unfortunately, the evidence is too meagre to be decisive. It is not certain what differentiates almah from other Hebrew terms for younger females. Elsewhere almah is never used for girls who are definitely married (Prov. 30:19 is equivocal), so this may weigh against interpretations that suppose that Isaiah was thinking of the king’s wife of his own wife. But the lexical evidence is not strong enough to rule out such possibilities. Certainly Isaiah’s use of almah contributes to making this a striking and mysterious prophecy. [ISBE] [International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Revised ed., Geoffrey W. Bromiley (ed), Eerdmans:1979.]

Third, the term almah is never used in the OT of a married woman, but does refer to a sexually mature woman. There are no texts in the OT where almah clearly means one who is sexually active, but it is possible that Song of Solomon 6:8 (cf. Prov 30:19) implies this. It would appear then that almah normally, if not always, implies a virgin, though the term does not focus on that attribute. Fourth, several of the Greek translations of the OT (i.e., Aq, Sym, Theod) translate almah with neanis; however, the LXX clearly translates it with parthenos. It is probably correct to say that if almah did not normally have overtones of virginity, it is difficult if not impossible to see why the translators of the LXX used parthenos as the Greek equivalent. [NT:DictJG, s.v. “Birth of Jesus”] [Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels. Joel Green, Scot McKnight, I Howard Marshall (eds.), IVP:1992.]

Miller opines:

Now, let me comment on a couple of the seven almah verses. There are two verses that are sometimes advanced as evidence that almah is used of non-virgins: Proverbs 30.19 and Song of Solomon 6.8. The scholarly data sources listed above indicate that these two verses either (a) support the ‘unmarried’ meaning; or that the passages are (b) too unclear to contribute to the discussion.

[massive citation of applicable scholarly sources follows]

Miller summarizes the differences between bethulah and almah:

Okay, let’s check where we are…we have seen that bethulah is a social word, describing a woman’s relationship to patriarchal authority, and that alma is a biological word, describing a woman’s reaching the age/ability of childbearing. NIDOTTE [New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, William A. VanGemeren (gen.ed.). Zondervan:1997+ (5 vols) ] can summarize part of this:

The lexical relationship between (bethulah) and (almah) is that the former is a social status indicating that a young girl is under the guardianship of her father, with all the age and sexual inferences that accompany that status. The latter is to be understood with regard to fertility and childbearing potential. Obviously there are many occasions where both terms apply to the same girl. A girl ceases to be a (bethulah) when she becomes a wife; she ceases to be an (almah) when she becomes a mother.

Thus, I have to conclude–on the basis of lexical and usage information that:

The word yalda would have been inappropriate in Isaiah 7:14 because it refers to a child. Likewise na’arah would have been the more normal choice if a young woman had been the object of Isaiah’s thought, for it is used of both married and unmarried women. Some say that if Isaiah had really wanted to denote virginity he would have used bethulah which primarily denotes virginity. However, bethulah was used of widows and others who had experienced coitus. Furthermore, a bethulah can be a woman of any age, making the word difficult to qualify as a specific sign. The evidence supports both the traditional translation of “virgin” and the modern translation of “young woman,” but each must be qualified. The English term “virgin” does not suggest age limitations while the English phrase “young woman” does not suggest virginity. The word almah demands both, and so a more accurate translation would be “young virgin.” [Niessen]

This brings us around to Matthew’s use of parthenos (following the Septuagint, which was standard New Testament practice). Miller (after comprehensively consulting the linguistic exegetical literature) renders his judgment:

Looking back now (after the 5 years between my first draft of this article and now in 2002), the lexical data still looks overwhelmingly in favor of the original, traditional position about the words alma, bethulah, and parthenos, although the means of getting to this conclusion are different than the original lines of argument laid down decades ago by the lexicographers. One can see in the lexicon entries above that ‘virgin’ still shows up for bethulah, and that ‘young girl’ still shows up for almah, but the modern climate/consensus (reflected in many of the later sources cited above) is that both words have been somewhat misunderstood until now. Now, from both cognate and fresh studies of the social context, neither are words specialize in a focused, core meaning of virgo intacta. Bethulah has come to be understood to apply to a marriageable woman, living in her father’s house (generally a virgin, but not so in the case of widows or the divorced); and almah has come to be understood as a ‘young, fertile, unmarried–and hence chaste in that culture–woman’. What this means is that if any notion of virginity were intended–even as only an ‘implication’–almah was the best/only word to do that job. And hence, parthenos in the New Testament (the only word that could be used for ‘virgin’) was the correct word for Matthew to use (as well as Luke).

All of this data considered together, is, I submit, far more plausible than Jonathan’s contention that the translators of the Septuagint were incompetent, and Matthew, dead wrong in how he cited the Old Testament. There is more than ample linguistic warrant and justification for the Septuagint’s and Matthew’s use of parthenos as a translation of the Hebrew almah. It has certainly been proven, I think, at the very least, that it was not a “mistranslation” (“deliberately” or not).

See also an additional related paper by Glenn Miller, answering an objection that Jonathan didn’t raise: “Isn’t the verb tense of Is 7:14 present instead of future?” Also, see additional clarifying comments of his on the passage.

Gadarenes, Gerasenes, Swine, & Atheist Skeptics

Last updated on: July 25, 2017 at 12:12 pm By Dave Armstrong

The Swine Driven into the Sea, by James Tissot (1836-1902) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

*****

Prominent online atheist Jonathan MS Pearce (A Tippling Philosopher) loves to write about alleged biblical contradictions. He produced the post, “On Harmonising Biblical Contradictions” (7-23-17) and was kind enough to mention my name in the beginning:

This is a post I once made for John Loftus at Debunking Christianity [my italics] and contradictions came up in a recent conversation with Dave Armstrong, so here it is. Contradictions, as Dave stated, can be harmonised, or found not to be contradictions, or are so insignificant as to not be of bother to the Christian. However, what is really interesting is how the Christian mind deals with them.

He continues:

As mentioned, many [contradictions] are fairly irrelevant in the scheme of things and don’t really invalidate the core claims of the Bible, only the claims of inerrancy. What it does show, however, is the rationalisation process of the average Christian. Not only is the process hilarious to watch, but the answers given vary so widely amongst defenders of inerrancy (and even amongst liberal defenders who instinctively try to protect the Bible’s accuracy) that it seems fairly obvious as to the ad hoc nature of the defences.

One such example is the use of Gadarenes and Gerasenes that I will look into in more depth in this post and show how bad such attempted harmonisations can be.

Mark 5:1-2
They came to the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gerasenes. 2 When He got out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met Him,

Matt 8:28
When He came to the other side into the country of the Gadarenes, two men who were demon-possessed met Him as they were coming out of the tombs. They were so extremely violent that no one could pass by that way.

Luke 8:26-7
Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. 27 And when He came out onto the land, He was met by a man from the city who was possessed with demons;

We have two problems here:

Problem 1 – the Gospels contradict each other on where this took place – the country of Gadara or the country of Geresa
Problem 2 – one or two demons

Most skeptics claim that there is clear contradiction in both of these. The accounts are clearly referring to one single event, so there can’t be two events in nearby places.

It’s ridiculous to claim with any confident certainty as to whether these instances are even contradictions. The “one or two” [men / demons] supposed “contradiction” is clearly not one at all, by the rules of logic. This is one of the most common atheist / skeptical errors: in their rush to show how absurd the Bible and Christians are, to believe all this stuff that they despise so much. Mentioning one is as easily explained as saying that one writer drew from a (non-infallible) oral tradition in which one was mentioned, and the second from a tradition that mentioned two. Even those weren’t necessarily contradictory. In order to be, one account would have to say “only one” and the other “two.” That would be a logical contradiction. But they don’t and so it is a non sequitur (like innumerable atheist “exegetical” arguments are).

Jonathan, oblivious to the rules of logic, nevertheless asserts that “most skeptics” believe there is a “clear contradiction” here. So much for the cogency and logical coherence of their thinking. It’s embarrassing, but there it is. All we need do (as St. John Chrysostom and St. Augustine did) is posit that one person was more remarkable or prominent than the other. Mark and Luke mention one, Matthew two. Likewise, in Matthew 20:30, two blind men are mentioned (with again one mentioned in Mark and Luke).

The number of demons are multiple in all accounts (Mk 5:9-12; Mt 8:31; Lk 8:30-33), so that is a non-issue as well. Why, then, does Jonathan wonder about “one or two demons”? It’s neither. It is “many.”

Now onto the place names. Gerasa is (as we know) some 30-35 miles southeast of the Sea of Galilee (but may have also been the name of the larger region). Wikipedia states about it: “In the second half of the 1st century AD, the city of Jerash achieved great prosperity”. Gadara is about six miles from the sea. Its ruins include two amphitheaters, a basilica, temple, a hippodrome, aqueducts, and colonnades: showing its importance and stature. “Gergesenes” is also in some manuscripts (Khersa or Gersa was a town actually on the shore of the sea). I visited it myself in Israel in October 2014. It has a huge cliff going down to the sea (the coast, however, being a bit further away, since the earthquake in Galilee in 749). Commentator R. C. H. Lenski states:

The distance of these cities from the lake is immaterial for the narrative since this deals with the region that is near the lake and not with the vicinity of either of the cities to the lake.

Jonathan concedes the existence of both cities: Gerasa (“at least 20-30 miles from Gadara”) and “Gadara, quite an important place, whose region must then have surely spread to the lake shore. This is why ‘the country of the Gadarenes’ makes some sense.”

Personally, I think that the most plausible explanation is that the seemingly “contradictory” accounts are simply using alternate names for the same area. As we all know, this is very common today. Jonathan is from England. Or is he from Great Britain? Or the United Kingdom? All are valid names for the same country. I’m from America; also known as the United States. Ancient Persia is now Iran. Ancient Babylonia is Iraq. France is also Gaul.

I myself am a midwesterner, a Michigander (indeed, from the “land of the Great Lakes”), and Detroiter (also known as Motown and the Motor City and the Automobile Capital of the World). I’m an Anglo-Saxon, Scottish-American, and Canadian-American (northern European, ethnically). We regularly visit friends near Pittsburgh, and can say “we visited the Pittsburgh area.” We could also say, “we visited Pennsylvania” or “Pennsylvania Dutch country.” Jesus was from Nazareth; hence is called “Jesus of Nazareth” or “Nazarene” (Mt 2:23; Mk 14:67) [actual town of origin] or “Jesus the Galilean” [larger region]. The Sea of Galilee itself is also called Lake of Gennesaret and Sea of Tiberius. Here are the actual descriptions (RSV):

Mark 5:1 . . . the country of the Ger’asenes.

Luke 8:26 . . . the country of the Ger’asenes . . .

Matthew 8:28 . . . the country of the Gadarenes . . .

Note that the texts don’t say Gerasa or Gadara, so they aren’t necessarily referring just to one of the cities. They all say “country of . . .” (in the sense of region, not “nation”). “Gerasenes” could have had a sense of reference to the entire region (as well as to a city: just as “New Yorker” can refer to the state or city), and “Gadarenes” likely was a reference to the most prominent city of the region at the time. Smith’s Bible Dictionary provides what I find to be a quite plausible explanation (not “special pleading” at all), and analogous to how we still use place names today:

These three names are used indiscriminately to designate the place where Jesus healed two demoniacs. The first two are in the Authorized Version. (Matthew 8:28; Mark 5:1; Luke 8:26) In Gerasenes in place of Gadarenes. The miracle referred to took place, without doubt, near the town of Gergesa, the modern Kersa, close by the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, and hence in the country of Gergesenes. But as Gergesa was a small village, and little known, the evangelists, who wrote for more distant readers, spoke of the event as taking place in the country of the Gadarenes, so named from its largest city, Gadara; and this country included the country of the Gergesenes as a state includes a county. The Gerasenes were the people of the district of which Gerasa was the capital. This city was better known than Gadara or Gergesa; indeed in the Roman age no city of Palestine was better known. “It became one of the proudest cities of Syria.” It was situated some 30 miles southeast of Gadara, on the borders of Peraea and a little north of the river Jabbok. It is now called Jerash and is a deserted ruin. The district of the Gerasenes probably included that of the Gadarenes; so that the demoniac of Gergesa belonged to the country of the Gadarenes and also to that of the Gerasenes, as the same person may, with equal truth, be said to live in the city or the state, or in the United States. For those near by the local name would be used; but in writing to a distant people, as the Greeks and Romans, the more comprehensive and general name would be given.

The Biblical Training site (“Gerasenes”) elaborates:

The fact that Matthew places the healing of “Legion” in the “country of the Gadarenes” whereas Mark and Luke place it in the “country of the Gerasenes” may be harmonized on the historical grounds that geographical boundaries overlapped, and on the exegetical consideration that “country” embraced a wide area around the cities.

It’s simply alternate names for the same area: thus not contradictory at all. I think the coup de grâce is to look up the Greek word for “country” in these passages, to see what latitude of meaning it has. In all three instances the word is chōra (Strong’s word #5561). Thayer’s Greek Lexicon defines it as “the space lying between two places or limits . . . region or country.” The Sea of Galilee was clearly one of the limits.

In Luke 2:8 it is applied to the city of Bethlehem; in Acts 18:23 to Galatia and Phrygia. In Mark 1:5 it is used of “the land of Judaea” (KJV) and in Acts 10:39,to “land of the Jews” (KJV). In Acts 8:1 we have the “regions of Judaea and Samaria” (KJV), and in Acts 16:6, Galatia alone. Thus it is not always used of one specific country (nation), but rather, usually to regions or areas of either small (Bethlehem) or large (Judaea and Samaria) size, including regions surrounding large cities.

All of this sure seems perfectly consistent with calling the same area the “country” (chōra) of either the Gerasenes or the Gadarenes, after the two major cities. Why is this even an issue, I wonder? Well, it is because atheists, in their zealous rush to make fun of Christians, Christianity, and the Bible, start to lose their logical rigor and rationality, leading them to contend for implausible things: as presently.

Atheist Anthony Toohey Defends His Deconversion (Pt. 1)

Last updated on: July 21, 2017 at 6:18 pm By Dave Armstrong

A change of vision by Erik Pevernagie, oil on canvas (3-24-11) [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license]

*****

I admire that. I critiqued his story, and he has stepped up to the plate and defended himself, and has done a pretty good job. His words will be in blue.

*****

You call your story that I critiqued “a tightly distilled version of my (overlong) deconversion . . .” Duly noted. I didn’t know that you had a longer one in print. If I had known that I would have certainly critiqued it instead.

As an overview, one of the dangers of telling a story in less time than it took to live it is that the reader will take your account for a sum total of your experience, rather than a representative snapshot or reductive example. Dave makes this mistake right up front and furthermore takes my desire to be brief to also be extremely shallow. It’s hard not to be insulted by what almost seems patronization on his part, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt for now.

Fair enough. I did note that, “Granted, accounts like this (or Christian conversion stories) can’t argue every jot and tittle.” It did seem, at the very least, that you didn’t know much about Catholicism, at least judging by your words of how you left it:

It was that Chick Tract all over again. With that picture, and Duane’s promise that all of the confusing stuff I’d heard about salvation and redemption in my Catholic upbringing was wrong, that it all came down to Believe and Be Saved… Well that was enough for me. I did, and as far as I knew, I was.

And I described this as:

But we don’t know how much he actually knew about Catholicism . . . seemingly not all that much, if he could forsake it merely because of a Bible trivia game and the usual ignorant “Chick Tract”-like anti-Catholic sermonizing. Hence, he appears to have been like many millions of insufficiently catechized Catholics . . . [italics added presently]

If that’s unfair, you are free to let me know how much you really knew about Catholicism: that you ditched based on one encounter with a zealous Protestant. More on this below . . .

I dealt with “No True Scotsman” in my reply to Jonathan about your story. I’m not gonna go through that again. It had nothing to do with my argument. In bringing that up, you and a few others manage to deflect from my actual point: the seeming limitations of your knowledge regarding Catholicism when you left it. All I’ve claimed is that from what it appears, given your story that I read, you didn’t know very much. Feel free to show me that I’m wrong about that.

There are a couple of key things to unpack here. The first is the grossly fallacious assertion that the brand of Christianity I belonged to was some extreme fringe sector of Christianity. I’m not sure if Dave is ignorant of the size, scope, and culture of Evangelical Christianity, but I can assure him and the reader that there is nothing fringe about our experience.

In retrospect, I used language that was too strong (“extreme sect” and “extremist fringe sector”). A better choice of words would have been “small portion of / minority sector of evangelicalism, which is in turn, a minority of all Christians.” I never used the word “cult” at all (you said, “Dave would have his reader believe that we were in some fringe cult”). But I did use unfortunate language, and for that, I apologize. I may have had partially in mind the truly extreme upbringing of another person, whose story I was critiquing at about the same time, and momentarily confused the two, which is not fair to you.

I was an evangelical for thirteen years, and in that world I was an apologist, cult researcher (Jehovah’s Witnesses), campus missionary, and pro-life activist. I have very great respect for evangelicalism and look back with great fondness to that time in my life, which I have publicly written about several times. Many of the things I learned during that time, I hold very dear today, and they are part of the core of my being and beliefs. We ran into the pastor who married us at a wedding and he told me how moved he was by compliments that I paid to him and to evangelicalism in one of these online posts.

I would also note that in your longer story (Part V), you yourself called it “Fundamentalist Evangelicalism with shades of cult-like manipulation.” Thus, you used the word “cult-like” whereas I did not (as an old cult researcher I am extremely careful in applying it). Since you seem to know quite a bit about evangelicalism, you would surely know that fundamentalism is only a portion of it — or some might even say, as I’m inclined to, distinct altogether — (e.g., the fundamentalists absolutely despise Billy Graham and would say that Fuller Seminary is irredeemably liberal). This was your description: not glorious mainstream evangelicalism (that I love very much), but rather, “Fundamentalist Evangelicalism with shades of cult-like manipulation.” Yet you object to me calling it an “extreme sect” and “extremist fringe sector”. I retract that, but I don’t see how it is all that different from your own description. It’s just a matter of (not too great of a) degree. And what you were referring to is pretty much what I had in mind, too.

You also state (same section V), “this church was very much of the Dispensationalist persuasion.” That’s a minority view of larger evanglicalism and certainly a very small minority of all Protestantism. I was a dispensationalist myself for a while (having been fascinated with biblical prophecy, where the dispensationalists dominate the literature), but I changed (including giving up the late unbiblical doctrine of the “rapture”) while still an evangelical. In Part VI you refer to your “fundamentalist evangelical church” and “fundamentalist Evangelicals like ourselves.”

I never prayed “for hours” because I had a silly notion that someone was demon-possessed. That certainly sounds “extreme” to me or “fringe.” I understand that you renounce and regret that. We all live and learn as a general proposition. I’m simply pointing out that there are reasons why one could say your experience was not completely “mainstream” evangelicalism. Young-earth creationism is not that, either. That’s a fundamentalist belief: not held by the vast majority of evangelicals, who would be mostly old-earth creationists or theistic evolutionists.

My point about you seeming not to know much about what you were rejecting when you left Catholicism remains unrefuted. As that is also part of Christianity, it is valid to note that if indeed you didn’t know much about it, it is not compelling for those who are Catholics, to read about someone leaving it for no good reason.

I don’t have to speculate about your relative ignorance as a Catholic. You document it beyond any doubt yourself in your longer story:

We were typical nominal Catholics, though.

[a noting of non-regular family attendance at Sunday Mass, which is a mortal sin: saying your family hadn’t gone for three years]

Church never was central to our lives, but dysfunction was.

I didn’t go to church . . . [at 14]

For the next two-plus years we were pretty typical American teenagers, irreligious, . . .

[then a fuller account of your almost instant conversion to a form of Protestantism]

Nothing here whatsoever tells me that you had much knowledge of your Catholicism (and that’s your “long” story), so that point of mine very much stands.

He makes the common mistake of thinking that people like me left Christianity because such things happened to us. That is not the case. It is things like this that left scars and doubts, and these doubts at some point led us later to examine whether Christianity was a valid belief system that accurately reflected reality.

Fair enough. But it sure seems like it would at least be one factor, by the emphasis that you put on it in your story. It wasn’t unreasonable for me to have that impression. That said, I accept your clarifications.

This is hand-waving, and takes the very human and convoluted nature of the scriptures as evidence that it is perfect, rather than the much more reasonable conclusion that it is simply a human document. This is a common sleight-of-hand for apologists. A perfect, omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent god would have no problem making itself perfectly clear to all people if revelation leading to salvation was actually the goal.

I dealt with this much more in-depth in a Facebook post drawn from my response to Jonathan: “Cardinal Newman and Reformed Theologian Berkouwer on the Essential Silliness of Thinking that Bible Interpretation Would be Easy for One and All (No “Difficulties”), Merely Because the Bible is an Inspired, Divine Revelation.”

The biblical god claims not to be a “God of confusion,” (1 Cor. 14:33) yet his scripture is the literal source of centuries of disagreement leading to over 3,000 denominations.

Denominations come from the nature of Protestantism, as I have written about countless times. It’s not inherent to the supposedly utterly confusing nature of Scripture. If Scripture were the problem, the thousands of denominations would have started up right away: in the first century. As it is, they didn’t until the 16th century, because the Catholic / biblical understanding of authority and unity was ditched. So to blame that on the Bible or overall Christianity is a huge stretch. It is the effect of some of the most serious and unbiblical errors of Protestantism.

Now Dave is going to go on about the primacy of the Catholic faith, etc., but that doesn’t address any of the actual textual issues that led to the continual fracturing of Christianity.

Yes I will. And it is a long, deep discussion. Believe me, I’ve dealt with it inside and out in discussions with my Protestant friends.

Comparing the supposed perfectly inspired Word of God with the gradual discovery and development of scientific theory is specious at best.

My point was that all complex belief-systems / books will have either real or apparent “anomalies” or “difficulties.” The Bible is no different. I used science as the analogy because I know that most atheists virtually think it is the sum of all knowledge (“scientism”) and almost make it their new religion. And your response is entirely predictable.

You don’t like my assertion that many alleged biblical “contradictions” are in fact not so. I’ve demonstrated this myself, and will again, if Jonathan sends me his arguments from his book about the infancy narratives of Jesus. He challenged me to look at it so I said I’d be happy to.

This is Dave not respecting the severely abbreviated nature of my account.

Well, no. All I was saying was that you seemed to treat Gleason Archer’s book rather cavalierly, and that you gave the reader no concrete reason to reject it.

It looks like Dave didn’t even read Archer’s book at all. He seems to have assumed the nature of it.

It’s been in my library for probably over thirty years. It’s twenty feet away from me as I write.

Thanks for the interaction, Anthony, and for taking your time to clarify things, and for not descending into mere rank insults. I appreciate it.

*****

Atheist Deconversion: Dialogue #2: Jonathan MS Pearce

Last updated on: July 20, 2017 at 3:24 pm By Dave Armstrong

Image by “mary1826” (January 2017) [Pixabay / CC0 public domain]

***

Jonathan MS Pearce runs the blog called A Tippling Philosopher. He is co-editor of a book that collects deconversion stories, entitled, Beyond an Absence of Faith. He also hosts deconversion stories on his own site. Thus far, I have critiqued two of them, and plan on doing so for many more. He replied to my critique of Anthony Toohey’s account. His civil, substantive post is melodramatically called, “Patheos Catholic-Atheist War: It’s On! Respectfully Speaking…” (7-18-17).

It stands in striking contrast to the avalanche of insults sent my way (most having to do with my strict moderating policy on my blog of no insults and no nonsense) in the combox underneath it (now up to 266 comments). Like any other human group, atheists have their calm, confident, amiable thinkers (whom I’ve found to be extremely interesting and challenging in my many exchanges with them through the years) and their fanatical, insulting fools (who are as boorish and obnoxious as they come). These latter traits unfortunately become exponentially magnified on the Internet. Jonathan’s words will be in blue.

*****

Of course, detailing the entirety of one’s deconversion in a small account like this will always be a summary of some of the poignant aspects, not a comprehensive version of events.

I freely grant that (Christian conversion stories are often of the same nature); however, as a public critique of Christianity and an ostensible account of reasons why one left Christianity, it is open to criticism, just as anything else is. Dr. Daniel Fincke, whose story I also critiqued, wrote along these lines in his reply:

My motive in doing so is primarily to give expression to the experience of deconverts whose journeys were like mine. They need resources they can identify with and which help them understand they are not alone. And their grateful e-mails to me are one of the most gratifying fruits of this blog for me. I also wrote the deconversion series because I think it’s valuable to show doubting Christians how it is possible to make it through to the other side.

That’s all well and good, and it’s equally sensible and perfectly to be expected for Christian apologists like myself to offer our critical thoughts about such enterprises. Dr. Fincke was very gracious in reply, even seeming to enthusiastically welcome my critique. I can only hope that at least some other atheists whose stories I critique will do the same. If they love dialogue and a free and open exchange of competing ideas as much as I do, surely they will.

So, what are Armstrong’s main points of beef? [he cites me]

But we don’t know how much he actually knew about Catholicism . . . seemingly not all that much, if he could forsake it merely because of a Bible trivia game and the usual ignorant “Chick Tract”-like anti-Catholic sermonizing. Hence, he appears to have been like many millions of insufficiently catechized Catholics: almost to a person unfamiliar with apologetics, or the reasons why Catholics believe as they do. This is a common theme running through deconversion stories: either relative or profound ignorance of one’s own Christian affiliations. If we don’t know why we believe whatever — have no reasons for it — , then obviously we are easy targets of those who would dissuade us from our shallow, non-rational beliefs.

This has hallmarks of the No True Scotsman Fallacy. Whilst we might not know the finer details of why and what Toohey originally believed (this wasn’t, after all, the point of the piece), it seems perhaps disingenuous to present what might arguably be a huge straw man of Toohey’s Christian belief.

It’s not a straw man at all to note Toohey’s own description of how little he knew about Catholicism. Readers can see how readily he left Catholicism, and what little intellectual basis he had to do so. I dealt with the erroneous “No True Scotsman” charge in a comment I made yesterday:

Pointing out that extreme forms of Christianity are not all of Christianity (common sense) and that such an equation has to do with the fallacy of baby/bathwater or the straw man is not “no true Scotsman” at all. Wikipedia states about “straw man”:

The typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having completely refuted or defeated an opponent’s proposition through the covert replacement of it with a different proposition (i.e., “stand up a straw man”) and the subsequent refutation of that false argument (“knock down a straw man”) instead of the opponent’s proposition.

Anyone with an IQ above that of a pencil eraser understands that legalistic fundamentalist sects do not represent all of Christianity. That’s not even arguable. It’s perfectly self-evident.

In my critique of Lorna’s story, I chided her for seemingly equating the despotic form of Christianity she was raised in, with larger Christianity. In another paper, she was more nuanced, and I praised her for it (she wrote: “I didn’t blame Jesus or Christianity for the actions of these angry Christians”).

That’s all I’m calling for: rudimentary fairness in defining a thing and critiquing it, rather than the straw man fallacy.

But Jonathan concedes perhaps my main point (just as Dr. Fincke also did yesterday):

There is a good point in amongst this critique, though, as summed up here:

As so often in these stories, one extreme sect is universalized to all of Christianity, as if it is representative of that whole. Atheists reading such gory details sit there lamenting, “see what rascals and morons those damned Christians are! So glad I came to my senses and left it. Best thing I ever did . . .” They never seem to realize that one extreme and twisted version of Christianity is not the whole ball of wax.

This is certainly true. One can reject a particular sect or church because they might have more egregious views, and, as such, reject the whole of Christianity as a worldview.

Fair enough. I’m delighted to see that one of the major emphases of my three critiques thus far has been freely accepted by two major webmasters in the atheist world.

But this works both ways. Let’s take Armstrong’s supposedly correct view of Christianity, X. Now, compared to the hardcore fundamentalist version, one might see X as being liberal and wonderful and correct. But to the atheist, or to any next person, there might still be aspects of X that are egregious.

Without question. This wasn’t my argument. Rather, Toohey’s story (at least what he has shared with us) shows no signs whatever that he either fully understood what his early Catholic views were, let alone had reasons for why he believed them. In that respect, his childhood Catholicism was rather like my own childhood nominal, ignorant Methodism. One must, after all, understand a thing in the first place in order to rationally reject it. What he did get exposed to and better understood was an extreme fundamentalist form of Christianity. So he did not get exposed — by a long shot — to anywhere near the best that Christianity has to offer. There are many far better forms of Protestantism out there, too, as well as Eastern Orthodoxy.

Homosexuality, for most Catholics (for example) and for most Christians (using “biblical evidence”) is a sin, in some manner. And so rejecting that and thus rejecting Christianity, you could move to, say, an even more liberal version, or reject it outright. But one could still accuse someone of rejecting X, and Christianity outright, of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

That’s right: if it is warranted. There are people who fully understand a position and reject it (for either — arguably — sufficient or insufficient reasons). And there are people who do not understand a position very well, and thus wind up rejecting a caricature of it, which is precisely a straw man, and not logically compelling to anyone else. What I’m saying is that Toohey’s story didn’t give sufficient reason for his own departure from Christianity; therefore it can’t provide much rationale for anyone else to do so, either.

When I left Protestantism for Catholicism in 1990, I fully understood what it is I left, and which portion of it I was rejecting (not all, by any stretch, but only certain aspects), and was prepared to defend my change of mind to all challengers. Almost all of my Protestant friends took a pass, because they knew full well that I knew my stuff. I had been an apologist and missionary in those circles, so I knew the teachings inside and out.

Jonathan’s own book of deconversion stories (noted at the top) actually downplays the rational aspects of deconversion (which are not all that is entailed in any major change of mind; I fully agree). Jeremy Beahan, in the Foreword, states:

[H]uman beings are not, and have never been, purely rational animals. We adopt beliefs and reject them for reasons that are relevant to our own circumstances — reasons that are deeply emotional and experiential as well as intellectual.

I couldn’t agree more. This is exactly right, and I have made similar points several times over the last several days. The high irony, however, is that “deeply emotional and experiential” reasons that Christians give for their faith are roundly mocked and belittled by atheists (especially online), every day. We’re told that only empirical evidence is objective enough to provide any relevant rationale in proof of anything. I just went through this discussion with two atheists in the last few days, too (discussion abridged a bit for space’ sake; see it all here):

Atheist: Mythology is cool, and fun to study, and can have some good lessons. You should never let it rule your life. Physical Evidence: bring it to me. I’ll wait.

Me: Why do you think that evidence is confined to empirical, physical evidence? From whence did you adopt that presupposition?

Atheist: From reality.

Me:: That’s not an argument. Put up or shut up. Where does this notion come from that the only evidence is physical?

Atheist: I asked first: you put up or shut up. Ball’s already in your court.

Me: You refuse to answer. What else is new? This is what almost all atheists do when asked hard questions about their axioms (that we all have; it’s only a question of whether we acknowledge them or not).

You asked me about “physical evidence”. Like Socrates would do, I questioned your unexamined premise, and wondered where you got this odd idea from that evidence is confined to physicality (empiricism). And you refuse to answer.

***

A second atheist claimed in replying to my question, “there are no known ways to obtain objective knowledge other than empirical”. I replied:

1. Why should I believe the statement you just made, since it is not empirical evidence; therefore, by the criterion you just expressed, not objective (merely subjective), and thus, can be summarily dismissed as irrelevant to anyone else but yourself?

2. On what (not immediately logically self-defeating) basis can you assert that only empirical evidence is “objective”?

He refused to answer as well, and so I concluded: “Until you demonstrate why I should believe your premise, the discussion is stalled. I can’t skip over what to me is a crucial point of the whole discussion.”

Thus, in effect, in my critiques of these deconversion stories — granting that human beings are never “purely rational animals” — are giving to atheists a dose of their own medicine: what they constantly give to Christians. It’s still worthwhile to point out that the reasons given for deconversion are at least objectively insufficient. They can hardly apply to anyone else unless they are objective reasons that apply to all. If they are merely subjective, then why share them? Well, it is to give moral support to other atheists, as I have also opined recently. An atheist (Neil Carter) said that apologetics preaches to the choir, and I came back with a retort that atheists do precisely the same thing: and deconversion stories are a big part of that.

There is a sense, then, that the stories on both sides have many similar components or traits, even though the content is wildly divergent. As an old sociology major I can readily see that. And there is also an analogical sense that if atheist deconversion stories are regarded as self-evidently valid and important, even though they are mostly (even admittedly) subjective, then why not also Christian conversion stories, which also usually consist of more subjective, non-rational elements?

There is a danger of inoculating Christianity from ever being able to be rejected like the con-artist’s shell game, forever moving those cups.

Yes, I grant that many Christians (of unsophisticated epistemology) do that, but I have not. I’m simply calling for the rejection to be of something that I recognize as mainstream Christianity, with some compelling reasons given for ding that; as opposed to rejecting fringe, extreme elements of Christianity that do not represent the whole. The first three deconversion stories I have critiqued were all of this nature, and I am already tiring of seeing the same baby / bathwater / straw man fallacy applied over and over. Sorry that I think logically, and value reason and philosophy and epistemology. I guess it’s a fault of mine.

And everybody thinks that their own version of Christianity is the correct one, as Armstrong naturally will do here.

Yes, of course they do, just as everyone who thinks much about their own worldview thinks it is true in some exclusive sense. Each has to be defended on its own merits. My 2000+ online papers and 48 books of apologetics and theology do that. But that’s not central to my argument. I’m not saying that Catholicism is the only mainstream Christian choice. The three stories I have looked at thus far didn’t even consider mainstream Protestant alternatives, let alone Orthodoxy (before we ever get to even remotely considering Catholicism).

Of course, the core points of rejection are what are worth dealing with.

Toohey looks briefly at biblical exegesis, and biblical contradictions in particular. Armstrong then attacks him for a “shallow” position, before presenting reasons why there might be contradictions in light of a Christian god.

Jonathan then (somewhat oddly) presents his own truncated version of the five points I gave (rather than simply citing mine). I don;t claim that he was trying to deliberately distort what I wrote (not at all), but this has the danger of overly simplifying an opponent’s argument. I urge folks to go read my own five points in my paper. It’s the only indented section and is easy to spot. Moreover, I was not (technically) responding to “why there might be contradictions” in the Bible. Rather, I was replying to Toohey’s contention that “How could God’s word have ‘difficulties?’ What on earth was difficult about God’s revelation to mankind. I mean, he’s God, right?” This goes beyond mere purported contradictions, to questions of interpretation, and why Christians differ on those. Why couldn’t an omnipotent God make things simpler? , etc. That is a much larger point and far more complex discussion, if one really delves into it.

I’ll look at this from a philosophical point of view. If an OmniGod can’t think up a way to deliver a perfect revelation, then he’s a bit of a dunce.

I’d like to cite John Henry Cardinal Newman: the Christian thinker whom I admire the most, and who played a key role in my conversion to Catholicism. J. Derek Holmes, in a book about Newman’s view of Scripture, summarizes his ideas on the perspicuity (i.e., “clearness”) of the Bible (a doctrine held dear by historic Protestantism):

In 1845 . . . Newman pointed out some other limitations of the Scriptures . . . The mere letter of the Bible could not contain the fulness of revelation; Scripture itself could not solve the questions of canonicity or inspiration; its style was indirect and its structure was unsystematic so that even definitions of the Church depended on obscure sentences . . . The inspiration of Scripture was as difficult to establish from the text of the Bible as the doctrine of apostolic succession . . .

The Bible did not contain a complete secular history, and there was no reason why it should contain a complete account of religious truth. It was unreasonable to demand an adequate scriptural foundation for Church doctrines, if the impression gained from the Bible was of writers who took solemn and sacred truths for granted and who did not give a complete or full treatment of the sense of revelation . . . Scripture did not interpret itself, often startling facts were narrated simply, needing the understanding of the Church, and even essential truths were not made clear . . .

Newman, it must be emphasized, held a ‘one-source theory’ of revelation. He believed that the Church and Tradition taught the truth, while Scripture verified, vindicated or proved that teaching. The Bible and Tradition made up the joint rule of faith, antiquity strengthened the faint but real intimations of doctrine given in Scripture, the Bible was interpreted by Tradition which was verified by Scripture . . . The Bible was never intended to teach doctrine to the majority of Christians, but was written for those already instructed in doctrine . . .

It might be possible for an individual Christian to gain the whole truth from the Bible, but the chances were ‘very seriously against a given individual’ doing so in practice. (in J. Derek Holmes & Robert Murray, On the Inspiration of Scripture, Washington, D. C.: Corpus Books, 1967, 7-8, 10-11, 15-16)

Surely then, if the revelations and lessons in Scripture are addressed to us personally and practically, the presence among us of a formal judge and standing expositor of its words, is imperative. It is antecedently unreasonable to suppose that a book so complex, so unsystematic, in parts so obscure, the outcome of so many minds, times and places, should be given us from above without the safeguard of some authority; as if it could possibly, from the nature of the case, interpret itself. Its inspiration does but guarantee its truth, not its interpretation . . . The gift of inspiration requires as its complement the gift of infallibility. (Ibid., 111-112; Newman’s essay On the Inspiration of Scripture, 1884)

For further related reading, see what Cardinal Newman as an Anglican (in 1833-1838) thought on the same general topic.

It’s not just the Catholic (and/or Anglican) Newman who writes of expected complexities in Scripture. Protestant Reformed theologian G. C. Berkouwer has also made similar observations at length:

Such a variety of differing and mutually exclusive interpretations arose – all appealing to the same Scripture – that serious people began to wonder whether an all-pervasive . . . influence of subjectivism in the understanding of Scripture is not the cause of the plurality of confessions in the church. Do not all people read Scripture from their own current perspectives and presuppositions . . . with all kinds of conscious or subconscious preferences? . . . Is it indeed possible for us to read Scripture with free, unbiased, and listening attention? . . . We should never minimize the seriousness of these questions . . . ‘Pre-understanding’ cannot be eliminated. The part which subjectivity plays in the process of understanding must be recognized . . . The interpreter . . . does not approach the text of Scripture with a clean slate. (Studies in Dogmatics: Holy Scripture, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1975, translated from Dutch ed. of 1967 by Jack B. Rogers, 106-107, 119)
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An attempt has often been made to solve this problem by referring to the ‘objective’ clarity of Scripture, so that every incomplete understanding and insight of Scripture is said to be due to the blinding of human eyes that could not observe the true light shining from it . . . In considering this seemingly simple solution . . . we will soon discover that not all questions are answered by it . . . An incomplete understanding or a total misunderstanding of Scripture cannot simply be explained by blindness. Certain obstacles to understanding may also be related to Scripture’s concrete form of human language conditioned by history . . . Scripture . . . is tied to historical situations and circumstances in so many ways that not every word we read is immediately clear in itself . . . Therefore, it will not surprise us that many questions have been raised in the course of history about the perspicuity of Scripture . . . Some wondered whether this confession of clarity was indeed a true confession . . . The church has frequently been aware of a certain ‘inaccessibility.’ According to Bavinck . . . it may not be overlooked that, according to Rome . . . Scripture is not regarded as a completely obscure and inaccessible book, written, so to speak, in secret language . . . Instead, Rome is convinced that an understanding of Scripture is possible – a clear understanding. But Rome is at the same time deeply impressed by the dangers involved in reading the Bible. Their desire is to protect Scripture against all arbitrary and individualistic exegesis . . . It is indeed one of the most moving and difficult aspects of the confession of Scripture’s clarity that it does not automatically lead to a total uniformity of perception, disposing of any problems. We are confronted with important differences and forked roads . . . and all parties normally appeal to Scripture and its perspicuity. The heretics did not disregard the authority of Scripture but made an appeal to it and to its clear witness with the subjective conviction of seeing the truth in the words of Scripture. (Ibid., 268-271, 286)

Take slavery: God knew that the Bible would be, through his countenancing of slavery and lack of clarity about its moral value, used to justify slavery for almost 2000 years. This is poor revelation and poor foresight. As I have said many times before, God missed a trick in not outlawing slavery in the Ten Commandments. Instead, with an air of self-obsession, he gives out a load of often shoddy rules.

Of course, this is far too complex a topic to deal with (as a sort of footnote) even in a summary way, in the current context of my already too-lengthy reply (as Jonathan would agree, I think). Thankfully, I have collected much good material and resources on the topic for those who truly wish to understand the biblical and Christian understanding of slavery, and to not simply use it as a whipping-stick to bash Christians. It’s easy to toss out the objection to the Bible or Christianity (that requires three seconds); it takes infinitely more work to carefully explain and defend Christianity.That’s just how it is, in defending Christianity or any other complex belief-system.

If atheists want to toss out such objections (often dozens at a time!), I hope they’ll grant us the courtesy and time spent in reading how intelligent, informed Christians actually reply to the garden-variety objections. I have provided those resources, for those interested, so they can deepen their knowledge beyond the quick sound bite mentality. I’m not saying that Jonathan is doing all this; I’m speaking generally of slavery as a “gotcha” topic that is often brought up by atheists and even theologically liberal Christians who want to run down the Bible.

I think contradictions are a real problem. In order to harmonise them, one has to be able to study the issues, the source texts, often understanding the original language, form and textual techniques and so on. This is such an elitist approach to entering into a solid and warranted relationship with God. Only people who can withstand the rigours of such intellectual analysis can have a justified belief in God, contradiction free.

I think they are not that big of a problem at all. Some minor things have crept into the manuscripts through the centuries (contradictions of numbers, etc.). I offer many resources for those truly interested in pursuing the topic and seeing what Christian apologists and theologians have to say about it:

Alleged Bible “Contradictions” & “Difficulties”: Master List of Christian Internet Resources for Apologists (Links)

Why “Bible Difficulties” Should be Fully Expected [Facebook]

A great many alleged biblical contradictions actually are not at all, simply according to the rules of logic:

Review of The Book of Non-Contradiction (Phillip Campbell)
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Alleged “Bible Contradictions”: Most Are Actually Not So

I don’t buy it.

I don’t buy the harmonisations to the many contradictions, at least in a good many cases. There are real problems here, and ones which, even I (if I created a holy book from scratch) could contrive not to manifest.

I don’t buy that the “problems” suggested are nearly as serious as atheists and Bible skeptics make out, or problems at all (in many cases), and accordingly I have engaged in many debates with atheists who (so I demonstrate) have little clue how to properly interpret the Bible. They show themselves to be woefully ignorant (even laughably, pitifully ignorant) time and again. That’s what happens when people make no actual study of any topic, and think they know far more than they really do (I’ve studied the Bible intensely for 40 years, and have been involved in apologetics for 36). I have collected these dialogues with atheists on the Bible in the section near the end of my Atheism web page, entitled, ” ‘The Butcher and the Hog’: The Atheist Approach to the Bible.” Read for yourself . . .

If “[T]he faith of some troubled souls is hindered by misunderstanding the Scripture” then I’m afraid you have a problem with the Scripture.

No, we have a problem with understanding, which could occur with regard to any complex document of belief-system whatever. Knowledge is power, and unnecessary ignorance leads souls astray. There are fields of knowledge known as hermeneutics, exegesis, and Bible commentary, as well as scholarly aids about biblical languages, cultural differences, idiom, genre, Hebrew ways of thinking, etc.

If I write an instruction manual for anything, and it presents confusion in the reader, then I have not written my instruction manual effectively.

I’ll guarantee that some human beings will misunderstand or misapply any instruction whatever: in proportion to how lengthy and sophisticated and subtle it is. The Bible is no different. It still has to be properly understood and interpreted. For example, to take just one issue among hundreds: the ancient Hebrews had a very different conception of time, which ties into the Genesis creation accounts. I recently engaged in a dialogue with an atheist, where we got into these fascinating aspects. I was willing to learn (and I learned a ton in my research); he, alas, was not.

It appears that Armstrong thinks he has cracked the contradictions issue (he has “analyzed relentlessly shoddy, illogical, fact-challenged atheist attempts to run down the Bible”..),

I haven’t fully resolved or “cracked” anything, but I have indeed exposed shoddy atheist so-called “exegesis” of the Bible, dozens of times. That’s simply a fact. The papers are there for all to see.

but from personal experience and a lot of reading on these subjects (and having written a book on the blatant contradictions of the Nativity accounts), I can assure you these are far from being harmonised. Far from.

Atheists will always have their handy lists of scores and scores of alleged contradictions. They love ’em! But (sorry to ruin the party) mere lists prove nothing. Each charge has to be argued on its own merits. Of course, we have our defenses of the nativity accounts as well (here’s one example), and many books on the historical reliability of the Bible (example).

Thanks to Jonathan for the good debate and opportunity for me to discuss many things about Christian positions.

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Atheist Deconversion Story Series #1: Anthony Toohey

Last updated on: July 17, 2017 at 5:43 pm By Dave Armstrong

Image by “Pexels” [Pixabay / CC0 public domain]

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Introduction: “Deconversion” stories are accounts of an atheist or agnostic’s odyssey from some form of Christianity to atheism or agnosticism. Since these are public (else I wouldn’t know about them in the first place), it’s reasonable to assume that they are more than merely subjective / personal matters, that have no bearing on anyone else. No; it is assumed (it seems to me) that these stories are thought to offer rationales of various sorts for others to also become atheists or to be more confirmed in their own atheism. This being the case, since they are public critiques of Christianity (hence, fair game for public criticism), as a Christian (Catholic) apologist, I have a few thoughts in counter-reply.

I am not questioning the sincerity of these persons or the truthfulness of their self-reports, or any anguish that they went through. I accept their words at face value. I’m not arguing that they are terrible, evil people (that’s a child’s game). My sole interest is in showing if and where certain portions of these deconversion stories contain fallacious or non-factual elements: where they fail to make a point against Christianity (what Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga calls “defeating the defeaters”), or misrepresent (usually unwittingly) Christianity as a whole, or the Bible, etc.

As always, feedback on my blog (especially from the persons critiqued) is highly encouraged, and I will contact, out of basic courtesy, everyone whose story I have critiqued. All atheists are treated with courtesy and respect on my blog. If someone doesn’t do so, I reprimand them, and ban them if they persist in their insults.

When I cite the stories themselves, the words will be in blue.

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Today, I am responding to “Real Deconversion Story #14 – Anthony Toohey” (12-5-16), hosted on Jonathan MS Pearce’s A Tippling Philosopher web page at Patheos (where my blog is also hosted).

With . . . Duane’s promise that all of the confusing stuff I’d heard about salvation and redemption in my Catholic upbringing was wrong, that it all came down to Believe and Be Saved… Well that was enough for me. I did, and as far as I knew, I was.

Anthony stated that he went to “after-school catechism. This created a fascination in me for the bible and for the mystical/spiritual aspects of Christianity.” But we don’t know how much he actually knew about Catholicism . . . seemingly not all that much, if he could forsake it merely because of a Bible trivia game and the usual ignorant “Chick Tract”-like anti-Catholic sermonizing. Hence, he appears to have been like many millions of insufficiently catechized Catholics: almost to a person unfamiliar with apologetics, or the reasons why Catholics believe as they do. This is a common theme running through deconversion stories: either relative or profound ignorance of one’s own Christian affiliations. If we don’t know why we believe whatever — have no reasons for it — , then obviously we are easy targets of those who would dissuade us from our shallow, non-rational beliefs.

He talks about how the Santa Cruz Christian Church (I tried to find it on Google and was unsuccessful) gave him and his fiancee advice, causing him to call off their engagement. But this is hardly grounds to blame Christianity, because one church practiced what he rightly describes as “spiritual abuse.” As so often in these stories, one extreme sect is universalized to all of Christianity, as if it is representative of that whole. Atheists reading such gory details sit there lamenting, “see what rascals and morons those damned Christians are! So glad I came to my senses and left it. Best thing I ever did . . .” They never seem to realize that one extreme and twisted version of Christianity is not the whole ball of wax. Basic category errors and logical fallacies, in other words . . . These things usually aren’t stated outright, but I would contend that they are the underlying strongly implied assumption.

Former Christian atheists often refer back to the years of “abuse” (real or alleged) that they went through. Hence, Anthony writes: “It was not until after I left the faith and went back to examine my Christian life in light of my new viewpoint, that the gravity of what I had allowed to be done to us hit me.” In this case, it was real abuse, but only from an extremist fringe sector of Christianity, which is no disproof of Christianity per se.

I bought the first pieces of my spiritual library. He and Theresa had already bought me a study bible. That day I bought a comprehensive concordance, a bible dictionary, an exhaustive cross-reference, a bible atlas, and, finally, Gleason Archer’s Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties.

What?

I took Duane at his word, but inside, the title of that book put a cold shaft of fear inside me. How could God’s word have “difficulties?” What on earth was difficult about God’s revelation to mankind. I mean, he’s God, right? And we have the spirit of God.

This is shallow, unreflective thinking. I can think of a number of sound, logical reasons why such a book would exist:

1. The Bible is a very lengthy, multi-faceted book by many authors, from long ago, with many literary genres, and cultural assumptions that are foreign to us.

2. The Bible purports to be revelation from an infinitely intelligent God. Thus (even though God simplifies it as much as possible), for us to think that it is an easy thing to immediately grasp and figure out, and would not have any number of “difficulties” for mere human beings to work through, is naive. The Bible itself teaches that authoritative teachers are necessary to properly understand it.

3. All grand “theories” have components (“anomalies” / “difficulties”) that need to be worked out and explained. For example, scientific theories do not purport to perfectly explain everything. They often have large “mysterious” areas that have to be resolved. Think of, for example, the “missing links” in evolution. That didn’t stop people from believing in it. Folks believed in gradual Darwinian evolution even though prominent paleontologist and philosopher of science Stephen Jay Gould famously noted that “gradualism was never read from the rocks.” Even Einstein’s theories weren’t totally confirmed by scientific experiment at first (later they were). That a book like the Bible would have “difficulties” to work through is perfectly obvious and unsurprising to me.

4. Most of the rationale of explaining “Bible difficulties” is not from a perspective that they are real difficulties, but rather, to show that purported difficulties really aren’t such. They are usually based on illogical thinking or unfamiliarity with biblical genre, etc. Many alleged biblical “contradictions” simply aren’t so, by the rules of logic.

5. The Foreword of the book by Kenneth S. Kantzer explains its rationale: “[T]he faith of some troubled souls is hindered by misunderstanding the Scripture. They are confused by what seems to them to be false statements or self-contradiction. We need, therefore, to clear away such false obstacles to faith.” (p. 8)

For these reasons, as an apologist and avid Bible student, I’ve done quite a bit of writing on alleged “Bible difficulties” myself: found in the final section of my Bible & Tradition web page, and have analyzed relentlessly shoddy, illogical, fact-challenged atheist attempts to run down the Bible, in a section of my Atheism & Agnosticism page.

When I got home, I looked through some of the topics. I’ll confess that, even then, it seemed very equivocating – sort of a wordy hand-waving.

What is plausible and what isn’t, is a very complicated matter itself. In any event, Anthony has simply talked about the book, and has not given any concrete examples that readers can judge for themselves. As such, this is simply no argument against Archer’s book, or against Christianity. All we know is that Anthony found it unconvincing. So what? Granted, accounts like this (or Christian conversion stories) can’t argue every jot and tittle. But still, it’s good to point out what is actually an argument or evidence, and what isn’t, lest anyone become confused over the nature of evidence pro or con.

Not being comforted by what I read, I usually ignored this book. Instead, I started reading about all the wrong religions.

“We are what we eat.” It looks like Anthony didn’t even read Archer’s book all the way through. He seems to have quickly judged it, and moved on. But why should anyone think that his negative judgment and dismissal is infallible?

Anthony then talks about his struggles in the Christian life. All of this is perfectly understood and familiar to Christians. St. Paul himself talks about it in Romans 7, and then gives the solution in Romans 8. But that we all fall short and fail many times, in many ways, is not some big bombshell. Nor is it any argument against Christianity, because the latter teaches us to expect this. Faith is a lifelong struggle.

I’m going to focus on the building string of doubts that led me to examine, and ultimately abandon, my faith.

Great. Let’s see if they are compelling for any reader to think likewise.

. . . my wife was determined to complete her education. After getting eligible to transfer, she decided to attend San Jose State to get an accounting degree. While she was there, she took a class in the Religious History, and possibly one more focused on Western religion. The professor was also a pastor who was, to me, very liberal. He taught about the history of the development of the doctrine of hell. He taught how the prophets were used to enable rulers to motivate their soldiers to commit atrocities they would otherwise not ever consider. He taught the very human side of religion.

. . . It brought her faith deeply into question.

And so this is the oft-heard story. Christians go to college, get confronted with skeptical or atheist professors, in a very lopsided scenario, and lose their faith, if they are insufficiently equipped (i.e., lacking in apologetics knowledge: my field) to take on skeptical challenges to it. Again, “we are what we eat.” If she sat there and took in all this rotgut from the professor, and never read a Christian refutation of it, then why should anyone be surprised that she goes the route of the professor? One must read the best proponents of both sides of major disputes: not one side only or the best proponents of one side vs. the worst on the other (which is the usual atheist game: they love to wrangle with ignorant, uninformed Christians). This is why I love to have dialogues on my blog. I present the other person’s words for my readers to see: and if not all of them, I always provide a link and urge them to read the whole article, and then see my response.

We attended a bible study. By our second or third time, she was asking more questions. I don’t remember the last question she asked, but it froze the room. You could have heard a pin drop. She got a soft-shoed answer and the pastor rushed past it as quickly as he could.

Unfortunately, many pastors and priests are as undereducated in apologetics as the laypeople.

She never went to church again. She announced she was agnostic and didn’t believe what I believed.

All we know about her story is that she heard some skeptical stuff, started asking “hard” questions that were unanswered. We don’t know whether she actually took the time to read good Christian apologetics or philosophy. Consequently, there is nothing there that should persuade any other Christian to cease being so.

It is a fact that people, to an overwhelming degree, adopt the religious tradition of their culture. To them it is accepted fact.

Sociologically, that is very true. The problem with making it an exclusively anti-Christianity argument, however, is that atheists act in largely the same way. That’s why kids lose their Christian faith in college. They’re surrounded by liberal, skeptical or atheist professors who undermine their faith and don’t give both sides of the story (i.e., they are immersed in a different “culture”, and so — unsurprisingly — adopt it). The “smart people” seem to be against Christianity in that environment, and the few informed Christians are too scared to speak out (and today are even shut up and shouted down). No one wants to be seen as the oddball or outsider, so they lose their faith: not usually because of objective intellectual inquiry and reading the best of both worldviews, but because of sheer peer pressure and being subjected to one view (propaganda) over and over. They become politically liberal for the same reason.

Atheists like to think that they arrive at their view solely through reason, while Christians soak in theirs from their mother’s milk. But atheists are just as subject to peer pressure and environmental influence as anyone else. Most worldviews (whether Christian or atheist) are arrived at far more for social (and emotional) reasons than intellectual. I can’t emphasize it enough: “we are what we eat.”

Because of this cultural indoctrination, the only way to objectively examine your faith is to take the position of an outsider from a different culture and examine your faith with the same level of skepticism you treat other religions.

Conversely, the only way to objectively examine one’s atheism is to interact with an outsider from Christianity (someone like me, willing and able to do it) and examine your axioms and premises with the same level of skepticism that one treats Christianity. I am offering Anthony and any other atheist the opportunity to do that in this very paper.

There was a point during my cycle of failure and repentance that I wondered why on earth I would rush to the writings of Paul (specifically Romans 5-8) to restore my spirit rather than to Jesus. One was an apostle, but one was actually God, as I understood it. The modern salvation transaction as we’re taught it was never all that clear in Paul’s writings, and not at all in the words attributed to Jesus.

That is, the fundamentalist Protestant version of salvation, which is out of touch with even historic Protestantism, let alone Catholicism and Orthodoxy . . . I agree that this warped version is never taught by either Jesus or St. Paul.

So I began to spend more time with the words of Jesus, thinking that if I can’t find what I need from the words of my god walking upon the earth, the words of an apostle would not help me. To shorten the story, reading the words attributed to Jesus turned me into a social liberal. The Jesus in the bible is compassionate to the poor, destitute, and irredeemable, in stark contrast to the modern Christian, who, if they follow the culture, would sooner tell the poor to get a job and wave the flag of meritocratic individualism.

Pitting Paul against Jesus is plain silly. There is no essential difference in what they taught (which is perhaps why Anthony never provides any example of such alleged divergence). They simply taught in different ways. Jesus was the storyteller: more like a pastor (therefore, much better understood by the common man), whereas Paul was systematic and more abstract: like a theologian or academic: more like philosophy. But making false dichotomies is very typical of the sort of Protestant milieu that Anthony was part of.

The next issue I faced was the issue of evolution. I was a Young Earther, but the more I read, the more I realized that the science wasn’t a conspiracy, but rather an accurate representation of the way the world actually worked. But it didn’t lead to my faith deserting me. All truth is God’s truth. I figured, therefore, that Genesis was an allegory. My theory was that as long as Christ rose from the dead, then Christianity was true. It wouldn’t matter if Genesis was an allegory or literal. Jesus = salvation. The rest is interpretation.

In the same vein, I decided the flood of Noah was also allegory, as it was scientifically impossible. Australia itself stands as a testament to the unreality of it.

This is very typical of many deconversion stories, where the person came out of fundamentalism. Anthony was a young-earther. I never was that, nor was I ever a fundamentalist or anti-science in my evangelical days (1977-1990). But the solution to these errors is not to ditch any literalism in the Bible and go to an all-allegorical position. The solution is to recognize that the Bible contains many genres of literature, and to determine which is occurring in a particular place. That’s how normal language and literature work. The problem is that fundamentalists and skeptics alike start treating the Bible as if it isn’t subject to the normal rules of interpretation of literature. And so Anthony was knee-jerk and simplistic regarding the Bible. He went from one extreme error to another on the opposite side of the spectrum.

There are, of course, many old-earth evolutionist Christians. They simply believe that God had some hand in the process of evolution. The choice isn’t “godless, materialistic atheism vs. young-earth creationism. I denied the universality of Noah’s flood over 30 years ago, as a result of reading a Christian book about science (by Baptist scholar Bernard Ramm). Why should that cause anyone to lose their Christian faith, pray tell?

So being in this strange place, with only the resurrection of Jesus Christ to keep me in the fold, I came to a full on crisis of faith. I won’t go heavily into it now, . . .

He can, of course, divulge whatever he wants, but the fact remains that we are given no solid, compelling, cogent reasons why he should have forsaken Christianity, or why anyone else should do so. Because he was a fundamentalist extremist, those who never were that (like myself) should also leave Christianity: even the forms of it vastly — essentially — different from Anthony’s anti-intellectual fundamentalism?

I searched for the best apologetics book I could find, settling on Norman Geisler’s I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist.

I commend him for at least reading one book from the Christian perspective, against atheism. Of course, different authors have different emphases, styles, and particular philosophies. So it may have simply been a case where Geisler (a fine apologist) wasn’t a good “fit” for him.

I gave God first shot at me and read Geisler. I expected to be strengthened – steeled for my encounter with the atheist, able to find a way to keep my faith and work on my anger. Instead I took 30 pages (steno pad) of notes. I could easily formulate my wife’s answers to his arguments without even trying. I was disappointed and borderline devastated. I read Loftus’s book. Another 20 pages of notes later I set down his book and realized that 1) I didn’t know what I did believe, and 2) I was sure it wasn’t the god of the bible.

So John Loftus did the trick.

I was unmoored. I tried another apologist, thinking that maybe Geisler wasn’t the best to read. Loftus had referenced William Lane Craig, so I started reading one of his books. About 40% of the way through, I gave up. It was over. I sat at my desk and said to myself, “I’m an atheist.” And here I am today.

Craig is also a fine Christian thinker and debater. But it also depends what particular place we are at in our thinking: how much we will be influenced.

I do wonder why — if John Loftus’ atheist polemics are so compelling –, he is so extremely hyper-sensitive (and I do not exaggerate at all, believe me) to any critique of them? I have examined his “outsider test of faith” argument (ten years ago), some of his irrational criticisms of the Bible, and his story, and he went ballistic. This hardly suggests a confident atheism, willing to take on all critiques:

Critique of Atheist John W. Loftus’ “Deconversion” Story

Atheist John Loftus Reacts to My Analysis of His “Deconversion”

John Loftus’ Deconversion & Feuds with Atheists

Loftus is very much like the preacher that is often maligned in atheist deconversion accounts: the guy who loves to hear himself talk, unopposed, who wilts at the first counter-challenge. That has always been what John Loftus does, in my experience. And he has a colorful set of epithets and insults, too, that he sent my way for having the audacity to challenge him in his infallible wisdom. If his atheist apologetic is so unvanquishable, let him stand up and defend it like a man and honest thinker. But (at least with me) he has never done so. Thus, I am utterly unimpressed by his thinking (and demeanor). I have atheist friends who are embarrassed by him, because he conducts himself like such a rude and pompous ass. He’s not exactly a good representative or figurehead for atheism.

In conclusion, I don’t see anything here in this deconversion story that would compel anyone else to forsake Christianity. At best it is an account that raises serious questions about extreme fundamentalist Christianity, which I fully agree with. But since that is merely one fringe element of Christianity, it is irrelevant as to the truthfulness of larger Christianity, let alone atheism as a supposedly superior and more rational and cogent alternative worldview.