2017-05-20T15:18:13-04:00

Last updated on: May 20, 2017 at 3:18 pm   By

DiagramSociology

“A social network diagram: individuals (or ‘nodes’) connected by relationships”: screenshot taken by User:DarwinPeacock [Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 3.0 license]

This occurred in the combox of my post, Clarifications re: Atheist “Reductio” Paper, in August 2015. Ben McGrew‘s words will be in blue. He conducted himself admirably as a “gentleman and a scholar” the entire time.

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You might find more people sympathetic to your argument if you were more discriminating in the subject of your paper. “Atheism” is an extremely general term, which includes forms of Buddhism, numerous minor faiths, and the coined ‘Anti-theism’ which appears to be more specifically what you’re addressing.

Atheism doesn’t mean that we’ve ‘ruled out’ a deity, it simply means that evidence for a deity is presently too insufficient to support.

Specific lines of reasoning are arguably absurd, many obviously are, but by pinning those arguments onto ‘atheism’ is like blaming ‘theism’ for the beliefs of a remote sect of violent Muslims without bothering to make the distinction.

Not knowing how something like the universe could exist or begin to exist is not equivalent to presuming an answer and simply being satisfied.

Not knowing why something is, is not ‘faith’. Nor is it a ‘kind’ of faith.

‘Faith’ is the belief in something which is not known or can not be known. Regardless of its veracity.

A more appropriate title might have been, “Views held by many atheists are no less childlike than those they argue against.” Albiet admittedly, you were going for a reaction, not for being politically correct. Unfortunately, that yielded the reaction you’ve been dealing with.

If you say that the evidence is the present universe, which was the result of these mysterious material forces that brought it about, we can say, by the same token, that we believe the universe was created by God, because we can see the results.

In either scenario, unproven and unprovable axioms are accepted from the outset. Direct empirical evidence is not to be had.

The difficulties in the position and lack of absolute knowledge still have to be faced. It’s a question of intellectual humility and the realities of the limitations of human knowledge.

Do you think presuming to know the answer to an unanswerable question is more humble than acknowledging that particular limitation?

To many people, theism is precisely the refusal to realize the limitations of human knowledge, and the consequences that follow.

No; I think that it is humble to recognize that others of a different persuasion are not automatically wicked or stupid because they believe things that we don’t, and that everyone holds to unproven axioms (what I have defined as “faith” in this context) and that no one has a lock on reason (or gullibility).

You matter-of-factly granted the thing that was my main point (everyone has axioms), so my beef isn’t with you. It’s with the condescending, stereotypically “angry atheist” who thinks all Christians are infantile idiots.

You don’t fit into that mold, so the paper hardly even applies to you. I would suspect that you don’t think all Christians are stupid, anti-science, and all the other epithets routinely tossed out.

And that is why I can talk to you, calmly and rationally and constructively in the first place.

Which gets back to the question of intellectual humility and tolerance . . .

What do you think my axioms are?

*The rest has been digested and appreciated.

Just as in my piece: that matter has an inherent capability to create everything in the universe. I regard that as requiring every bit as much faith (if not much more) as belief in an Eternal Intelligent Spirit, God, Who created all that we see.

1) Evolution has absolutely nothing to do with the origin of the universe, thus it makes perfect sense for it to fail as a solution to the wrong question.

2) Again, Evolution pertains to the process by which life changes, so it also was never intended to address abiogenesis.

However, to address the core of your statement, many atheists do hold that a process other than a deity is responsible for or is likely to be the cause of the above events. The specific process is less relevant than the fact that it provides a viable (and equally importantly, demonstrable) alternative to the hypothesis of ‘God’.

Since reasonable alternatives exist, it becomes an issue of probability, and in the absence of statistically significant evidence for either position (ignoring the ongoing debate on that issue), the default position ought to be agnosticism, so that inquiring minds can freely search for the evidence which will eventually determine whether a right answer can be found.

Your “default” position (again) presupposes empiricism-only, and so it is circular reasoning and not totally “inquiring” at all.

Granted, it is entirely possible that the most significant truths only exist in a form that can only be navigated internally, but that is inherently incapable of being communicated to another person through lesser means.

* * * * *

No argument from me, science is the study and observation of nature. Since we can’t observe anything prior to our known universe, ( at least as we understand it), science simply can’t prove much in that regard. The ultimate ‘Why?’ questions are fundamentally philosophical. Science can help to eliminate some of the proposed theories, but can’t provide any definitive answers.

~~~

When the question is staged with a narrow view, sometimes a creator is a more likely answer, for example, “Who created the universe?” presumes an agent, however we can also ask “Could there be a part of our physical reality that is outside of our ability to perceive, like a fourth spatial dimension?”

The introduction of relatively simple concepts like additional dimensions can entirely eliminate the issues that make an intelligent creator seem necessary. A beginning for a three dimensional universe could simply be one of an infinite number of events occurring in a four dimensional one and we’d never be able to tell.

Abiogenisis specifically has a number of postulated origins, but in order to really come to any conclusions, we’d have to define precisely what constitutes life, and eventually consciousness, and that’s too long of a road for this thread.

~~~

I also have an engineering degree and my fiance is pursuing a PhD in Biology. We’re both active in secular and interfaith communities.

~~~

Science isn’t the end all be all. There are logical truths that we must work within, like laws of non-contradiction, and there are scientific bodies of evidence which can be used to eliminate a large portion of those philosophies. For example, half a dozen versions of String Theory have been wiped out thanks to the efforts at the LHC.

~~~

I think we can both agree that order comes from order, not disorder, (Entropy, at the very least, must be preserved)

The religious version of events states that a Being was the first embodiment of order.

The secular version of events states that inanimate “stuff” was the first embodiment of order.

In either scenario, there is an impossibly specific set of traits that would need to be manifested for our very specific universe to result.

Unfortunately, the nature of ‘first’ is that there is no context. At All. So we can’t even propose a probability that one scenario is more likely than the other.

The most basic Theism/atheism division becomes at best a 50/50 guess. It isn’t until people attempt to put the deity into a descriptive box that the odds fall out of favor for the theist.

I agree: philosophy (and religion) must answer ultimate questions. And that was the thinking behind my reductio as well). Much agreement there!

The ones who think that science can explain absolutely everything, are playing a game of kindergarten thinking, in my humble opinion.

I’d guess that 99.999% of all human thinking is ‘band wagon’ thinking. Pattern recognition is essential to our neural systems, and perfect reasoning for all subjects is both outside of our reach and undesirable for a limited being.

At some point you simply have to declare that something has always existed. Also there needs to be an understanding that the term ‘infinite’ teases us like we should be able to grasp it, but can’t. Infinite is an uncomforting concept.

Outside of removes any sense of responsibility we might have for understanding.

That would be begging the question, and would earn the response of “Where did God come from?”

Either scenario proposes something incomprehensible, regardless of how emotionally appealing they may be.

The oft repeated phrase “Outside of Time and Space” has functionally no meaning. You may as well say “Outside of Reason”.

The problem with your scenario is that you presuppose empiricism throughout. On what basis do you presuppose it? Why does everything have to reduce to empirical (observable / testable / replicable) science?

If that is so, then it precludes non-empirical philosophy as well as religion. So I think you have to explain why it is that you approach existence according to empiricism. From whence does that derive?

How do you conclude that it is all the worthwhile knowledge there is, and exclude and dismiss anything outside of it?

I don’t presume that the only knowledge is that which is testable, but I do tend to hold that leaning on untestable knowledge is inherently unreliable. So, while empiricism may be incomplete, it is at least the best fit.

It is impossible to determine whether revelation truly is knowledge or simply the sense that knowledge is had.

If senses are universally unreliable, which is entirely possible, then that precludes the possibility of revelation for the same reason.

It’s not impossible to test revelation. One plain way to do so is to see if prophecies from revelation come true.

There are many prophecies in the OT that have been demonstrated, such as the prediction of the destruction of Babylon (then the greatest city in the world) and the prediction that it would never be built or inhabited again.

That is demonstrable stuff. But it is also off-topic. :-)

Are the demonstrations applied forward or retrospectively?

If we can’t say, for example, the old testament predicts a particular unknown creature to be found in ‘X’ location an then we actively set out to test that prediction, then we are extremely vulnerable to fitting the evidence to the hypothesis and not the other way around.

Evolution, on the other hand, has made these kinds of predictions and fulfilled them. Guided or not, the practical value of Evolution has been demonstrated on a macro scale.

I gave the example of Babylon. The prophecy was before it happened in history, then it did, as we know from historiography: a secular field not biased towards a Jewish prophecy.

That’s just one of many. You have, e.g., the messianic prophecies about Jesus (as many as 300, some assert; though many are pretty vague and not all that compelling, in my opinion).

* * *

My general view with regard to evolution, creation, and the difficulties therein, is not far from Einstein’s (though I would grant a place for [the theistic / Christian] God that he does not:

I’m not an atheist and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations.

(From an interview, quoted in Glimpses of the Great by G. S. Viereck [Macauley, New York, 1930], cited in Max Jammer, Einstein and Religion: Physics and Theology [Princeton University Press, 1999], p. 48)

Also from Einstein:

Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in point of fact, religious.

(Response to atheist, Alfred Kerr [Winter 1927] who after deriding ideas of God and religion at a dinner party in the home of the publisher Samuel Fischer, had queried him “I hear that you are supposed to be deeply religious” — as quoted in Diaries of a Cosmopolitan: Count Harry Kessler, 1918-1937, by H. G. Kessler, [Littlehampton Book Services Ltd, 1971 edition] )

And:

You find it strange that I consider the comprehensibility of the world (to the extent that we are authorized to speak of such a comprehensibility) as a miracle or an eternal mystery. Well a priori one should expect a chaotic world which cannot be grasped by the mind in anyway. One could (yes one should) expect the world to be subjected to law only to the extent that we order it through our intelligence. Ordering of this kind would be like the alphabetical ordering of the words of a language. By contrast, the kind of order created by Newton’s theory of gravitation, for instance, is wholly different. Even if the axioms of the theory are proposed by man, the success of such a project presupposes a high degree of ordering of the objective world, and this could not be expected a priori. That is the “miracle” which is being constantly re-enforced as our knowledge expands.

There lies the weakness of positivists and professional atheists who are elated because they feel that they have not only successfully rid the world of gods but “bared the miracles.” Oddly enough, we must be satisfied to acknowledge the “miracle” without there being any legitimate way for us to approach it. 

(Letter to Maurice Solovine; from Robert N. Goldman, Einstein’s God—Albert Einstein’s Quest as a Scientist and as a Jew to Replace a Forsaken God [Joyce Aronson Inc.; Northvale, New Jersey; 1997], p. 24) 

The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naive. However, I am also not a “Freethinker” in the usual sense of the word because I find that this is in the main an attitude nourished exclusively by an opposition against naive superstition. My feeling is insofar religious as I am imbued with the consciousness of the insufficiency of the human mind to understand deeply the harmony of the Universe which we try to formulate as “laws of nature.” It is this consciousness and humility I miss in the Freethinker mentality.

Sincerely yours,

Albert Einstein. 

(Letter to A. Chapple, Australia, 23 February 1954; Einstein Archive 59-405; also quoted in Otto Nathan and Heinz Norden, Einstein on Peace [Random House Value Publishing; Avenel 1981 edition], p. 510)

See my long paper about Einstein’s “religion”.

And don’t bother saying this is an argument from authority. I’m simply showing how science and a “religious attitude” are not at all incompatible, even in the greatest minds.

It’s not an argument; it’s the reporting of a fact (the great Einstein thought in this way).

Mechanically speaking, the presupposition of a deity simply shifts the unknown back by an additional step, but does not eliminate it. It is a mask for understanding, potentially releasing a believer from a sense of responsibility for the unknown.

If true, that’s swell, but it doesn’t answer the fundamental questions.

My position is only strongly against Gnosticism. When people ‘know’ something, and are unwilling to doubt their knowledge, then they have lost something immeasurably valuable, even if they may go the the grave with a grin, thinking they’ve saved the world.

Atheists are as dogmatic about what they believe as any Christians I know. They think (generalizing, of course) they have all this knowledge that all us ignorant peasant Christians reject and are too stupid to grasp.

If that’s not the Gnostic attitude, I don’t know what is. I think it simply means “closed-minded and triumphalistic” and it is not restricted to religious people.

Gnosticism of any kind is what I oppose.

Good. So do I. But I do believe in supernatural revelation, as all Christians do. That’s not secret. It’s open and verifiable and subject to analysis of various sorts.

I’m curious: have you ever read serious philosophical treatments of the question of God, from Christian philosophers: guys like William Lane Craig or Alvin Plantinga, or Peter Kreeft? Have you read the best that the opposing position has to offer?

Yes, I have (William Lane Craig, Alvin Plantinga, C.S. Lewis, etc.),  and I regularly discuss them with a community holding degrees in Theology. That and my fiance and I are both currently with Notre Dame university and attended Mass just a few short days ago. Don’t confuse my disagreement for a lack of exposure.

I know that you are open-minded and able to be talked-to, without all the nonsense, which is quite enough at this point.

Glad to hear that you have read those guys. Peter Kreeft is a superb Catholic philosopher, who has written 50-60 books, uniformly excellent.

If you’d like to expand your circles of private conversation, I can put you in touch with a few extremely agreeable and well read people ranging from “Struggling Christian”, “Ex-Christian Theologian”, to “Overwhelming, yet Underexposed anti-Intelligent Design Powerhouse.”

All in time. I’d be delighted to talk to anyone who is willing to talk, and is of an open-minded, charitable nature. They’re all welcome on this page. Most of that I will do here. I prefer public conversations, so that others can observe. I think it is a great teaching method.

Private discussions are great, too, but as part of my job (public teacher / apologist), I can only devote so much time to that, so that it amounts to a hobby in my spare time (or just hanging around friends, who happen to be atheists, Muslims, Hindus, etc.).

People reading threads like this can learn how atheists truly think (not silly caricatures of them), and how one Christian (me) replies to them. Hopefully, the hostile kind of atheists can see that not all Christians are morons and troglodytes, etc.

So I think a lot of good comes from threads like this.

Even the previous fiasco thread illustrates how “angry atheists” deal with Christians. It’s very instructive.

Whenever I try to present an argument against theism, (or at least the belief in theism), it is almost always against the fundamental concept of a deity, rather than a single religion. That saves a lot of time and is applicable to every conversation.

The issues that were originally discussed in your paper are perhaps the most popular positions, but not the most fundamental ones to a lack of belief.

Addressing the most prominent branch of an infinite tree might be most impacting, but perhaps not as conclusive as going for the trunk.

If you’d like to reach the core of ‘atheism’, that might prove more productive, and I’d be happy to work with you to that end in an orderly way. 

Sounds good; again, in time. If you hang out here, I’m sure we can have many good discussions. I feel that I have made a few new friendly acquaintances now who are atheists or agnostics, which is great.

My reductio was not designed to “disprove ” atheism, but to respond to the charge that we Christians are uniquely gullible and susceptible to belief in fairy-tales that have no relation to rational justification.

That is what it was responding to; and as I have said, it sought to prove that atheists have faith (unproven axioms) just alike anyone else does. You’ve already conceded that (I think it was you!).

The “core of atheism” sounds fascinating, since other atheists insist that it’s more like the core of an onion: nothing except a negation: not theism.

If you have a more positive, pro-active conception, that is of extreme interest to me. I’ve sought that from atheists for many years, and as of yet I’m not clear in my mind what it is, other than not theism.

2017-05-20T17:35:06-04:00

Last updated on: May 20, 2017 at 5:35 pm   By

PeterSinking

Peter sinking in the water after walking on it [Flickr / Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license]

From an old Facebook post (dated 11 August 2014)

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Matthew 14:28-31 (RSV) And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the water.” [29] He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus; [30] but when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” [31] Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “O man of little faith, why did you doubt?”

The point Jesus was making was that Peter was walking on the water. The miracle was already there (and was “proven”). Peter both anticipated the possibility by asking Jesus to let him walk to Him, and then experienced it himself.

Thus, whether miracles are rare (they certainly are, and it’s not a lack of faith to observe that) is irrelevant to that scenario, I would contend. Peter had faith to do it for a while, then he doubted and lacked faith. So Jesus asked him why he did.

Peter had the faith and expectation, but became afraid due to the wind. I think it is intended as a commentary on our lack of perseverance. We manage to believe and have faith by God’s grace, but find it tough to continue doing so over time (particularly when suffering and other difficulties arise).

A variation of this theme occurs here:

Matthew 8:24-26 And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. [25] And they went and woke him, saying, “Save, Lord; we are perishing.” [26] And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O men of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.

I’ve always taken this to mean that Jesus was saying, in effect, “You have seen Me perform many miracles; you know I am the Messiah, so why are you worrying about these things having to do with the elements and provisions? Do you not believe that I can take care of all that, based on what you have often seen Me do?”

We can say that they lacked discernment before the Spirit came at Pentecost, etc. (and that’s true, too), but Jesus still seems to expect more from them; hence, several times He refers to them having “little faith.” And He rebukes the demand for more signs and for physical proofs. This was the case with Doubting Thomas. That also occurred before Pentecost, yet Jesus expected him to have enough faith to believe without the necessity of empirical evidence:

John 20:27-29 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing.” [28] Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” [29] Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

This also reminds me of Jesus’ words in Luke 16:31, citing Abraham: “He said to him, `If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead.'”

In a nutshell: “you guys have enough evidence to believe; even extraordinary miracles will not convince you if you reject that which is already revealed and manifest.” The lack of faith is already a rebellion; it seems to me to be Jesus’ point. It’s not mere lack of assent on a rational basis, due to a lack of sufficient evidence.

Some might say that Peter acted as he did because miracles are a rare thing, and as such, difficult to accept and believe (in particular cases). But the rarity of a miracle was irrelevant if Peter was doing the miraculous thing at the time. He was already there; he already believed. The defect came in perseverance or doubting how long the miracle could last, or in thinking that a stronger wind could overcome it. These are quite human and understandable responses.

No one denies that faith is difficult and that miracles are rare and difficult to accept even when they are right in front of us. Nevertheless, Jesus expects them to “get” it far more than they do, even before Pentecost (i.e., the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in all Christian believers). He is rebuking doubt; not mere lack of ability to believe, due to not yet having the fullness of the Spirit. The same dynamic is also present in John 6.

Jesus expected both the Jews in general and His disciples to know Who He was, based on the revelation that already existed (even prior to miracles). As one of many examples of this theme, we have recorded what Jesus said to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus:

Luke 24:25-27 “And he said to them, “O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! [26] Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” [27] And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

Yes, grace and faith are required (all agree on that). Jesus is rebuking them for not accepting this grace and faith, which would enable them to understand these things that they do not, which leads Jesus to call them “foolish” and “slow” to “believe.”

Jesus thought slowness to believe and to have faith was quite culpable, even before Pentecost, as we see by His reactions many times to it. If there was no (or little) culpability, then there would have been no rebuke from Him. He would have just said, I think, “Okay guys, I know this is very difficult to accept. No sweat. No problem . . . ” Instead He rebukes for lack of faith, for rebellion, for inability to accept what He says is fairly plain in Old Testament Scripture.

He didn’t act that way in John 6. After they complained that it was a “hard saying” (6:60), He didn’t respond by softening or sympathizing that it is so difficult to believe, as if that is normal and expected. Rather, He said, “Do you take offense at this?” (6:61) and “there are some of you that do not believe.” (6:64).

He also notes the absolute necessity of prior enabling grace: “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” (6:65). But what I find most interesting is that He still rebukes them: implying that they have guilt for not accepting the grace that would enable them to believe. They are still at fault, and so is anyone who rejects His grace and revealed teaching.

They were culpable every time, it seems to me (i.e. educated Jews of the first century, and Jesus’ disciples who repeatedly witnessed His miracles), there was a lack of faith or belief. If, in fact, Jesus thought they were not culpable in these instances, I really don’t understand why He said what it is recorded that He said (here is more of the same theme):

Matthew 6:30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith? (cf. Lk 12:28)

Matthew 16:8 But Jesus, aware of this, said, “O men of little faith, why do you discuss among yourselves the fact that you have no bread?”

Matthew 17:20 He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, `Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.”

John 4:48 Jesus therefore said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.”

He doesn’t say what it seems to me that He would say if there were little or no culpability: “you don’t understand because you don’t have enough grace / haven’t yet received the Spirit (so it’s way above your pay grade).” Etc. . . .

There is a little of that in a few places (because it’s a both / and scenario), but it doesn’t wipe out many more instances of human culpability and rebuke for same. We can never deny the necessity of faith and grace, but some want to deny almost all human culpability, and I don’t think that can be squared with Scripture. During the entire old covenant period, men were culpable for both sin and lack of faith. It isn’t like all that began with Pentecost, and everyone gets a big pass before that time.

With the disciples it is a weak faith in consideration: “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mk 9:24). With the Pharisees it is outright unbelief brought about by pride.

My general point is that Jesus assumes that they should not have merely weak faith (and culpability exists, because they have the weakness). Otherwise, why would Jesus repeatedly rebuke the disciples for having “little faith” when, according to you, He would have understood full well that they could only have a weak faith by the nature of the case, and it couldn’t be otherwise till Pentecost? No one rebukes someone for what they can’t by nature do in the first place; what is impossible.

We don’t say to a five-year-old, “why couldn’t you pass the exam on calculus?” Or to an infant, “Have you read War and Peace?” These are meaningless questions.

But we can say that they had a weak faith and they moved to a position of realizing this and accepting the need for a greater faith by God’s grace. I was contending that Jesus’ comment, “why did you doubt?” presupposes that Peter was at a lower level of faith than he should have been at that time. Therefore, it was a rebuke; therefore he was culpable (since a rebuke presupposes fault and ability to have done better; or else it is, again, meaningless).

Since Jesus kept mentioning “little faith” as a shortcoming, He must have obviously assumed (unspoken premise) that they could and should have more of it than they did (at the time He issued the rebuke).

I readily agree that it would take time to develop such faith (since we all know that from our own experience of being stubborn, prideful sinners). I know that as much as anyone. God had to lay me out for six months with clinical depression and deep existential despair before I would cease my relentless rebellion against Him (or cease my apathy as to whether He had any claim whatever on my life).

* * * *

Jesus rebuked the Pharisees, on the other hand (a far more difficult case), not just for spiritual pride, but also for disbelief in Old Testament revelation. He argued with the Pharisees over and over, that His teaching and He Himself as Messiah were manifest in Scripture. That stands alongside His constant rebukes of their hypocrisy. Thus, their fault was for those two things, not just one.

This applies even to a “good Pharisee” like Nicodemus, whom Jesus mildly scolds for being ignorant of basic things: “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand this?” (John 3:10)

Jesus thought belief was already quite possible and justified by OT scriptural revelation:

Luke 16:27-31 And he said, `Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house, [28] for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ [29] But Abraham said, `They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ [30] And he said, `No, father Abraham; but if some one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ [31] He said to him, `If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead.'”

I could come up with all kinds of passages about this. Here’s one:

John 5:39-40, 44-47 You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me; [40] yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. . . . [44] How can you believe, who receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? [45] Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; it is Moses who accuses you, on whom you set your hope. [46] If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. [47] But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

The Pharisees failed to accept what Jesus sure seems to assume (from what we see Him saying) was clear and manifest. This is much of the point, e.g., in OT prophecies being cited in the NT (esp. in Matthew). The argument there was that it was plain that Jesus was fulfilling these prophecies that all the Pharisees were quite familiar with. Even Herod’s advisors knew that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem. All Jews knew that.

Jews even knew something about a suffering Messiah, from Isaiah. They still did after Jesus (I’ve studied quite a bit about their views of the Messiah). That wasn’t completely unknown. They just didn’t like it or want it, because it’s natural to yearn for the conqueror and not the suffering servant.

Stubbornness and pride adversely affect logic, as anyone who does evangelism and apologetics is surely familiar with from a million examples. The late great Steven Jay Gould (himself an agnostic) used to write whole books about how pride and stubbornness and human bias and party affiliations affected good science and sometimes caused atrocious pseudo-science, like phrenology or the hoax of Piltdown Man.

It works the same way in religious matters! We can all see it in our own lives, in things we’ve had to learn the hard way (very much true in my case, as I am a stubborn Scotsman!).

I would contend that Jesus brings both these themes together, with regard to the Pharisees. He’s saying, in effect, “your stubborn spiritual pride blinds you to what is manifest in Scripture.” So He argues (paraphrase): “all you gotta do is go as far as Moses and He is already speaking about Me. Yet for some odd reason you (who fancy yourselves such masters of Scripture) reject Me.”

Unbelievers today are vastly more ignorant than educated Jews at the time of Jesus. Thus, they get a lot more of a pass for ignorance. For that very different theme, see Romans 2 or St. Paul’s discourse on Mars Hill in Athens (Acts 17:16-33).

I think there is a lot here in these Bible passages for us to ponder: about human pride, stubbornness, lack of faith, and unbelief.

* * * * *

2017-05-21T16:28:48-04:00

Last updated on: May 21, 2017 at 4:28 pm   By

Leonardo

Portrait of Leonardo da Vinci (a polymath) by Francesco Melzi (1493-1570) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

This exchange occurred in the combox for my post, Clarifications re: Atheist “Reductio” Paper. My opponent’s (JD Eveland’s) words will be in blue. He has very impressive credentials: a Ph.D. and various professorships. He claims to be a “polymath” too: which means a great genius, with expertise in many fields. This title has been applied to men like Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, and Isaac Newton.

I’m honored to have been able to talk at all with such a distinguished man (I truly am). Of course, when we started talking, I didn’t know any of this about him (I did know that many active atheists and agnostics online have advanced degrees and are very sharp). 

What I have been known for, these past 19 years online, is engaging in lots of honest dialogues (over 700 posted through the years), where I present all of my opponent’s words (in a given discussion of one broad or specific topic)  and interact with them. I have written three books (one / two / three) that are entirely or mostly of this nature. Readers can then exercise their own critical faculties in judging relative merits of the arguments. This is the beauty of dialogue, and why I love it so much as a teaching tool. Free speech and exchange of ideas are wonderful things.

* * * * *


Let’s assume for a bit that there is some element of “faith” in accepting the notion of a non-theistic universe, analogous to the faith exercised in accepting a theistic universe. There still remain two critical differences that render this equivalence false. First, there is the question of how to deal with disconfirming evidence. The non-theist has no difficulty incorporating new information into his worldview; the theist, by contrast, must deny such evidence if it turns out to disconfirm some particular article of faith deemed necessary. Second, even if one agrees to call all the uncertainties in the universe “God”, there is no necessary segue to acceptance of the details of the Catholic/Christian “God” as necessary and valid. Something other than the inherent uncertainty of cosmological questions would be necessary to establish the Christian “God” as the only legitimate way of filling in the cosmological holes.

1. Philosophy and religion (non-empirical ways of knowledge) generally ascertain knowledge non-empirically (DUH!!!).Therefore, your “argument” is a non sequitur. All it establishes is that science operates with the methodology and presuppositions of scientific method, which no one denied in the first place. It can’t speak to non-empiricism because it is outside of its purview. 

It seems that not one atheist or agnostic in a hundred understands this basic, fundamental, elementary fact of epistemology and reality, but assuredly there are some. I’ve met them here.

2. I have not argued that the Christian God necessarily follows if we reject the fathomless irrationality of atheism / agnosticism, so your point on that score is also a non sequitur. I have asserted that it is reasonable (and requires no more faith) to posit God as an alternative explanation of the origins of things. But that is only the “bare” philosophical / deist-type / Humean God. The Christian / biblical God has to be proven by any number of other arguments.

You gave it the old college try; you just have to present some arguments that are not non sequiturs.

Wrong again, Dave. Philosophy (if not religion) may be “non-empirical” in the sense that there aren’t experiments that can be set up to test particular propositions, but it is expected at least to follow the general rules of logic and discourse. It is also expected not to blatantly contradict empirically verifiable propositions. Non-experimental methods aren’t a license to just throw any old thought up against the wall and see if you can convince people that it’s sticking.

And I would also observe that the article also covertly attempts to get around your second assertion (which is in fact correct). By failing to make this point explicitly in the article, you leave a wide space within which you may hope that the non-analytical will be persuaded that if there is any difficulty to be found with some atheist propositions, the only alternative is traditional Christianity. It would be more intellectually honest to be clear about what you have and have not either refuted or verified.

1st paragraph: you seem to be laboring under the illusion that we disagree about much more than is actually the case. I have no reply to this portion because I essentially agree with it.

2nd paragraph: I fail to see what more I need to say by way of clarification. I have massively done that here. The paper is about the necessity of faith on all sides, and universal acceptance of as-yet-unproven and unprovable (?) axioms.

I don’t recall saying anywhere in the clarification or in the original paper anything along the lines of “the only alternative is traditional Christianity.” Perhaps you can kindly direct me to any such statement of mine (documentation is always a helpful thing). If it can be found, I’ll retract it, because it is not what I believe, and I must have had a momentary lapse of reason if I stated that.

Glancing at the original paper, I do find the following assertion: “the Christian must reject it [atheism], since we believe (very unlike the Atomist) that irrational and non-rational beliefs are untrue and unworthy of anyone’s allegiance.”

Disbelieving in X is not the same as belief in Y. Here (and throughout the paper) I was asserting that atheists exercised faith just as Christians do (on a very fundamental or presuppositional level), but also that atheist faith is ultimately irrational and should be rejected as such.

Thus I was arguing that X is unworthy of belief. I give few if any positive reasons for acceptance of Y. Of course I do that in many other places, seeing that I am a Christian / Catholic apologist. I have 1500 posts online and 49 published books. But somehow you have this notion that I either argued (or mistakenly believed) that rejection of X is logically and automatically an acceptance of Y.

And that is apparently because Christians are routinely (among atheists and agnostics) thought to be very illogical and “unscientific” people, who would routinely make such elementary mistakes in logic. Some Christians are that way; the majority (at least of thinking / educated ones) are not. I am not. If you desire constructive discussion with me, the sooner you figure out that I think logically (agree or disagree with me), the better for good and mutually enjoyable discussion.

***

The paper doesn’t assume or require belief that Christianity is correct, but I do, personally, as a Catholic. One can critique one view without necessarily having another, though I think it is better to have an alternative at least in mind.

Just because a proposition is an “alternative” to a somewhat questionable proposition says nothing whatever about its “truth”. There are at least as many silly alternative propositions as there are silly main propositions. Putting something forward as an “alternative” without offering at least some evidence for its having greater validity than the original is not much of a contribution to any public discourse.

***

The issue is not whether or not there are non-immediately-verifiable propositions underlying any world view; of course there are. The issue is how they are handled in the future. Non-theist propositions are all subject to review and change; theist propositions are in principle not subject to empirical review. The moment that you assert propositions that are not subject to refutation, you’ve placed yourself outside the sphere of rational discourse.

Sure, you can believe that if you are also willing to classify all non-empirical philosophical thought as “outside the sphere of rational discourse.” That is patently ridiculous, and most people, whether they believe in God or not, see it for what it is.

This is sort of a religion made out of empiricism, or what C. S. Lewis relentlessly critiqued as “scientism”: the belief that only science can reliably answer all relevant questions about anything.

Any rational belief (including Christians ones) is or should be subject to refutation, but that’s not the same as saying (as you seem to say) that all rational refutation is of an empirical nature. You appear to imply the latter by stating, “theist propositions are in principle not subject to empirical review.”

I concur that we probably agree on quite a lot. I think that we continue to disagree on the nature of science. I would agree that there are questions about which science has little to say, but that doesn’t mean that in principle science might not have something to say down the road.

If I’m not wholly deluded, I see the point of your article to be that both science and religion deal with propositions that are not immediately subject to empirical tests – what you term “faith propositions”. True enough. But you then seem to suggest that these are equivalent, and that is not so. Untested scientific propositions may be used as axioms, but if evidence emerges that they are not correct, they can be discarded without fundamental change to the scientific worldview. The shift from a geocentric to a heliocentric universe was accomplished without rejecting astronomy as an idea. On the other hand, rejection of a religious axiom (such as the existence of a God) entails the rejection of the whole approach.

Here’s the difference. I am not currently a “believer” in God as generally understood, particularly the Christian view. Yet I can easily describe empirical evidence that would cause me to revise my ideas and change. Could you do the same? Is there any evidence that might be adduced that would cause you to revise your faith propositions? The difference between my “faith” and yours is that mine interacts with the world, while yours exists independent from the world. To obscure this difference by labeling both approaches as “faith-based” seems a bit disingenuous.

The characterization in your last paragraph is quite unfair and untrue.

There are a number of things that could theoretically dissuade someone of Christianity, because it is belief based in part (importantly so) on empirical evidence of observation and miracle (the latter not being arbitrarily ruled out as impossible from the outset). Here are some:

1) Producing the verifiable bones of Jesus.

2) Proving that His resurrection was an elaborate hoax.

3) Proving that the New Testament was pure fiction, made up by those who wrote it and deliberately presented to the public in order to deceive them.

4) Proving that Jesus of Nazareth never existed.

5) Proving that Jesus never made the claims of being God that the New Testament [massively] presents as having occurred, in history (a variation of the Lord, Liar, or Lunatic? “trilemma” argument).

Save for #1, skeptics and atheists and agnostics have seriously tried to argue all of these claims. I had an atheist friend in my home make the [pathetic] “case” that St. Paul never existed. I think they have failed miserably. Of course, you will just say that I say that because I “have” to.

Believe what you will. These are conceivable, theoretical, hypothetical disproofs, whereas you were just claiming that there are no such things for the Christian. Atheists and agnostics often do so; and it’s all thoroughly wrongheaded analysis.

I have now shown that there were many such things, and that was just off the top of my head. As in all such questions of evidence and proof, reasonable people can disagree as to the strength of a proposed disproof.

I’d like to add another quick note on your “empirical evidence of observation and miracle”. Regarding observation, I’m assuming that you are referring to the “Gospels” and related pseudoeipgraphia dating from the first couple of centuries CE. Since you begin with the presumption that, say, the “Gospel of Matthew” represents legitimate testimony written down by somebody named “Matthew” who was an acquaintance of Jesus, I would have to either prove that there wasn’t anybody named Matthew around the time of Jesus whom I have known him, or find some copy of the gospel that contained a footnote saying that this was actually written by John of Cappadocia in the sixth century. The burden ought to be on the observer to establish the truth of what s/he claims to have seen, not on the reader to disprove it.

Regarding miracles, I’m assuming that you’re referring to things that happen in the natural world for which there is no immediately apparent naturalistic explanation. There are a lot of things that happen all around us that we can’t immediately explain; that by no means establishes that there isn’t a naturalistic explanation. If someone claims to have been cured of cancer by praying to an image of the Virgin Mary that appeared in a pancake somewhere, that hardly establishes a miracle just because you or anyone else says it is. It’s not legitimate to say that a particular occurrence is miraculous just because its mechanics can’t be immediately understood in terms of natural science at the moment.

Nor is it legitimate to claim that it couldn’t possibly be miraculous because our stunted, paltry epistemology and worldview won’t allow it.

I’m gratified that in principle you are willing to set forth some possible conditions for disconfirmation of Christian belief. Of course, some of the conditions are essentially impossible to establish. Proving a negative proposition – e.g., #4-5 – is extremely difficult if not impossible, since some margin of doubt will always remain that one other piece of evidence might be out there. It’s also common practice to interpret evidence that contradicts the Christian interpretation as something artificially planted by either God or Satan deliberately to mislead and/or tempt the faithful; there’s no possible argument against this, since it assumes supernatural power and authority. This line of argument has been employed often enough that any claim to true falsifiability of any fundamental Christian propositions is seriously suspect.

Finally, as you yourself note, it ultimately comes down to the credibility of the evidence and what you’re willing to accept as legitimate proof. It’s one thing to say that you’re open to evidence that might disconfirm your beliefs; quite another to get you to admit that particular items of evidence constitute legitimate objections. Whatever bones I might produce in response to your #1, what hope would I have of ever establishing in your mind that they were in fact those of Jesus (DNA testing not having been overwhelmingly available in first century Palestine)?

In short, you’re playing a rhetorical game which by definition you win unless I can pass a series of impossible tests. This is in direct contradiction to Carl Sagan’s theorem that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. By asking me to provide extraordinary evidence, you’re implicitly stating that my disbelief is a personal supreme being is an extraordinary claim. I would suggest instead that the existence of such a being is the extraordinary claim, and therefore the burden of extraordinary evidence ought to fall upon you. I’m willing to continue the discussion, but I’d rather not just play word games.

And I’d rather not go round and round with atheists who are exceedingly unlikely to change their minds regarding anything Christian. I usually stick to exposing fallacies and falsehoods in their reasoning when they attack Christianity.

I have neither attacked Christianity (all I said was that I was not personally a Christian) nor committed any fallacies or uttered any falsehoods in the course of this discussion. I am unlikely to change my opinions, since you have offered nothing in the way of evidence. I’ll leave it to the readers of these comments to decide who has made the more salient and useful comments.

[Since he wouldn’t tell us what his belief-system is, I discovered that he is an agnostic, as he stated five months ago in a comment elsewhere:

I didn’t say that there is no god. I said that I didn’t have any unequivocal proof that there is one. As a scientist ought to, I retain an open mind to any evidence that might be adduced in favor of the hypothesis. There is no faith involved except for a belief in the value of the scientific method. And even that is also open to question. . . . 

The “God” of evangelical Christians is only one possible thing to believe in. There is about as much evidence for its being an accurate descrioption of divinity as there is for the existence of Marduk, Apollo, or Set.

I prefer not to believe something for which there is no particular evidence other than what someone says or wrote down.I believe facts, and I believe reliable heuristics. That’s the default. It takes an affirmative action to assert the existence of something for which there is no evidence. It takes no faith at all to remain skeptical about such a being, and even more about the validity of a set of dubious moral precepts which are largely irrational and are premised solely on someone interpreting what they think that this dubious deity might actually want.

I’m certainly prepared to accept the idea that there may be some larger intelligence behind the Universe. But I doubt that it issues instructions on the way to have sex or eat shrimp.

Ten months ago in the same thread, he wrote:

I have read the Bible carefully, and will stack my knowledge of it up against that of almost any Christian. I have read theologians from Plato through Augustine and Aquinas, to Luther and Calvin. I come from 13 generations of New Englanders; my direct ancestors were among the Puritans who founded Boston in 1630 and established its theocracy in the name of Calvin and Zwingli. I understand antinomianism, predestination, salvation by grace, dispensationalism, and a whole lot more. I’ve made a serious study of all this.

The problem is this: it all makes sense only if you are prepared to accept certain basic assumptions that make little to no sense, purely on faith (that is, belief without prior evidence). You’re welcome to believe whatever you like – six impossible things before breakfast, as the Red Queen said, if you like. Personally, I can see no basis for accepting a premise such as an omnipotent and omniscient being in charge of this whole Universe of a hundred billion galaxies each with a hundred million or more stars endowing me with the facility of reason and then requiring me to suspend it entirely in favor of believing a story made up a couple of thousand years ago on a hillside somewhere among the sheep; who would create someone knowing that he was going to do something wrong, and then create multiple billions of souls solely for the purpose of tormenting them for all eternity (since he would know that they wouldn’t accept the story at face value) on account of something that a supposed ancestor did unaccountable generations ago; and who moreover cares so much about who I might go to bed with that he requires me to be killed in the most appalling kinds of ways solely because of the plumbing of my bedmate. ]

 

2017-05-21T16:44:16-04:00

Last updated on: May 21, 2017 at 4:44 pm   By

AngryMan5

[Pixabay /  CC0 Public Domain]

This exchange took place in the combox of my post, Why Did a Perfect God Create an Imperfect World? The words of “MountainDewFan4” will be in blue.

* * * * *

So many people think they could do a better job at being God than God does. Atheists love to do this; but not a few Christians fall into the same foolish trap, too.

OK, I can agree that god can not create perfect humans. Otherwise they would also be gods … but why didn’t he do a better job might be a good question. 
Humans are not perfect … but they are FAR, FAR, FAR from perfect. 
Why are there birth defects?
Why do people get cancer?
Why are some people very smart while others aren’t?
Why do people die?
Why are some people capable of rape and murder?
Why was my former boss such a jerk?
Why are people hungry in the U.S. and across the planet?
Why do so many people get depressed?
Why can’t humans fly?
Why can’t humans grow back limbs?
Why do hawks have better vision than humans, and dogs have better smelling abilities than humans? Why didn’t god give humans the “best” stuff?

It would appear that this “Perfect” god, really didn’t do a very good job creating his people.

Again, original sin / the fall explains much of human evil, that we commit against each other. We’re fallen; we have a propensity to sin, temptations to do it, adverse influences from our surroundings. And so we sin.

In Christian theology, God gives us power to overcome these things and do much better. He gives us grace through the sacraments (physical means of obtaining God’s grace, which is powerful to counter sin). He gives us the Holy Spirit to live inside of us and help us. He gives us the Church and fellow believers and family and friends to guide and encourage and love us. There is prayer; there is intercession of others.

These are the means of improvement, if only we would avail ourselves of them. Many do not (many can’t even figure out that there is a God and that Christianity is true), and so, how can they improve their fallen state?

I don’t need to answer every single question you raise. Most are caused by our fallenness. The natural world has consequences that can be harmful, because of its very nature. If we fall off a building, we’ll get hurt, because the ground is hard underneath. What is God supposed to do? Change the ground to jelly just because we’re falling on it? Then the world would be unpredictable and we couldn’t do things like science (that requires a principle or presupposition of uniformitarianism), which has made life easier and helped people live more comfortably (esp. medical science).

You wanna foolishly blame God for cancer. My father and mother both died of lung cancer. My father was a smoker. We know through science that this directly leads to lung cancer. So he acted stupidly and caused his own final illness. My mother never smoked, but they say second-hand smoke can be very harmful. So maybe I’ll be blessed by that, too, and die of lung cancer, due to someone else’s stupidity; not my own. I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life. You blame God for what (in this case) was clearly caused by human stupidity and unwillingness to modify behavior. How is that God’s fault? You tell me.

People blame God for the Nazi Holocaust. For Pete’s sake; that whole thing could have easily been prevented if the world had simply listened to Winston Churchill’s warnings, all through the 30s. It’s as simple as that! But they preferred to pretend everything was fine, and put their heads in the sand, all the way up to 1940, even after Hitler had invaded Poland. Now we’re letting Iran get nuclear weapons. We never learn. Malcolm Muggeridge was also warning everyone in the 1930s that Stalin was in the process of starving ten million Ukrainians. No one wanted to listen. The liberals of the time were infatuated with Uncle Joe Stalin, who could do no wrong. Is all this God’s fault, too? Or were people stupid and willfully blind to reality?

You bring up hunger and blame God for that. There is plenty of food on the earth to feed everyone: probably several times over. So why do people starve? Again, human stupidity and greed . . . We know that several governments act in ways that are directly causing hunger: keeping food from people.

That happened (to give two clear examples) in the Irish Famine in the 1840s and in the Ukraine in the 1930s (just alluded to). Communism and socialism bring it about because they are empty-headed economic systems. So why are you so foolish to imply for a second that this is God’s fault? He has given us the wisdom to produce food. If we’d stop sinning and being stupid in our governments and economic systems, there’d be plenty to go around. Or is the evil and stupidity of Stalinism and British oppression of the Irish somehow God’s fault, too?

Can’t you figure these things out without me pointing it out to you? Your list may look very impressive at first glance, but when we start to closely examine it, it’s a very different story.

One thing I know for sure. I’d rather have all these things in a world with God, where they may be sometimes difficult to understand, but where we know God loves us (suffered and died for us!) and has heaven waiting for us if we follow Him; as opposed to a godless universe where nothing has any meaning at bottom and there is no ultimate hope: only death and a despairing, nihilistic sad finality to everything.

That is the really thorny, disturbing problem: the “problem of good“,  which is far more of a difficulty than the problem of evil (the most respectable criticism of theism and Christianity).

That was a very well written and well thought out response.

I”m not saying that all of these things are “God’s fault”. What I’m saying is why doesn’t god do anything to prevent or fix these things?

You state that people there is plenty of food, it’s just people’s greed that causes others to starve.

Well, my point is … if God is so powerful, and so loving … why can’t he do something about that? Why can’t he snap his fingers and make corn grow in Ethiopia?

Here is a question for you. Suppose a man had a son who was in pain and slowly dying. The man never calls a doctor, never gives his son medicine, yet every day his son gets worse and worse. This man does nothing to alleviate his son’s pain, he does instead sits back and watches his child just wither away and DIE !!! What kind of a father would do that? What kind of cruel being would do that???

I’ll tell you exactly what kind of being would do that …. God. This is exactly what your God does EVERY SINGLE DAY! He is supposedly “ALL POWERFUL” … yet he DOES NOT use any of this supposed Power to actually Help his children. He does not use this power to end the suffering of his children …. instead, he just sits back and watches them suffer and slowly wither away and die.

Either this God is not All Loving, not All Powerful … or doesn’t exist.

Glad you liked the response and thanks for your kind comment about it.

“What I’m saying is why doesn’t god do anything to prevent or fix these things?”

He’s under no more obligation to repair everything that we’ve made a mess out of than a parent is to fix and repair every silly thing a child does. At some point the child has to learn to be responsible and live life without mommy or daddy holding his or her hand every moment. Likewise, with God and us. He gave us the ability and knowledge to solve almost all of the problems you cite. Therefore, it is absurd to keep blaming Him for our mistakes.

Yes, God could do any number of miracles and solve the problems that we create in our sin and rebellion (occasionally He does when He deems it purposeful to do so). I don’t see how that would help us. We would never learn responsibility or proper stewardship of what He has given us if God became a big “cosmic Santa Claus” in the sky. Atheists mock us for believing such things, then when God doesn’t live up to what they think He should be, they (quite ironically and comically) propose even more “cosmic Santa Claus” than the caricature of Christianity that we (in their eyes) supposedly believe.

Now God is supposed to (in order to please atheists’ never-ending irrational demands) prevent or immediately resolve every single calamity that is conceivable to the mind of man or that actually happens. He just swoops down and changes the sharp knife edge to jelly and the speeding bullet to gas. And we supposedly live in Fantasy-Land?

2017-05-21T16:50:23-04:00

Last updated on: May 21, 2017 at 4:50 pm   By

Leprechaun

Leprechaun, by Ignacio Leo [Wikimedia Commons  /  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license]

This was a discussion in one of my comboxes, under my post, Why Did a Perfect God Create an Imperfect World?

* * * * *

Mark Moore: I have heard students of Lord of the Rings, Star Trek and other fictional tales discuss them in a similar way, parsing the language, making inferences. Arguing over what an orc or a Klingon might or might not do. Logic without testing in the physical universe can lead to any fancy one would want. It is easy to prove leprechauns exist when you don’t have to find and present them – I have one sitting here beside me now – anyone care to prove that I don’t? He is just a real as any god.

momtarkle: We seem to agree on one thing: Things are. After that ,we disagree. You say that things are, because God. (An omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and necessarily Christian God.) I say that I know of no evidence of your, or any other, God, so I cannot accept the belief that there is one. If I do find out why things are, I’ll let you know.

Christianity has plenty of empirical indications in its favor. See. e.g., “Two Dozen (or So) Theistic Arguments,” by the eminent Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga. This particular piece of mine presupposed that God exists and goes on to deal with an aspect of the problem of evil. I wasn’t trying to prove that God exists.

Next thing you’ll bring up Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, and the Easter bunny. It’s a fun game (ha ha ha), but only shows how fundamentally silly and desperate many atheist arguments are.

The fact remains that many very bright, sharp people, including thousands of brilliant scientists and philosophers have believed in God. There is far, far more to theism than the silly atheist comparisons. We’re not all gullible anti-scientific, non-rational idiots, believe it or not.

Not to mention that atheism, closely examined, involves far more leaps of faith and fantastic beliefs than Christianity ever has. See, e.g., a recent piece I did (that ruffled a ton of feathers and created a huge big stink: almost wholly because of misunderstanding the very nature of my argument and humor): Atheism: the Faith of “Atomism.”

Lastly, it is impossible to absolutely prove that you exist. Yet you casually assume that you do. You can’t absolutely prove that Australia or Manitoba or Andorra exist: at least without having witnessed them yourself. You take their existence as facts because others have testified to it. Yet this is precisely the same sort of data that the Bible provides us with in the case of Jesus. People saw Him, witnessed His miracles, and met Him after He came back from the dead.

Atheists foolishly think they overcome such evidence by simply dismissing the very possibility of miraculous occurrences beforehand, which is an arbitrary piece of logic, apart from empirical observation and testing, precisely like what you condemn above.

God has given us plenty of ways to overcome them, as I noted in another post. We can second-guess God all we like and try to figure Him out, or we can start following His advice and have a much more happy, joyful life.

We have to exercise faith and trust. We’ll never figure everything out about God, anymore than we can figure everything out about His creation. Science still doesn’t have the foggiest idea of how the universe began, how life began, how DNA began . . . They study and seek (and that’s fun and informative), but they don’t yet know. Why, then, do we think we can figure out a God Who is (as we believe) omniscient? It’s absurd to think that we can (assuming acceptance of Christian beliefs about Him).

We can seek and try to learn all we can, of course, but it shouldn’t be a stumbling-block or cause a lack of faith and joy, let alone unbelief.

2017-06-03T13:06:12-04:00

Last updated on: June 3, 2017 at 1:06 pm   By

HellTurkmenistan

“The Door to Hell” in Turkmenistan, Darvaza [Wikimedia Commons /Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license]

Someone wrote on my Facebook page:

I don’t like when Mary said to the children at Fatima that people are going there because they have no one to pray for them. It just really bothers me. The thought is awful. How shall Christ be all in all when so many of his members are eternally damned? Lord please have mercy on a soul destined to be damned tonight because of my failure to pray. Your mercy is boundless You say and you are willing if I but ask. I beg you in the name of your Son’s death to have mercy on every human that will die tonight. Forgive them for they didn’t know what they were doing.

Everyone who goes to hell has had every chance to repent. God gives grace enough to all for them to repent, but some (many, apparently) choose not to. It’s their fault in the end. Prayer and penance and love assuredly help them along the road, but ultimately each individual decides and each stands before God, accountable for their actions and beliefs. God’s grace is sufficient to save them. They choose not to avail themselves of it.

Mary, however, does say that many go to hell because they have no one to pray for them.

I think it’s two truths that we must hold simultaneously (as so often in the Bible and Catholicism):

1. It’s always better to be the recipient of more intercessory prayer (and/or love or penance or God’s grace, etc.) rather than less.

2. Each individual is ultimately responsible for the fate of his or her own soul.

It would be like a scenario in which a husband or wife abandoned their spouse. We could say, “if only the one abandoned had been more loving or did more acts of kindness [or mutual friends had positively intervened more], maybe the other wouldn’t have left.” Well, maybe (that can always be said, can’t it?), yet the person is still responsible for leaving, and bears the primary blame.

The Blessed Virgin Mary wants to communicate to us (without doubt) that it’s always good and crucial that we pray for souls. We have to love them and be compassionate and merciful; to evangelize and share! I’ve devoted my life to sharing and defending the gospel and the message of the fullness of Christianity in the Catholic Church, so obviously I recognize its supreme importance. With more prayer and other spiritual aids, some of them could be turned to repentance and be saved, yes. God wants to include us in the whole process of redemption.

But each (ultimately damned) person already has enough grace to be saved from the outset and has chosen not to receive it. They ultimately have only themselves to blame if they are condemned to [i.e., choose] hell in the end. If they want to point to others and say, “They didn’t do a, b, c, so I could be saved,” that becomes mere blame-shifting on their part. God can always reply with, “But that’s no excuse for you. I sent you x, y, and z, and situations 1, 2, 3 where you had more than ample opportunity to receive My grace and repent, but you [using your free will that I gave you as a gift] steadfastly refused . . .”

Jesus notes in one parable that even if a person is raised from the dead as a witness, some folks won’t believe anyway. Thus, if even the greatest miracles can’t break through such profound unbelief and rebellion, our prayers won’t be able to, either, in those cases. They’ve hardened their hearts.

The reprobate can always attempt to blame others, and God can always reply as above: that His grace was more than sufficient in each case, but was spurned and rejected. We will all stand accountable for our actions and our lives, regardless of what others did or didn’t do (this is solid biblical and Catholic teaching). We’ve all fallen short and rebelled against God, and all must rely wholly on His free offer of grace, made possible by our Lord and Savior Jesus’ death on the cross, to be saved in the end.

Much of Catholic thought, I’ve found, involves “both/and” thinking. Things exist together in complementarity, that are often wrongly thought to be opposed to each other. I said, pray for folks. I didn’t say not to. I emphasized its extreme importance. It’s the distinction between sufficient and efficient grace. Every soul is provided sufficient grace by God. But the reprobate spurn it. Prayer can help make the sufficient grace become efficient, so that they actually repent. But not always; it’s not automatic. Free will dictates that there are souls who will be lost no matter what. 

After all, Satan himself was with God. He had everything any being could conceivably want: except that he wasn’t God, and he couldn’t handle that. He managed to rebel, right from heaven, with God. No being could have any more “spiritual advantage” than that. But it wasn’t efficient, to prevent his fall.

Free will means that the grace can always be rejected, and also that it comes down to the individual in the end. That’s why Calvinism, in order to bolster its double predestination, had to deny human free will and assert irresistible grace. The Catholic position is the contrary on both counts (though we do believe that God predestines the elect, while not superseding their free will).

I can affirm that we ought to fervently pray for souls, while denying that it leads to a scenario where I am responsible in some profound way for a soul going to hell because I didn’t pray hard enough for him or her. We can always do more in any situation. That can become “overscrupulous” in a sense and drive us crazy if we ponder it too much. That will become Satan’s guilt trip and zap our spiritual energy. We have to take a larger view.

Each person ultimately is responsible for his or her own decision with regard to God and salvation. If we don’t do our “duty” towards them, God in His mercy will surely send someone else or some other situation, to give the person every chance to repent and make it to heaven. So we need not feel guilty about them: to the extent that we are in a crisis or suffering greatly: because that affects our spiritual life for ill in the long run.

But we should absolutely pray and do penance for others and anything that will help them. I assert both things and hold them together; semi-paradoxically, but consistently. Nor does my assertion of one somehow reduce the other, like a zero-sum game. Both/and . . . This is biblical and Catholic thinking, again and again: neither one extreme nor the other.

2017-05-21T18:03:18-04:00

Last updated on: May 21, 2017 at 6:03 pm   By

SermonOnTheMount

Sermon on the Mount, by Carl Heinrich Bloch, 1876 [public domain / Wikipedia]

. . . against those who refused the gospel?

Is this a refusal to “meet people where they are at”?

If we think that something Jesus said is “spiteful” we clearly have taken a wrong turn in our exegesis. This isn’t consigning folks to hell. It’s a typically Jewish figurative-but-concrete expression of protest against rebelliousness, hardheartedness, and stubbornness (perhaps the leading theme of the entire Old Testament). Hence Jesus says:

Luke 9:5 (RSV) And wherever they do not receive you, when you leave that town shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them.

My friend, Fr. Deacon Daniel Dozier noted: “they are evangelizing their fellow Israelites at a particular historical moment in Israel’s history.”

Yes, when it was their time (the “fullness of time”) to accept the gospel and the Messiah or not. Great point. They certainly had heard and seen more than enough, and now more than ever with Jesus and miracles taking place all around.

We mustn’t think that God strives with men forever. He clearly does not. They can cut themselves off with persistent rebellion, as Paul makes clear in Romans 1 and many other places. God can only work with a free will freely accepting His grace and mercy. This is the point.

Jesus acted quite differently with Jews who spurned His message than with Gentiles who had not yet been exposed to God’s teaching at all (as the Jews had been with some 1500 years or revelation and salvation history).

He simply rebuked stubborn Jews (think of all the discourses against the Pharisees). He knew what was going on there. It was a rebellious spirit. He didn’t argue at any length with folks like that. Being omniscient, He knew who would accept His message and who wouldn’t, and there was no point.

Both Jesus and Paul would argue / reason / dialogue with and try to persuade people who were open-minded, but not with those who weren’t. Both left (and rebuked) towns that were not receptive to the gospel:

Matthew 11:20-24  Then he began to upbraid the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. [21] “Woe to you, Chora’zin! woe to you, Beth-sa’ida! for if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. [22] But I tell you, it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. [23] And you, Caper’na-um, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. [24] But I tell you that it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.”

Acts 18:4-6 And [in Corinth] he argued in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded Jews and Greeks. [5] When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedo’nia, Paul was occupied with preaching, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. [6] And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, “Your blood be upon your heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”

And of course, St. Paul in many of his writings urges us not to participate in foolish controversies and to separate from divisive, unrepentant people. That’s all quite biblical and quite loving, and very contrary to our present “PC” society with its false tolerance and pseudo-principles and supposedly nicey-nicey “values.” We mustn’t let ourselves be too influenced by that sort of thinking rather than the biblical worldview.

2017-06-03T13:08:45-04:00

Last updated on: June 3, 2017 at 1:08 pm   By
MontyPython

It’s satire folks; like Monty Python (four of the six members of the British comedy troupe above) [Wikimedia Commons /  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license]

***

(7-10-15)

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This came about as a result of an atheist responding to my paper, Why Atheists Are Far More Religious Than we Think. It occurred on a public Facebook page. His name will remain anonymous (unless he requests otherwise), but all the words are his, and will be in blue.
* * * * *

It really is just kind of semantic. The atheist, at least the scientifically minded one, would not starkly claim that there is no possible way that a god created the universe. We are simply saying that there is no more reason to believe a god created it than to believe it was created by the tooth fairy or a dragon.

Exactly my point in reverse. Thanks for verifying my reasoning. I was arguing that there is no more reason — and that it requires as much faith [which might be defined very broadly as a belief in unproven axioms] — to believe that atoms and cells can do the remarkable things they do by their own self-generated power (which came from . . . ?) than to believe that there is a spiritual entity called God that put it into them in creating them.

There is some reason to believe that there is a completely natural explanation as every single scientific inquiry that has ever been solved has been solve through a natural explanation, not a supernatural one, so that is where we are going to focus our efforts of explanation.

There is plenty that is unexplained at the presuppositional level, as my post gets into. No one really knows by what conceivable process life came from non-life. There are several theories bandied about, of course, but by no means any definitive answers. So it requires “faith.” You guys don’t know why life is here or how the big Bang could start a process that led to it (by what laws and mechanisms?), and so you know no more than we do. You have to believe in faith that the processes that brought about these remarkable things were completely natural , whereas we agree that they are largely natural but that the missing ingredient that explains origins is indeed God. You have faith in the remarkable inherent qualities of atoms. We have faith in God. One is no more plausible than the other in this basic “brass tacks” sense.

Many great philosophers and other thinkers have believed in God, based on various arguments, as well as internal experience or intuition, so the belief can’t be dismissed with a wave of the hand as mere fairy tales or on the level of a belief in unicorns, etc.

Might we be wrong in the end? Um… sure I guess. But most atheists would then put it to the theist: why your God and not another religion? Why not a tooth fairy? Why not a dragon?

And we say: “why atoms, that supposedly developed the power to create the entire universe by themselves?” Is that not an incredible blind faith? I would say that is more of a blind faith even than belief in tooth fairies or dragons as alleged possible agents of creation.

Bottom line: Jesus Christ. He revealed that God exists and what He is like. As an apologist I can give a host of reasons why I believe in God, Christianity, and Catholicism in particular. It’s like asking someone “why do you love your wife?” There are a host of reasons, and the usual immediate response is to hesitate, precisely because there are so many; you don’t know where to start in describing your feelings of love.

These are not questions (whatever one’s view is) that are given to short, sound-byte answers. It just doesn’t work that way. As I said, many great minds (arguably the vast majority of the best, most original ones) believed in God. Certainly atheists would have a hard time arguing that they were all gullible fools and anti-rational simpletons?. . .

There is no more reason for me to believe in that god than any of the hundreds upon hundreds of other gods that have made sense to their followers throughout time.

There certainly is. Christianity is based on historical argument. We can point to concrete things in history that happened, that confirm the existence of God. That’s already very different off the bat from the eastern religions. But most secularists / atheists / agnostics today are ignorant of the huge differences between religions, and tend to collapse them all into an irrational box.

So atheism being a religion is really just a word game. 

Not at all, as I carefully explained in the paper. To believe what you guys do about mere material atoms requires an extraordinary, quite childlike, non-rational faith.

Atheists believe that the origin of the universe most probably has a natural explanation simply because nothing… nothing else ever has had an explanation otherwise.

Sheer nonsense. What you have in effect done is worship matter rather than spirit (that we worship). Why one rather than the other? It’s completely arbitrary. You put all your faith in science, which is a variant of philosophy, that starts with unproven axioms just as every imaginable belief-system does. You have to believe that 1) the universe exists; 2) that matter follows discernible predictable laws (uniformitarianism); 3) that our senses can be trusted to accurately convey these laws and observations to us.

This is why modern science began in a thoroughly Christian culture (Europe in the Middle Ages) and why the founders and developers of virtually all scientific sub-fields were Christians or at least some sort of theist: because Christianity offered these necessary presuppositions, to start doing science. Hence, the Lutheran Kepler’s famous statement that the scientist was “thinking God’s thoughts after Him.”

If anyone can claim credit for historic, foundational science, it is Christianity, not atheism. I wrote a whole book about it.

I have never met an atheist who didn’t say that if you showed them any actual evidence to the contrary that they wouldn’t change their mind. But no religion has yet done so. Not one. And that is the difference between atheism and a religion.

These are merely empty (and rather sweeping, dogmatic) claims. How do you know no religion has ever offered a rational answer to the sort of garden variety questions that atheists bring up? How much of religion have you studied? If you were once a Christian, what books of apologetics and philosophy of religion have you read? Have you read debates between Christian philosophers and atheists, etc.?

It’s always easy to make sweeping, dramatic claims (such as you have done) without backing them up.

My argument is of a different nature. I’m not saying that atheists are dummies or immoral, just because they are atheists, but rather, that the faith they claim that Christians exercise and they supposedly don’t, is a Grand Myth: that they, too, exercise faith, just as anyone does who believes in any worldview (including science, which is a form of philosophy called empiricism). It’s impossible not to start with some unproven axioms, and they are, well, unproven. That means they weren’t arrived at through observation or empirical evidence or even reason. They can’t be absolutely proven.

So there is no reason for atheists to look down their noses at the supposedly “gullible” or “childish” Christians on this score. There is equally no reason to claim that Christianity is allegedly inexorably opposed to scientific inquiry. It’s all atheist fairy tales and talking points, exhibiting a huge ignorance of the history of both science and philosophy.

Atheists (in my experience) are ready to change their mind for evidence.

And in my 34-year experience discussing things with atheists it is just the opposite: they are largely impervious to reason and fact if they go against their views already held in faith, without reason at the axiomatic level.

But there are atheists who have converted and become Christians by means of reason. I know several of them. I just haven’t seen it happen in my own experience. I’ve had several atheists tell me, though, that my books were key in convincing them to become theists and eventually Catholics.

If one changes their mind without evidence, what is to stop them from drifting from one religion to another to another every time someone presents them with a new perspective? 

I fully agree. Reason has to be exercised in any rational, plausible worldview, or it ain’t worth much.

What each religion is asking the atheist to do, is to take their un-evidenced word for it, but not the next person’s un-evidenced word for it.

That’s what an unsophisticated Christian might do: “just accept our beliefs with a blind faith” — but that is not the view of either the Bible or the Christians who devote themselves to rational defense of the faith (apologists like myself) or those who are philosophers of religion or theistic philosophers.

I literally have no reason to choose one religion over the next besides my own comfort with its message.

This clearly exhibits your non-acquaintance with the competing truth claims of various religions. Again, I ask you: what have you read of Christian apologetics? How much did you even understand the theology if you were once a Christian? Neither can a person cannot reject what they never understood, or fully understood, either. They are, instead, rejecting a caricature or straw man, which they proceed to pillory the rest of their lives if they are atheists.

I have shown this again and again in analyzing atheist “deconversion stories.” Soon I will be compiling a book about that, too, and how so many atheists vainly fancy themselves as such experts on the Bible, whereas they are in fact profoundly ignorant and don’t know the first thing about proper biblical hermeneutics or exegesis or the various literary genres in the Bible, etc., or the ancient Near Eastern (i.e., Mesopotamian) cultural background that is a crucial component of both Judaism and Christianity.

Moreover, I would point out that no message is more appealing (in one big sense) to human beings than atheism. You’re accountable to no higher being. You can do whatever you want or desire to do, including the usual sexual desires and freedoms that people so often seek after. You can go the hedonist route and live merely for pleasure, or have fun deriding Christians and having a sense of self-importance and superiority in so doing (I’ve met many atheists of that sort; but many are not).

In other words, it’s a wash. Human beings of whatever belief-system tend to follow what personally appeals to them. If you want to claim that this is the exclusive characteristic of Christians or all religious folk, it works the same way in criticizing atheism, so this “argument” proves nothing one way or the other.

The more honest atheists, such as Aldous Huxley, even freely admitted that they ditched religion precisely for the purpose of sexual freedom.

. . . which honestly Christianity’s message in the end comforts me in no way.

Exactly! But atheism does, and makes you feel good, which is what you accuse Christians of doing. You do the same thing that you have just derided. You choose it because it suits you. We believe, on the other hand, that we choose Christianity, not because it makes us feel wonderful and warm fuzzy happy, but because it’s true.

The great apologist G. K. Chesterton stated, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.”

It’s a difficult life, but I wouldn’t trade it and its joy and peace with anything. I’ve tried to seriously live the Christian life for now 38 years. It has never let me down. But it is not without suffering. Joy is deeper than suffering. This is why Christians have been willing to die as martyrs through the centuries. They weren’t trying to avoid suffering, but rather, hell.

This is what you have just revealed to us is how you approached the matter: based on your desires and the comfort-factor, not based on an objective, dispassionate search for metaphysical and/or moral truth. At least that is how it appears or sounds at first glance. I’m just going by your own words . . .

As for the different faiths, theists (of the Abrahamic vein) are fully convinced that there are no gods at all… except for their one god. Why is it completely rational for Christians, Muslims, Jews to discount every other god that people follow except for this one, but the atheist who believes in just one fewer gods is absolutely wrong?

Yes; that is the nature of monotheism, because we believe that this one God has revealed Himself. We do for various reasons, that can’t be briefly summarized, because there are so many of ’em.

It’s not that you believe in “just one fewer god” but that in so doing you have to explain the universe according to pure naturalism or materialism, and it just doesn’t make any sense and comes off sounding rather fantastic and irrational, when closely scrutinized, as I did in this paper.

You’re welcome to explain to all of us how these atoms managed to do all that they have supposedly done, by themselves, with no outside or spiritual or supernatural aid, as a result of an explosion 15 billion years ago (or however long ago it is believed to be now).

We’re waiting with baited breath. But no atheist has done so thus far, and I would bet good money that you will not be the first one. It’s such a mystery that atheists are now fond of postulating “multiverses” so that they can simply ignore their huge problem of explaining origins, and push it back to earlier universes that they are equally ignorant of, as to process and origin. Very convenient, isn’t it? If you can’t explain something, invent a completely arbitrary fairy tale, with no rational or empirical evidence whatsoever to back it up . . .

And we Christians get accused of “God of the gaps” with this sort of desperate avoidance analysis going on among materialist scientists? It’s a joke!

We are effectively living the same process with one minor tweak further. All religions have equal amounts of evidence (zero) so why one non-evident religion over the next? 

You are merely assuming what you are trying to prove here, which is circular reasoning. You have not provided any actual reasons for believing these things. You simply make bald assertions. And I can tell you from my own long study in apologetics that they are not true statements. I do have the papers and books that already contain my reasonings.

There may very well be a god/goddess/gods/goddesses,

If you truly believe that, you should assume an agnostic stance, rather than an atheist one (but it sounds like you self-identify with the latter).

but since he/she/it/they have elected to give no evidence to the empirical senses with which they created us,

Once again, you assume what you think you prove. There is all kinds of empirical evidence for Christianity. Jesus was an actual human person, identifiable in history. He performed miracles, which were witnessed. He rose from the dead and was seen by more than 500 eyewitnesses. There is an empty tomb that hasn’t been adequately expained. It was guarded by Roman soldiers, under the pain of death if they failed to guard it. We know that the tomb was empty, from hostile reports and theories that the body was stolen, etc. People were willing to die for this faith, etc. There is all sorts of hard evidence that has to be grappled with.

There is no way to know who it is without relying solely on personal subjective interpretation and heresay [sic] from supposed eyewitnesses from centuries ago in books which no one has any reason to believe other than faith in certain groups of human being who have supposedly preserve the integrity of these first hand accounts hundreds of years ago.

This is incredible “reasoning.” We rely on eyewitness and firsthand testimony for all historical accounts whatsoever. You don’t doubt those when it comes to the existence of Socrates or Alexander the Great or even Abraham Lincoln. But all of a sudden when religious faith is involved, all these people were gullible idiots, who made up a bunch of fairy tales, and then were willing to die for the fairy tales.

It makes no sense at all. What this amounts to is a huge double standard, where you accept history, except when anyone religious is the testifier or witness of what happened at a particular point. Then you dismiss it. That’s irrationally arbitrary, self-defeating, and bigoted.

The Bible has, time and again, been backed up, as to its extraordinary historical accuracy, whether through manuscripts (e.g., the Dead Sea Scrolls) or archaeology or textual analysis. It’s accurate. It reports history. But someone who denies the existence of miracles beforehand simply dismisses any miraculous account.

That’s not a strictly “rational” analysis. It’s not rational to arbitrarily choose to disbelieve that a miraculous event can ever happen, and so dismiss any such account because it doesn’t fit the arbitrary axiom already accepted for no good reason.

Many things in science would have been thought totally impossible or implausible before they were proven (e.g., quantum physics or black holes or relativity). Yet what was “impossible” because possible and even “proven” in the usual scientific fashion.

Why could not miracles be the same sort of thing? How can you or anyone else say in a blanket way that they could not ever possibly have happened? You cannot . . .

Unless someone has a “Damascus road” experience, personally, their faith isn’t in god anyway, 

At some point, experience must enter in, yes. We Christians claim to have various spiritual experiences that confirm our faith and beliefs. I have had several, myself. My life changed.

it’s in people: the person who wrote the Scripture they believe, the person who they passed it onto; the person they passed it on to; the person who passed it on to you. 

Every belief-system has an internal tradition and a heritage which has been passed on. There’s nothing new under the sun. You as an atheist argue the same way that atheists did 3,000 years ago. And that is because you all start from the implausible axiom that I have discussed in my paper. Because you have so little reason to back yourself up, you have to content yourselves with bashing Christianity, to make yourselves feel so intellectually superior to us. It just won’t fly.

It may with some construction worker in a bar or an old lady with purple tennis shoes, who don’t know apologetics or philosophy from a hole in the ground, but not with someone who is acquainted with those things, and how the atheist / secular mind works. I used to think in largely the same terms, and I was spoon-fed secularism in school.

If people want to say atheism is a religion, I guess thats fine if one wants define what one means by religion.

My argument in my paper was that it was not a whit more reasonable, nor does it require any less faith (defined as acceptance of unproven and unprovable axioms). You have not really overcome my actual argument at all. You’re just preaching . . . That’s usually what atheists do. Not always (I’ve had some extremely interesting and constructive dialogues with several atheists), but usually.

Just note the the faith in atheism is in a logical system, that has heretofore been the only system that has ever offered a correct answer to the way anything works. 

Where to begin? It’s not logical at all, as I think I have shown: not at the presuppositional, axiomatic level. It’s a profoundly faith-filled, arbitrary, implausible view. Secondly, atheism doesn’t own science. Quite the contrary: it was begun by Christians and completely dominated by them for hundreds of years. Even now, some 40-45% of scientists would identify as some sort of theist (as well as a probably lesser, but significant number of philosophers: many among the best ones). Yet atheists routinely assume that they are the reasonable ones and own science. It’s a lie.

What we Christians say is that science (or matter) is not all that there is. There are other forms of knowledge, and religious faith is real, and rational, and can be defended as such.

I don’t consider logic my “god” because I don’t believe in a god. 

I can see that, because from where I sit, you are not arguing very logically at all. Your belief-system is arbitrary and meaningless irrationality (which I would argue is what all atheism always logically reduces to).

I believe it’s a system through which we have found answers and has thus far been the only such system.

That’s simply not true. Science (begun and dominated by Christians), philosophy, and religion have all given us plenty of answers and solutions.

Is that faith? Sure? I guess? Sort of? But in a very different way. Semantics.

I think there are lots of word games that atheists play. I have offered what I believe is a solid, logical critique.

Nothing personal! Thanks for the dialogue.

* * *

I don’t have time to argue all of these points you’ve laid out. But I will get to the meat of it. If you have actual evidence, feel free to share.

I have evidence all over my website. The most applicable to an atheist would be my web page on atheism. Then there is my book, Christian Worldview vs. Postmodernism. And my basic run-through of Christian apologetics, Mere Christian Apologetics.

If you don’t want to purchase any of those, or my book on science, linked above (available as low as $1.99), I’ll send you a PDF file of any of them for free.

And I repeat my original point. Yes… atheism is faith in the same way that your disbelief in the tooth fairy is faith. in the same way that your disbelief in the tooth fairy is a religion.

That makes no sense. I don’t spend my time proving that the tooth fairy doesn’t exist, as atheists do with God. My faith / religious belief isn’t merely a reactionary denial of what is believed not to exist at all, but rather, a positive, proactive assertion of something.

The tooth fairy (like Santa Claus or unicorns or the man in the moon or the Easter Bunny and all the other silly atheist “analogies” to God) has no historical or philosophical evidence in favor of it, as God does. No great philosophers or scientists or other great thinkers hold to belief in it. It truly is a mere fairy tale fit for small children only.

To compare that to the Judaeo-Christian God, or even the “philosopher’s God” (of say, someone like David Hume, who was not an atheist, as commonly believed) is instantly silly and a farce. But it’s garden-variety atheism, and used all the time for its mocking “value.”

Atheism is faith in precisely the way that I have argued that it is in my paper that you replied to: you (like anyone else who attempts to think seriously about reality) must accept unproven axioms. These cannot be argued for according to reason or evidence (empirical or otherwise).

The atheist has the special and extraordinary burden of being forced to believe that somehow something came from nothing, of its own power, and then exploded and produced all that is in the universe.

Present science tells us that the universe isn’t eternal (laws of thermodynamics). It’s running down. It began in an instant, in the Big Bang. That original “egg” somehow came from nothing whatsoever and came to possess the properties of reproduction, evolution, and creation of everything else.

For those of us who think that belief in God is a far better and more plausible explanation than that, it is (with all due respect) utterly absurd to accept such a ludicrous scenario. Any three-year-old knows that you can’t get something from nothing.

But every atheist must believe exactly that. They do it based on sheer blind faith and unwillingness to accept the rational alternative that an eternal creative spirit exists; an eternal intelligence.

Even those who aren’t theists know that something is out there; some kind of primal intelligence or organizing principle, to explain the wonders of the universe. Hence, Albert Einstein (a type of pantheist) wrote:

[T]he belief in the existence of basic all-embracing laws in Nature also rests on a sort of faith. All the same this faith has been largely justified so far by the success of scientific research. But, on the other hand, everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe — a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.

(To student Phyllis Right, who asked if scientists pray, January 24, 1936. Einstein Archive 42-601, 52-337; from Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffmann, Albert Einstein, the Human Side [Princeton Univ. Press, 1981], pp. 32-33)

It’s always fascinating to me to see how atheists attempt to respond to this particular argument, which I believe is of considerable force. Usually what we see is exactly the replies that my opponent gave above: little of substance: lots of bald assertions, contra-Christian or contra-theist “preaching” and studiously avoiding the central issue: how did something come from nothing and how did mere matter obtain all these remarkable powers that it now has?

It’s pretty much a blank at that point and a clear example of completely blind faith in the unprovable, non-rational (arguably anti-rational) starting premises of atheism.

Atheists in effect worship trillions of atom-gods and cell-gods: exactly as I contended in my paper. Virtually every power that the Christian attributes to God, the atheist applies to atoms and cells. It’s a profound faith indeed, based on no evidence whatsoever.

I think atheists are intelligent and thoughtful people. I am not claiming that they are generally irrational types of people. But I do say that with regard to the questions I bring up, the starting premises of atheism are quite irrational and unworthy of allegiance.

It’s also good for atheists to recognize that we Christians have some serious thinkers among us, too, and that we have “good arguments” on our side as well.

Again, you are misrepresenting me. Atheists do not claim that there is absolutely no way a deity could have done it. We claim that there is no more reason to believe it than any other extraordinary claim. If you listen to any talk by prominent atheists like Dawkins or Tyson, you will hear them repeatedly say they cannot disprove god. The reason you will not hear us taking apart tooth fairy theories is because no one is making them or trying to get them into scientific discussions. And no one said science is unique to atheists. It is unique to scientist[s], which happen to be theists and atheists. The problem is when either group gets to something they don’t understand and slaps creative answer to it rather than an observed one. In the theists’ case: god did it. And your assessment of my scrutiny of historical documenta is erroneous. if you think religious texts are the only ones atheistic historians scrutinize, then you aren’t accounting for the very first thing liberal universities teach when analyzing historical documents. The goal in any such analysis is to determine biases, limitations, and personal perspective rather than taking it at face value. Apologists however, have no other goal than to make the document/data/observations fit into a predesigned paradigm.

Thanks for your further thoughts. Now why don’t you also provide some solid, plausible answers to the basic questions that are your burden as an atheist?:

1) How did something come from nothing?

2) What caused this something from nothing, of its own power, to explode and produce all that is in the universe?

3) How did the original “egg” come to possess the remarkable properties of reproduction, evolution, and creation of everything else?

4) How did life (not to mention intelligence and rational self-consciousness) come from non-life, by purely materialistic processes, all inherent in the potentiality of the original “egg” that somehow came from nothing whatever?

We say “God” and that gets immediately dismissed as supposedly “unscientific” and/or good ol’ “God of the gaps.”

Fine. Having dismissed our proposed explanation, what is your alternate (or better) one? You haven’t told us. If you say you have no explanation or speculation at all, this strongly confirms my entire contention: you are operating in blind irrational faith: every bit as much as you say ours is, and arguably much more so.

After all, the universe is here (as all agree) and it had to be caused by something or Someone. Again, I reiterate my original argument, which stands unrefuted: we worship one Spirit-God, while you in effect worship trillions of atom-gods and cell-gods and the goddess Time: all of which can and do produce anything and everything in the universe (just like we say our God does!).

I don’t need to provide solid claims as I am not making the assertions you are claiming I am making. I am not saying something came from nothing. I’m saying with the evidence currently in our grasp, it would appear that the big bang happened, and that there is absolutely no reason to assume jesus christ or yahweh… or odin was responsible for it. Your arguments necessitate you to constantly build straw men. Is it possible a god did it? Maybe idk. But why without evidence assume it was god? Why believe god can always exist but not matter? My answer AGAIN to you is I don’t know. And thats where my atheist’s “faith” comes in. Since every other answered query in the history of humankind has been answered by science and reason, I’m thinking that this too will probably be answered by science and reason. Since every “proof” you have given so far for god is completely inconclusive, and exemplary of the very kind of non-science that make atheists skeptical of christian science, that reinforces my leanings that the answers will be natural rather than supernatural. I think most likely, if these questions are ever answered, it will increase our understanding of what is natural, rather than convince me of something supernatural. But who knows? And your claim that atheists “worship” atoms/cells/time is the ultimate straw man.

Well, it’s as good of a non-answer as I have ever gotten from an atheist. What else is new . . . ?

I haven’t given any “proofs” for God in this discussion. And that is because I’m challenging you to establish a rational basis for the presuppositions of your belief (per my paper that you replied to), and the present existence of the universe. You have not done so. But at least you are honest enough with yourself to not try to make a futile effort which would not bode well for your worldview. it’s best to refrain in that case.

As I have said repeatedly, the evidences, arguments, and reasons I can give for theism and Christianity are in my 49 books and 2,300+ papers on my blog. They can’t be summarized quickly. That is mere child’s play. Thoughtful worldviews must necessarily be scrutinized at length and with fairness and an open mind. I have offered to give you any of my books for free.

But you have to be willing to read them. “You can lead the horse to water, but you can’t make him drink” . . .

I think I’m done here. You have absolutely no interest in what I’m saying, provable by the fact that you cannot even describe my position. You are clearly set in your intellectual superiority as you have demonstrated by your assertion of yourself as a “sophisticated christian” as opposed to the thousands of other christians who don’t have the fluency with apologetics that you do. Your condescension and repeated misrepresentation of my arguments are going to be the bane of your apologetics, even before your confusion of reason with things that make sense to you.

One last thing, I just noticed:

“why believe god can always exist but not matter?”

The laws of thermodynamics tell us that the universe is running down; therefore very few believe anymore that it is eternal. It’s not eternal; it began with the Big Bang, as far as present science can determine. If it were eternal, it couldn’t have “begun.”

Belief in an eternal God is distinct from that, since God is spirit and not subject to the laws of physical nature.

May God bless you with all good things. I bear you no ill will; nor do I judge your motivations, as you have now judged mine.

I bear you no ill will either. And you can claim non-judgement all you want. But when you say things like “any three year old knows…” Or calling my responses “non-answers” show your true feelings.

* * * * *



2023-11-30T15:20:20-04:00

Last updated on: November 30, 2023 at 3:20 pm   By
Cover (555 x 839, 138k)

 Completed on 24 May 2015 and published at Lulu on the same day. 367 pages.

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Miscellaneous
*
Cardinal Newman’s Conversion Odyssey, in His Own Words (September 1839 to December 1845)  [list compiled from two of my Newman quotations books] [19 March 2015]

 

Excerpts

On the “Argument from Longing” [10 May 1828]

On the “Rule of Secrecy” (“Disciplina Arcani”) and Development of Doctrine [26 Jan. 1834]

On How the Indwelling Holy Spirit Works in Us [29 Jan. 1835]

Prayer for the Dead is as Well-Attested in the Early Church as the Canon of Scripture [16 May 1838]

No Fundamental Difference Between Written and Oral Tradition [23 May 1838]

On the Definition of Grace [22 Jan. 1841]

On What Usually Persuades People of Christianity [Feb. 1841]

Cardinal Newman’s Conversion Agonies: Jan. 1842 to Feb. 1844 

On Arian, Monophysite, and Donatist Analogies to Via Media Anglicanism [April 1844]

Still-Anglican Newman on Papal Supremacy in the Early Church  [19 May 1844]

On Pope Gregory the Great’s Supposed Denial of Universal Papal Jurisdiction [ 5 Nov. 1849]

On the Falsity of Sola Scriptura [26 Feb. 1850]

On How Departed Saints Can be Aware of Earthly Events [8 March 1853]

On the Supposed Necessity of Infallible Proofs for an Infallible Church [24 April 1858]

Newman Virtually Predicts Vatican II (and a Greater Role for the Laity) in 1859 [17 July 1859]

On Biblical and Traditional Evidences for Mary’s Immaculate Conception [30 May 1860]

On Invincible Ignorance and the Salvation of Protestants [4 Sep. 1862]

On the Possible Salvation of Protestants [7 Feb. 1864]

On Folks Who Pretend that Mere Theological Opinions Are Dogmas [10 March 1864]

Wonderful Argument on How we Know that Biblical Eucharistic Language is Literal [24 Aug. 1864]

On Much that is “Good and True” in Protestantism [18 Sep. 1864]

On the Importance of Catholic Laity  [30 Nov. and 2 Dec. 1864]

On the Communion of Saints and Veneration of the Saints [2 Oct. 1865]

On the Invocation of Mary [29 March 1866]

On Papal Infallibility in March 1867 [23 March 1867]

Newman’s Rebuke of William G. Ward as an Exponent of a Renewed Novatian, Quasi-Schismatic, Rigorist Attitude [9 May 1867]

On Darwin and Theistic Evolution [22 May 1868]

On the One, True Visible Church [25 Jan. 1870]

On Whether Laymen Have to Interpret and Apply Church Proclamations [30 March 1870]

On Whether Pope Gregory XIII Gave Assent to the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre [9 Sep. 1872]

On the Nature of Papal Infallibility [17 Sep. 1872]

On the Intolerance and Cramped Thinking of Atheism and Skepticism [11 Jan. 1873]

Table of Contents

Dedication 
Introduction [read online]
Bibliographical Sources
*
I. Apologetics
*
What Are Some Basic Guidelines in Defending Our Faith?…….25
Is Apologetics Only for Non-Catholics or Non-Christians?…….26
Should Laymen Have a Working Knowledge of Apologetics?…26
How is Faith Related to Apologetic Inquiry?…………………………29
How is Grace Related to Apologetics and Rational Argument?.30
Is Logical Demonstration All There is to Apologetics?…………..30
How Are Faith and Reason Related?…………………………………….30
Is Apologetics the Same as Proselytyzing?……………………………33
Is “Controversy” in Apologetics a Good Thing?……………………34
Should a Person Exercise Faith if Still Plagued by Difficulties?
Should we Avoid Ad Hominem Attacks in Argument?…………….36
What is the Reward of Apologetics?…………………………………….37
Should we Know People Before Trying to Persuade Them?……37
Does Proclaiming Theological Truth Offend Some People?……37
Are There Times When Trying to Argue with People is Futile?.37
Does the “Argument from Longing” Suggest that Heaven Exists?
How Can we Communicate Catholic Truths to Protestants?……38
*
II. Philosophy of Religion
*
How Important is Philosophy of Religion?……………………………41
What is “Philosophical Theology”?……………………………………..41
What is “Certitude” or Faith Held in “Certainty”?…………………41
Does Certainty Derive from Demonstration or Probabilities?…42
How Compelling is Cumulative Evidence?…………………………..45
Does Conscience Surpass Intellect as a Way to God?……………..48
Is Reasoning Key in Arriving at First Premises and Axioms?….48
Is the Epistemology of Religion Primarily Subjective?…………..49
Must Christianity Necessarily be Proven, to be Rationally Held?
How Do Most Intellectuals Regard Natural Law?………………….50
What is the Moral Law?……………………………………………………..51
What is Rationalism and its Fundamental Deficiency?…………..51
How Are People Usually Convinced of Christian Truths?………52
What is the Essence of Religion?…………………………………………53
What is the Relation of Faith to Culture?………………………………54
Do Catholics Love the Philosophy of Plato and Socrates?………54
How Strong is the Teleological (Design) Argument for God?….54
Does the Argument from Final Causes Prove God’s Existence?.55
*
III. Church History
*
Are the Church Fathers Closer to Catholicism or Protestantism?
Does Christian Truth or Dogma Change Over Time?……………..59
How Should Catholics View John Wycliffe?…………………………59
Was the Protestant “Reformation” a Praiseworthy Thing?………60
How Has Lutheranism Evolved?…………………………………………60
Is Church History Fatal to Protestantism?…………………………….61
*
IV. Development of Doctrine
*
What is the Development of Doctrine?…………………………………63
What is the Rule of Secrecy, or “Disciplina Arcani”?…………….69
Does Development of Doctrine Tend to Lead One to Rome?….71
How Did Newman Regard His 1845 Essay on Development?…71
*
V. Anglicanism
*
Do Anglicans Regard Themselves as a Species of Protestantism?
Are the 39 Articles “Protestant” in Nature?…………………………..73
What is the Status of Anglican “Apostolic Succession”?………..74
What Was the State of Anglicanism in 1835?………………………..75
Was Anglicanism Flourishing in 1839-40?……………………………75
Has Anglicanism Unnecessarily Discarded Catholic Elements?
Did Newman Agonize Over Anglican Difficulties in 1840-1845?
What Did Newman Think of Anglicanism After 1845?…………..86
Are Anglican Orders Valid?………………………………………………..88
*
VI. Conversion (to Catholicism)
*
What Was Newman’s View of the Catholic Church in 1834?…..89
How Far Was Newman from the Catholic Church in 1837?…….90
Were High Church Anglicans in 1839-40 Enticed to Catholicism?
What Was the Initial Troubling Blow to Newman’s Anglicanism?
Was it “Thinkable” for Newman in 1839 to One Day Convert?.92
What Was Newman’s View About Conversion in 1841-1845?…93
How Did Newman View His Conversion After 1845?………….110
Do Converts Sometimes Become Obnoxious and Lack Humility?
Does God Provide Overwhelming Assurance to Converts?…..119
Should One Convert Quickly?…………………………………………..120
Should a Person Convert Merely to Alleviate Persisting Doubts?
Do Converts Typically Have Last-Minute Jitters and Qualms?
Are Non-Catholics Sometimes Cynical About Catholic Converts?
Do Protestants Hope that Famous Catholic Converts Will Return?
Can we Know Who is Likely to Convert to Catholicism?……..122
Does God Use Curiosity to Bring in Converts?……………………123
Must Converts Get Used to Catholic “Strangeness” at First?…123
*
VII. Lay Participation
*
Do Laymen Have an Important Role to Play in the Church?….125
Do Popes Consult Laypeople Regarding Dogmatic Definitions?
Do Laymen Have to Interpret and Apply Church Proclamations?
Was Newman’s Thinking on the Laity Vindicated in Vatican II?
*
VIII. Bible, Tradition, and Authority
*
How Fundamental is Revelation to Religious Truth?……………131
Does Revelation Tend to be Unpredictable By its Very Nature?
What is the Relationship Between Revelation and Faith?……..132
Does Revelation Have Rational Evidences in its Favor?……….133
Can we Expect to Understand Revelation?………………………….133
How Do we Come to Best Understand Scripture?………………..133
Are Church and Tradition Necessary to Understand the Bible?
Is the Canon of Scripture Based on Tradition Only?…………….136
Are the Five Books of Moses (Pentateuch) of Late Origin?…..137
Is There a Method to Proper Bible Interpretation?……………….137
Are Catholics Allowed to Interpret the Bible on Their Own?..137
How Are the Church Fathers Related to Bible Interpretation?.138
Does the Church Authoritatively Interpret Apostolic Tradition?
Is the Biblical Canon a Difficulty for Protestantism?……………139
Why is Tobit Considered Scripture by the Catholic Church?…140
What is the “Rule of Faith”?……………………………………………..140
Is Sola Scriptura (“Scripture Alone”) a True Principle?………..141
Does Prior Bias Influence Scriptural Interpretation?…………….142
Should we Memorize Scripture?………………………………………..142
In What Sense is the Authority of Scripture Supreme?………….143
Is the Bible Materially Sufficient for Salvation?………………….143
Is the Bible Formally Sufficient for Salvation?……………………143
Is the Bible Inspired?………………………………………………………..144
Can the Bible Possibly Have Numerical Errors?………………….144
Can Biblical Manuscripts Possibly Contain Error?………………144
What is Oral Tradition?…………………………………………………….145
Does the New Testament Preclude Oral Tradition?………………145
Is Oral Tradition Superior to Written Tradition?…………………..146
Are Oral and Written Tradition Fundamentally Different?…….146
How Should we Regard Extrabiblical Tradition?…………………147
What is the Relation of Tradition to Church Authority?………..147
What are Creeds?…………………………………………………………….148
How Sure is the Deposit of Faith?……………………………………..148
Did the Jews Pass Down the Notion of Tradition to Christians?
Were the Apostles Ignorant of Tradition Until Pentecost?……..149
Can One Possibly be Saved by Conscience Without Revelation?
Is Conscience an Autonomous Authority?…………………………..149
What is Heresy and How Should it be Viewed?…………………..150
*
IX. Doctrine of the Church (Ecclesiology)
*
Is There Such a Thing as One Visible, Institutional Church?…153
Is the Church Infallible in Her Dogmas?…………………………….156
How is an Infallible Church Similar to a Prophet?……………….160
Is Infallible Proof Required to Accept an Infallible Church?…161
Must we Believe All Dogmas that the Church Teaches?……….164
What Are Catholics Free to Not Believe?……………………………166
Can we be Absolutely Certain of Church Doctrines?……………167
What is the Difference Between Doctrines and Articles of Faith?
Are Dogmas and Theological Opinions Two Different Things?
How Authoritative are Ecumenical Councils?……………………..169
What is the Relation of Popes to Ecumenical Councils?……….171
Is the Church Indefectible?……………………………………………….171
How Did Church Government Originate?…………………………..172
Does the Church Extend Back to Apostolic Times?……………..173
What is Apostolic Succession?…………………………………………..173
Is the Catholic Church Our Authoritative (Orthodox) Guide?..173
Is the Catholic Church Universal?……………………………………..177
Is There Salvation Outside the Catholic Church?…………………178
What are the Shortfalls of Contradictory Religious Opinions?.180
Is Schism a Bad Thing?…………………………………………………….180
Who Tends to Jettison Orthodoxy in Order to Foster “Unity”?
How Shall we Regard Denominationalism and Sectarianism?.181
What is Rigorism or an Overly Dogmatic Catholic Outlook?..182
Should the Presence of Sinners in the Church Alarm Us?……..185
Does the Bible Teach the Concept of Excommunication?……..187
Is Excommunication a “Spiritual” Thing?…………………………..189
Is Christianity Difficult and a “Narrow Way”?…………………….189
What is the Principle of Unity in the Church?……………………..189
Is Ordination of Priests or Pastors Necessary?……………………..189
Must Bishops Always be Obeyed?……………………………………..190
What is the Nature of a Bishop’s Authority?………………………..190
Are Bishops the Primary Authorities in Their Own Domains?.191
Did Newman Think that Vatican II Would Clarify Vatican I?..191
*
X. The Papacy / Papal Supremacy and Infallibility
*
How Powerful Was the Pope in the 5th Century?…………………193
Does the Pope Have Supreme Authority in the Church?……….193
Does the Pope Possess the Gift of Infallibility?……………………197
What Historical Evidence Suggests Belief in Papal Infallibility?
What are the Limits and Parameters of Papal Infallibility?……217
Are Papal Encyclicals Infallible in Their Entirety?………………220
Should Popes Normally be Obeyed, Infallible or Not?…………220
Did Pope Gregory the Great Deny Universal Papal Jurisdiction?
Have Popes Properly Been Disagreed With?……………………….221
What Are we to Make of the “Bad Popes”?…………………………222
Did Pope Gregory XIII Give Assent to a Massacre?…………….223
Can Popes Personally be Heretics?…………………………………….224
Does the Pope Honorius “Scandal” Disprove Papal Supremacy?
Does Pope Liberius’ Failure Disprove Papal Infallibility?……..227
What Was Newman’s Personal Opinion of Blessed Pope Pius IX?
Does 1 Clement Confirm Papal Supremacy in Apostolic Times?
*
XI. Theology of Salvation (Soteriology)
*
What is Grace?………………………………………………………………..231
How Powerful is Grace to Transform Men?………………………..232
Is Grace Required for Salvation?……………………………………….233
What Does it Mean to Be in a “State of Grace”?………………….233
Is Grace Given in Different Measure to Different Men?……….233
What is Apostasy, or Falling from Grace?…………………………..234
Are we Saved by Verbal or Creedal Professions Only?…………234
What is Faith and Where Does it Come From?……………………235
What is the Gospel?…………………………………………………………237
How Do we Prove that we Have a Genuine Faith?……………….238
What are the Fruits and Objects of Faith?……………………………238
What is “Fiducial Faith” or “Faith in Faith”?………………………239
Will Faith be Tried and Tested?………………………………………….239
Can we Obtain Absolute Assurance of Salvation?………………..239
Can we Know Someone Else’s Eternal Destiny?………………….240
How Can we Discern Another Man’s Spiritual State?…………..241
How Shall we Approach the Doctrine of Predestination?………241
How Important are Good Works According to Scripture?……..243
Are we Saved by Works?………………………………………………….243
What is Merit?…………………………………………………………………243
What is Infused Justification?……………………………………………243
What is the Relationship of Justification to the Sacraments?…244
Is Sanctification a Difficult, Lengthy Process?…………………….244
Does Sanctification or Holiness Admit of Degrees?……………..245
How Close is Anglican Justification to St. Robert Bellarmine’s?
How Should Evangelists Approach Dying Persons?…………….245
What is Antinomianism, or “Cheap Grace”?……………………….246
Is Preaching a Primary Instrument of Saving Faith?…………….246
What is the Goal of Preaching?…………………………………………247
What Will Judgment Day be Like?…………………………………….247
What is Original Sin?……………………………………………………….247
What are the Consequences of Sin?……………………………………249
Does Sin (or Rebellion) Have Degrees of Willfulness?…………249
Can we Sin in Ignorance?………………………………………………….249
What are the Conditions for Mortal Sin?…………………………….249
What is Invincible Ignorance in Relation to Final Salvation?..249
*
XII. Jesus Christ (Christology)
*
Can we be Certain of the Divinity (Godhood) of Jesus?………..253
How Central is “Christ Crucified” in Christianity?………………253
Was the Incarnation Strictly Necessary?……………………………..253
How Are Christ’s Two Natures Explained?………………………….254
How Shall we View the Atonement or Propitiation of Christ?.254
Was Jesus Omniscient (All-Knowing)?………………………………255
Was Jesus Subjected to Concupiscence?……………………………..256
Can God Suffer?………………………………………………………………256
*
XIII. God the Father (Theology Proper)
*
Is God Self-Existent and Self-Sufficient?……………………………259
How Much Does God Love Us?………………………………………..259
How Shall we Regard God’s “Superintendence”?………………..261
How Should we Conceive of God’s Will?……………………………261
What is God’s Providence?………………………………………………..261
Is Discerning God’s Providence Difficult?…………………………..262
Are Images of God the Father Permissible?…………………………262
*
XIV. The Holy Spirit (Pneumatology) and Trinitarianism
*
How Can we Conceptualize the Mystery of the Holy Trinity?.263
Is Faith in the Holy Trinity Necessary for Salvation?……………264
How Does the Indwelling Holy Spirit Work in Us?………………264
How Does the Holy Spirit Interact with Christians?……………..265
Is the Unitarian Rejection of Trinitarianism Based on Scripture?
What is Circumincessionor Perichoresis?…………………………..266
What is “Divine Nature” or “Divinity”?……………………………..266
*
XV. The Blessed Virgin Mary (Mariology)
*
Does Mary Intercede for us in a Special Way?…………………….269
Should we Invoke, or Ask for the Intercession of Mary?………270
Which Heresies Denied that Mary was the Mother of God?….271
What Does it Mean to Call Mary the “New Eve”?……………….271
What is the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary?
How was Mary’s Immaculate Conception Proclaimed in 1854?
Why Do Catholics Adhere to Mary’s Immaculate Conception?
Why is the Immaculate Conception Implausible to Protestants?
What is the Historical Evidence for the Immaculate Conception?
Why Did the Immaculate Conception Take So Long to Develop?
Is the Immaculate Conception Rationally Difficult to Accept?
How Could Mary Have a “Savior” if She Was Immaculate?….280
Does Mary’s Immaculate Conception Have a Physical Element?
Was Mary’s Assumption Very Widely Believed Before 1950?.281
Is Mary Our Spiritual Mother?…………………………………………..281
Should we Venerate Mary?……………………………………………….282
Did Mary Have an Extraordinary Intellect?…………………………282
Did Mary Die?…………………………………………………………………282
Is Mary a Mediatrix and Channel of God’s Graces?……………..282
Do the Marian Devotions of Some Catholics Go Too Far?……283
*
XVI. Angels and the Communion of Saints
*
What is the Communion of Saints?…………………………………….285
Are Departed Saints Aware of Earthly Events? …………………..286
Should we Venerate the Saints?…………………………………………286
Is Veneration Infinitely Different from Adoration of God?……288
Should we Venerate the Angels?………………………………………..288
Does Everyone Have a Guardian Angel?…………………………….288
How Eminent is Rome as a Place of Saints and Martyrs?……..288
Was Prayer for the Dead an Apostolic Practice?…………………..289
Was Prayer for the Dead Well-Attested in the Early Church?..289
Is Prayer for the Dead a Biblical Teaching?…………………………289
What is the Anglican Teaching on the Communion of Saints?.290
Is Invocation of the Saints Unbiblical?……………………………….291
Do the Saints Pray (Intercede) for Us?……………………………….291
Are All Images in Worship Idolatrous?……………………………….291
Do Miraculous Relics Exist?……………………………………………..293
*
XVII. Purgatory
*
Are There Experiences in This Life Analogous to Purgatory?..295
Is Purgatory a Third Possible State After Death?………………….295
Is Purgatory a Biblical Doctrine?……………………………………….295
Is Everyone in Purgatory Saved?……………………………………….296
Do Souls in Purgatory Suffer More than we Do?…………………296
Is There Fire in Purgatory?……………………………………………….296
*
XVIII. Penance and Asceticism
*
Are Penance and Absolution Necessary?…………………………….297
What is an Indulgence?…………………………………………………….297
Is Self-Denial for the Cause of Christ a Good Thing?…………..298
Is Suffering Spiritually Beneficial?…………………………………….298
Should All Clergymen be Celibate?……………………………………300
Is Celibacy a “Higher” Calling?…………………………………………301
*
XIX. The Holy Eucharist and Sacrifice of the Mass
*
Is the Holy Eucharist Necessary for Salvation?……………………303
How Do we Know that Biblical Eucharistic Language is Literal?
What is Transubstantiation?………………………………………………304
What Did Newman Believe About the Real Presence in 1834?
Does the Grace Received from the Holy Eucharist Vary?……..305
Is Eucharistic Adoration Spiritually Beneficial?…………………..305
What is the Reasoning Behind Communion in One Kind?…….306
Does Validity of the Eucharist Depend on the Priest’s Holiness?
What Does it Mean to Say That the Mass is a Sacrifice?………307
Why Do Catholics Offer Masses for the Dead?……………………308
Was the Last Supper a Passover Meal?……………………………….309
*
XX. Devotions, Liturgy, and Worship
*
What is the Relation of Faith and Emotions?……………………….311
How Shall we Prevent Formal Prayers from Becoming Trite?.311
Are Shorter Form Prayers Preferable to Longer Ones?…………312
What Makes The Lord’s Prayer so Unique and Special?……….313
How Relatively Important are Sermons for the Clergyman?….313
How Does Kneeling Help Us to Receive Christian Truths?…..313
In What Sense Can a Crucifix be Worshiped?……………………..314
How Much Does Scripture Teach About Public Worship?…….314
How Should we Regard Purported Miracles?………………………314
What is the Great Attribute of Catholic Devotional Literature?
What is the Evidence of a Particular Personal Calling?…………316
What is the Relation of Doctrine to Devotional Practices?…….316
Do Catholics Have a Wide Freedom of Devotional Practice?..317
What is the Rationale Behind Devotion to Jesus’ Sacred Heart?
*
XXI. The Sacrament of Baptism
*
What is the Relation of Baptism to the Church?…………………..319
Does Baptism Regenerate?………………………………………………..319
How is Baptism Related to the Holy Spirit and Justification?..320
What is Conditional Baptism?……………………………………………320
Is There Such a Thing as “Baptism of Desire”?……………………320
*
XXII. Sacraments and Sacramentals
*
How Do we Define a “Sacrament”?……………………………………321
What are the Attributes and Benefits of Sacraments?……………322
What is Sacramental Disposition?………………………………………323
What is the Relationship of Preaching to Sacraments?………….323
What is the Sacrament of Confirmation?…………………………….323
Is Confession a Helpful and Biblical Practice?…………………….324
Can a Person Possibly be Saved Without the Sacraments?…….325
Is the Sign of the Cross Permissible?………………………………….325
How Can we Know that We Have a Vocation to the Priesthood?
How Important is it to Follow Our Vocation?………………………326
Can People be Mistaken About Their Supposed Vocation?……326
*
XXIII. Heaven and Hell / Satan and Demons
*
What is the Beatific Vision in Heaven?……………………………….327
What is the Blessedness of Heaven?…………………………………..327
Is Hell Eternal?………………………………………………………………..327
Does Eternal Punishment in Hell Make Any Sense?…………….328
What is it Like to Experience Eternal Punishment?………………329
Is Satanic Oppression a Continuing Reality?……………………….329
*
XXIV. Education
*
How is Christianity Related to Education?………………………….331
What is the Purpose of a University?………………………………….332
What is the Philosophy of History?……………………………………332
Does Much Education Tend to Counter Christian Discipleship?
*
XXV. Atheism, Agnosticism, Liberalism, and Secularism
*
What is Philosophical and Theological Liberalism?……………..333
How Should we Regard Theological Liberalism?………………..333
Is Political Liberalism Hostile to Catholicism?……………………336
Are There Jewish Analogies to Christian Theological Liberals?
What is the Result of Resisting Theological Liberalism?………337
Where Does Accommodation to the “Spirit of the Age” Lead?
Is Atheism Fundamentally Bigoted Against Christianity?……..338
Do Skeptics Assume Certain Premises Hostile to Christianity?
Will Atheism Satisfy the Deepest Longings of the Soul?………340
How Should we Approach a Media Hostile to Christianity?….341
*
XXVI. Ecumenism
*
Can a Person Have Faith Without Having Heard the Gospel?..343
Can Non-Catholics Receive Grace?……………………………………343
Can Non-Catholics Possibly be Saved?………………………………343
Can a Good Man in Another Religion Espouse Christianity?…344
Can God Use Mistaken or Heretical Men for His Purposes?….344
How Should Protestants and Catholics Personally Interact?….344
Does Protestantism Have Within it Much Truth?………………….348
Are Catholics Too Often Ignorant About Protestantism?……….350
Does the Holy Spirit Act Beyond the Catholic Church?………..350
How Should we Approach Religious Differences of Opinion?
What is the Ultimate Aim of Ecumenism?…………………………..351
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XXVII. Science
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Is Process Antithetical to Creation?……………………………………353
Is Theistic Evolution Antithetical to Catholicism or Theism?..353
Is Darwin’s Theory of Evolution Indicated by Anatomy?………355
Do Science and Revelation Clash?……………………………………..356
Do Scientists Unduly Interfere in the Domain of Religion?…..356
Is There But One Interpretation of Genesis Chapter One?…….356
Must Catholics Believe that Noah’s Flood was Universal?……357
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XXVIII. Miscellaneous
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How Should Christians Regard Great Riches?…………………….359
Is Exorcism a Legitimate Christian Practice?………………………359
How Serious of a Matter are Vows?……………………………………359
Do Anti-Catholics Misrepresent Catholicism?……………………..360
Is There But One Interpretation of the Book of Revelation?….361
How Does Catholicism (and the Bible) View Slavery?…………361
What is Newman’s Advice for Aspiring Writers?…………………364
Is Spanking or Corporal Punishment Permissible?……………….365
How Do we Know that Souls Exist?…………………………………..365
Are the Last Days Near?…………………………………………………..366
Should Unbaptized Persons be Married by Christian Clergymen?
What Did the First Protestants Think of Polygamy?……………..367
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Last updated on 25 September 2020

 

2023-11-30T15:39:51-04:00

Last updated on: November 30, 2023 at 3:39 pm   By
Cover (555 x 834)

[book completed on 30 April 2014 and published at Lulu on 1 May 2014; 304 pages; 14 mystics or mystical works; from 22 books]

[cover design by Dave Armstrong]
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* * * * * for purchase information, go to the bottom  * * * * * 
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Cover photographs:  Bottom: Evening Glow, c. 1884. Top: A Moonlit Evening, 1880. Both painted by John Atkinson Grimshaw (English, 1836-1893). In the public domain and available at Wikimedia Commons.
 
MISC.
 
Introductory Facebook post (7 March 2014)
 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS
 
 
Dedication (p. 3):
 
To the two female Doctors of the Church included in this volume: St. Catherine of Siena and St. Teresa of Ávila. We love you and profusely thank our Lord for the immeasurably wonderful gifts of your holiness and wisdom and writings.
 
Introduction (Evelyn Underhill) (p. 5)
 
Brief Biographical Portraits (p. 25) [link: read online]
 
Bibliography (p. 43) [see below]

Quotations (p. 47)

Index of Topics (p. ?)

 

 

EXCERPTS FROM MY FACEBOOK PAGE

St. Bernard of Clairvaux [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
St. Bonaventure [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Bl. John of Ruysbroeck [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
Bl. Henry Suso [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
Johannes Tauler [1] [2] [3] [4]
Walter Hilton [1] [2]

Julian of Norwich [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

St. Catherine of Siena [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]

The Cloud of Unknowing [1] [2]

Theologia Germanica [1] [2] [3]

Thomas à Kempis / The Imitation of Christ [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]

St. Catherine of Genoa [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

St. Teresa of Ávila [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]

St. John of the Cross [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

 
[chronologically by author]
 *
[all books are in the public domain and available online: St. Bernard at Google Books; Evelyn Underhill at Internet Archive, all others at Christian Classics Ethereal Library]
 
 
St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
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On the Love of God (translated by Marianne Caroline and Coventry Patmore; London: Burns and Oates, 2nd edition, 1884) [includes also, Fragments from a Fragment]
 
St. Bonaventure (c. 1217-1274)
 
The Mind’s Road to God (translated by George Boas; Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Educational Publishing, 1953)
 
Blessed John of Ruysbroeck (c. 1293-1381)
 
The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage (translated by C. A. Wynschenk; edited by Evelyn Underhill; London: J. M. Dent, 1916)
 
The Sparkling Stone (translated by C. A. Wynschenk; edited by Evelyn Underhill; London: J. M. Dent, 1916)
*
The Book of Supreme Truth (translated by C. A. Wynschenk; edited by Evelyn Underhill; London: J. M. Dent, 1916)
 
Blessed Henry Suso [“Suso”] (1295-1366)
 
A Little Book of Eternal Wisdom (“translated and published for the Catholics of England years ago”; London: Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd., 1910)
*
The Life of Blessed Henry Suso by Himself (translated by Thomas Francis Knox, London: Burns, Lambert, and Oates, 1865)
 
Johannes Tauler (c. 1300-1361)
 
The Inner Way (translated by Arthur Wollaston, London: Methuen & Co.,2nd edition, 1909)
 
Walter Hilton (c. 1340/45 -1396)
 
The Scale [or, Ladder] of Perfection (English updated by Dom Serenus Cressy, O.S.B., 1659; New York: Benziger Brothers, 1901)
 
Julian[a] of Norwich (c. 1342-c. 1416)
 
Revelations of Divine Love (translated by Grace Warrack; London: Methuen & Co., 1901)
 
St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)
 
The Dialogue (translated by Algar Thorold; London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., London, 1907; abridged edition)
 
The Cloud of Unknowing: late 14th century anonymous work
 
The Cloud of Unknowing (translated and edited by Evelyn Underhill; London: John M. Watkins, 2nd edition, 1922)
 
Theologia Germanica: late 14th century work by an anonymous priest
 
Theologia Germanica (translated by Susanna Winkworth; edited by Dr. Peiffer; London and Glasgow: Collins’ Clear-Type Press: Golden Treasury Series, 2nd edition, 1893)
Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380-1471)
*
The Imitation of Christ (translated by Aloysius Croft and Harold Bolton; Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company, 1940)
*
St. Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510)
*
Spiritual Dialogue (translated by Charlotte Balfour; New York: Christian Press Association Publishing Co., 1907)
*
Treatise on Purgatory (unknown translator; New York: Christian Press Association Publishing Co., 1907)
*
 St. Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582)
 
Autobiography (translated by David Lewis; London: Thomas Baker / New York: Benziger Bros., 3rd edition, 1904)
 
The Way of Perfection (translated and edited by E. Allison Peers from the critical edition of P. Silverio de Santa Teresa, C.D., Garden City, New York: Doubleday Image Books, 1964)
 
The Interior Castle (translated by the Benedictines of Stanbrook; revised by Fr. Benedict Zimmerman, O.C.D., London: Thomas Baker, 3rd edition, 1921)
 
St. John of the Cross (1542-1591)
 
Ascent of Mount Carmel (translated and edited by E. Allison Peers from the critical edition of P. Silverio de Santa Teresa, C.D., Garden City, New York: Doubleday Image Books, 3rd revised edition, 1962)
*
Dark Night of the Soul (translated and edited by E. Allison Peers from the critical edition of P. Silverio de Santa Teresa, C.D., Garden City, New York: Doubleday Image Books, 3rd revised edition, 1959)
 
A Spiritual Canticle (translated by David Lewis, with corrections by Fr. Benedict Zimmerman, O.C.D., London: Thomas Baker, 1909)
***
INDEX OF TOPICS
[215] 

Absolution 47 Angels 47 Angels, Guardian, 49 Anger 49 Apostasy 50 Apostolic Succession 50 Aridity, Spiritual 51 Atonement, Universal 53 Baptism of Blood, Fire, or Desire 54 Baptismal Regeneration 54 Beatific Vision 55 Church and Doctrinal Truth 56 Church: Bride of God 57 Church: Obedience to 57 Company, Good 61 Concupiscence 61 Conscience 61 Contrition 61 Correction 63 Covenants; Testaments (Old and New) 63 Cross, The 64 Cross, Taking Up of 64 Crucifixes 68 “Dark Night of the Soul” 68 “Dark Night of the Spirit” 74 Death 78 Deification; Divinization; Theosis 80 Demons 93 Desires, Godly 95 Detraction 96 Devotion 97 Discipleship 98 Disposition, Interior 100 Dreams (as a Means for Visions) 101 Emotions 102 Envy 102 Eucharist 103 Eucharist and Grace 104 Eucharist and Irreverence 106 Eucharist and Salvation 106 Eucharist: Preparation for 107 Eucharistic Adoration 107 Evangelism 108 Faith 108 Faith and Works 110 Faults 110 Fear 111 Flesh, The 111 Forgiveness 111 Ghosts 112 Gifts, Spiritual 113 God, Devotion to 114 God: Goodness of 114 God: Immutability of (Unchangeability) 115 God: Impassibility of (No Changeable Emotions) 116 God: Incomprehensibility of 117 God: Love for Us 119 God: Man’s Love of 121 God: Mercy of 123 God: Omnipotence of 125 God: Omnipresence of 125 God: Outside of Time 125 God: Praise of 126 God: Presence of; Personal Relationship with 127 God, Providence of 127 God: Seeking of; Yearning After 128 God: Self-Sufficiency of 130 God, Trust in 131 God, Will of 131 Grace 131 Grace Alone (for Salvation) 133 Grace and Sin 135 Grace: Necessity of, for All Good Works 135 Grace: Quantifiable 138 Grace vs. Self-Reliance 139 Gratitude 139 Happiness 140 Heart: Indwelling by God 140 Heart, Purity of 143 Heaven 144 Hell 145 Heretics 152 Holy Spirit, Illumination of 152 Holy Water 153 Honor 153 Humility 153 Images and Icons 156 Inebriation, Spiritual 159 Jesus, Crucified, Visions of 159 Jesus: Devotion to; Personal Relationship with 160 Jesus, Glorified 163 Jesus, Imitation of 164 Jesus, Passion of 164 Jesus, Second Coming of 166 Jesus, Vision of 167 Joy 168 Judgment Day 169 Legalism 169 Levitation 169 Light, Divine 170 Locutions, Divine 170 Locutions, Satanic 171 Love; Charity 173 Love and Knowledge 176 Love, Fire of 176 Lust 177 Mary and Joseph: Vision of 178 Mary: Assumption of 178 Mary: Imitation of 178 Mary: Immaculate Conception of 179 Mary: Knowledge of Jesus’ Passion 179 Mary: Mediatrix 179 Mary, Meekness of 180 Mary: Queen of Heaven 180 Mary: Second Eve 181 Mary: Sinlessness of 181 Mary: Spiritual Mother and Intercessor 181 Mary, Veneration of 182 Mary, Vision of 183 Mass, Sacrifice of the 183 Meditation 183 Meekness 184 Merit 184 Mind, Carnal, and Seeing God 187 Miracles 188 Mortification 188 Mysticism / Mystical Theology 190 Opposition 193 Peace, Inner 194 Penance 197 Penance, Sacrament of (Reconciliation; Confession) 198 Perfection 199 Persecution and Forgiveness 201 Perseverance 201 Pilgrimages 202 Prayer 202 Prayer and Grace 206 Prayer and Salvation 207 Prayer, Answers to 207 Prayer, Contemplative 208 Prayer, Distraction in 215 Prayer, Informal or Spontaneous 217 Prayer: Listening to God 218 Preaching 219 Pride 220 Pride, Spiritual (“Pharisaism”) 221 Priests 222 Purgatory 224 Purity 230 Rapture; Spiritual Bliss; Ecstasy 231 Reason and Piety 233 Reason, Idolatry of 234 Redemption; Atonement 234 Relics 235 Repentance 235 Repentance, Deathbed 235 Reprobation; Damnation 236 Revelations 238 Riches, Excessive Desire for 238 Saints, Communion of 240 Saints, Invocation and Intercession of 242 Saints, Veneration of 243 Salvation 244 Salvation, Moral Assurance of 245 Sanctification 246 Satan 249 Satan and Hedonism 254 Satan and Prayer 255 Satan and Visions 255 Satan, Appearance of 256 Satisfaction 257 Scripture 257 Scripture and Spirituality 257 Scripture and Truth 258 Self-Examination 259 Self-Knowledge 260 Self-Love 260 Sensuality; Carnality 261 Servanthood 262 Sin 262 Sin: Fiery Purging of 264 Sin, Mortal 265 Sin, Original 267 Sin, Venial 268 Solitude 268 Soul, The 269 Spiritual Feelings 269 Spirituality 270 Submission 272 Suffering 272 Suffering and Joy 274 Suffering and Merit 275 Suffering and Reward 275 Suffering and Sanctity 276 Suffering and Trust in God 276 Suffering: Chastisement 279 Suffering and Redemption 280 Suffering with (and for) Christ 280 Temptation 284 Temptation and Holiness 286 Temptation and Prayer 286 Temptation and Satan 287 Thanksgiving 288 Tradition, Sacred 288 Trinity, Holy 288 Unbelief 289 Vices 289 Virtue(s) 290 Visions 292 Vocations; Callings 293 Will, Man’s 293 Working Together with God (Co-Laborers) 294 Works, Good 296

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Last updated on 25 September 2020
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