Philosophy for Christians

Does Rationalism Bear Moral Responsibility

2011-05-27T06:17:00.000-07:00

What if this were to happen: Seismologists Tried for Manslaughter for Not Predicting Earthquake? What mindset is behind this way of thinking? Is it reasonable to think that scientists bear moral responsibility for their secular efforts? These people are not theologians; they are scientists.

Science today is done outside the scope of faith and moral responsibility. Information is treated as an amoral entity. Facts, it is assumed, are neither good nor bad; they just are. It is the task of the scientist to log facts and draw conclusions. But is it the responsibility of the scientist to better the lot of humanity? In this age where the secular state has dismissed the authority of church morality in favor of progressive values, does the scientist bear progressive moral responsibility for his/her efforts? That seems to be the case here. But what is behind it?

For the secularist, Reason is sufficient as the judge of human affairs. With Reason resting atop all else, Revelation is either subjugated to Reason (and is inferior to it), is its handmaiden (exists as its tool for communicating morality), or is treated as non-existent. In all cases the dominance of Revelation is no more. This is Rationalism.

The Progressive demands the absence of the church/Revelation from matters of social progress.

Progressivism also was imbued with strong political overtones, and it rejected the church as the driving force for change. Specific goals included:
The desire to remove corruption and undue influence from government through the taming of bosses and political machines
the effort to include more people more directly in the political process
the conviction that government must play a role to solve social problems and establish fairness in economic matters.
(http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1061.html)

The Progressive, operating apart from the influence of Revelation, seems then to have three general options for its moral response for the continuance of human progress. One is to dismiss moral responsibility entirely. The other two both involve morality, though differently. Either it is to allow the religious to make their remarks apart from Progressive involvement, or to co-opt religious language and make moral judgment. It is the first and third of these which are most common. The first we see in science where religion is pronounced as non-existent. The third we hear in politics as the state attempts to do good on its own. The second seems uncommon.

This situation in Italy fits the third scenario. The Progressive state has adopted a religious authority for imposing moral judgment on scientific information. Sounds like the Galileo situation in reverse. In the Galileo situation the church took authority of science; today the secular state imbued science with moral responsibility.

Of course there is a valuable component here. This situation does confront the dualism of faith versus science. But the consequences of this particular solution are frightening. Now the state is free to assign moral responsibility without the benefit of a defined revelatory foundation. The state depends on its authority alone. To be jailed for not knowing should concern all of us. Ideas have consequences.

Reason, Faith, and Meaning

2011-05-02T11:38:00.000-07:00

"Reason, Faith, and Meaning" is the essay of Charles Taylor (McGill University) in Faith and Philosophy, Vol 28, No. 1, January, 2011. The piece begins

There are two connected illusions, it seems to me, which have become very common today. The first consists in marking a very sharp distinction between reason and faith -- even to the point of defining faith as believing without good reason! The second is to take as a model what I want to call "disengaged" reason. And these two are tightly linked.

With this Dr. McGill begins his analysis of the post-Enlightenment separation of faith and reason. First is that reason may only sometimes provide a univocal response as it does in mathematics. But not always despite positivist assertions. Matters of theory and conceptualization escape the grasp of the positivist. And when it does accomplish this it requires specific and restricted language (Lash, 2008). This limits the scope that reason might claim.

Even in the area of reasoned evaluation comes, he states, the influence of culture and heritage. This leaves the observers of facts in disagreement, which might lead some to resign themselves to relativism. But such is not necessary for the perspectives are open to debate and analysis may still proceed. As such the faculties of reason remain at work even though we are not beginning to escape the trap of "reason alone" as any sort of guide.

The next step in this is to see what damage has been done to our understanding of reason. For Descarte the separation came between the reason and the reasoning. The formula was separated from the process. This allows a criticism of the post-Enlightenment ideas of reason. It is

... problematic to say the least. If reason alone is defined in opposition to faith, then it threatens to collapse as a category when we see the role that faith in our inchoate insights must play. If it is opposed to revelation ,then the problem is that "revelation" is a category which we come to articulate in order to make sense of our most fundamental insights. It is itself the fruit of reason-as-articulation.

Now the post-Enlightenment idea of disengaged reason disintegrates. Yet we are also able to judge without being entirely driven by passion or emotion. A contrary example is provided with Cabaret as a working model. Being driven by passions (more than feelings) might have led a 1932 German to his imagined better future, though our hindsight says otherwise.

One result of this has been to assign passion to mere emotion and response.

One of the distortions introduced by the modern objectified philosophical anthropology was to split emotion from its constituent perception, and thus assimilate it to sensation. On this view, the fact that a given emotion attends a certain kind of event -- despondency in face of a disaster, for instance -- can be judged neither appropriate or inappropriate; it is just a brute fact about us, like that fact that pain attends some kinds of change i our bodies, and not others, or that some substances cause nausea and not others. The relation between event and affect is purely causal, and as such contingent.

This is in some contrast even to the ancients who, in one noted measure, linked passion and emotion to perception. Emotions were as related to analysis of a situation as they were to brute response which we treat as a mere trigger action.

But in contrast to this (which I will note was during the "Romantic" era) David Hume posited that morality came not from reason but from sentiment. This also, to Hume, was a brute reaction. Though it may be dealt with through reason it is nevertheless founded in sentiment. Now the sensibilities of the past have been supplanted with a purportedly independent sense of reason.

Now we can discern that our captivity to the picture of such a sense of enlightened reason can be broken. Faith and revelation may still inform knowledge and even science.

Liberty NOW?

2011-04-13T10:10:00.001-07:00

The left is truly amazing. Really, they are. They can do the most amazing things with words. Erin Matson accomplishes this and with great finesse. She is able to subtract meaning, add meaning, and substitute meaning, all it appears without breaking a sweat. Her concern is the Illinois judge's ruling that a pharmacist has a conscience right regarding the dispensing of specific medicines. She begins:

Yesterday, an Illinois Judge turned over a state rule requiring pharmacists to sell emergency contraception, asserting that it violates a state "right-of-conscience" law and the First Amendment.

So far so good. She disagrees with the ruling. No surprise there. But her next paragraph begins to express the inconsistency we find in today's left.

How "free speech" has come to be interpreted as a right to deny a safe and legal prescription and directly control the inner workings of another person's body is an inexplicable overreach, and judicial activism of the worst kind.

I guess this means that Erin supports a ban on flag burning. That is, after all, a personal speech expression.

It is also sexism, as it is directed only toward women.

But is it directed at them because they are women? That's a correlation without a cause, a pretty basic fallacy.

Now she plays her hand -- she lets us know exactly what she things about our system of laws and freedoms.

This ruling represents a triumph of superstition over science.

We live in the Enlightenment world of dualisms where what is supposedly "real" knowledge is supposed to hold sway over what is "unreal" knowledge. In Erin's world there is no room for morality. There is no room for faith. There is no room for anything other than that which is measurable -- scientific. This is, of course, a position which has not been thought through very well, and we will discuss that at length later.

Like the "Monkey Scopes" trial less than 100 years ago, in which religious fundamentalism scored a temporary triumph over a large body of scientific evidence supporting the theory of evolution, the entire premise of this "conscience" has no basis in science.

Well, unfortunately Erin has a quite limited view of Christianity and religion in general. Unless she is willing to say that all religious systems which hold to conscience and moral values amount to some type of "fundamentalism" it seems that she is using the term "fundamentalism" as a pejorative. As I recall, a good deal of liberal religious morality is one of the abortion industry's foundations.

Some people who don't support abortion rights also don't support the right to emergency contraception, and to justify their second belief they claim that emergency contraception is abortion. However, the facts don't back that up.

I wonder what makes contraception an "emergency"? What makes it so life-critical that contraception must be given? Is it life-threatening? That is hardly the case for those many college girls who use this system for personal convenience. There is nothing life-threatening about the next morning. The "emergency" does not exist -- unless pregnancy itself is considered evil.

Implantation is the first step of a pregnancy, as recognized by the National Institutes of Health, the American Medical Association and other respected medical institutions. Emergency contraception prevents implantation before it occurs -- that is why it's called emergency contraception. It's a contraceptive. It's not an abortifacient. The American Medical Association debated the issue, and after a period of review, rejected the idea that emergency contraceptives are abortifacients.

Here is an important line that Erin has drawn. She has changed subject. This not about preventing contraception -- this is about preventing implantation of a conceived human being. It is about interrupting the process of life. The product of Erin's remark is to change conception into implantation and redefining terms is a convenient method for deception.

It's really bizarre for "pro-life" pharmacists to try to stop women from accessing emergency contraception, because emergency contraception makes it less likely that women who are currently not pregnant and do not want to be pregnant will seek abortions in the near future.

Again with the inflammatory "emergency" rhetoric. And again with the confusion of definitions -- it's about life, not about pregnacy and convenience.

Yesterday's ruling is a horrific moment for reason, and more important, the health, lives and well-being of women and their families in the state of Illinois. The Attorney General has announced an appeal is planned, and that's a good thing.

And again with the dualism of "reason" versus "faith" that is her primary subtext. But she cannot escape without the fear-mongering -- that women all over the place are going to die if they cannot get this med the next morning. Their health is apparently also at risk.

But even in all of this she can still define something as "good." The problem is that nobody can measure "good" because it is a value judgment. And if her ability to measure according to science and reason cannot account for the immeasurable content of "good" then she has no business saying that anything is good.

She may respond that it may be accounted for as a result of some deontological utility -- that there is some duty to provide the least pain and greatest pleasure possible. But to do that would mean that she would have to dismiss her claim of "science" as a foundation her belief system. Science demands either a specific measurability or a framework for measurement. Utility provides neither.

The removal of theology from public discourse leads to this type of logical emptiness. It is no wonder that the West is failing in education. When the institutions of this and similar nations proceed to produce such ill-conceived (pun intended) notions that secularity can produce goodness then we are headed down the road of 20th c. Europe and Asia. We are headed toward totalitarianism and the explicit removal of the right of conscience -- an end which is specific to and a requisite component of Erin's post.

Examining Inalienable Rights

2011-04-06T06:34:00.000-07:00

The Declaration of Independence opens with this statement:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

We, of course, use the term "inalienable" in the place of "unalienable" and mean the same thing. But what that word means is quite important. The term means simply that these rights cannot be externalized. They lie only with the individual and are not granted by the state.

There are three stated here -- life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. "Life" means more than being alive. It means, along with "liberty," being fully self-determined. Statements like this amount to treason in a monarchy or modern statist system where the king or the government knows best. The "pursuit of happiness" is likewise more than just the satisfaction of the moment but is much more about the freedom to pursue at ones discretion any end that one desires (within law and decency, of course).

And then there is the social contract component that cannot be missed. The governed give their consent to government. Throughout history there have been changes in government based on the level of satisfaction within a nation. Few totalitarian states survive at the expense of their people. But then again, in human history few states survive long anyway. There is a sense where this statement hints of an optimism that may not be well-founded in history.

This social contract occurs when people choose to externalize their rights -- to surrender them to agreed-upon ends in the success of a society. We place limits on how far our personal liberties might take us. In the US we may not, for instance, remove these rights from a segment of society without due process of law. But even here is a limit. We have outlawed not only slavery -- the involuntary removal of natural right -- but also voluntary, indentured service. Our system does not tolerate the removal of internal rights, even voluntarily.

The older emphasis on "property" which was replaced by the "pursuit of happiness" is an interesting one. There was some interaction between Franklin and Jefferson regarding this (ref Hutchinson) that would lean toward including only internalized rights in the enumerated list. This list, also, is not complete as it says that these three are "among" other rights. But the speculations are many and the truth is difficult to discern here. Was it also a question about slavery and a way to just not talk about it? Or was it a method for making certain that property ownership was always an external right and thus subject to government control?

Of interest here is the clear presence of "positive liberty" to be self directed. It seems that the Constitution does not address this because that is not the Constitution's goal. The Constitution can only deal with those matters in it purview -- managing matters of external rights. Nor is it capable of doing so if positive liberty is a matter of natural right/natural law and not of either legislation or declaration. Thus it seems that the Constitution cannot function in the field of positive liberty.

But there is a theological component which should not be missed or dismissed. If rights are from the Creator then they are apparently provided as a matter of creation and are thus granted by a higher authority. This makes them not exactly natural but instead regular. They can be expected to be present, but even life itself is externally subject to the Creator's control. Likewise liberty and individual pursuits are subject to the Creator's providential management of human society.

There is a point where Christian theology separates itself from government in its view of humanity. And there is a point where government's co-opting of theology can prove damaging to religious beliefs as well as seductive to religious adherents. If we are God's slaves (δοῦλος) then we are not fully free to ourselves. Our rights are His alone, and not even ours, even by nature.

Euthyphro's Return Volley

2011-02-17T06:34:00.000-08:00

We know the dilemma:

Socrates asks whether the pious is loved by the gods because it is the pious, or whether the pious is the pious because it is loved by the gods. In other words: do the gods love something because it is pious, or is something pious because the gods love it? Which is it?

It is restated with regard to divine command theory in this way:

Is x good because it is commanded by God, or does God command x because it is good.

The result is two significant conflicts. The first dilemma makes God arbitrary and fickle. The second creates the problem of abstract objects. For those who accept divine command, it can be present a serious problem. Fortunately, for many theologians there is a way around this. It goes like this:

X is good not in and of itself but because it come from the character of God.

This does, of course, require an acceptance of divine simplicity so as to avoid the potential for some level of perceived inconsistency within the Godhead. Even so, the dilemma is answerable.

But now we can turn the tables on the secular critic. In particular conversations, such as in the abortion debate, the statement will be uttered:

It is right because it is legal.

We can now repackage this class of remark into Euthyphro language.

Is x good because the state says so, or does the state say x is right because it is good.

Now the statist is faced with that same dilemma. Let's call it State Command Theory. Either the state is the arbiter of morality in an absolute sense, or the apparent good of 'x' exists on its own. There is no answer with an appeal to any apparent good character within the state that is reflected in its declaration.

Responses might include the idea that the state is not declaring absolute morality, but only relevant localized morality. But this makes no sense unless one is willing to dismiss all of both natural law and natural right. To do so is to effectively reject the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is to appeal to a relativism which would eliminate all sense of accounting for real rights.

Now, the Reformed and other Christian theologians will also reject the UN declaration, but on different grounds. But the Christian theologian (properly Christian, that is) does not appeal to relativism. Relativism belongs to the secular mind.

I Flip-Flop Therefore I Am

2010-11-09T08:20:00.000-08:00

A logic flip-flop is among the most basic pieces of discrete logic. A flip-flop does exactly what the name suggests: On command (at the Clock pulse applied to pin CK) the information at pin D (data) is transferred to both output Q and not-Q. But either Q or not-Q can be employed as the Clock for a second unit as the example below demonstrates. This circuit is used to divide the initial clock input (the far left CK) by 4, with the right-most Q output being the end product of that division.

But this little piece of logic (the tiny little 74LS74 chip) is aware both of (a) its input and (b) its own output. It flip-flops, therefore it is? Yet all processing requires external stimulus, eg clock and data.

Could Descartes have been wrong?

Image credits and references:
http://physics.usask.ca/~angie/ep326/lab3/background.htm
http://physics.usask.ca/~angie/ep326/lab3/dm74ls74a.pdf

Logical Riddles for Internalists

2010-11-09T08:17:00.000-08:00

I hope you find these useful and challenging.

#1 Proper function requires adequate functionality.
There is adequate warrant for all to accept that 1+2=3.
a. Human beings are justified in believing that 1+2=3.
b. Gorillas are justified in believing that 1+2=3. Can a gorilla do this? What if a gorilla could do this?
c. Sparrows are justified in believing that 1+2=3. Can a sparrow do this? What if a sparrow could do this?

#2 Does proper function require the presence of functional language suitable to the task of arriving at a justification? (Is language a part of proper function?)
a. The concept of zero had no warrant in 500 B.C. The language and theoretical concepts did not exist at that time.
b. The concept of zero has warrant today. The language and concepts have developed in the interim time.

… And Otherwise Decent Folks

2010-08-04T16:10:00.000-07:00

When I go and stick my neck out on evolution and liberal blogs not only are the attacks fierce, but so also are the irrational remarks and even censorship that pervade conversation that might be pleasant. These folks seem generally decent but often have a difficult time carrying on a dialogue with someone who holds another world view. I won’t name names here. That wouldn’t be polite. All I wish to do is delve into the argumentation methods used to denounce others. I hope that this evaluation approach will help you as you engage the world for Christ by helping you understand something about the mind and motivations of those you encounter.

When it comes to the question of evolution (big E or little e), without addressing the merits of the issue, the question of argumentation always comes into play. For instance, those of us who are overtly presuppositional make certain claims about the universe. But things are not so tidy in the world of scientists and especially not so in the world of the amateur philosopher. As an example, Jerry Coyne made a core presuppositional remark regarding his understanding of evolution:

If speciation is true, for instance, then common ancestry must also be true. (Why Evolution is True, p. 14)

This is not an evidential statement. Dr. Coyne has built a stair-step of apparent deductive necessity. In his view, if the former is ever the case then the latter, which is much broader in scope, must also be the case. If at any time any species can develop (by whatever model) then all species must have developed in this or similar fashion.

In order for this to be a must the argument requires a rejection of any alternative. If speciation is ever true then creation (special or general) is never true. I won’t argue against this in terms of a b&w fallacy. It isn’t. It is a simple statement regarding correctness and incorrectness as he sees it.

The argument does not include evidence. Speciation here is not, as I read it, an argument from evidence, though he does argue for speciation from evidence at other times. As stated, speciation is set up as a sort of equivalent to common ancestry. That is the core question that is argued: What is our ancestry? Though stated specifically, Dr. Coyne’s argument is a presuppositional argument for a metaphysical naturalism. Common ancestry sits as a euphemism for that purpose. Common ancestry is his analogy for naturalism. I suspect he might agree.

Dr. Coyne does argue from evidence to prove speciation. He takes a core Darwinian position. In this sense he is also an evidentialist. That’s ok. That’s what evidence is for – proving assumptions. But evidence is never a proof of presuppositions. Presuppositions come with no contingencies or dependencies. They stand alone. And that is the weakness of the must-ness of his position. He can prove speciation (to which I do not object in principle, though I would contend that there are models better than Darwin’s model) but he cannot prove naturalism.

This is the challenge that we face in defending the faith against illogic. It is not simply Christians who hold to presuppositions. The principle is not one that we own. What we do well to do in these cases is to show that there is more to life and a defense of anything than the preponderance of evidence. To do this makes us better thinkers and better representatives of intelligence.

Evolution, the Christian, and Scientific Theory

2010-06-26T05:41:00.000-07:00

Science itself is not our opponent or otherwise the enemy of God. Naturalism, however, is. Naturalism, the believe that the physical universe of time, space, matter, and energy is all that exists, sets itself as the opponent of the Eternal. It serves as the fundamental presupposition and working assumption of a great deal of the scientific community. But not all.

As a presupposition, naturalism is held up as the first guiding principle of one brand of science. All energies are driven by this belief. It may not be a “religion” in any formal sense, but it suffices to take the place of religious belief and as such operates on the same plane. It thus serves as the explanation for why things are they way they are. This is also known as metaphysical naturalism.

As a working assumption, naturalism sets today’s ground rules for the scope of scientific inquiry. It is expressed as a condition for experimentation. Going further than a basic physicalist approach, which simply limits the scope of inquiry to the physical world, not addressing the realm of theology, the naturalistic assumption specifically addresses theology and tells the scientist that there is nothing outside of the physical world to consider, let alone to test.

This is not to suggest that science can or, if it could, it should, test the metaphysical. Not at all. The concern is that the naturalistic method makes the mistake of addressing the metaphysical. It declares that there is nothing other than the physical. This declaration is unnecessary to the work of inquiry and says more about the bias of the scientist than about the character of the results that the scientist might produce, though those do come with an evident taint.

Naturalism serves not only to frame science in general, but to frame evolutionary theory. It has been stated and restated often that "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." This argument is making two points. The first, with which I have no difficulty, points to genetics and biological change. Small-e "evolution" accounts for redheads, blonds, and short people. Few argue that point.

But naturalism often serves as a mechanism for the bundling of naturalism and evolution into the convenient package "N&E" (as A. Plantinga calls it). I call it "big-E" Evolution. It amounts to a homogenization of both metaphysical and methodological naturalism, along with evolutionary processes, into a convenient answer and framing for (and thus control of) science. It then gains the capacity to co-opt science away from anyone religious and claim its ownership only for the atheist.

The practical question that faces the Christian is how to reframe science and faith so that reality is actually represented better through a Christian world view than through the perspective of the naturalist. Loraine Boettner attempted this in the 1950s, facing the attacks of the then quite-demanding challenge of logical positivism. He first acknowledged the nature of the Bible and its relationship with science.

The Bible, of course, was not written from the scientific point of view, and the person who attempts to deal with it as if it were a text book on science will be badly disappointed. Written long before the rise of modern science, it was intended primarily not for scientists and intellectuals but for the common people. Its language is that of the common people, and its subject matter is primarily religious and spiritual. Had it been written in the language of modern science or philosophy it would have been unintelligible to the people of earlier ages, and in fact would also be unintelligible to multitudes in our own day. Moreover, while we certainly have no desire to disparage the scientific accomplishments of our day but wish rather to accept them and use them to the full, we must point out that textbooks on science have to be rewritten at least once every generation and that so rapidly is scientific research progressing in our day that most books on scientific subjects are obsolete within ten years, But in the Bible we have a Book which has had no revision for multiplied centuries and which appeals to the heart and intelligence of people today as strongly as it has ever done in the past. Those who go to the Bible for spiritual and intellectual inspiration find it as fresh and inspiring as if it had been written but yesterday. ("The Inspiration of Scripture", Part 4, http://www.reformed.org/master/index.html?mainframe=/bible/boettner/inspire4.html)

He furthers his argument exposing the problem of scope and the unwarranted advance of naturalism into the realm of theology. He also exposes the failure of Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

Perhaps the primary reason there has been so much confusion regarding the relationship between religion and science is the failure on the part of so many people to discriminate between facts and opinions. True science deals only with established facts; opinions may be as varied as the people who express them. Organic evolution, for instance, as it is usually set forth rules out the supernatural and contradicts the Bible. But it must be remembered that organic evolution is not science, but only a theory, an hypothesis. Not one of the five arguments usually advanced to support it is sound, and many distinguished scientists do not believe in the theory of organic evolution but in fiat creation as taught in the Bible.

Though some have given substance to a couple of the points, the criticism of this theory set and its vagueness remain intact. It was during this same period that Michael Polanyi, hardly a part of the creationist community, also described the theory as both vague and inadequate.

There is a fundamental vagueness in this theory which tends to conceal its inadequacy. It consists in the fact that we lack any acceptable conception in which the way genetic changes modify ontogenesis – a deficiency which is due in its turn to the fact that we can have no clear conception of living beings, as long as we insist on defining life in terms of physics and chemistry. (Polanyi, Michael, Personal Knowledge, Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy, 1962, University of Chicago Press, p. 383. )

The vague nature of the theory remains. This was recently exposed by Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini in their recently-published What Darwin Got Wrong. Yet this is not the strongest implication of their effort. What they provide to the scientific community, and more importantly to the student of science in general and evolution specifically, is that models do not so easily provide an adequate explanation to dealing with information.

The authors begin with one model. They accept the biological engine of evolution. They follow the pattern of genetic biologists such as Stephen Jay Gould. Yet they recognize the problems inherent in punctuated equilibrium and propose a general alternative. Another model. Another attempt to provide an explanation through a model.

It is this model structure with is the greatest failure of naturalistic evolution. The movement’s scientists and theorists are bent on being naturalists (metaphysical philosophers, that is) instead of just being scientists. The use of abstract theory is still acceptable. It is a necessary mechanism for explaining many things. But when wrapped in naturalism it becomes a scarecrow against any implication of any deity affecting the universe. They become theologians instead of scientists.

Our response can be helpful. Clarifying to the scientists that theology is outside of their venue can help them do better work. The irony is that this can be best proposed by the scientists who is also a theologian. I think the reason for this is a valuable consideration. It is the theologian who can best avoid the dualism of science versus faith. We know the relationship and do not have to deal in conflict and other dialectical issues. But in the world of dialectical science, dialectical linguists, and dialectical theology, this might prove refreshing. Hopefully we can express this clearly.

Book Preview: What Darwin Got Wrong

2010-05-17T15:34:00.000-07:00

Book Preview

What Darwin Got Wrong

By Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini

The premise of the book is a simple one: Natural selection does not work. As it come to be a functional system it found its practical incarnation in the efforts of B. F. Skinner. But the failings of Skinner’s system – that is has exogenic requirements – evidences the failure of the natural selection model.

In theology, and in philosophy, the term teleology makes for a good equivalent to exogenic. That is, there is something outside the system guiding the system. Though we might use teleology in terms of ends, the teleological process arrives at ends known or unknown through a guided process. (We will refer to the authors, as did Jerry Coyne in his response[1]) F&P emphasize this requirement as their most important criticism of natural selection.

The companion term, and probably much clearer to the reader, is their “selection-for” argument, one that they pursue like a feline after a mouse. But much more could have been written on this issue. It goes beyond simple directionality and exposes one of the naturalist’s greatest challenges: Why? Still, I continue to wonder if the mechanisms of genetics might suffer the same fate given that we have somehow arrived at our current level of complexity and the presence of free riders that seem to set a course for development[2].

The work reminds one of the old neo-Darwinists who saw genetics driving everything. Though they are not quite so mechanistic as the old neo-Darwinists, they do attempt to cash out with this approach. They are clear when they reject the principle that “nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution”[3] and accept the alternative, that “[4]nothing in evolution makes sense except in the light of developmental biology”.

The beginning of the book contains some admissions which are worth noting: The multiple mechanisms account for multiple evolutionary models. Each of the different disciplines seem to think that the others are wrong in their understanding of evolution. Nobody really knows how it works, but they accept it anyway.

The epistemological structure of the work is its consistency. F&P argue evidence almost entirely. They do not spend time arguing naturalism. They are not acting as evangelists for naturalism, though they hold to it. By not confusing analogical and evidential approaches the material stands above the work of many other evolutionists.

[1] Coyne, Jerry, The Nation, “The Improbability Pump” , May 10, 2010, also available at http://www.thenation.com/article/improbability-pump What Coyne fails to do is to account for Piattelli-Palmarini’s background in molecular biology when his only ascription to their shared credentials is to say that “Fodor, a respected philosopher of mind, and Piattelli-Palmarini, a cognitive scientist, both accept the fact of evolution”
[2] pp. 98-99
[3] Quoting Dobzhansky, 1973, p. 30
[4] p. 30

cogito ergo

2010-03-31T13:39:00.000-07:00

cogito ergo ____

Does it follow that I am necessary to answer the question? (cogito ergo sum) Not at all. What seems necessary to us may not be necessary to God. We are all creations out of his choosing, and therefore dependent upon him in all things.

But the statement cannot remain empty. If it does, then what remains is as irrational as any other incomplete (incoherent) sentence. Some would suggest that Christian apologetics can be boiled down to simplistic matters, that God can be replaced by the flying spagetti monster, and that that monster is the source (the completion of the sentence) for these thoughts. (I think therefore the flying spagetti monser exists.) The source might be the universal consciousness of The Matrix, or of pantheism and monism. Any greater being might provide this emptiness so that "sum" does not complete the sentence, but instead leaves it as unknowable. At that point, any one answer is as good as any other. That is the essence of irrationality, for that seems to be its definition.

On the History of Empires and Theology

2010-03-02T08:16:00.000-08:00

Niall Ferguson provides a simple, clear, and insightful portrayal of the (potential) rise and fall of the American empire in his article Complexity and Collapse, Empires on the Edge of Chaos, from the March/April 2010 edition of Foreign Affairs. The thread of his analysis follows a thread provided by Thomas Cole's The Course of Empire, a series of five paintings done toward the mid 19th century, itself being an analysis of what happens when nations rise and fall. Mr. Ferguson parallels this theme with the analysis of several historians.

Idealists and materialists alike have shared that assumption. In his book Scienza nuova, the Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico describes all civilizations as passing through three phases: the divine, the heroic, and the human, finally dissolving into what Vico called "the barbarism of reflection." For Hegel and Marx, it was the dialectic that gave history its unmistakable beat. History was seasonal for Oswald Spengler, the German historian, who wrote in his 1918-22 book, The Decline of the West, that the nineteenth century had been "the winter of the West, the victory of materialism and skepticism, of socialism, parliamentarianism, and money." The British historian Arnold Toynbee's universal theory of civilization proposed a cycle of challenge, response, and suicide. Each of these models is different, but all share the idea that history has rhythm.

He observes also the nature of complex systems and inquires whether the complexity might be an instrument of destruction or a barrier to destruction. This, to me, bears a certain resemblance to an uncertainty principle

Whether the canopy of a rain forest or the trading floor of Wall Street, complex systems share certain characteristics. A small input to such a system can produce huge, often unanticipated changes -- what scientists call "the amplifier effect." A vaccine, for example, stimulates the immune system to become resistant to, say, measles or mumps. But administer too large a dose, and the patient dies. Meanwhile, causal relationships are often nonlinear, which means that traditional methods of generalizing through observation (such as trend analysis and sampling) are of little use. Some theorists of complexity would go so far as to say that complex systems are wholly nondeterministic, meaning that it is impossible to make predictions about their future behavior based on existing data.
When things go wrong in a complex system, the scale of disruption is nearly impossible to anticipate. There is no such thing as a typical or average forest fire, for example. To use the jargon of modern physics, a forest before a fire is in a state of "self-organized criticality": it is teetering on the verge of a breakdown, but the size of the breakdown is unknown. Will there be a small fire or a huge one? It is very hard to say: a forest fire twice as large as last year's is roughly four or six or eight times less likely to happen this year. This kind of pattern -- known as a "power-law distribution" -- is remarkably common in the natural world. It can be seen not just in forest fires but also in earthquakes and epidemics. Some researchers claim that conflicts follow a similar pattern, ranging from local skirmishes to full-scale world wars

The article is not one of paranoia but of alertness. Not sounding like Glenn Beck and predicting an impending collapse, he alternatively warns of the collapse by describing the nature of the situation we are in.

Over the last three years, the complex system of the global economy flipped from boom to bust -- all because a bunch of Americans started to default on their subprime mortgages, thereby blowing huge holes in the business models of thousands of highly leveraged financial institutions. The next phase of the current crisis may begin when the public begins to reassess the credibility of the monetary and fiscal measures that the Obama administration has taken in response. Neither interest rates at zero nor fiscal stimulus can achieve a sustainable recovery if people in the United States and abroad collectively decide, overnight, that such measures will lead to much higher inflation rates or outright default. As Thomas Sargent, an economist who pioneered the idea of rational expectations, demonstrated more than 20 years ago, such decisions are self-fulfilling: it is not the base supply of money that determines inflation but the velocity of its circulation, which in turn is a function of expectations. In the same way, it is not the debt-to-GDP ratio that determines government solvency but the interest rate that investors demand. Bond yields can shoot up if expectations change about future government solvency, intensifying an already bad fiscal crisis by driving up the cost of interest payments on new debt. Just ask Greece -- it happened there at the end of last year, plunging the country into fiscal and political crisis.

In this he is not a prophet of doom, but a prophet of possibility. We may repair the problem if we know what it is.

A Theological Parallel?

Does theology (or ideas in general), along with its accompanying ecclesiastical institutions, go through a similar cycle? It is easy to look at, as do the emergents, New Testament theology as being the primitive, something akin to Cole's The Savage State, of theology. But nothing can be further from the truth. There is nothing unsophisticated or under-developed in Romans and Hebrews. These works express, among other things, the Gospel and its implications plainly in relationship to both Roman and Jewish ideals.

But the ecclesia went from being its militant self when under persecution, to finding acceptance under the edict of tolerance, to becoming not only official but also controlling of kings and peoples. Then, under the complexity of its own self-interests, it faced the challenges of modernity and naturalism which are leading the end of its dominance. (This is not to suggest that modernity and naturalism are correct, but only that they present a serious challenge of which most are quite aware.)

Today the larger ecclesiastical structures cling to their postmillennial sense of authority while the smaller ones fight for their existence. At the same time, modernity now owns virtually all the public institutions and public sentiment. Whether evolutionary, Marxist, or pagan, world sentiment now sits against the Christian structures. They look forward to the collapse and destruction of the Christian edifices and the world view that it supports.

Ok, so I'm still a bit pessimistic. But I do believe we are short-sighted when we ignore the scope of the challenge and simply hole up in our little church hutches and ignore the challenges. I believe the future for Christianity is bright, but only if we give more serious consideration to solutions. As someone who appreciates reformed apologetics, there is a principle which is a must: All apologetics must be actively offensive. We must not confront the challenger with the assertion that you are wrong, but with the presupposition, and history, that God in Christ is right.

An Introduction to Reformed (presuppositional) Apologetics

2010-02-24T08:15:00.000-08:00

With just a hint of reformed epistemology.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Wilson, Right and Wrong

2010-02-23T07:46:00.000-08:00

You know it is my principle, no less than yours, that every man will have an equal chance with every other man: if I saw my way to it as a practical politician, I should be willing to go farther and superintend every man's use of his chance. By what means? The question with me is not whether the community has power to act as it may please in these matters, but ow it can act with practical advantage -- a question of policy.

As Wilson here distinguishes himself from the socialists, he alternatively joins them with his intrusion into the principle that he espouses, at least verbally: Democracy. The democracy, for Wilson, is merely the community as a unit, not the will of the individuals within the community and it methods of expression.

This is how collectivism works socially. It sits in contrast to what we usually think of as collectivism -- labor unions and ethnic groups. But Wilson takes the principle to the next abstract level and looks at society as the collective, the community, his definition of democracy.

This approach has provided some political advantage to the Left over the years. Their collectivist view of society has allowed the movement to define the language of the arguments regarding social services and personal opportunity with in the community. It is the failure, in my opinion, of the conservative, to cling to the libertarianism of the past that has allowed society to accept this alternative because of its practical benefits.

Conservatism seems to lack the paradigm necessary for a change of direction. Libertarian individualism and patriotism, as desirable as they are, do not function well in an international and large-scale corporatist environment. Our world has changed. And though I differ with the historicism of Wilson & Hegel, I must agree with his basic understanding that we have not adapted well to the changing world. The conservative must do a better job, here using the terminology of the late Bill Bright, of making the Constitution both a sound document and a set of transferable concepts for the modern world. We need not change its essence to give better application to its principles.

So what does this mean for the Christian who is socially and politically engaged? I do wonder if we need to reconsider our social agenda. What do we do for minority opportunity? It takes one who is pretty naive to flippantly dismiss the damage that remains from our past slave history. Still, we can address these problems differently than do the socialists and Wilsonians. We have a wonder first principle to work from: The best way to stop the problem is to not practice it.

At this point I might be branded as a neo- or quasi-Wilsonian for promoting his methodology without his principles. The greatest difference is that I see real room for personal liberty in popular society where Wilson did not. This comes as a result of Christian theology's promotion of free moral agency, a principle that seems to make for responsible citizens as individuals stand before the law. C. S. Lewis said it well, and it stands as a criticism of both Christian and Hegelian (Wilsonian) theocracy:

I am a democrat because I believe that no man or group of men is good enough to be trusted with uncontrolled power over others. And the higher the pretentions of such power, the more dangerous I think it both to the rulers and to the subjects. Hence Theocracy is the worst of all governments. If we must have a tyrant a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent.

But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations. And since Theocracy is the worst, the nearer any government approaches Theocracy the worse it will be. A metaphysic, held by the rulers with the force of a religion, is a bad sign. It forbids them like the inquisitor, to admit any grain of truth or good in their opponents, it abrogates the ordinary rules of morality, and it gives a seemingly high, super-personal sanction to all the passions by which, like other men, the rulers will frequently be actuated. In a word, it forbids wholesome doubt.

The Problem of Progressivism

2010-02-19T18:42:00.000-08:00

Despite Glenn Beck's apocalyptic proclivities, his analysis and exposition of the 20th c. progressive movement is a valuable bit of useful education. Taking a step beyond his introductory material we can do a bit more analysis of President Wilson's progressive tone and explore some of the more troubling issues of Wilson's philosophy of government. This material is gleaned from Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism.

Wilson subscribed to a philosophy known as historicism. It was his view that the past was relevant only to that time and is not relevant to today. He says that "the best government is the one that best reflects the spirit of a nation at a particular time and place." (p. 38-39)

Nation differs from nation, in habits, aptitudes, ambitions, needs, desires, and a system of politics which will suit one nation may be eminently unsuitable for another, its neighbor. There is, accordingly, no one best system of government, but for each nation there is some sort of government which is best adapted to its wants and capacities, most appropriate and helpful in its present stage of development. When once this idea is fully accepted, as it must be by every student qualified to judge, it is impossible to be doctrinaire, to travel any longer the "high priori" road of political speculation.

In this Wilson does not only reject history, he also rejects the first principles of natural right and natural law that underlie western democratic tradition. Instead he follows Hegel's error of dialectical socialism. (p. 68)

As Wilson explained in "The Modern Democratic State," the state's development culminates in modern democracy -- there is no more advanced form of government. "Democracy is the fullest form of state life: it is the completest possible realization of corporate, cooperate state life for a whole people."

This leaves us with statism at its worst. While all the while employing the secular post-millennial language of the 19th century, Wilson views the democratic state as the end-all of human government.

But it seems to me that we might be mistaken in a little of our understanding of this leftist turn. It has more foundation in Hegel than in Marx; it does not leave behind it the same carnage. Yet it represents the strong state that the Left so desires. So, while resembling both national and international socialism, it is not exactly either one. The national socialists (Nazis) largely rejected Marx. The old international socialists (Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro) employed Marx for the purpose of revolution. But the new international socialists do not require Marx' bloody revolution (Alinsky) yet build the same strong, centralized state as did the national socialists. We might think of this as a third turn in the leftward movement of modern liberalism.

On Reformed Epistemology and Apologetic Methodology

2010-01-11T07:12:00.000-08:00

The non-Christian attack often comes to us on matters of historical, or other, detail. It comes to us in the form of objections to certain teachings of Scripture, say, with respect to creation, etc.[i]

And so we are engaged. Popular engagement is on the creation-evolution front. Behind this is the question of question of world view. For several hundred years the conflict between Christianity and naturalism has raged. Particular battles have been between Galileo and church authority, the Scopes trial, and so forth.

One of the conditions which accompanies a debate on world views is that no world view be “proven” in any deductive sense. Though the effort of many is to provide some seemingly deductive proof, there just is none.

The question of world view consistency can be raised with questions as to soundness, or internal consistency. The paganism of naturalism[ii], and it’s modern cousin Marxism, depend on a view of knowledge which pretends to be a priori but is in fact a posteriori. The erroneously-categorized claim is the eternality of the natural universe, independent of creation. But this assumes that such knowledge, which depends upon nature, is able to assess nature. “Reason” is then raised above nature while at the same time depends upon nature for its existence.

Though the Reformed view places the source for knowledge within the context of revelation (thus removing responsibility for creating truth from people), not all Christians hold to this theological method. Both Rome and the Arminians place some source for reason and truth within human capacity[iii]. It is for this reason that the Christian apologist, when fighting in defense of the faith, is always attacking the particulars, such as specific evolutionary errors. But the net is that this evidential approach is always a defensive approach.

Darwin understood this when he presented a challenge to those who opposed his naturalistic world view and mechanism. His challenge:

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case.[iv]

Darwin established a framework for naturalism but did not posit a challenge to the presupposition, but to the evidence. He knew how to use evidence better than today’s Christian evidentialist. He first framed the evidence within naturalism and then set that presupposition above criticism, leaving the foundation for evidence to sit as pawn in the battle. In chess, one does not win by capturing pawn but by capturing the king. Darwin’s naturalism is thus as pagan as the Marxist.

Alvin Plantinga likewise sees a priori knowledge in a fashion similar to the Roman and Arminian. He says[v]:

According to the Cartesian tradition, we have privileged epistemic access to these [knowledge of self] matters. Some say it is impossible to be mistaken about them; we have incorrigible knowledge of these matters, where S has incorrigible knowledge of a proposition p if and only if it is not possible that p be false and S believe it, and not possible that p be true and S believe –p. Other say, not that we have incorrigible knowledge here, but that we can have knowledge here by reflection alone; all you need to do to know whether you are in pain, for example, si think about it.

Here the tradition in question seems right. It is right, first, in holding that we have knowledge here.

Unfortunately Plantinga makes no reference to revelation as a source for knowledge. But he does take the positive step of showing that naturalism does not allow for a suitable knowledge of reality. Naturalism, he says, is incoherent because it cannot account for knowledge properly. While employing the methodology of analytic epistemology to analyze the epistemic products of naturalism, he concludes[vi], if naturalism is true, then (with respect to Dawkin’s blind watchmaker proposition):

Suppose you concur with Dawkins: can you then properly employ the notion of proper function in epistemology? If you can’t, you’ve got a problem; and you’ll have the same problem with much of contemporary science. For most of the disciplines falling under biology, psychology, sociology, economics, and the like essentially involve thoe functional generalizations of which we have spoken, and those generalizations, in turn, essentially involve the notions of proper function, damage, malfunction, purpose, design plan, and others in that family.

What Plantinga has done is none-the-less unique. He has attacked naturalism, not for its general incoherence as a world view as does VanTil, but for its particular incoherence failing as a world view. This leaves the evidence, evolution, floundering like a fish on the deck of a ship, waiting to be picked up and cast back into the sea as just so much flotsam.

If there were a weakness in Plantinga’s argument it would be his definitions of knowledge. But even so his position is a capable one, and adequate to accomplish the goal of attacking the foundation of naturalism, as VanTil has pursued.

[i] Van Til, Cornelius, An Introduction to Systematic Theology, Second Edition, 1974, R&R Publishing, p. 23.

[ii] “It should be clear, however, that although Marx was indeed an atheist, his theories all presuppose the non-dependence or self-existence of matter; physical matter, along with its innate law of dialectical development, is "just there." Matter depends on nothing whatever, and all of reality is either identical with or depends on matter. For this reason, despite its protests to the contrary, Marx's theory is based on a religious belief. And, what is more to the point, this religious belief is a typically pagan one since it takes something about the universe (matter and its dialectical law to be the self-existent segment of reality on which all depends.” Clouser, Roy, The Myth of Religious Neutrality, Notre Dame Press, p. 46

[iii] “The Arminian position is similar to that of the Romanist. Assuming with Romanism that many facts come to pass in history as the result of man independently of the plan of God, it is consistent for the Arminian position to argue with the nonbeliever about archaeology or miracles without bringing in the plan of God.” VanTil, p. 39.

[iv] Darwin, Charles, The Origin of Species : By Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, p. 232

[v] Plantinga, Alvin, Warrant and Proper Function, 1993, Oxford University Press, p. 49

[vi] Ibid, p. 197

On the Christian World View and Apologetic

2010-01-07T17:07:00.000-08:00

From Van Til:

It is but natural to expect that, if the church is strong because its ministry understands and preaches the whole counsel of God, then the church will be able to protect itself best against false teaching o every sort. Non-indoctrinated Christians will easily fall prey to the peddlers of Russellism, spiritualism, and all of the other fifty-seven varieties of heresies with which our country abounds. One-text Christians simply have no weapons of defense against these people. They may be able to quote many Scripture texts which speak, for instance, of eternal punishment, but the Russellite will be able to quote texts which, by the sound of them and taken individually, seem to teach annihilation. The net result is, at best a loss of spiritual power because of loss of conviction. Many times, such one-text Christians themselves fall prey to the seducer’s voice.

We have already indicated that the best apologetic defense will invariably be made by him who knows the system of truth of Scripture best. The fight between Christianity and non-Christianity is, in modern times, no piece-meal affair. It is the life-and-death struggle between two mutually opposed life-and-world views. The non-Christian attack often comes to us on matters of historical, or other, detail. It comes to us in the form of objections to certain teachings of Scripture, say, with respect to creation, etc. It may seem to be simply a matter of asking what the facts have been. Back of this detailed attack, however, is the constant assumption of the non-Christian metaphysics of the correlativity of God and man. He who has not been trained in systematic theology will often be at a loss as to how to meet these attacks. He may be quite proficient in warding off the attack as far as details are concerned, but he will forever have to be afraid of new attacks as long as he has never removed the foundation from the enemy’s position.

Van Til, Cornelius, An Introduction to Systematic Theology, Second Edition, 1974, R&R Publishing.

This is the foundation. The basis for an authoritative Christian practice is found in its foundation. Likewise the attacks we face today, especially in the fields of ethics and science, are challenges to the foundation of this world view. The first challenge is whether God even exists. After that is whether there is any evidence of having been created. Finally we are faced with a challenge to any sense of morality and ethics that might be brought to the public square.

But once we establish the legitimacy of the Christian framework we then gain the foundation for reaching into the fields of ethics, morality, and to be heard. If our faith is legitimate then it will stand up to criticism. But it must face those challenges head-on, else it might justifiably be dismissed as irrelevant.

Is Religious (Christian) Knowledge Legitimate?

2009-12-14T14:11:00.001-08:00

Several conversations at Positive Liberty have, though, brought up some valuable questions. In particular is the question of the validity of religious knowledge. It is maintained by many that it is not legitimate knowledge because it is based on revelation. That charge deserves a fair and thorough response. My intention here to provide a substantive introduction to why religious (Christian) knowledge is legitimate. If it is legitimate, then the Christian can enter the public arena armed with the knowledge that his faith is not unsuited to that arena.

Is Christian knowledge legitimate? The first reaction raised against the legitimacy of Christian knowledge is that it is sourced in divine revelation. But what does that mean? It means, at a minimum, that divine revelation is not scientifically verifiable. It is not subject to the testing, repeating, reporting, etc., i.e., the demands of the ORV and empirical “scientific method” processes. It smacks (well, more than that, but the term will do for now) of the old verificationism and logical positivism of 60-70 years ago.

The ORV, the “(Once) Received View,” is the criteria control for verifying information. It amounts to an outline of consistent language controls for testing and outcome. This control dovetails with the scientific method which demands postulate, theory, test control, reportability, modification, and repeatability. These processes sound, to anyone in high school, like they are all that is needed to verify anything according to “science” and that anything not subject to these is “unscientific” and a matter of faith. (That is the first false dichotomy of the naturalist in U.S. primary and secondary education.)

This view assumes that all which is legitimate is measurable. Today’s science has rejected that assumption in favor of several corrections and parallel tools for assessment of information. One which is quite popular is the generalized uncertainty principle. Without going into what it is, what it does is provide an explanatory framework for some matters which are not measurable – randomness and contingency. In the end, even the scientists know that not everything fits into the neat little package that LP has demanded. Alas, this has not yet filtered down to deeper levels in education.

While this basic criticism of religious knowledge is easily dealt with, what remains is to establish a foundation for the legitimacy of religious knowledge. Is there warrant and justification for accepting divine revelation and its outcomes?

The outcomes of divine revelation are broad-based. The normal first-course attack from naturalists is to go after the particulars, like miracles. But let’s keep them in proper context – if the knowledge is legitimate then the understanding of the possibility, and probability, of miracles is acceptable. But even more basic is the matter of ethics. If religious knowledge is legitimate then religious ethics has a seat in discussion of public policy and other social concerns. If we establish the foundation for religious knowledge then the rest fall in place. Or at least they ought to.

Plantinga’s Warrant and Proper Function has become today’s foundational work for establishing the legitimacy of religious knowledge. Plantinga (as I understand the work) seems to be going for something akin to a reformed epistemology while employing the methodology of analytic epistemology. In this is work, as he says, is naturalistic.

His work is not only a positive assertion of religious knowledge. It also diminishes the character of naturalistic knowledge as being incapable of maintaining, at a minimum, a certainty as to its own exclusive grasp of knowledge. Bu the legitimacy of religious knowledge does not come in contrast to the failure of the naturalist, but that which stands behind it. The Christian appeal to history (documented miracles as evidence of divine intervention, and fulfilled prophecy) provide justification to the belief system.

The Christian faith has warrant (see Plantinga’s Warranted Christian Belief, chapter 8, p. 241ff) when faith is properly defined (p. 246). The faith makes its appeal to, again, history as well as the work of the Holy Spirit in the individual. The former provides a providential perspective on history while the latter provides an individual verification on the matter.[1]

In short, religious knowledge has at least as much justification as naturalistic beliefs. With this justification in hand, one who holds to a Christian belief system can properly bring matters of ethics to the public forum.

[1] Being individual means to some that it is subjective, and suspect as such. It is subjective in that it is individualized, but it is not subjective in being limited to a single individual’s experience. The quantity of people having an experience, or belief, does not affect its legitimacy. Plantinga also appeals to the justified belief system that supported Piltdown Man (WPF, 187, note), and I would likewise point the reader to the brontosaurus as, for decades, a justified belief. Though held as true by many for an extended period of time, with some scientific support, that support ultimately failed. When the justification disappeared then so did the belief in the brontosaur. Sadly, though, the assumptions that allowed the creation of the brontosaur error remain intact.

Separation of Church and State as Marx' Replacement Theology

2009-10-30T18:41:00.000-07:00

Back, again, to my primary social concern: Marxism. No surprise there.

The first impression of Marxist motives usually leads us to the idea of statism. The principle that Marx proclaimed, that religion is the opiate of the people, sets the church beneath the state. That may seem more Hegelian than particularly Marxist, but still plays into the goals of Marx.

Today's popular Marxists, like the ACLU, proclaim the state and church as separate entities. That is, there is to be no reciprocal relationship between then. The church is best of being outside the control of government and likewise the government must not approach anything resembling the old theocracies. So the question becomes plain: How do we fit this into the Marxist paradim?

It is a simple error to miss the revolutionary intentions of Marx and his end game. In the end the Marxist intends that the church serves the interest of the state. To get there, that's another story. It goes to Marx' view of virtue and ethics, of what is real and what is unreal. For to Marx only the material is real and that leaves all religion and faith unreal. And what is unreal is to be rejected, to be set aside and replaced with his materialism.

The process winds its way through two general steps. The first is to marginalize the church. The second is use this marginalized position to present the Marxist alternative to a church that is impotent.

Marginalization came by way of a redefinition of theology. By employing Freuerbach and others of similar persuasion, religious belief was changed from the immanent God who is involved in human affairs to something unreal and merly emotional. Bockmuehl states it this way (p. 31, The Challenge of Marxism):

Is Christianity real? This attack leveled by Marx and Engels is of special concern to Christians because the slogan "real humanism," which sums up the attack, was also used to point out the alleged unreality of Chrsitian theology. "Real humanism" was the battle cry shouted at the thin spiritualism of contemporary Protestant theology as well as at speculative, idealistic philsophy. bot of these never got anywhere near the actual situation of the proletariat, because they were so occupied with more spiritual things. Therefore, Marx and Engels looked at this kind of "religious inhumanity" as one of their main enemies.

This approach is part of the Marxist criticism. His "critical thinking" was not what we would probably term "critical analysis." For Marx it was an intentional attack on what has been heretofore assumed to be true. Critical thinking was and his the Marxist method for tearing down obstacles for the establishment of his world view as a system. This was his "ruthless criticism of the existing order" that we might today read on bumper stickers as Subvert the Dominant Paradigm.

The door has now been opened to replace an unreal and impotent Christianity (or any other religion) with a strictly human way of doing things. As Lennon said, and employing many of the core principles of a Marxist world view:Imagine there's no Heaven

It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

This criticism of religion is Marx' foundation. Again, as Bockmuehl says (p. 51):

In 1844 Karl marx published his essay entitled "A Contribution to the Critique of hegel's Philosophy of Law: Introduction." Contrary to its abstract title, this piece carried significant concrete weight: It was the manifesto of early Marxism. the very first sentence contained a two-point thesis: For Germany the criticism of religion is in the main complete, and criticism of religion is the premise of all criticism."

This is intended to leave religious faith vulnerable, and that was his goal throughout. But while we may philosophyically prove the assumption to be in error, the step that we must take is to raise our theology above the compromise of pluralism and to make Christianity more and more real -- practically beneficial -- to the world around us. Calvin did this in Geneva. Rome did this by ending slavery in Europe during the first millennium. English protestantism initiated the end of secularism's slavery through Newton and Wilberforce.

And, looking back on the heritage of Marx, we can clarify the impotence and abuses of his world view despite the rantings of Obama and Schaeffer. The compromise of faith is a plain dismissal of that faith, for the acceptance of Marxism is an acceptance of its atheism.

Today gods from the right and the left compete to impress the church and persuade it, causing it to reduce itself to nothing but the moderate expression of the accepted opinions of the day. In contrast to this the first task of the church is to find and keep its identity. (Bockmuehl, p. 21)

Thoughts on Twentieth Century Philosophy, part 4

2009-09-26T13:58:00.001-07:00

Tillich begins Courage and Individualization with this comment:
Existentialism is the courage to be. It is the expression of the individualism of liberalism and modernity. It is, as he says, founded in romance and there is no coincidence of its growth during the post-enlightenment period of the 19th c. There is a distinct turn away from Hegel's theodicy:

Late romanticism, Bohemianism, and romantic naturalism had prepared the way for present-day Existentialism th emost radical form of the courage to be oneself. In spite of the large amount of literlature which has appeared recently about Existentialism it is necessary for our purpose to deal with it form the point of view of its ontological character and its relation to the courage to be.

Working out this courage to be comes in three parts:

The Existential attitude and the Existentialist content have in common an interpretation of the human situation which conflicts with a nonexistential interpretation. The latter asserts that man is able to transcend, in knowledge and life, the finitude, the estrangement, and the abiguities of human existence. Hegel's system is the classical expression of essentialism. When Kierkegaard broke away from Hegel's system of essences he did two things: he proclaimed an existential attitude and he instigated a philosophy of existence.

Tillich finds the point of view of the existentialist not as a specific position of other philosophers but as a thread through time. He sees it in Plato, and Augustine, but not in Pelagius, who appears more concerned about the essence of morality than about the expression. This dualism is impossible to miss.

Turning now to Existentialism not as an attitude but as a content, we can distinguish three meanings: Existentialism as a point of view, as protest, and as expression.

He finds the courage of the existentialist within Christianity and the Christian concept of community. Sort of. It works out in an odd sort of way:

The Platonic distinction between the essential and the existential realms is fundamental for all later developments. It lies in the background even of present-day Existentialism.

Here he sets up courage against the totalitarian systems as well as democracy. And, while he finds a place for courage in the Church he still sets it against the authority of the Church and gives all of that to the individual.

The violent reactions against modern art in collectivist (Nazi, Communist) as well as conformist (American democratic) groups show that they fell serioiusly threatened by it. But one does not feel spiritually threated by something which is not an element of oneself. And since it is a symptom of neurotic character to resist nonbeing by reducing being, the Existentialist could reply to the frequent reproach that he is neurotic by showing that the neurotic defense mechanisms of the anti-Existentialist desire for tradition and safety.

There should be no question of what Christian theology has to do in this situation. It should decide for truth against safety, even if the safety is consecrated and supported by the churches. Certainly there is a Christian conformism, from the beginning of the Church on, and there is a Christian collectivism -- or at least semicollectivism, in several periods of Church history. But this should not induce Christian theolgians to identify Christian courage with the courage to be as a part. They should realize that the courage to be as oneself is the necessary corrective to the courage to be as a part -- even if they rightly assume that neither of these forms of the courage to be gives the final solution.

For the evangelical, Tillich's argument has a bit of value. We know the problems of conformity in our culture, and Tillich helps us maintain this awareness. Yet his completely individualized approach ends up doing damage to the concept of body for the church.

On Analogical Theology and the Trinity

2009-09-24T10:30:00.001-07:00

One of the most popular argumentation methods is analogy. We often find ourselves engaged in conversations where the conclusion is driven by like and as comparisions. Pictures, after all, are the best way to communicate. But these pictures must be kept under control -- under some level of constraint -- so that the whole point is not missed.

Joseph Priestly, famous in both science and philosophy, left orthodox Christianity by way of his analogical approach to the doctrine of the trinity:

If, for example, bread and wine, philosophically, i.e., strictly and justly considered, cannot be flesh and blood, the popish doctrine of transubstantiation cannot be true. So also if one cannot be three, or three, one, mathematically considered, neither can the Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity be true. It certainly, therefore, behoves every rational christian to prove the consistency of the articles of his faith with true philosophy and the nature of things.

What he says might be true -- if God were a set of numbers. But the numerical analogy breaks down once we see that God is not numbers. Sounds simple to us, but not so simple to a rationalist. For the rationalist all things must be understandable. Reason, it is held, is the only source for truth as man is the measure of all things.

There is, of course, the potential for damage as well as reinforcement of proper trinitarian theology through reason. The Doctrine of Divine Simplicity, a philosophical principle much older than Christianity and clarified by Aquinas, provides a useful tool for dealing with analogical errors. The Trinity (God, that is) is defined by certain characteristics. He is not describable by the methods historically employed.

Specifically, is not, and does not contain, contingent properties. There is no potential (because that means a change might take place), no form (form is limiting), not an "accident" (the result of something else). There is more to Aquinas' argument, but it is not extremely complicated. The result of this is that God, not being of genus number cannot be described by that analogy.

Today's unitarian attitudes, even within evangelicalism, are doing damage to more than just the doctrine of the Trinity -- the doctrine of God. They are also affecting the primacy of the sufficient work of Christ as redeemer.

Thoughts on Twentieth Century Philosophy, part 3

2009-09-23T16:00:00.000-07:00

A turn in Christian theology came with the invention and intervention of neo-orthodoxy. This movement attempts to reconcile some parts of historic orthodoxy with liberalism and a dialectical approach to faith (hence a link to both the continental philosophyical and theological movements), and to restore some sense of positivism. Arising after WWI, the demise of (at least secular) postmillennial postivism left a vacuum in both secular and Christian thought. Theologians attempted to fill this gap, hence men like Karl Jaspers and Karl Barth.

(These comments are in regard to Jaspers' work The Axial Period.)

Unlike Croce who sees little of value in history and Hegel/Marx/Lenin who viewed history as teleological but circular, Jaspers brought the traditional Christian linear view of history into view.

In the Western World, the philosophy of history was founded in the Christian faith. In a grandiose sequence of works ranging from St. Augustine to hegel this faith visualised the movement of God through history.

It is no accident that Jaspers viewed Hegel as part of the Christian framework. When one reads Hegel it is evident, at least to many though certianly not a concensus) that his is a sort of secular theodicy. He built a system that is teleological and coherent, much as did the medieval and reformation theologians. Yet he did it within the context of modernity and liberalism, creating an intentionally Godless emphasis. It amounted to Christianity without God. But this is about Jaspers, not Hegel.

Jaspers' dialectic shows itself in his dualistic explanation of what he perceives as the tradition Christian view of history.

For Christians sacred history was separated from profane history, as being different in its meaning. Even the believing Christian was able to examine the Christian tradition itself in the same way as other empirical objects of research.

Whether his perspective on this apparent dualism is accurate or not is immaterial to the point that he makes an identification of such a dualism. His conjecture is that the Christian world view has taken a dialectical view of history.

When Jaspers, and many others, use the term dialectic or describe events in that method, it does not mean that they take the materialist view of Lenin, Marx, Diderot, etc. It means simply that they are framing world history and world views in terms of two opposing positions. It is a more general application of the term and method.

The conflicts that are the dialectic can be seen through history in various venues. He cites a parallel example in Japan that closely resembles the Reformation:

In the sixteenth century the Jesuits discovered in Japan a Buddhist sect which had flourished there since the thirteenth century. It seems to bear (and actually did bear) an astonishing resemblance to Protestantism. According to the description given by the Japanologist Florenz (in the textbook by Chantepie de la Saussaye) their teaching was somewhat as follows: Man's own efforts contribute nothing toward his salvation. Everything depends upon his faith, faith in Amida's lovingkindness and aid. There are no meritorious good wroks. Prayer is not an achievement, but only an expression of gratitude for the redemption granted by Amida. "If even the good shall enter into eternal life, how much more so shall sinners", said Shinran, the founder of the sect.

By viewing history by way of these parallels, Jaspers limits his potential for the unique impact of actual divine intervention in human history. Why? Because events can be viewed as predictable, or at least estimable, as responses to certain conditions.

Jaspers takes a turn from the secular materialism of the post-enlightenment thinkers but continues to track with their dialectical and somewhat deterministic view of history. Sort of a fork in the road.

Thoughts on Twentieth Century Philosophy, part 2

2009-09-22T16:00:00.000-07:00

The first politically impactful philosopher at the beginning of the 20th century (beginning his practical efforts at the end of the previous century) was V. I. Lenin. As Lenin built momentum for his, and I repeat his, Russian Revolution and the subsequent institutionalization of Soviet Communism, he wrote. Within his writing one can find clear defenses of the Marxist concept known as dialectical materialism.

(This comment discusses Lenin's Empirio-Criticism and Dialectical Materialism.)

Dialectical materialism amounts to a view of history that defines its movements in terms of conflict (the dialectic) in a world where material goods are the object of that struggle. This is known today as class conflict and is seen in the modern left's efforts at eliminating all classes in order to resolve all conflicts. Why? Because all struggles are against another class for the purpose of gaining land, food, and other material goods. Wealth. But I digress. Back to Lenin.

Lenin levels considerable and frequent criticism at Ernst Mach and other scientists who reject the Marx-Engels dialectic.

Here is a passage from Mach's latest, comprehensive and conclusive philosophical work that clearly betrays the falsity of this idealist trick. In his Erkenntnis und Irrtun we read: "While there is no difficulty in constructing (aufzubauen) every physical experience out of sensations, i.e., hysical elements, it is impossible to imagine (ist keine Moglichkeit abzusehen) how any physical experience can be composed (darstellen) of the elements employed in modern physics, i.e., mass and motion (in their rigidity -- Starrheit -- which is serviceable only for this special science)"
Of the rigidity of the conceptions of many modern scientists and of their metaphysical (n the Marxian sense of the term, i.e., antidialectical) views, Engels speaks repeatedly and very precisely. ... Mach went astray, because he did not understand or did not know the relation between relativism and dialectics ... It is important for us here to note how glaringly Mach's idealism emerges, in spite of the confused -- ostensibly new -- terminology.

Of note in Lenin's work, more than his words, is his tone. One cannot read Lenin without reading at the same time his forthcoming revolutionary energy. He not only believes what he writes but he also constructs demeaning remarks against all those who disagree. One of his methods for doing this is to marginalize those who disagree.

But Mach, who constantly sets up his views in opposition to materialism, ignores, of course, all the great materialists -- Diderot, Feuerbach, Marx and Engels -- just as all other official professors of official philosophy do.

Get that hint of elitism? His people are "official" (correct, respectable, and best of all, on his side) while Mach (and so many others) are just out in left field. Notice the mockery in this statement:

Sensation, then, exists without "substance," i.e., thought exists without brain! Are there really philosophers capable of defending brainless philosophy? There are! and Professor Richard Avenarius is one of them.

Of course arrogance and elitism is not the property of the Left. By no means. But such confidence, as we see in those years past, certainly tracks toward the energy of the revolution.

But on the philosophy content of Lenin's argument, I find it ironic that he would spend so much time attacking realism, ostensibly to protect dialectical materialism, yet does this:

Human knowledge is not (or does not follow) a straight line, but a curve, which endless approximates to a series of circles, a spiral. Each fragment, segment, section of this curve can be transformed (transformed one-sidedly) into an independent, complete straight line, which then (if one does not see the wood for the trees) leads into the quagmire, into clericalism (where it is reinforced by the class interests of the ruling classes). Rectilinearity and one-sidedness, stiffness and petrification, subjectivism and subjective blindness -- viola the epistemological roots of idealism. And clearicalism (= philosophical idealism), of course, has epistemological roots, it is not groundless; it is a sterile flower undoubtedly, but it is a sterile flower that grows on the living tree of living, fertile, genuine, powerful, omnipotent, objective, absolute human knowledge.

Now I wonder. Is this absolute human knowledge something distinct from human existence? Of course it is. All of the components of the dialectic are held up as universal, transcendent principles. But is that not a form of idealism? Lenin was stuck with an unrecognized conflict. But inconsistency and error did not stop the revolution and the quagmire of 20th century socialism and communism.

There is a simple lesson in Lenin: We must not be arrogant in our knowledge. What matters, in practical terms, is the practical terms. As we apply the Christian ethic -- pro-life, pro-work, pro-liberty -- we must do more than talk. Ideas require mechanisms. They always have and they always do.

Thoughts on Twentieth Century Philosophy, part 1

2009-09-21T14:16:00.000-07:00

If the 19th century was the era of the post-enlightenment philosophers (Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, and others) then the 20th century can be seen as the footprint of these philosophers. This past century saw the application of the efforts of these philosophers in various political and social venues, but that is not my first concern. Instead I would like to explore how subsequent philosophers made their respective turns either toward or away from (to varying degrees, of course) the ideas expressed during the post enlightenment century.

All philosophers and their works come accompanied by certain baggage and this baggage is often seen in differing lights. While we might reject certain aspects of one philosopher, another school of thought might embrace the very principles that we reject. Additionally, many valuable components that a philosopher provides do not come directly from the material but from the impact that the material has over time.

Over time we’ll take a look at several significant philosophers from the past century and make a few comments regarding their respective motion as it relates to the prior century’s efforts.

Benedetto Croce (1866-1952)

Croce’s dismissal of meaningful history presents a fascinating challenge. In History, Its Theory and Practice, he says that

Facts are brute, dense, real indeed, but not illumined with the light of science, in intellectualized.

The reaction to Hegel’s teleological view of history seems clear. For Croce

… whoever adopts the deterministic conception of history, provided that he decides to abstain from cutting short the inquiry that he has undertaken in an arbitrary and fanciful manner, is of necessity obliged to recognize that the method adopted does not attain the desired end.

With history so goes all real knowledge:

In poetry, facts are no longer facts but words, not reality but images, and so there would be no occasion to censure them, if it remained pure poetry. But it does not so remain, because those images and words are placed there as ideas and facts – that is to say, as myths: progress, liberty, economy, technique, science are myths, in so far as they are looked upon as agents external to the facts.

His method for dealing with the quasi-Platonist (dialectical) ideals of Kant, Hegel, & Marx was to turn it on its head.

By drawing the consequences of the dialectical conception of progress something more immediately effective can be achieved in respect to the practice and history of historiography. For we find in that conception the origin of a historical maxim, in the mouth of every one, yet frequently misunderstood and frequently violated – that is to say, that history pertains not to judge, but to explain, and that it should be subjective, not objective.

Here he takes the very premise of Marx, that revolution is a necessary part of past and future history, and of Hegel, that the processes of society are inevitable and predictable, and adds the most basic ethical wrapper - is vs ought. History, as it is, is not to be treated as a determiner of the future, and much more should not be used in that fashion.

Of course Croce wrote much more than this. But from even this short except his work has a value that we might keep in mind. When dealing with today's Leftists we might employ the fundamental principle that the progressive movement denies -- that history is not determinative.

Book Review: Why There Almost Certainly Is A God

2009-09-03T10:20:00.000-07:00

Why There Almost Certainly Is A God
Keith Ward
Lion Hudson plc
ISBN: 978 0 8254 7843 7

The field of Christian apologetics is the accumulation of 2 millennia of methods and approaches. At the earliest stage there were the classic apologists and evidentialists who both saw Jesus and the resurrection and experienced all the events of the era. But as time progressed, as we moved further away from the events, and skepticism rose, it became necessary to build new methods and approaches to answer to the questions.

The most recent serious challenge to Christianity is naturalistic evolution. We are not talking about the principle of evolution, that is, change, but about a presupposition about the nature and character of all that exists. This presupposition sits behind the materialistic framework of Richard Dawkins view of nature, mind, and all of history. His book, The God Delusion, presents to the world his criticism of the existence of God and his reasons why.

In response to Dawkins’ claims, Keith Ward as given us Why There Almost Certainly is a God. This book is an excellent introduction to the field of Christian apologetics. Though there are some points where I would differ, that can be set aside just for the sake of his major point. Mr. Ward gives us a practical implementation of the Kalam cosmological argument. Following are some quotes from the book which are of immense value:

Most philosophers in the world have been in some sense idealists – that is, they have thought the ultimate reality is mind. Theists are philosophers who accept this, but add that the physical world does have its own proper reality, which originates from but is different from God, the ultimate mind. (p. 13)
The world of philosophy, of resolute thought about the ultimate nature of things, is a very varied one, and there is no one philosophical view that has the agreement of all competent philosophers. But in this world there are very few materialists, who think we can know that mind is reducible to electrochemical activity in the brain, or is a surprising and unexpected product of purely material processes.
In the world of modern philosophy, there are idealists, theists, phenomenalists, common sense pragmatists, scientific realists, sceptics, and materialists. These are all going concerns, living philosophical theories of what is ultimately real. This observation does not settle any arguments. But it puts Dawkins’ ‘alternative hypothesis’ in perspective. He is setting out to defend a very recent, highly contentious, minority philosophical world-view. (p. 14)
What is the point of being a materialist when we are not sure exactly what matter is? (p. 15)
Dawkins has a lot of fun with ‘supernatural entities’, as he calls them. He says that God might exist outside the universe – ‘wherever that might be’.
Arguments for God … are arguments to show that mind is the ultimate reality, and that materialism is a delusion caused by a misuse of modern science. The arguments do not ‘prove’ that there is one extra pseudo-physical thing in or just outside the universe. They provide good reasons for thinking that the ultimate character of the universe is mind, and that matter is the appearance or manifestation or creation of cosmic mind. (p. 20)
There is any number of ways in which the Darwinian process of slow, gradual, cumulative adaptation could fail. This is not an argument for God. But it shows that reliance on the predictability of nature, and on its tendency to produce increasingly complex and adapted organic life-forms, is dependent on a very specific adjustment of physical laws that is itself hugely improbable.
The design argument, in its seventeenth-century form – finding the existence of organic life-forms to be too improbable to have arisen spontaneously by chance – may have been superseded by Darwin. But the design argument still lives, as an argument that the precise structure of laws and constants that seem uniquely fitted to produce life by the process of evolution is hugely improbably. The existence of a designer or creator God would make it much less improbably. That is the New Design Argument, and it is very effective. (p. 39-40)

One of Christianity’s infrequently appropriated but highly effective arguments is one of theism’s (it pre-dates Christianity) is DDS, the doctrine of divine simplicity. It is a principle that keeps the doctrine of the Trinity coherent and makes a general understanding of God clear and, of course, simple. You can read it in Aquinas’ Summa Theologica and it is only a couple of pages in length.

Ward makes appropriate use of this argument on pages 48-50. Though he does not mention it by name, the principle is clear. He then builds on it when he employs Occam’s Razor in this context with the goal of critiquing the unnecessary complexity of Dawkins’ materialism.

Just as Ward criticizes Dawkins for leaving his field, evolutionary science, and entering philosophy with a good deal of incompetence, so also a reviewer of this book makes the same error. Mathematician Dr. Jason Rosenhouse critiqued Ward’s particular use of Occam’s Razor but missed the emphasis on DDS and how that approach contributed to his conclusion. The result is that a competent mathematician defends one inadequate philosophical construct with another.

Jason seems to be looking for the author to present some absolute necessity that amounts to an undeniable determination that God actually does exist. He has certain expectations that are clearly stated, and that belies his motivation:

If we believe God exists it makes perfect sense to think that he would at times communicate with us poor humans. He would want us to have some indication that He is there. Let us take that as a working hypothesis.

No. That’s not the working hypothesis that Ward began with. That is not the argument. But this is what happens when a mathematician, who lives in the world where 1 + 1 necessarily = 2 provides both certainty and security, enters a field where necessity takes on more meaning than he is used to.

Rosenhouse’s incompetence in this field is also expressed in his own, over-simplified conclusion.

In short, he is making it up as he goes along.

But going back to the book …

I would recommend this book for the Christian apologist. If you are not strong in apologetics, first read Five Views on Apologetics and then Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics (third edition). This book provides a useful tool for establishing the necessary existence of God. I will leave it to you to garner more evidence from the last chapters and make full use of it in your work and ministry.

A Bit of Economic Philosophy

2009-08-31T08:11:00.000-07:00

Getting through the economic downturn is going to require some serious sacrifice on the parts of both business and the American worker. These are simple challenges, but perhaps the simples are the most difficult ones.

We live in a time when the American workforce is dwindling. We were, at one time, a manufacturing nation. Then, for a short time, we were a professional nation. Today we are an unemployed nation.

Our Condition

It’s easy to blame the unions for the downfall of manufacturing. After all, their high wage and benefit demands were beyond what most could imagine. Add to that the demand for minimum employment levels and you’ve got a recipe to destroy an industry. Bake on high.

But as we became a professional nation in the 80s and 90s, even without the force of unionization the American worker became a high-paid worker. We were all earning a lot of money. Things were going rather well.

But manufacturing got outsourced. It’s not that we send the jobs overseas, at least not at first. Instead we imported. As a consumer nation we began to get the “good stuff” from Europe and then Japan. Names like Hasselblad and Zeiss replaced Graflex and Bausch and Lomb. Cadillac and Lincoln were reduced by BMW & Mercedes-Benz. Not that these American options ceased to exist, but the market share of each was seriously eroded.

Things like clothing did get outsourced. These things required cheap labor and the American worker got spoiled. The rhetoric that we can have it all and that we deserve it drove our economy too hard. So much that many were not willing to work for just a little, or to work extra hours. The old bumper sticker Hungry? Eat your import may have initially reflected the union sentiment, but might well be seen to reflect something else about the condition of the non-union situation as well. We might well re-publish it as Hungry? Try working harder to reflect our shared (yes, with the unions) recognition that our nation is suffering from excessive outsourced labor, excessive importation, an excessive workforce, and mismanaged international relations.

Behind It All

One of the principles behind the Tenth Amendment is the concept of political property. The question is: Who owns these rights? Well, who does? Do you? You should. David Shestokas gives a summary statement:

The Purpose of the Tenth Amendment
This amendment was to answer concerns that the central government created by the Constitution would not usurp powers intended to remain with the States. In practice the Tenth Amendment’s limitations have been largely ignored.
The Constitution applies to the federal government. Its sole purpose was to spell out what the government can do. The key principle of the Constitution was originally quite simple: positive grant of enumerated powers. This is not a phrase generally employed in 21st Century Constitutional discussion. It's not a complicated principle at all.
The Constitution was originally a grant of specific powers from the States that joined the union. The Tenth Amendment was to elucidate the fact that the US federal government is authorized to exercise only those powers which are specifically given to it.

Thomas Jefferson was more concise:

The Tenth Amendment is the foundation of the Constitution.

Why? Without the Tenth Amendment there is not permanent division of powers. It is no wonder the Hegelian and Marxist Left is doing its best to fight the Constitution’s restrictions on centralized power. We must remember, after all, that “the tenth amendment was not repealed at Appomattox.” (Killenbeck, Mark R., The Tenth Amendment and State Sovereignty: Constitutional History and Contemporary Issues, p. 83)

What Always Remains

As always, the solution will be neither simple nor painless. Until we regain our control of our own political property, with all its inherent responsibilities (including the potential for failure) we leave it in the hands of the government. That is precisely what totalitarians desire.

The New Cold War

2009-08-28T07:45:00.000-07:00

Today’s Marxist movement is not a singular movement. Like any set of ideas, the movement has morphed over time so that the various threads, while they have much in common, are often dramatically opposed to each other.

The movement has seen, at least in the United States, three distinct movements. The first is the idealization of equality that Marxism was thought to bring. It was believed that the principles were “biblical” and applicable to solve the human condition. This optimism, a part of the optimism of 19th c. postmillennial ideals – proposing that we can though ideas, theology, and progress, develop a better world – that created the social justice movement and other do-gooder practices. It finally culminated in Prohibition, an attempt to rid society of those things that do great harm. Prohibition gained momentum came in because of the equality of the suffrage movement and the power of a new voting block, a large percentage of which was driven by certain Christian ideals. But Prohibition failed because the human condition is not driven by the externals of live but the internals of human depravity.

The second movement of US Marxism was the Great Society. FDR made economic equality the solution to social justice. When he, almost quoting Hegel and also clarifying the desire of Marx, said that the “necessitous man is not free” he asserted two salient points. The first was that freedom is determined by one’s ability to fulfill one’s needs, and that need limits freedom. The second is that goods and power must be redistributed in order to fulfill that equality. This socialism, moderated though it was, saw itself fulfilled further in LBJ’s Great Society that was supposed to end poverty. Again these economic Marxists made the error of assuming that dealing with external influences is adequate to address the human condition.

The US began a third movement in the 1970s with the rise in popularity of the far more radical anti-military views of George McGovern. Now, McGovern was not near so left as Bill Clinton or Barak Obama. After all, McGovern did vote affirmatively on the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, a point that probably lost him some liberal anti-war support. (It’s almost as though Hillary Clinton suffered the same affliction.) But it seems a turn that, though not perfectly consistent with his positions, that McGovern began the movement which grew into today’s anti-unilateralism. That is, the US can and should engage enemies and threats only through the venue of the UN and not under its own authority. The US is, and should behave as part of the world community and not as an independent, self-existing nation.

McGovern himself, on social policy, appears to some, today, to be more consistent with some branches of conservatism. As one blogger states:

Though the party’s social liberals—feminists, abortion supporters, and gay-rights activists—have indeed consolidated their power, they often did so in alliance with the party’s right wing: the pro-business, Southern-accented Democratic Leadership Council. It was a DLC-run party that denied antiabortion Gov. Robert Casey of Pennsylvania a speaking slot at the 1992 Democratic convention. McGovern, on the other hand, was the last Democratic presidential nominee to select a pro-life running mate. (In fact, he chose two: Missouri Sen. Thomas Eagleton, who withdrew from the ticket when his history of psychiatric treatment came to light, and Peace Corps founder Sargent Shriver. McGovern’s own position was that abortion was a matter properly left to the states.) While the social Left worked out a modus vivendi with the DLC, the antiwar Left steadily lost out to humanitarian interventionists. Madeleine Albright, not George McGovern, remains the face of the Democratic Party’s foreign policy.

Still, the non-interventionist McGovern anti-war thread remains strong in the agenda of today’s Left. The popular anti-war behavior of today’s grass-roots support of the Democratic Party is conveniently partisan (there were no protests against the Democratic president when troops were sent into Kosovo, or when sides were taken in Somalia) and his influence against this nation’s use of military power remains. Again, it may not be consistent with his personal position as he served well in WWII, but still his influence remains.

The McGovern thread has followed through the liberal administrations of Clinton and Obama. Both of these either (Clinton) used the US military through the UN, or (Clinton and Obama) treated national defense, especially intelligence gathering, as something to be done away with. While US deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq continue with no noticeable decline, we hear nothing in the mainstream media that President Obama has somehow failed to support the troops by giving the authority to win. Instead we hear nothing.

Militarism is not the only measure of liberalism and leftist thought, but since the Reagan years is has been the loud cry of the left. During the campaign we was called a warmonger, but as a matter of record made less use of US troops than any president since, of either party.

Opposition to a nation’s military practices was one of Lenin’s revolutionary strategies. And while I do not believe violent revolution is the method of today’s government Leftist, change in government is. The criticism of this nation’s military engagements has allowed the election of this nation’s most left president yet. The Marxism of President Obama, with the election foundation garnered from the momentum of the anti-war McGovern ideals, may be the fourth turn US Marxist thought.

This turn seems, though, to be away from Marxism in particular. That sounds inconsistent at first, but follow. Marxism always leaves a mess behind. It depends upon conflict in order to institute solutions. But then there is always another perceived elitism to confront. We all know the current ones – profit, property ownership, political property, and personal sexual identity. But there is a new conversation going on and the result is statism.

The motivation seems to be that the Left is tired of the fight and wants to solve things once and for all. This retreat is to some core principles of Hegel, the influencer of Marx, whose system created the most singularly coherent system since the synthesis of the medieval philosophers. But instead of the church being dominant in the Kingdom, God and the church have been replaced with the state, and any existing church is to serve at the behest of the government. The government is now the final arbiter of morality and ethics – all social policy.

This new cold war is against the advance of Marxism and its new Hegelian incarnation. But instead of an enemy in another nation that is guided by another leadership, we face an internal struggle that will do nothing but weaken our nation if it is not handled well.

The problem we face is that conservatism, both the social and the pragmatic sides of the movement, is our constant appeal to classic liberalism. That means personal responsibility for your self, in an open system. The problem with this is that the Left gains the upper hand with its willingness to address social issues. And when the conservative attempts to resolve social issues they end up trying to do so with the mechanism of the modern liberal. As a matter of degree they both practice some level of social control, and both reject theological influence in the process. The only difference is how far and fast each proceed in their goals.

What the future holds is unknown. When it comes to the driving philosophical premises, I am tempted to think that the Left cannot be stopped. Then again, when those under President Obama make their appeal to the media control methods of Hugo Chavez, one has hope. This new conservative revolution against statism may be able to hold back the Left.

Theology Has Consequences

2009-08-03T18:04:00.000-07:00

The Modern Liberal View of Christ’s Atonement
Thoughts on Modern Liberalism's Incompatibility With Christian Orthodoxy

Christ’s atonement is apolitical. That is, it lies above and outside of political definition. But modern liberalism, that is, liberalism as it has been affected by Marx and Hegel, is incompatible with Christian orthodoxy in this regard. It is incompatible with both the penal substitution and Christus victor views of Christ’s work.

This incompatibility is exclusive. It is impossible to reconcile these views of the Atonement. Hegel and Marx framed the Atonement in terms of political character and gave transcendence to something other than God. As such, the particular point of compatibility is exclusive because its parent assumptions and presuppositions are exclusively incompatible.

This exclusivity belongs first to Christian orthodoxy, Because of Christianity’s claims to exclusivity of truth regarding the nature of God and the sufficiency of Christ’s work to atone for sin, the burden for compliance rests with Hegel and Marx to follow suit with a compatible position. When they fail to do so, it is then that their positions can propoerly be termed heresy.

Human beings, being what we are, often hold to incompatible positions. In orthodox terms, when speaking of the relationship of church and state, Roman Catholicism’s view of the state as being subservient to the church is wholly incompatible with liberal democracy, in either the classic or modern sense. Yet the Roman church exists within the United States in a fashion favorable to both parties. This inconsistency allows the citizenry to live peaceably in a tolerant society.

Sadly, though, those who hold to views of Hegel and Marx will be mixing heresy with orthodoxy, creating in the end a systematic which is not.

While certain components of Hegel’s view of the atonement appear in line with Lutheran thinking[1], Hegel’s view of the mechanism was also to, in his view, a reunification within the Godhead and a reconciliation, not of man to God, but of God to man. Hegel’s perspective appears to deify[2], to attach something divine, to almost everything ideal. Whether logic or human capacity, divinity is unavoidable in his efforts.

Marx extends this further[3] by, as Grace Jantzen frames it, in the violence that is our normal state. For Marx this violence is seen in his social dialectic, the process that the atonement is designed to resolve.

While on their face it is an easy task to reject their theological assertions for the heresies they represent, it is the next step that is most critical. What happens to the theology of a Christian when one adopts the material of Hegel and Marx?

On the practical side we see the “new evangelicals” who practice the Marxist social dialectic. Their rhetoric pits poor against rich, the needy against the fulfilled, the society against the corporation, the government against the private citizen, and in any other way that the Marxist plan can be implemented. Though unlike Leninist and Maoist Marxism this revolution is not bloody, it is at work today.

It is, therefore, not unreasonable, and even desirable, to challenge the quasi-Marxist theologian to consistency. Suitable questions include challenges with regard to the nature of Christ’s work, the nature of man, and the nature of redemption. Until these matters are confronted we will see more inconsistent theological development and its related social impact through the advancement of Leftist politics. Theology has consequences and many of them are also detrimental to society as well as ministry.

[1] O'Regan, Cyril, The heterodox Hegel, pp. 207-210

[2] http://www.marx.org/reference/archive/hegel/help/mean08.htm

[3] http://www.quodlibet.net/articles/kuhns-atonement.shtml

Book Review: The Great Experiment

2009-07-06T15:47:00.000-07:00

In 2008, Strobe Talbott published The Great Experiment. Generally it amounts to little more than a partisan election year diatribe against the Republican prty and specifically against President Bush.
Among the most partisan and egregious errors of fact is his assessment of the 2000 Presidential election. Conveniently ignoring the wrongs of the Florida Supreme Court, Talbott proceeds to continue the propagation of the “selected” lie and declaring the republican victory a “hostile takeover” of the executive branch. Such words ring with the accusation of treason and treachery. Not that Talbott would willingly defy his own virtues, though, I found great irony in his proposition that history is often, perhaps even most often, (re-)written by the losers (p. 43).
For the Christian this book also presents some useful considerations. It’s not so much the politics of liberalism that are a concern (though they are) but the contradictions within modern liberalism and its inability to create a coherent solution that can address human need.
The synthesis that was the dominant church, and for some time the church-state, the condition we define as Christendom, sought to bring all of life and thought together under a single banner. The synthesis is seen socially in community, a concept generally foreign to the modern world. And there lies this contradiction, both in this book and within the liberal movement itself.
Classic liberalism was about self determination, whether from Kant’s sense of individualized perception or the American independent pioneer and entrepreneur, today’s “pro choice” movement, or any number of sources, the individual stands alone as the judge of one’s own destiny. To be true first to thine own self, to master one’s own soul, these principles set the individual against others and against society and community.
But modern liberalism sought to correct these errors. Hegel’s all-powerful state, Marx’ labor unions and workers’ rebellions set groups against the old church and state in a final attempt to destroy the old system. Yet in this (in their perception) final blow against the church they did not destroy the old structure but instead gutted it and replaced religion with state. They created a new synthesis with a different deity.
Until modernity and liberalism, community has always been the standard of human existence. Yet to make his case for world governance, Talbott appeals to a rewritten history, one where community is optional. As an apologetic for today’s Left, this approach leaves liberalism seriously lacking in historical foundation. Such an error allows us to view the movement as an historical anomaly which will pass as a Christian synthesis reasserts itself.
In terms of Christian ministry, this situation presents to us the opportunity of the century. In a world without a functional sense of community the church, especially urban and suburban, would do well to consider types of semi-permanent or permanent house churches that might reinforce neighborhoods. Alternatively, any similar structure or mechanism that can build Christian community, and thus cultural community and a synthesis of the two, can prove to be an effective evangelistic tool for Western culture.
In short, Talbott’s book is, as weak as it is, provides some insights into culture and the trends of liberalism that evangelicals can play off and employ for the furtherance of the gospel. Though he, to his discredit, takes liberties with history, the information is useful. Not valuable, but useful. As a text, though, it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on.

What Should Be Called Science?

2009-06-22T15:50:00.001-07:00

What is, or should be, allowed to earn the moniker scientific? This is not only the fundamental question in the dispute between ID and evolution but it is one of the fundamental questions in a philosophy of science that would be used to decide the question.

Where do we find the division between science that lies outside of physical studies and set this against matters of theology and philosophy? There are, after all, sciences that do not comply with either physicalism (the constraint that only the physical is studied) or methodological naturalism (the constraint that only the physical can be studied). These would include topics like tachyon theory and string theory, topic that are by consensus "science" but at the same time

From what I can tell, it is a minority that understand the greater structure of what is called evolution. The common-knowledge aproach says that evolution is nothing more than the theory of common descent. To come to this conclusion is just as superfluous as saying that all religions are the same because the all talk about a deity. In the case of religion we know that there is a great deal of difference, and these are exclusive differences, between pantheism, polytheism, monotheism, and fatalism. That there is a common characteristic between them is quite immaterial to their overall divergent theory structures. All theologies are theory structures and all scientific theorys are also structures, systematized to draw particular conclusions. The various evolutionary theory structures have their common features yet vary significantly. This variation is adequate to describe each of them as exclusive models. There is not one model, one theory of evolution. In today's world there are three, and perhaps four, that account for the subject.

But if no more than one of them is true, doesn't that mean that creaiton is automatically allowed into the discussion? On the PhiSci (Philosophy of Science) side of the discussion, I don't think that when good science goes beyond these two constraints that it necessarily allows theology in general or creation in particular. But what does happen, and this seems patently obvious, is that any sound criticism of an evolutionary model (a designation that I did not see in Coyne's book) leaves the theory structure lacking the certainty that Coyne, in his recent book Why Evolution Is True, gets all excited about. His certainty is unwarranted. That does, at least, leave room for other models that can rightly apply the scientific findings and answer other questions.

One of the core construction problems involves the demand for naturalism, either methodological or metaphysical (because methodological demands metaphysical), within the theory structure itself. The difficulty here is the naturalism -- it is a presumption. It is not part of the evidence and it is not part of the process. Presuppositions must be kept in their place. When a scientist demans naturalism in either form he automatically exist any experiment or test and is immediately engaged in philosophy. Doing so necessarily begs the question and automatically invalidates the test. (That's not to say that the test might be valid, but that it cannot be valid if it includes the presuppostion.)

A presupposition differs signification from an assumption. Presuppositions can be thought of as driving ideas while assumptions actually guide the mechanics of the process. In the case of the evolutionary model the general assumption is naturalism and the leading assumption is common descent. An evolutionary model can be executed without naturalism but few have attempted such an endeavor.

There are those of us in the OEC community who see the age of the earth, and also the whole universe, as indeterminable. Some, as you may have read, like to set dates of 50KY or 125KY, but those almost certainly defy the fossil record. What is necessary for an alternative model is one that is consistent with scientific findings and at the same time avoids the unnecessary contradictions and confusions of the current evolutionary models.

Evolutionary Models? Is there more than one evolutionary model? There are at least three. There is first the classic Darwinist position that can be identified by uniformitarian graudalism. The second is a variation as promoted by Dawkins, an accelerated gradualism. Then there is the Punctuated Equilibrium of Gould, et. al. Each of these finds certain supporting evidence in both the lab and/or the fossil record. Yet the orthodoxy of each is intended to disprove its predecessor and create a new solution to questions that pop up, and not just from creationists. There is also a fourth, a synthetic system that attempts to blend the three as needed, depending on the evidence.

Some will say that these are simply mechanisms, that all somehow attempt to explain the assumption of common descent. The problem is that each of these mechanism defines a whole new solution, and that is a new model. In addition, these mechanisms are exclusive in their claims. They may bear in common the assumption of common descent, but differ significantly in these other respects. They are all evolution the same way that protestants and Roman Catholics, and Orthodox are all Christian. Yet they are all exclusive in the same way that sola gracie and sola fide separate protestants to an exclusive position, and the authority of the Roman bishop is exclusive from the Orthodox bishop. The three, in each respective case, are exclusive systems with a common assumption. None are the same even though they share common traits. Though most of Christedom rejects the principle, the evolutionary community seems to enjoy its own eccumenism, despite the exclusive differences.

Now we come to a crux, a crisis, a place for a decision. Actually a couple. How can exclusive positions be reconciled? In simple terms, they cannot. This is a reasonable challenge for the naturalist evolutionists. How can evolution demand naturalism without begging the question? It cannot, at least not and be considered valid as a theory structure. But evolutionists do, and modifying their theory accordingly also seems to be a reasonable challenge.

Objection 1: When I read Darwin and many others there is no mention of naturalism or of a Godless universe. How is that latter challenge valid?

Answer: Part of today's popular dialogue demands that evolution always be framed and discussed within the context of naturalism. There is a distinct and clear refusal to employ only physicalism. Jason Rosenhouse quotes Jerry Coyne:

I am a methodological naturalist, but I don't think that all supernatural claims defy scientific analysis. Moreover, I don't see that the methodological/philosophical distinction has a lot to do with the dissonance between faith and science. The real dissonance, as I have repeatedly emphasized, is between the scientific acceptance of only those claims adjudicated by empirical investigation, and the religious acceptance of “truth” claims that are discovered by revelation (or instruction by one's parents) and are unfalsifiable. These are two fundamentally different and incompatible ways of ascertaining “truth.” In fact, I don't see that religion has any way at all of ascertaining “truth,” since its claims cannot be falsified.

Objection 2: This looks like an attempt to simply be scientific and avoid mixing religion with science.

Answer: Coyne confused issues of theory structure. The call to reject some questions because they cannot be "falsified" is a specious objection. Falsification is a matter of methodology and structure which religious matters do not fit into. Of equal importance is that falsification does not apply to evolutionary theory for the same reason. Evolution is a structure, not a positivist RV formula structure.

Evolution cannot be falsified. We cannot prove it wrong like 1+1=3. The best that we can do is expose the fallacies of the theory structure and challenge, and then remove, the current level of certainty that it does not deserve.

The Dilemma of Modern Western Civilization

2009-06-17T06:03:00.000-07:00

A selection from Can Christianity Save Civilization by Walter Marshall Horton, Oberlin College, 1940, Harper & Brothers Publishers, pp 151-153.

The Dilemma of Modern Western Civilization: Totalitarianism or Christianity
The mention of Communism should remind us that modern Western civilization, whose disintegrating and reconstructive influence upon primitive and oriental culture has been so strong, is itself no longer a unity. It would be a strange nemesis indeed if Western civilization, after doing so much to destroy and so much, also, to save the older ad simpler cultures of the East, should itself be destroyed by its own inner inconsistencies.
As we have already noted in the previous chapter, modern Western civilization started out with a great revolt against the medieval synthesis. Art, science, education, business, and politics all became independent of churchly control, and set out upon separate courses of their own, guided only by such slogans as “Art for Art’s Sake” and “Business is Business.” The final result of these successive declarations of independence, as seen in the urban life of industrialized countries, is a scene of bewildering, nerve-racking clamor and confusion. Looking upon Manchester and Liverpool, Pittsburgh and Chicago, Aristophanes would surely repeat with redoubled emphasis his judgment upon Athenian life in the age of the Sophists, “Whirl is King, having driven out Zeus”; for he would see before him a civilization without an animating center, a civilization with so feeble a grasp upon the total meaning of life that it is trying to move in several incompatible directions at once, like a man with locomotor ataxia. Such a civilization cannot any longer hope to sweep on round the world, and dominate mankind. It must pull itself together quickly, and rectify its course, or it will suffer shipwreck; and only such fragments of its wreckage as may float ashore after the disaster will then be included in the world civilization of the future.

One wonders about disintegration and how it might play out. American society maintains a tension that is largely unfelt in Europe today. We still have Christians, of various stripes, who seek this reunification of life beneath a spiritual umbrella. Though the mechanisms and ends may vary the principle remains the same.

This trend of liberalism garners a reaction from the general public and not just from academics. Many parents do not want their children taught an all-encompassing Darwinist view of life (not just as a matter of origins), and would prefer that their values be reinforced in schools instead of contramanded. But the secularist demands that the church, even its values and ethics, be kept out of public life.

There is no society without authority. In practical terms there is always government and police. But in ethical terms there is either religious ethics and morality or there is statism. Horton's position, even pre-WWII, and still in the early days of the USSR, pre-PROC, pre-Iron Curtain, must be understood more clearly. There is no ethical vacuum. Either religious ethics saves society or statism destroys it, as it did with PROC, USSR, Nazi Germany, and every other statist system. All of them fail, not only economically, but all of them fail ethically.

Without Christian ethics, Western government may live but Western civilization will die.

A Conflict of Qualities

2009-05-08T18:45:00.001-07:00

Pam Chamberlain of On the Issues Magazine draws this conclusion on matters of ethics and morality:

In the midst of the attempts to negotiate, it is just too easy to forget the reasons we are in the fight in the first place. Women and LGBT people continue to be the targeted by those who wish for a past we never really had and are threatened by a future that we cannot control. Too often the Christian Right has mobilized this group to think and act in ways that obstruct civil and human rights. It's our responsibility to hold firm to our principles and not let anyone negotiate them away.

Apart from the fundamental religious bigotry expressed by reducing consensus to a sort of shallow an manipulated group think, Chamberlain draws upon the secular principles of "civil and human rights" to support her positions regarding abortion and the implied "gay rights" agenda. But what are these civil and human rights? Where did they come from? Who created them? Are they subject to any level of scrutiny?

Peter Fitzpatrick discusses the modern concept of secular rights, but in a somewhat theological framework. His goal is to clarify, through Nietzsche, that

the appropriation in such terms of the "human" of human rights is ultimately impossible, but to show also that this impossibility is productive of possibility.
:::
It is this exalted openness to possibility that suscitates the "human" of human rights. That openness, in turn, is carried by the "rights" of human rights – rights which, complicit as they may be in existent oppressions, can never be contained by these oppressions. It is in the rendering of this uncontainment that human rights become liberative.

and

The historical rupture usually taken as generating modern secularism with its rights of "man" looks itself, when closely observed, rather more like continuity. Burleigh’s irresistible account of religion and politics in the French Revolution reveals an intense reliance on substituted religious practices – reliance on, for example, massive religious festivals worshiping a plethora of "deified abstractions."

What are we to make of this? Shall we consider morality actually secular or shall we consider what is secular to be actually religious? It seems that what remains is, as Clouser identified as the substance of argument (The Myth of Religious Neutrality) and Gray identified in history (Black Mass, Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia), is that Christianity appears inescapable.

The core question is answered as to whether or not there is really anything secular. The only philosophical construct that even appears close to being secular is Rand's Objectivism, although even that system depends upon some sense of universal realities. There is nothing which is truly secular. What exists is a hijacking of Christian morality in a desperate attempt to escape the church and the demands of morality. It is venture in vanity.

If Chamberlain is asking for morality, what kind of morality is she asking for? She is asking for the right to take another life through abortion empowerment. She is asking for personal autonomy. She is asking for sexual licence. All these come without the constraint of moral agency, the authority of God and the Church in the life of the individual. Her substitute is the power of government and consensus to enforce rights. This is an Hegelian approach to morality. To use the secularist's term, this is "steeplejacking" the church in a vain attempt to secularize morality.

Chamberlain's compalint, as it stands, must fall on deaf ears. She demands a morality of rights but really asks for indulgence. It is an abuse of rights for the purpose of subverting the dominant paradigm.

Ritschlian Ethics and Modern Liberalism

2008-12-06T10:02:00.000-08:00

Though a good number of modern liberals whom I’ve read make specific appeals to Schleiermacher for their sentiments about God and the nature of Christianity, few make any appeal to the origins of their ethical foundations. Though many positive statements are made regarding ethical behavior, yes, may even come from relativist liberals, the ethic is generally expressed without appeal to an identifiable origin.

The sentimental approach of Schleiermacher makes for a difficult foundation for ethics as sentiments shift so easily. What appears to be the case is that late 19th century theological liberalism may be closer to being their source for ethics than those of the early 19th century; specifically, Ritschl.

Ritschl resoundingly rejects Schleiermacher’s appeal to feeling but accepts many of this other fundamental tenets, including his view of religion as a social construct (Orr, 42-43). This “fellowship” or “community” is itself the “redemption” that is the Kingdom of God (Orr, 44-45). This is a view of religion, and specifically of Christianity, which is more than troubling to anyone who holds to any historic orthodoxy. Ritschl, like Schleiermacher, here removes from Christianity its uniqueness and unique relationship with God.

One might rightly call this a relative theology because the theology itself is not merely composed of relativistic components, but is itself subject to value comparison against other theologies (religions), and against an individual’s sense of reality. Even though Christianity might be found to have positive historical value (according to Ritschl) it is left without its ontological foundations. This sense of relativism reflects Ritschl’s dependence upon Kant in other areas.

Ritschl’s ethic is derived from a Kantian sense of greater good. It is almost purely Kantian, encouraging the individual toward making “value-judgments” (Orr, 43). This is, of course, a necessary approach, for Ritschl’s approach to the actual existence of God is, like De Wette, one of religious symbolism rather than objective existence (Orr, 46). This leaves Ritschl with a relativistic ethic that goes hand-in-hand with his relative theology.

As evangelicals we can provide a richer ethic than can the world of relativism. All you ethicists out there, take heart. We have something far better, far sounder, and far more consistent than relativism might ever provide.

Orr, James, The Ritschlian Theology and the Evangelical Faith, Second Edition, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1898

On Ethical Foundations

2008-12-05T05:43:00.000-08:00

What Lies Beneath

“What is ethical for Joe may not be ethical for Jane.” See? Wasn’t that easy? Problem solved: Give people what they want and all is well with the world. After all, we can not tolerate Joe imposing his ethic on Jane. That would be wrong and might even violate the First Amendment.

Beneath these statements is a foundation, a reason why people think and act the way they do. These reasons come before the ethic and help to create the ethic. Most all of us would say that murder is wrong and the vast majority might cite the Ten Commandments “Thou shalt not kill” or some other religious foundation. In the West this is a Christian ethic.

There are cultures where it is not unethical to initiate the conditions to take another person’s life against their will. There are “honor killings” in some cultures. Until the 20th century, in India a widow would throw herself alive, or be thrown, onto the funeral pyre. In Europe there is a good deal of winked-at active euthanasia, just as in the U.S. there is an immeasurable quantity of infanticide. In these last two cases the tolerance of these actions has become the de facto ethic of the culture, even though it remains unstated.

Needless to say, there are easily hundreds, if not thousands, of foundations which can support and create an ethic. To this the relativist (the one who thinks that there are no absolutes) would say that because all of the foundations are of equal validity so too all of the ethics are of equal value. The position of the relativist, if true, leaves the world with no ethical guide, only culture. And in a tragic irony, a culture that sees itself as irrelevant will proceed to define itself out of existence. This is a sample of what is called nihilism.

(This is why the “religious right” and fundamentalist Christians are so gung-ho patriotic: It is because we understand this process very well. But unfortunately we have done a very, very poor job of communicating it outside of our own circles. We need more sound evangelicals teaching ethics in colleges these days.)

Swimming Upstream

American culture began as a Christian culture. The revivalism that spread across the land from the time of Wesley until Moody made fundamentalist Christian thought the de facto ethical basis for social policy. It’s not that the U.S. was designed in the Constitution or other founding documents to be a protestant, fundamentalist country. With the mention of Thomistic natural law in the Declaration of Independence (“Nature” and “Nature’s God”) we have, at minimum, a foundation for the nation’s founding, partly in Christian theology. It does not make this country in any way a theocracy but it does provide a foundation for saying that our Christian heritage defines our existence and the founders’ intentions.

Today’s secularists and liberals borrow their ethic from Christianity. Kant’s categorical imperative of moral obligation, Marx’ concern for the welfare of the worker, the Sojourners’ Covenant for a New America, and Barak Obama’s emphasis on social work all contain a hint of Christian theology, but are unfortunately bound together with other baggage.

Most of us would agree, and even work towards, maintaining a government that is neither ecclesiastical nor (immediately) theological. We do not want the government involved in church life, period. At the same time, no government can be free from addressing ethics. Ethics is what law is all about – a determination of what is right and wrong, about just rewards and punishments, about first principles and the Constitution, about both maintaining and progressing our society to take on the challenges of the future.

But with any ethic there comes the call for a foundation, and here is where the choice is made. What should we choose? Should we choose the pragmatic approach? Should we take a hedonistic approach? Should we take a theological approach? (And if theological, which one?)

The pragmatist would emphasize the workability of an ethic – what will it produce and what is its greatest benefit or loss. This type of thinking works for business, it works for pleasure, and it works for social engineering. Pragmatism, as a primary foundation, leaves behind the dignity of the individual, as well as a host of other matters.

The hedonist seeks whatever gives the greatest pleasure. To the hedonist a law which unnecessarily takes away or limits pleasure is a bad thing and should be rejected. This approach is often taken by those who would manipulate people’s desires, as with the gambling, alcohol, and abortion industries. They leave people with pain while promising pleasure.

In the case of the U.S., the presence of the Christian, and especially the protestant, ethical voice in the history of the nation is inescapable. It is not that the ethic was enshrined in law but rather that it was embedded within the culture. Whether Roman, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed, Baptist, or otherwise, there were certain standards set in the public mindset. These are reflected in the ethics within the Constitution as well as in legislation and regulation. Bribery is wrong. Justice should be blind. And so much more.

Of Books and Cradles

I will assert two things here. The first is that the U.S. will not cease to exist as the Christian ethic is forsaken. The second is that the U.S. will cease to exist as it has in the past as the Christian ethic is forsaken.

Just as Rome went from a republic to a dictatorship, so also the U.S. will continue to move from a democratic, constitutional republic to become a centralized authoritarian state. The reason for this is the adoption of the Hegelian socialist paradigm (but not yet a completely socialist system) which places the government is a more and more powerful position of control over private enterprise. The forthcoming projected ownership, whether in whole or in part, of the auto manufacturing and health insurance industries, should serve as adequate evidence. I’m not saying that regulation and involvement are not a legitimate place for government, but that ownership is not, historically and constitutionally, where the energies of our system belong.

The U.S. will not cease to exist but will change, not incrementally, but catastrophically. These steps express both economically and legislatively the end of liberal democracy. That (in its current condition) it has ended is evident. That it knows that it has ended is another matter.

Our efforts are often focused on the particulars. Keeping that candidate out of office, or keeping that court under control, or keeping that legislation off the books, all of which are necessary efforts. These battleground matters happen because people are at work behind the scenes where the draft legislation, promote candidates, or appoint judges. That is where the first battle is fought.

I’m not suggesting the simple idea that it is a legitimate task for the Christian to establish or maintain liberal democracy. There are many aspects of the system which are antithetical to sound doctrine, and any partnership with it, or any governmental system, makes room for some costly compromises. What I propose instead is that we be involved in civic affairs for the best interests of all, and that we make those things even clearer in our publications and pronouncements. Additionally, this needs to be a regular portion of church curriculum, both for adults and for children.

Comprehensive solutions are critical. Take for instance, the efforts of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Their material includes everything from sermons to ethical considerations for legislation. On the evangelical side, Focus on the Family has similar material. Education is the key, and participation in civic affairs is critical to being heard and helping.

Of Salt and Light

If the modern doctrine of relativism was held consistently there would be no battle for supremacy. But the doctrine is not what it appears, except as a false motivator that asks the competition (that’s us) to cease its efforts, to surrender. As the liberal efforts toward secularization continue there will be additional efforts to remove the historic Christian ethic from the broader society. Many of these efforts are easily identified, such as the complaint that a Christian ethic behind California’s Proposition 8 is somehow an endorsement of Christianity as a state religion, and as such a violation of the First Amendment.

Whether or not they competition succeeds should not be of primary importance to us as our ministry is first one of involvement in the redemptive gospel. What we have is an opportunity to be of value, to be salt and light – things that are desirable.

An important method to use for helping society correct its injustices is to show the inconsistency and flaws that the various other foundations produce. In addition, the expression of positive solutions to real problems will serve to maintain a Christian ethic in a valuable relationship with society.

Many have written about, and work in, the pro-life arena. There are efforts to save lives by doing the negative (stopping abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia) and the positive (making adoption more affordable, encouraging foster care, and directly participating in adoption process).

There are also some rhetorical concerns. Among these is the use of “fetus” in a sense that removes humanity from the unborn. The term “justice” is one that has been co-opted and given new meaning and directly affects the application of ethics to life. The response would be simple: If an ethic does not conform to the common perception of “justice” then it is, necessarily, “unjust” and subsequently should be rejected. To counter this we need to confront the rhetorical tools that redefine “justice” and make a suitable correction.

One of the characteristics that we find is the use of the term “social justice”, as does RCRC. One broad definition of the term is that it describes

the distribution of advantages and disadvantages within a society

That’s ok as far as it goes, but as you can see it lacks application. Ethics are always tainted by assumptions and presuppositions which lead to application. More on that later.

What RCRC has completely ignored is any ethical statement regarding those issues which create clear division. There is no mention of infanticide (a winked-at outcome of abortion practice), no mention of euthanasia against those who survive abortions, no mention of life after viability, and no mention of late-term, partial-birth abortions. RCRC does not confront its ethical shortcomings. Their method is not to improve or correct their specific position but merely to connect it to others so that it cannot be treated distinctly. That method is one of avoidance and mentioning it is adequate to show its inherent weakness.

Despite RCRC’s laudable efforts to help those in need, there is a certain naïve attitude that allows them to make statements like this:

"If more children in this country were born to parents who are ready and able to care for them,” says the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, “we would see a significant reduction in a host of social problems afflicting children in the United States, from school failure and crime to child abuse and neglect."

There is a good deal of evidence to support the failure of this aged Planned Parenthood slogan. In a manner consistent with the rhetoric, RCRC does not mention adoption in this essay.

What we face with RCRC, and those of similar affinity, is not an ethic that has adapted to science and culture, but one that has simply adopted new strategies to maintain its position.

Language Speaks

The difference between the pro-life and the pro-abortion communities is not that one overtly hates women and the other overtly hates the unborn. Both sides are convinced that, having the best possible positive motivations, they are attempting to accomplish what is best for society. The difference does not lie in their motivations, for the world is filled with motivations which ought be praised. The difference is the foundation for their ethic, and until this is confronted there will be no position change.

But too often we Christians are afraid to clarify our position as a Christian position, afraid to use Christ’s name. The alternative has been quite popular over the last several decades – public language. Public language is how we find ways to state the Christian ethic in secular terms. It represents, on its best side, the idea that these principles are universal (which makes many a Kantian smile with glee) and on its worst is a compromise of our association with Christ. We fear public rejection and reprisal.

One way to deal with the problem is through more thorough communication of what an ethic is. An ethic is not a requirement for membership in a denomination or other group, it is not a dogma that defines an ecclesiastical structure, and it is not a doctrinal position which decides orthodoxy. A Christian ethic is an application of Scripture to an area of life where a principle is derived, and which principle can be applied to life for practical benefit.

All ethics as such are tainted. The evangelical ethic is a largely exegetical ethic, founded primarily on material pulled from the Bible. Some will add to it both philosophy and developed theology such as Natural Law. In any case, though, the primary influence on the ethic is the Bible, and that makes it essentially Christian.

On the other side is the “progressive” ethic. The foundation for this is the liberal movement of the past three centuries and centers on the individual and personal rights. But not being any more homogenous than the Christian ethic, much of the modern progressive movement is tainted by the “social dialectic” of class warfare, which pits men against women and, unfortunately, women against their own offspring.

To confront the progressive ethic we would do well to ask the simplest of questions. One of these questions, at least in principle, came to the forefront during the recent presidential election. We would do well to iterate them specifically and clearly to the abortion community and to legislators:

Why would you turn women against their own children?
Why will you not defend those born alive?
Why should the government be actively involved in killing people?

Add more questions to the list. Confront the issues and the people involved. But let the chips fall where they may, because we do not own society. The best we can do is provide the value of salt and light, proclaim the gospel clearly, and proceed to do what good we can.

Regarding John Gray’s Black Mass, Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia

2008-11-30T12:24:00.000-08:00

John Gray’s Black Mass, Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia is a combination of historical survey of our modern liberal political enterprise in light of Western Christian theological influences, a review of the current political situation in the West, and Mr. Gray’s principles for the future of politics.

Mr. Gray’s historical assessment of the influence of postmillennial and apocalyptic theology on whole range from radical Marxism to secular liberalism to Religious Right conservatism is useful reading for anyone interested in the philosophical origins of American thought. The liberalism that we all enjoy is quite Christian and very apocalyptic, seeking to provide the final, better world for human existence. His assessment is certainly not naïve:

Contemporary liberal thinkers tend to view the totalitarian movements of the last century as anomalies in western history, and there is a similar tendency among conservatives regarding the millenarian frenzies of the Middle Ages. These outbreaks of mass killings are seen as departures from the peaceful norms of a civilization that is good, healthy and harmonious. Not all the world’s evils come from “the West” – however that amorphous concept is defined. Humans are an extremely violent species; there are plenty of examples of mass killing in non-Western societies. Where the West is distinctive is in using force and terror to alter history and perfect humanity. The chiliastic passions that convulsed late medieval Europe and which reappeared in the twentieth century are not aberrations from a pristine western tradition. They go back all the way and they continue today. In the twentieth century they were embodied in secular regimes that aimed to remake humanity by force. (p. 35)

While I find this an excellent historical review, it does have some serious shortcomings. He ignores Hitler’s hatred of Christianity (p. 68) in arguing to make his point. He also treats Lenin’s rise to power as some sort of “accident” (p. 45), seemingly ignoring Lenin’s lengthy involvement in the revolutionary process.

When it comes to current events this work should definitely be taken with a grain of salt. His perspective on current issues, esp. the character of U.S. involvement in Iraq, reads like a partisan talking points paper instead of an objective analysis of the greater situation. (p. 100-104)

For Mr. Gray there is no consistent end. His case is not a simple one. He makes very clear the failure of our liberal world to accomplish its utopian goals, the mutual failure of nation-states to fully encompass the needs of the whole society, and the lack of freedom within totalitarian systems. But his solution does not yield a fruitful result. His appeal is a Randian reach to reason and science, and that is his sense of realism. What remains is the physical world; there is nothing transcendental. His realism is without ontology or teleology, reflecting his abandonment of any apocalyptic ends. This is a position of ultimate naturalism that ends with a high level of frightening consistency. By excluding anything metaphysical he excludes ethical considerations from the political process. In this he reads more like coherent Nietzsche.

The matter of ethics brings out a serious contradiction in Mr. Gray’s thoughts. One the one hand he sounds like the teleological Christians whom he criticizes when he promotes the best virtues of societies that help the needy and minorities. On the other hand, he sounds like just another despotic scientific atheist as he promotes a system driven by reason and science. The result is that Mr. Gray is not only unable to escape the enlightenment liberalism that he maintains has failed but he is also unable to escape the Christian character and ethic that clearly affects his position.

It is works such as this which present the greatest philosophic dangers to political and social systems. It is a system without an ethic but pretends to appeal to an ethic for the benefit of society. Such is the arbitrariness of proposed totalitarian solutions, and a fundamental motivation for the Christian, especially the evangelical, to pursue a place for the Christian ethic in civic life.

Without a view toward the future, without some sort of apocalypse or similar terminus, there is no possibility for progress. There is no political solution to the human condition.

Lenin’s Socialism and Revolution

2008-11-04T10:34:00.000-08:00

A Review of Chapter 1 of What is To Be Done?

Lenin thought that violent revolution was not always necessary. Instead he proposed an incrementalism that would slowly establish socialism within a society.

Social-Democracy must change from a party of social revolution into a democratic party of social reforms. (p. 1)

Behind this is an outlook on human history that employs the Marxist historical framework. He anticipated

the possibility of putting socialism on a scientific basis and of demonstrating its necessity and inevitability from the point of view of the materialist conception of history. (p. 1)

For Lenin the material world is all there is and with that would come his presumedly necessary socialism.

When arguing against socialism we must be cautious to keep classic liberalism separate from the more recent Marxist variety. Lenin caught this error and used it to his advantage, noting that his critics would deny

the antithesis in principle between liberalism and socialism. (p. 2)

One significant difference between the two is that liberalism places a great deal of emphasis on the individual while the Marxist places the emphasis on society and community, on union and other group dynamics.

Another concern of Lenin was his critics’ rejection of

the theory of the class struggle, on the alleged grounds that it could not be applied to a strictly democratic society governed according to the will of the majority, etc. (p. 2)

In the US we call it “class warfare” where envy and jealousy are incited so as to both cause problems as well as to win votes. It is not there are no classes, and it is not that there is a level of abuse that comes with all class-based relationships. For Lenin this struggle is necessary to bring about the revolutions and reforms that he sought.

But what should an abused citizen expect out of the government once these reforms have been put in place? Lenin is quite clear.

If democracy, in essence, means the abolition of class domination, then why should not a socialist minister charm the whole bourgeois world by orations on class collaboration? Why should he not remain in the cabinet even after the shooting down of workers by gendarmes has exposed, for the hundredth and thousandth time, the real nature of the democratic collaboration of classes? Why should he not personally take part in greeting the tsar, for whom the French socialists now have no other name than hero of the gallows, knout, and exile (knouteur, pendeur et deportateur)? And the reward for this utter humiliation and self-degradation of socialism in the face of the whole world, for the corruption of the socialist consciousness of the working masses – the only basis that can guarantee our victory – the reward for this is pompous projects for miserable reforms, so miserable in fact that much more has been obtained from bourgeois governments!

He who does not deliberately close his eyes cannot fail to see that the new “critical” trend in socialism is nothing more nor less than a new variety of opportunism. And if we judge people, not by the glittering uniforms they don or by the high sounding appellations they give themselves, but by their actions and by what they actually advocate, it will be clear that “freedom of criticism” means’ freedom for an opportunist trend in Social-Democracy, freedom to convert Social-Democracy into a democratic party of reform, freedom to introduce bourgeois ideas and bourgeois elements into socialism. (p. 2-3, bold emphasis mine)

To be brief, his socialism is the opportunity for the masses to milk the system for all it is worth. It is an opportunity to bring socialism into a hybrid situation where the goals can be met at the expense of the opposition.

In this he accomplished two goals – he encouraged the opportunist use of the bourgeois system for the benefit and furthering of socialism while at the same time denouncing its attempts at criticism which could lead to a diminishing of his Marxist orthodoxy by “vulgarising Marxism,” as he called it. In this he was quite skilled, keeping his orthodoxy as pure as possible while taking full advantage of the competition.

This is more easily accomplished when a system of though, like Marxism, has an orthodoxy. Most national economic systems have no such characteristic and as such vulnerable, a fact with which Lenin was certainly familiar, and which provided him with this practical advantage.

Lenin’s demand for orthodoxy was not left at the level of assertion but took on a strategy.

The question now arises: such being the peculiar features of Russian ”criticism“ and Russian Bernsteinism, what should have been the task of those who sought to oppose opportunism in deeds and not merely in words? First, they should have made efforts to resume the theoretical work that had barely begun in the period of legal Marxism and that fell anew on the shoulders of the comrades working underground. Without such work the successful growth of the movement was impossible. Secondly, they should have actively combated the legal ”criticism“ that was perverting people’s minds on a considerable scale. Thirdly, they should have actively opposed confusion and vacillation in the practical movement, exposing and repudiating every conscious or unconscious attempt to degrade our programme and our tactics. (p. 9)

This strategy is nothing new or particular to the Marxist ideology. Even within our theology we write and attack heresy (“legal Marxism”) and ecumenism (to him “opportunism”), and develop an apologetic against “criticism.” What is significant is that this is a movement centered on him as a person (revealed later by way of the statue of him in Red Square), and as such it became a coordinated and managed affair.

In this I sometimes wonder if the socialism in the US is really so “grass roots” as the information media would claim, or if there is a good deal of coordination between think tanks that leads to behavior. There are instances where this is evident but times where it is not so clear. We might to well to expose those situations where the evidence is discernable.

Lenin also rejected the German attitude toward reality as an impediment to the advance of socialism.

In a word, the Germans stand for that which exists and reject changes; we demand a change of that which exists, and reject subservience thereto and reconciliation to it. (p. 11)

(I wonder if the Marxist socialist demand for change was involved in Hitler’s hatred for Communism. The demand to change is difficult for any society to accomplish rapidly.)

The use of education to promote his socialism creates a problem to which we do well to be aware.

Those who have the slightest acquaintance with the actual state of our movement cannot but see that the wide spread of Marxism was accompanied by a certain lowering of the theoretical level. Quite a number of people with very little, and even a total lack of theoretical training joined the movement because of its practical significance and its practical successes. … If you must unite, Marx wrote to the party leaders, then enter into agreements to satisfy the practical aims of the movement, but do not allow any bargaining over principles, do not make theoretical “concessions”. This was Marx’s idea, and yet there are people among us who seek-in his name to belittle the significance of theory! (p. 12, bold emphasis mine)

Lenin enjoyed the spreading of Marxist ideals through the broader society but at the same time decried it’s being watered down. Again he asks for orthodoxy in the theory. The problem this raises for our awareness is that we do well to confront the principles of socialism up front and minimize their impact and so protect society from those who teach the more orthodox Marxism in the universities and elsewhere.

Lenin insists that revolution is necessary, even if socialism comes into play in a society.

Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. (p. 12)

His position is not one of mere political philosophy but of physical danger. While we see very few of them in the US, those of us who observed the “new Left” in the 1960s remember Armstrong, Bill Ayers, Jerry Rubin, and the other revolutionaries whose work continues, and whose names are now, somehow, cleared in the eyes of many because of the acceptance of Barak Obama. It is a sad statement on the state of our national conscience.

The emphasis on theory, not just revolution and social change, is of high importance to Lenin.

He who realises how enormously the modern working-class movement has grown and branched out will understand what a reserve of theoretical forces and political (as well as revolutionary) experience is required to carry out this task. (p. 13)

This places an important challenge to the conservative and classic liberal, and also on the evangelical and other orthodox Christian, to take the assertive position of attacking the socialist ideology directly, by replacing professors, by teaching more suitable principles, and by building policies and legislation to defeat this evil.

Again, going back to the situation in Germany and hinting again at a cause for Hitler’s disenchantment with Communism, quoting Engles:

The German workers have two important advantages over those of the rest of Europe. First, they belong to the most theoretical people of Europe … (p. 13)

It makes one wonder, not at all if Hitler were good for Germany, but why so many of those who opposed Hitler would accept the evils of socialism as an alternative? To substitute one grave error for another equally grave error seems to be the tragedy of human existence.

Russia’s abusive tsars were definitely earning a revolution and Lenin was certainly the voice behind this.

The Russian proletariat will have to undergo trials immeasurably graver; it will have to fight a monster compared with which an antisocialist law in a constitutional country seems but a dwarf. (p. 15)

But was he fighting the tsarist system or was he fighting a constitution? Perhaps both, but his statement rings clear that the constitution is not secondary but primary and equal to the tsar in his concerns. In the US our lightweight socialists use their theory against the literal constitution and change it to a figurative document and so find avenues to implement socialist policy. Such is the error of today’s Left.

One might conclude that the creeping socialism we see today, while certainly Marxist, might better be branded Leninist.

The Virtues of Leo Strauss

2008-11-03T14:14:00.001-08:00

The City and Man
By Leo Strauss, (c)1964, Rand McNally

Though in his earlier works Strauss proclaimed the fundamental principles of Marxism (though avoiding the call for violent revolution as is typical of the West’s idealists), he came to a point where a rejection of socialism was necessary based on the evidence. The evidence was the rigid violence of Stalin, the emptiness of Trotsky, and the general failure of the system. This work came 11 years after his Natural Right and History, clearly a period of reflection for Strauss.

In what seems a straight-forward to the evils he describes in the introduction the work places a clear emphasis on moral questions. He seeks the noble and the virtuous but in the end is left with the authority of the city. “Man transcends the city only by pursuing true happiness, not by pursuing happiness however understood,” (p. 49) effectively separates Strauss from the liberal who finds truth in the individual.

But where Strauss finds truth ought to concern the Christian. In both his earlier work as well as later work we see one who has no investment in matters of revelation. That his works contribute to the sense of strong government without the taint of Marx’ failings is significant. It is a government, a society, with only arbitrary morality. That this might lead to abuses of power internationally has been attributed to Strauss’ work. Even if that be false there is still the matter of a strong internal government and loss of liberty, a framework for political structure that should trouble anyone, not just the evangelical.

The Socialism of Leo Strauss

2008-11-03T14:13:00.001-08:00

Ok, this was written in 1953, before he departed socialism because of its failures. It is here that he defines the workings of the Left clearly and specifically. Strauss' explanation of rights falls within, not individual human existence, not God-ordained and revealed truth or morality, but to government and the personnel who work in government:

The full actualization of humanity would then seem to consist, not in some sort of passive membership in civil society, but in the properly directed activity of the statesman, the legislator, or the founder. ... The judge and ruler has larger and nobler opportunities to act justly than the ordinary man. (p. 133)
Since the ultimate end of the city is the same as that of the individual, the end of the city is peaceful activity in accordance with the dignity of man, and not war and conquest. (p. 134)

Strauss expressed plainly the fundamental Marxist claims which belong to socialism.

We shall define justice as the habit of giving to everyone what is due him according to nature. (p. 146-147)
Let us take the example of the big boy who has a small coat and the small boy who has a big coat. The big boy is the lawful owner of the small coat because he, or his father, has bought it. but it is not good for him; it does not fit him. The wise ruler will therefore take the big coat away from the small boy and give it to the big boy without any regard to legal ownership. The least we have to say is that just ownership is something entirely different from legal ownership. If there is to be justice, the wise rulers must assign to everyone what is truly due him or what is by nature good for him (p. 147)
We must go further. The justice of the city may be said to consist in acting according to the principle "from everyone according to his capacity and to everyone according to his merits." (p. 148)

The secular law of the socialists, the idea that there is some natural justice without a Giver of Justice, relies on the authority of the state. Though he appeals to the necessity of consensus to define a society, said consensus does not transcend human existence. So he follows with a call no world citizenship and not just a commitment to city or nation.

There is something to be said for a reaction to the radical individualism of the Enlightenment yet one cannot escape the secularism which defines both. The correction of one error with another error is no solution. The Declaration of Independence says something quite different than does the socialist:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Our founding document declares that our "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" are not the product of government but from God. The modern (orthodox) liberal does not accept this premise.

The modern liberal also does not accept, as Strauss indicated, that rights are given by the government. Strauss finds rights by way of consensus and due by way of need. But the right of citizens is greater than the power of government, according to the Declaration.

I don't like the term "un-American." It's has an unnecessarily divisive ring to it. But it is accurate to say that the liberal position is contra-American because there is a fundamental contradiction between some particular positions of liberalism and American liberty. Their patriotism (their willingness to serve and protect their nation) is not in question, but their understanding and restructuring of America is. The taking of liberty by government definition rather than recognizing natural law is destructive.

Considerations from Strauss' Natural Right and History

2008-10-31T08:18:00.000-07:00

Natural Right and History
Leo Strauss, 1953, University of Chicago Press

Part 1: On Natural Right and History

Strauss’ view of natural right is very similar to what Christians would call “natural law.” In explaining his view he sets up a contrast between a classic view of natural right and the liberal expansion of natural right as it includes relativism.

In spite of this, generous liberals view the abandonment of natural right no only with placidity but with relief. They appear to believe that our inability to acquire any genuine knowledge of what is intrinsically good or right compels us to be tolerant of every opinion about good or right or to recognize all preferences or all “civilizations” as equally respectable. Only unlimited tolerance is in accordance with reason. But this leads to the admission of a rational or natural right of every preference that is tolerant of other preferences or, negative, of a rational or nature right to reject or condemn all intolerant or all “absolutist” positions. The latter must be condemned because they are based on a demonstrably false premise, namely, that men can know what is good. At the bottom of the passionate rejection of all “absolutes,” we discern the recognition of a natural right or, more precisely, of that particular interpretation of natural right according to which the one thing needful is respect for diversity or individuality. But there is a tension between the respect for diversity or individuality and the recognition of natural right. When liberals became impatient of the absolute limits to diversity or individuality that are imposed even by the most liberal version of natural right, they had to make a choice between natural right and the uninhibited cultivation of individuality. They chose the latter. Once this step was taken, tolerance appeared as one value or ideal among many, and not intrinsically superior to its opposite. In other words, intolerance appeared as a value equal in dignity to tolerance. But it is practically impossible to leave it at the equality of all preferences or choices. If the unequal rank of choices cannot be traced to the unequal rank of their objectives, it must be traced to the unequal rank of the acts of choosing; and this means eventually that genuine choice, as distinguished from spurious or despicable choice, is nothing but resolute or deadly serious decision. Such a decision, however, is akin to intolerance rather than tolerance. Liberal relativism has its roots in the natural right tradition of tolerance or in the notion that everyone has a natural right to the pursuit of happiness as he understands happiness; but in itself it is a seminary of intolerance. (p. 5-6)

He does not find that the liberal actually rejects natural right but rather, because of the insertion of relativism, has distorted the principle. This distortion leads the liberal to an ultimately intolerant position. Though this book was written in 1953, and the principles as such were formulated much earlier, the application to today’s world is unavoidable. Try to find an “orthodox” liberal today who will tolerate full religious liberty in the US and your efforts will come up fairly empty.

Strauss also points out that natural right is rejected today in favor of a conventional view of history.

Conventionalism presupposed that the distinction between nature and convention is the most fundamental of all distinctions. It implied that nature is of incomparably higher dignity than convention or the fiat of society, or that nature is the norm. The thesis that right and justice are conventional meant that right and justice have no basis in nature, that they are ultimately against nature, and that they have their ground in arbitrary decisions, explicit or implicit, of communities: they have no basis but some kind of agreement, and agreement may produce peace but it cannot produce truth. (p. 11)

This is where the current liberal and his progenitors may be confronted. They create a weal view of the world that is founded on the assertion of “a basic dualism between the realm of nature and the realm of freedom or history” which effectively separates nature from justice and places justice in the hands of the arbitrary or conventional. This is where Hegel set the table where Marx would feast, where they would find their place for the strong central government which would dictate rights of ownership and profit. The result is that he sees the liberal revolution not against specifically the ecclesiastic authorities but more generally against the principles that drove them:

The effort of the revolutionists was directed against all otherworldliness or transcendence. (p. 15)

Behind this abandonment of principle is the wall of “reason” …

... that allegedly proves the impossibility of theoretical metaphysics and of philosophic ethics or natural rights. Once all metaphysical and ethical views can be assumed to be, strictly speaking, untenable, that is, untenable as regards their claim to be simply true, their historical fate necessarily appears to be deserved. (pp. 19-20)

It is on this basis that the liberal or scientific positivist rejects presuppositional Christian apologetics. It is thought that, once the transcendent is eliminated then all argument to the point are de facto dismissed. But his position leaves him in a bit of a lurch. The liberal is left hanging onto his failed dichotomy and so is incapable of establishing justice in any transcendent manner. When the transcendent is gone only what is arbitrary remains.

This leads to his conclusion regarding the modern liberal’s historicism, and it goes to the politicization of philosophy.

The political philosophy of the eighteenth century was a doctrine of natural right. It consisted in a peculiar interpretation of natural right, namely, the specifically modern interpretation. Historicism is the outcome of the crisis of modern natural right. The crisis of modern natural right or of modern political philosophy could become a crisis of philosophy as such only because in the modern centuries philosophy as such had become thoroughly politicized. Originally, philosophy had been the humanizing quest for the eternal order, and hence it had been a pure source of humane inspiration and aspiration. Since the seventeenth century, philosophy has become a weapon, and hence an instrument. It was this politicization of philosophy that was discerned as the root of our troubles by an intellectual who denounced the treason of the intellectuals. He committed the fatal mistake, however, of ignoring the essential difference between intellectuals and philosophers. In this he remained the dupe of the delusion which he denounced. (p. 34)

In the post-Enlightenment philosophers we find the unmistakable application of this in Marx. The one who employed ideas to denounce other ideas had come to the same practical ends. The religious authorities were denounced while the material world and the dialectic were elevated to the position of, and in place of, God.

Conculsion:
Strauss appeals here, not through Aristotle or Socrates, not through Aquinas, but by way of simple reason, exposing some of the failures of liberalism in addressing ideas and society incorrectly. His position, his analysis, is precise and sound, but he offers no solution. It reads like a philosopher who desperately wants historicism combined with philosophy, to correct the errors of both historicism and liberalism, to reassert some Thomist natural right, yet he leaves us without direction. The transcendent that he longs to recover is not in his writing.

(more to come)

Dominant Militancy

2008-10-24T12:34:00.001-07:00

Dominant social constructs we not always so. Greek democracy started in the cities and spread through the empire of Alexander. The Roman republic began in the cities and later became the dominant system for their empire. Christianity, in one of its greatest errors, joined with the political authority of the Greco-Roman world view of the day and emphasized Jesus as Christus Victor over the whole of the world. Mohammed saw the corruption of his time, and the sin and errors of Christians, gathered a band of followers, and swept across Africa and then to conquer much of the equatorial regions. Karl Marx took his frustrations with capitalism and built a revolutionary ideology that has swept the earth during the past 150 years. The evangelical revival movement in North America began, primarily, with Charles Wesley and spread across the whole of English-speaking North America as fast as it was united under the stars and stripes. Modern political conservatism in the US arose from a few writings from William F. Buckley and is now a predominant alternative to liberalism.

All of these systems began with small groups and later spread to the larger society as dominant world views. This is not to equivocate the value or substance of any of these teachings (that would be a terrible heresy in the eyes of those who hold those beliefs, and to me as well) but it is to say that large movements begin with local militancy.

One axiom that I hold to is this: Philosophers drive the world. Every idea, every movement, every world view comes from an application of an idea to life events that a philosopher develops. This philosopher then builds a following of persons who are willing to be militant about this world view, and who are even willing to die for it if necessary.

Christianity, besides being the foundation for the eternal truths of God found in His Word, is also a sound philosophical foundation for living. It is not a system designed to build a government but it is a system designed to change lives and in this it is unique. Almost all others through history have depended upon power to control others. Christianity sees the Holy Spirit at work in the mass of believers and so is quite different.

As we look to the future we see some of these ancient world views still at work. The power of government, as practiced by Rome, is coming back into vogue by way of the works of Marx, Hegel, Nietzsche, and their influence on the modern Left. Democracy is fading away in favor of the new centralization. Christianity and Islam are butting heads, so to speak, in their militant attempts to evangelize the world. Islam continues through threats and violence. Evangelical Christianity takes a message of hope. Unfortunately other forms of Christianity are not so generous, and one might hope that the Islamic opposition would note the difference. (It’s part of the reason we had a Reformation about 500 years ago.)

What will happen in the next 300 years, or even 50 years, is anybody’s guess. Will we see a new birth of freedom? Will we see a resurgence of postmillennial theocracy? Will se see an even stronger centralized government? What is called for today is a view of the world that is militant, meaningful, beneficial, and has the spiritual substance to take on its opponents.

Book Review: Reasonable Faith, Third Edition

2008-08-26T18:37:00.000-07:00

The Fundamentalist turn, while valuable in terms of orthodoxy, proved to be
intellectually expensive. And so William Lane Craig sets the stage in the
introduction with a quote from J. Gresham Machen:

False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the Gospel. We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation to be controlled by ideas which prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion. p. 17

The current need for apologetics is expressed in terms of practical gospel
need. Examples are provided that clarify the problem – people who might
come to Christ and people leaving the church and their faith because questions
could not be answered.

His general taxonomy of apologetics is two-fold. Apologetics is seen as offensive (positive, taken out into the world) and defensive (negative, protection against criticism). This book is intended as an offensive apologetic of the evidential type. Craig, as an evidentialist, thus pursues the general truth of Christianity, the absurdity of a life without God, the existence of God, history, miracles, the nature of Jesus and His resurrection.

In part one, to build his case for the truth of Christianity, Craig initially appeals to Augustine’s and Aquinas’ classic apologetics. Augustine’s dependence upon God’s (and the church’s) authority was the core proof of his faith and Aquinas’ use of reason. From both he gleans the dependence upon the miracle, the practical confirmations of faith, and with Aquinas’ reason became the new partner of faith. He then proceeds into the enlightenment era of Locke and Dodwell, followed by contemporary theologians and philosophers Barth, Bultmann, Pannenberg, and A. Plantinga.

Yet, even with these various philosophical methods in hand, the question still sets around showing the existence of God and not just knowing the existence of God. For the one who already believes, Craig appeals to the witness of the Holy Spirit. In contrast to this, when trying to provide proofs to those who do not yet believe, he discusses inductive and deductive methods along with the Holy Spirit. Yet he does not here answer the question regarding the truth of Christianity.

Part two sets the stage to answer the question by presenting the absurdity of life without God. Digging into the works of Pascal, Dostoyevsky, Kierkegaard, Schaeffer, he exposes the utter despair of the Godless life. The lack of ultimate meaning, the lack of value, the lack of purpose, all are part of the life without God. Craig finds the values that Christianity provides to be one of its proofs.

The existence for God then follows the need for values and part three (accomplished in two sections) delves into the ontological, cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments. Craig then explores cosmological arguments but does not leave them standing alone. He sets them up against several current models which propose to explain the nature of reality naturalistically. (I find that this is perhaps the most valuable part of the book.)

The second section continues on the existence of God with further exploration of the teleological and ontological arguments. In the end we do not have a deductive proof of God’s existence but an inductive proof, that God’s existence is more probable than not given the state of reality. It is, as he says, a cumulative case (p. 190) and a necessity for evangelism (p. 196).

Part four begins by answering criticisms regarding knowledge and history. One might term this historical epistemology as it involves certainty of knowledge for a variety of reasons. The criticisms come from both historical critics and philosophical critics, especially the postmoderns who seem to have certainty of nothing but uncertainty.

The second section of part four brings up one of the peripheral items to history, regularly confronted by naturalism. That is the problem of miracles and the criticisms revolve around some type of naturalistic or mechanistic viewpoint. His explanation and critique of Hume’s arguments are thorough and especially useful as an apologetic in an academic setting.

As the book works toward its conclusion it also goes back to the beginning. The question to answer is that of Christ, the very person of apologetics. This part also has two sections, the first of which deals with misconceptions about Jesus. The second section confronts critics of the resurrection. The summation of these apologetic efforts is the probability, the near certainty, that Christianity sits solidly in the face of criticism.

Weaknesses
I’m not so certain that Alvin Plantinga’s philosophical approach should be interpreted in the light of evidentialism. I understand what Craig is trying to say, but it seems to be a square peg in a round hole.

The reader should be aware that these are inductive arguments. That’s not bad, but would be helpful for framing arguments. All historical arguments are inductive just as are many scientific models, such as evolution. When a critic asks for a “proof” what is usually requested is something indisputable. Perhaps a paragraph or two in the Good Arguments segment (pp. 55-56) would have been valuable.

Strengths
Dr. Craig is thorough. There is more than enough material here to challenge even the most die-hard critic of Christianity.

Conclusion
It's an excellent book for those wanting a thorough introduction to evidential apologetics. It is also an excellent rebuttal to the shallow criticisms offered by John Paulos.

Why Academic Apologetics Matters

2008-07-21T04:44:00.000-07:00

For the vast majority of people it seems appropriate to say that Ideas are valuable when they have a practical benefit. People want solutions that make a difference. People want things and ideas that help marriage, child-rearing, education, career, or just fixing the car. The abstract is just that – it seems out of touch with the real world of daily living.

When we listen to a sermon and the application to life that is so valuable we are hearing thousands of years of theology being boiled down to a 20-minute statement. All of the richness of atonement theology, of the doctrines of the trinity and the Messiah was not developed by the pastor in a few weeks of study or even a few years of college or seminary. Instead the study was enriched through language studies and commentaries from through the millennia.

Apologetics seems more abstract. One wonders what real effect might be accomplished through the pursuit of hisotry. After all, we can't really prove anything an faith is the real requirement, not knowledge. And nobody can be argued into heaven, so why even try?

Apologetics and the arguments presented will often bring about change, but mostly at the academic level. The net result of this is that the material which filters down to later textbooks is affected. In secular circles we saw the (secular apologetic of) Darwinism affect the classroom science texts of the last 150 years. In theological circles we have seen, during this same period, DIspensationalism (as an apologetic for a certain approach to Scripture) change how many approach the Word.

Sometimes these apologetics cross venues. Marxism and Enlightenment indivudalism have affected theology significantly. Today, in evangelical thought, the epistemology (theory of knowledge) as a Christian might see it has an affect on Naturalism's view of the world. Reading Naturalism Defeated? on cannot miss those who acknowledge A. Plantinga's view of creation and how it affects the character of Naturalism. From this one can expect more changes to the Naturalistic world view.

Naturalism has changed multiple times over the last century. Early on it was assumed that what is is what is and there were few questions raised. But naturalists were challenged and many adopted dialectical materialism, materialistic determinism, or some odd form of compatibalism, and all of these can be found in texts of varoius sorts. Despite their clear shortcomings they remain as the current apologetic for Naturalism because someone challenged Naturalism's outlook on life and human freedom.

The challenges presented today will again force the secular philosophers to adjust, as well they should. Some of the shoddy logic behind these viewpoints deserves confrontation and the Christian thinker is in the place to deal with it best.

What is Science?

2008-07-01T17:02:00.000-07:00

What is Science?
Exploring the Possibilities

In order to discuss the nature of science the first task is to define that deceptively simple term “science” and its implications. But defining “science” is like trying to define “love”. One hundred years ago the tendency would have been toward testing the physical world but today a myriad of other definitions take their respective seats. If “science” is simply methodological study, then the scope of science includes all of research. If “science” is a test for measurable results then we’ve removed theoretical studies from the definition. If “science” is the solution of problems then we have yet another nuance that removes any (perceived) unproductive work from the definition. Finally, if “science” is a collection of several viable definitions then we need to collect and clarify the list.

Science has always had a close relationship to epistemology, the study (the science) of knowledge. To understand the world around us, to understand anything to any degree, and to understand why and how we understand, takes the constraints and methods of inquiry to new levels. But our world today[i] is one of relativism and any knowledge, especially as it may be tainted by culture, assumptions, and presuppositions, often comes into question.

As any understanding of science relates to epistemology one assumption I come with is that not all scientific study will produce certain or incorrigible conclusions. At this point in history, all of the fields in question (naturalism, evolution, intelligent design, irreducible complexity) have all produced a good quantity of inconclusive results along with their respective verified results. The goal is not to say that one side is right and one side is wrong but to examine how they are producing results. So the question is scientific suitability of the theory structure affects the nature of the knowledge produced, that is, whether or not this knowledge is reliable. The reliability of that knowledge is for the engineers to test, debate, and retest, but this discussion is about the quality of the theory.

That a great of natural science demands physicalism is an assumption that I will allow because it is core to the historic definition of science. This is dealt to a greater degree later in the paper and the case for this will be clarified at that time. I will simply note here, and leave for later discussion, that physicalism is not the same as naturalism and does not carry the same demands.

When we were in elementary or secondary school we were taught that what is considered science is empiricism – can I prove something by way of an experiment? And the properly constructed empirical formula was all that was necessary for a proper scientific theory. Apart from the empirical formula, all else was relegated to faith because it was unprovable by the empirical method and all else was unscientific.

But a great deal has been left out of the discussion of scientific theory making and testing, with students receiving only a part of the package. Algebra and plane geometry are other examples of science[ii] that presented proofs by other reasons. Remember all those proofs in plane geometry? Plane geometry presents proofs by employing the scientific approach of deductive reasoning. There was a mathematical experiment and a set of reportable results, and there was measurement. But there was no observation, at least not in the same manner. The rules of plane geometry are fixed – the sum of the three angles of any triangle equals 180 degrees.

Fig. 1: All interior angles of a triangle total 180 degrees.

Given that the top and bottom lines are parallel, angles “a” are necessarily of the same value and angles “b” are also necessarily of the same value. That leaves “a+b+c” equaling 180 degrees.

Much of plane geometry is a logical process containing a set of pre-determined mathematical conclusions – there is no new experimentation which might lead to alternative or variant conclusions.

Likewise algebra presents similar logical processes where the two sides of an equation are resolved in order to arrive at a conclusion.

Problem 2x + 7 = x + 18
Solution x = 11

The science of algebra begins with a theory (the formula or problem) and through the effort of processing the formula one arrives at the conclusion.

Problem 2x + 7 = x + 18
Remove 7 from each side: 2x = x+11
Remove x from each side: 1x = 11
Therefore: x = 11

But this problem can be solved through another sequence.

Problem 2x + 7 = x + 18
Remove x from each side: 1x + 7 = 18
Remove 7 from each side: 1x = 11
Therefore: x = 11

The abstraction here is a simple one – there may be more than one distinct and correct path which leads to the correct conclusion.

These understood processes are applied to the arguments that comprise the formula. Then, after the conclusion is reached, the result is checked. This is often done by reversing the process and verifying each step. The science of algebra thus takes a step beyond the science of geometry by adding new levels of abstraction to the processes.

These examples should suffice to show that there is a great deal more to scientific theory-making than empiricism, and the more advanced processes have changed over the last century, especially in the fields of molecular biology and quantum physics[iii]. Even the basic presuppositions behind scientific theory-making have changed to a noticeable degree. Thus the system of theory making is far from monolithic and a survey of these changes is necessary to establish, if possible, any relationship between ID, naturalism, and accepted theory-making practices.

The human context in which theories occur is also critical in describing a scientific theory. Every scientist’s perspective creates a varying degree of objectivity and with that a different lack or benefit as it relates to objectivity. If we make the mistake of ignoring the context of each construct then we will allow for a potential corruption of objectivity that may easily allow a theory construct to lead to false conclusions.

Yet the definition of “science” remains obscure as multiple dictionaries present conflicting definitions. The American Heritage Science Dictionary[iv] takes the empirical and phenomenological approach:

The investigation of natural phenomena through observation, theoretical explanation, and experimentation, or the knowledge produced by such investigation.

Science makes use of the scientific method, which includes the careful observation of natural phenomena, the formulation of a hypothesis, the conducting of one or more experiments to test the hypothesis, and the drawing of a conclusion that confirms or modifies the hypothesis.

Merriam-Webster does the same[v]:

knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through the scientific method and concerned with the physical world and its phenomena

But the more general American Heritage Dictionary[vi] provides a broader scope for the term and allows for the methodology, discipline, and experience.

1.
The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of
phenomena.
Such activities restricted to a class of natural phenomena.
Such activities applied to an object of inquiry or study.
2.
Methodological activity, discipline, or study: I've got packing a suitcase down to a science.
3. An activity that appears to require study and method: the science of purchasing.
4. Knowledge, especially that gained through experience.

The majority of definitions tend toward the phenomenological and away from other potential sciences. This limitation on the definition of such an important term can mislead student and scientist alike into seeing the world through observation only, and that is a serious shortcoming which scientists of all sorts would almost certainly reject.

[i] Laudan, Larry, Progress and Its Problems, 1977, University of California Press. Laudan summarizes many of the issues facing scientific inquiry over recent decades. Though he takes a pragmatic approach, he has an excellent understanding of the problem of knowledge and purpose. He states his position on multiple occasions in the book, that “science is essentially a problem-solving activity,” and pursues the theme rigorously. pp. 4, 11

[ii] Bell, E. T., Mathematics: Queen and Servant of Science, 1951, McGraw-Hill, p. 127ff. Mathematics is today the queen of science as it is the overarching science and so provides the ground rules for scientific study. At the same time it serves science because it provides the methodology and mechanism for measuring results.

[iii] Kauffman, Stuart, “Prolegomenon to a General Biology”, in Debating Design, 2006, Cambridge, pp. 151ff. Building on a foundation of quantum physics theory, Kauffman is seeking a new creative source, a new law of physics, that allows life to be self-advancing. He seeks “an autonomous agent” that “is a self-reproducing system able to perform at least one thermodynamic work cycle.”

[iv] science. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Science Dictionary. Houghton Mifflin Company. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/science (accessed: June 30, 2008).

[v] science. Dictionary.com. Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary. Merriam-Webster, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/science (accessed: June 30, 2008).

[vi] science. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/science (accessed: June 30, 2008).

Christian Valuation

2008-05-23T06:38:00.001-07:00

It's not that Christianity contains any values that others might not be able to come up with on their own. (I suspect that they might not have this facility because values and ethics require a base, a suitable starting point. But I digress.) The value of Christianity to society can be found in its values, the things that it brings to any and all cultures which benefit them. One of these in current debate is the matter of ethics.

The value of an ethic is the fruit that it produces. Yes, this requires a moral judgment and yes, any judgment can tend to be intolerant of error. But ethics is not merely about orthodoxy – it is the application of these ideas to practice.

Some would say that Christianity brings nothing meaningful, that Christianity is merely superstition, or, at best, a type of formality that belongs inside the four walls of a building. After all, it is supposed, Christianity has nothing of value because it can say nothing of value.

Beginning the 1930s, the logical positivists were fond of insisting that the sentences Christians typically use -- 'God loves us' or 'The universe was created by God' or 'God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself' -- do not, as they are ordinarily used, say anything at all; they express no propositions at all; they are really disguised nonsense ... The positivists appealed to the dreaded "Verifiability Criterion of Meaning," according to which a sentence makes sense, is literally significant, of is cognitively meaningful only if it is 'empirically verifiable' (or falsifiable) -- only if, that is, its truth (or falsehood) can be established by something like the methods of natural and empirical science.[1]

The presence of a Christian ethic in the social fabric, or even in law, represents a coherent and empirically verifiable value for the world. This is the Salt and Light, the value, that Christians can be to the world because it represents the things that the world wants.

What has Christianity brought the world? Two stand out: The end of a great deal of suffering and ontological equality for all. Today’s ethical debates on life and human dignity have the potential for an even greater value.

[1] Plantinga, Alvin, Warranted Christian Belief, 2007, Oxford University Press, p. 7-8

Naturalism, with a Hint of Positivism

2008-05-19T11:22:00.000-07:00

As I read through the evolutionary material from the various naturalists (most recently Gould and Mayr), there is one very striking commonality among them: Positivism. It’s not a social positivism like we saw in the 19th c. liberal movement, but is a modern mathematical (that is, with a calculated inevitability) positivism, a conviction that everything that happened went in the right direction because it had to. It was, as Rosenhouse puts it, a “lawlike” inevitability. Another aspect of this positivism is found in one of Gould’s evolutionary trait-inheritance mechanisms.

Reproductive drive: directional speciation as an important and irreducible macroevolutionary mode separate from species selection
Stephen J. Gould, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, p. 724

His clarification beings as follows:

However, when we move to the species level, the analogous driving phenomenon of directional speciation suffers no constraint or suppression – and may represent one of the most common modes of macroevolution. Two major reasons underlie the high potential frequency for directional speciation 9as opposed to the rarity of its analog in the organismal level – see line III2a on the chart). First, as noted in several other context, the species-individual does not maintain integrity (as the organism does0 by suppressing differential proliferation of some parts over others. … Second, since new species-individuals must arise with sufficient heritable novelty to win reproductive isolation from their parent … all species births include genetic change as an automatic consequence. Any statistical directionality in such changes among species in a clade will produce a trend by drive. (p. 725)

Get that? This “trend by drive” presumes a particular directionality in the course of evolution. Now if this positivism isn’t weak enough, Gould descends even further into the murky depths:

Directional speciation, when based on irreducible species-level traits or processes, designates another category of intrinsically macroevolutionary change. (p. 726)

His use of the term “irreducible” is done in the same manner as Behe uses the term with respect to irreducible complexity. The target of the term is different as Behe explores the particulars of a molecular construct and Gould explores a process. But the manner is identical: The process of change at the species level cannot be reduced to simply discussing the traits of individuals within that species. it is a step which cannot be bypassed for any reason. He sees this process within all three states, organismic, interdemic, and special.

Gould provides multiple explanations of how this hypothetical process might work but faces a serious obstacle regarding an explanation of the presumption of direction. What he means clearly is the desired outcome, that is, today’s end and naturality reality. But a direction that is irreducible is a predetermination, whether by an external agency (ID) or in the mind of the theorist. Given that naturalist evolutionists have no tolerance for ID, we are left with a phenomenological conclusion that exists only in the mind of the theorist.

Evolution is an Apologetic for Naturalism

2008-05-18T16:30:00.000-07:00

That is, evolution is designed in such a way as to provide an explanation for the natural world. That explanation is an evidential approach at its core, deductive at the second step, and presuppositional in its broader framework.

Fig. 1: Component Relationships

Molecular biology is where hands-on science takes place. This is where classic experimentation is accomplished. But something happens here that is a first step. An assumption is made that genetics corresponds to evolutionary change. That is an inductive approach that makes a decision based on accumulated data. Finally evolutionary biology makes a presuppositional step to naturalism.

There is a correspondence to Christian presuppositional apologetics. As Richard Pratt describes VanTil’s two-step approach:

He proposed a two-step approach. First, believers should invite unbelievers to consider the evidence for Christian theism on its own terms, making certain that we do not follow the principles of unbelievers (Prov. 26:4). Does it cohere? Does it make sense of the world? If Christianity is true, does it not explain reality? Here apologists use every argument, great and small, to demonstrate the credibility of the claims of Christ. On the deepest (transcendental) level, we urge that the only sufficient basis (or presupposition) for human knowledge is Christian theism.
Second, believers should help unbelievers examine their own outlooks on life, so that they will not be so wise in their own eyes (Prov. 26:5). Do they cohere? Do they make sense of the world? If their world view is true, then why doesn’t it explain reality? Here evidences and arguments are used to demonstrate the futility of trying to understand anything on the basis of human autonomy. With the false self-confidence of unbelievers shaken, the truth of the gospel stands out clearly. If the Spirit is at work, it will become plain that Christ alone is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

The first step is the matter of evidence. Though the term is not used in the same manner as would either the naturalist or Christian evidentialist might use it, it is nevertheless an appeal to a type of evidence. That is what the naturalist does with molecular biology as it is framed with the idea of progress and turned from ever being brute facts into inductive support for evolution.

And just as the Christian presuppositional apologist takes that second step where Christian theism becomes the sufficient explanation for reality, so too does the naturalist grab hold of presupposing evolution as the evidence for naturalism. This is the presupposition that the naturalist cannot live without. There is no direct link between the supposed brue facts and the inductive conclusion of evolution and there is nothing but presupposition that takes one from evolution to the metaphysics of naturalism.

Where's the Ethic!

2008-05-17T17:08:00.001-07:00

We all remember those wonderful Wendy's commercials. The kind little lady lifts the top half off the burger only to reveal a tiny patty covered with a large pickle. Her indignant response was fully justified. It was a question of morality and ethics. The customer should get what is expected, what they paid for. No less is right.

So what of the modern relativist? Can one claim that morality is relative and still claim a moral high ground? Let's take a little different approach to the issue than people normally attempt. The standard approach by way of Kantian relativism has been used to its fullest extent. So let's instead head into noetic concerns.

If, as Plantinga concluded in Warrant and Proper Function, that naturalism cannot produce certainty of knowledge, then it most certainly cannot produce a certain ethic. The result of this is not relativism but a more simple emptiness. Even relativism requires some sense of personal knowledge and a sense of at least subjective certainty that any personal knowledge is at least personally correct. But for the naturalist this lack of even subjective certainty leaves the individual with nothing certain.

It is consistent that Stephen Pinker (and Jason Rosenhouse) diminish religious ethics. But it is inconsistent that they promote any ethic. Any sense of correctness and incorrectness, of right and wrong, of good and bad -- all of these require some form of ethic but that is an ethich which cannot be known.

Here we have an open door to confront naturalism an one of its inherent problems. This is an opportunity to show them the beef.

Thoughts on Philosophy and Theology

2008-05-17T07:58:00.000-07:00

So much of theology has been influenced by various forms of Platonism over the past centuries that challenging it is difficult. The Emergents and other postmoderns make the move by returning to NT primitives. This has some value in cleaning up theology. The fundamentalists, especially the premillennialists, make the same move by being Biblicists, not having rejected nearly as much as the postmoderns, but still attempting to cling to the NT primitives and just a small amount of developed theology. In both cases, however, the influence of Hellenistic components has been difficult, if not impossible, to escape.

In the current issue of Faith and Philosophy (vol. 25, no. 1) Katherin Rogers provides one of the most exciting statements to this effect that I've read and enjoyed in a long, long time:

Classical theism holds that God is simple -- His nature is identified with His omnipotence, His omniscience, and His perfect goodness. On this view, not only can there be no demand for how God "comes to know" necessary truths, but there is no explanation at all for God's knowledge of necessary truths beyond the simple fact of His necessary existence.
This "anti-Platonic" analysis of the relationship of God to necessary truth has the further advantage that it does not hypothesize a world of ontologically dubious platonic abstracta just "there" in the universe.

This statement prompts several thoughts. First in my mind is that there is significant value in being aware of and constructing our theologies, not apart from the tools of philosophy, but with an awareness that sometimes these tools can unknowningly become part of theology, thus corrupting theology. I doubt highly that Augustine and Aquinas were aware of the shift that they were putting in place as they interpreted and advanced theology through the eyes of Aristotle and Plato. And I also doubt highly as to whether today's fundamentalist theologians are aware that their attempts to be "Biblical" might be affected more than they think. Such clarity by Rogers is refreshing and should be taken into consideration by theologians and teachers everywhere.

The latter concern is by implication but follows the former by implication. For the Christian theologian to be ignorant of the philosophical methods and practices of the world around us is to be unaware of their past and present affects on theology. To do this leaves us vulnerable to accepting past problems (like Platonism's influence) totally unaware of the situation. One does not have to become a Platonist (or Marxist or whatever) to understand and deal with those issues in one's systematics. But an ignorance of these issues most certainly leaves theology vulnerable.

Philosophy, per se, is not the enemy. The content of particular philosophies may be, but the tools of understanding are not. They are there to be employed toward the development of better theology and the furtherance of the Gospel. We need only to be more aware of the past and present.

Thoughts on the Paradox

2008-05-09T04:14:00.000-07:00

It's one of those self-evident truths that reality contains no paradoxes. Everything is resolved in the real world. The only place where paradoxes exist is in the mind of the observer. That being said, any observation which ends in a paradox of contradiction is deficient in the definitions used to arrive at its conclusions.

Not all paradox is necessarily contradiction. Some, like Sovereignty & Free Moral Agency in Reformed theology, are reconcilable. It is a paradox but does not necessarily end in contradiction. There are others, though, which end in mutually exclusive definitions. Deterministic Sovereignty vs Absolute Free Will is one of those theological contradictions. For God to be truly Sovereign and for us to be truly Free is a contradiction. That does not mean that reformed theology should be dismissed out of hand but absolutely means that there is a problem, for some theologians, with the definitions of Sovereignty and/or Free Will.

But theology is not alone and science has its own paradoxes. The claim of simple empiricism being free from these entanglements is certainly among the most naive of remarks. One of these paradoxes is the materialistic determinism of the neo-Darwinians as it sits against the free will of the scientific theorist to ascertain that very principle. If the universe is merely a set of matter and energy interchanges then even the concepts of life and will are undefinable and life is merely a glorious accident. In that is the contradiction, for if there is nothing free then there is no life or will.

While theology may have its theory issues at various points, let nobody say that science is as pure and faultless would be suggested. Christian theology has been maturing for two millennia now and modern evolutionary "science" is around 150. It's youth is quite evident.

What Is Evolution?

2008-04-23T08:24:00.000-07:00

This is, for the orthodox Christian, our greatest challenge today. It is the greatest challenge we face because evolutionary theory requires the world view of naturalism, it redefines everything in epistemology, and it directly redefines theology.

I’ve chosen to look at two standard texts on the subject. The material contained in these works is among the best representation of evolutionary theory that is available.

Ernst Mayr

Evolution is several things. According to Ernst Mayr, Darwinism is still at the core of evolution. In What Evolution Is, Mayr says:

Darwin also saw clearly that there are two aspects to evolution. One is the “upward” movement of a phyletic lineage, its gradual change from an ancestral to a derived condition. This is referred to as anagenesis. The other consists of the splitting of evolutionary lineages or, more broadly, of the origin of new branches (clades) of the phylogenetic tree. This process of the origin of biodiversity is called cladogenesis. It always begins with an event of speciation, but the new clade may become, in time, an important branch of the phylogenetic tree by diverging increasingly from the ancestral type.

Mayr applies this to the rest of the universe (p. 76) when he says:

Almost everything in the inanimate universe is also evolving, that is, it is changing in a distinctly directional seaquence.

A statement of this character clearly places Mayr in the Darwinian positivist camp, always assuming that the changes which occur are, on the broader scale, taking place in a beneficial direction. That is not science; it is philosophy; it is theology.

This positivist sub-theme appears again as he tries to reconcile chance and necessity in evolutionary processes (p. 229):

Many authors seem to have a problem in comprehending the virtually simultaneous actions of two seemingly opposing causations, chance and necessity. But this is precisely the power of the Darwinian process.

The power of the Darwinian process looks forward to the process providing generally beneficial results so that humans, and later perhaps even a greater being, a better world. That was Darwin’s wish and appears to be Mayr’s dream as well. Sort of. This leads to his comments regarding human evolution? He has a model. But the evidence, he admits, is lacking (p. 239).

Unfortunately, no hominid fossils – nor such of a fossil chimpanzee – are as yet known for the period between 6 and 13 mya. Thus there is no documentation of the branching event between the hominid and the chimpanzee lineages.
:::
A general text on evolution like this one cannot present the cons and pros of all interpretations of the controversial hominid finds (and virtually all of them are somewhat controversial!).

But will humans continue to advance?

Modern humans, by contrast, constitute a mass society and there is no indication of any natural selection for superior genotypes that would permit the rise of the human species above its present capacities.

In this he diverges from Darwin’s positivism and postmillennial outlook. Yet, while he sees the physical nature of humanity as potentially unchanging he sees the societal character of humanity going through changes. He recognizes our social nature and applies Darwinism to the development of human ethics (p. 256). He acknowledges some growth and improvement, but not all areas.

He also accepts earth’s, and thus humanity’s, apparent uniqueness in the universe.

Even if something parallel to the origin of human intelligence should indeed have happened somewhere in the infinite universe, the chance that we would be able to communicate with it must be considered as zero. Yes, for all practical purposes, man is alone.

Stephen Jay Gould

Gould’s The Structure of Evolutionary Theory is the “bible” for many in the field. In one volume he overviews the science and philosophy of evolutionary. His view of Darwin appears not significantly different from Mayr, except for the absence of Mayr’s excessive positivism. He views Darwin as a philosopher as well as a scientist (p. 116), a fact that should never be missed, especially in the broader social context (p. 121).

Many scientists fail to recognize that all mental activity must occur in social contexts, and that a variety of cultural influences must therefore impact all scientific work. Those who do note the necessary linkusually view cultural embeddedness as an invariably negative component of inquiry – a set of biases that can only distort scientific conclusions, and that should be identified for combat. ... The origin of Darwin’s concept of natural selection provides my favorite example of cultural context as a promoter.

If only Gould would have gone further with this thought and examined the character and failings of Darwinism more precisely. He does this on some issues (e.g., p. 161, seeing evolution an a global rather than local or special scale) but could have gone further.

His definition of “evolution” appears as an expansion on, clarification of, and built upon the foundation of Darwinism. He is not really “Darwinist” in that old narrow sense but would employ the term in a broad sense so as to define modern evolutionary theory within the scope of what Darwin began. It’s not much different from evangelical language where “Christian” in one sense is used to describe those who have come to know Christ personally and in the other sense where all who have partaken within history might be termed “Christian”. The same word has a differing meaning given the new context. Gould uses the term “synthesis” and “concensus” to describe the movement and its adherents despite some disagreement on the details.

Gould also displays nicely some of the necessary philosophical constraints of evolutionary theory (p. 1070-71), which make clear that the system depends upon an Platonistic view of the world, and not the simple empiricism that many students would suppose. This does not cause him any real concern because he understands the necessity of all work to have some sort of philosophical basis. The issue that I would raise is that students must be taught that science does not operate apart from philosophical presuppositions and constructs. Life and work do not occur in a vacuum, and that includes all forms of science.

Conclusion

The challenge of evolution is, I do not believe, quite as great as the evolutionists claim. They present ill-formed reason and theory structures, coupled with 19th c. positivism and other baggage that most of them do not recognize. Plantinga’s work on epistemology and naturalism makes for a useful parallel in confronting the naturalism which accompanies evolutionary theory.

There is much more to be discovered form the world of evolutionary theory and science. It is a valuable direction for the Christian reader and thinker to explore and evaluate. Another suitable exploration is the overall inductive theory structure employed by evolutionists. But that will come later. You should certainly explore those issues on your own.

A Brief Apologetics Review Regarding Naturalism and Evolution

2008-03-25T14:30:00.000-07:00

Christian apologetics comes in several varieties. They can be seen as exist in three general approaches: Evidential, presuppositional, and (the new kid on the block) Philosophical. The purpose of this paper is to assemble these three approaches with respecti to a defense against naturalism and evolution.

The evidential approach finds the facts of history, science, nature, and revelation adequate to defend the faith. This approach serves the function of collecting and assimilating facts of history and science in a manner consistent with and in support of the Faith.

Textbook evidentialism tends to view facts in isolation. Very rarely will an evidentialist broach the subjects of paradigm or philosophy. What they bring instead is the historical detail (archaeology and history) and appropriate questions regarding biological information (irreducible complexity, or IC) and suitable statistical proofs (intelligent design, or ID) in order to answer particular questions. These are all valuable and express in clear terms for everyone the everyday truth of the Christian faith in the world.

Then there is presuppositionalism. Despite the strange ideas that this word might conjure up, the function is very simple. There is a step between the facts of history and the validity of Christianity that even the evidentialist must take, and that is to presuppose that the evidence directly links to the validity of Christianity. This step is necessary because there is no direct link between observed facts and God. That is, while we can see God’s power expressed in creation, not everyone sees that link. It is not intuitively obvious to everyone, neither is it indisputable, and these mostly because of human fallenness. So, building on that necessity, the presuppositionalist also makes use of philosophical tools to defend the Faith against the secular philosophers. By example, in his Systematic Theology, August Strong employs the principles of Christian thought against those of Ritschl, Kant, and Darwin to defend the faith.

This kind of Christian thought is known in fundamentalist circles as “Godly reasoning” but is in no way different from the tools of philosophy in general. The location of these tools, being subject to theology rather than theology being subject to philosophy, is what sets the fundamentalist apart.

New in Today’s Toolbox
Today we have a relatively new and growing field in Christian apologetics. It is part of what we call philosophical theology (PT). One definition of PT can found in Wikipedia:
Philosophical theology is the disciplined employment of philosophical methods in developing or analyzing theological concepts. It therefore includes natural theology as well as philosophical treatments of orthodox and heterodox theology.

Ingalf Dalferth[1] gives a definition which is a bit more encompassing of the scope of this field:

There is not a single or simple definition of philosophical theology (PT).
Sometimes the term is used to refer to the theology of the philosophers as
opposed to, for example, the mythical theology of the poets or the political
theology of cities and states in antiquity or to the theology of Jews,
Christians, or Muslims in more recent times. Or PT is marked off not from
other forms of theology but other branches or disciplines of philosophy, for
example, from philosophical psychology or cosmology in seventeenth and
eighteenth-century rationalism. Or it refers to philosophical rather than
biblical historical, moral, etc. problems or topics or disciplines in
(Christian) theology. Or it is used to distinguish a particular
philosophical way of doing theology from other ways, for example, theology
practiced in prayer and meditation, or confessional theology based on the faith
of a particular religious community or society, or in the institutional settings
in which these have been incorporated.

Dalferth’s statement covers many of the issues that are being faced today in the broader arena. Not all of these apply to Christian thought, or at least not directly. Because (orthodox) Christianity is not first a philosophy, the first item, “theology of the philosophers” does not apply. The second selection, “philosophical rather than biblical historical, moral, etc. problems or topics or disciplines in (Christian) theology” applies only partly because the tools of philosophy are extremely useful for the ethical applications of Biblical principles.

The third item, “to distinguish a particular philosophical way of doing theology” has its place as a tool to develop theology to a fuller extent. Like the second item, philosophical constructs can be employed to enhance and clarify theology. As a constraint on doing this I appeal to August Strong’s clarification over a century ago, that “science and philosophy make good servants of Jesus.”

Taken in this light, the works of Alvin Plantinga on the matter of warrant along with the works of J. P. Moreland and Roy Clouser on the relationship between scientific thought and Christian thought have developed in the last two or three decades to answer current challenges in the most appropriate manner.

Facing Today’s Apologetic Challenges
Today’s greatest challenge, in my opinion, is not first the particular question of evolution. Evolution is a product of a system of thinking called Naturalism, a system that approaches the universe as a purely material and godless entity, describing everything from that presupposition. Our confrontation of naturalism and evolution has developed effectively over the past several decades as a combination all three of these approaches.

The evidentialist approaches the subject beginning with the problem of evolution. They employ questions dealing with these details and deal with apparent weaknesses of the system. Among the most popular are the inadequate age of the universe to accommodate randomness (Intelligent Design, or ID), complexity beyond probability (irreducible complexity, or IC). But the evidentialist lacks enough evidence to prove a broader point as it relates to naturalism.

Though he is able to take the offensive and attack the particulars of evolutionary mechanics he is also continually on the defensive as he attempts to both counter the assertions of evolution and form a suitable replacement paradigm. Evidentialism is, in fact, incapable of dealing with those broader matters. It was not designed to accomplish that goal.

The fields of ID and IC are still in their infancy and sound criticisms of the two (in their current respective states) force them to rethink their construct. Yet sometimes even the strongest criticisms present the necessary avenue for correction and restatement. One example of this is in the writings of Dr. Jason Rosenhouse, Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at James Madison University. In his essay How Anti-Evolutionists Abuse Mathematics [2] he presents a summary of formidable mathematics regarding chance. But at the same time he sacrificed a major tenet of Darwinian evolution. But instead of describing what he says, I’ll let you read it for yourself:

David Foster [7] is confused on many points (one of them being the difference
between a permutation and a combination), but the most important error is the
portrayal of Darwinism as fundamentally a theory of chance. Darwinism, as
described in [10], has three components:
(1) Organisms produce more offspring than can possibly survive.
(2) Organisms vary, and these variations are at least partly heritable by their offspring.
(3) On average, offspring that vary most strongly in driections favored by the environment will survive and propagate. Favorable variations will therefore accumulate in populations.
Part one is a simple empirical fact. Part two is the realm of chance; the genetic variations exhibited by an organism are random with respect to the needs of that organism. But part three is the antithesis of chance. Natural selection is a lawlike process. It is this aspect of Darwinism that gets left out of the BAI.

What Dr. Rosenhouse has done is to forsake the randomness of the long-term process and replace it with a new “lawlike” predictable process with predictable results. This leaves the evolutionist (the Rosenhouse version at least) with the apparent inevitability (mathematical predictability) of evolution.

While Dr. Rosenhouse denies randomness in favor of predictability, he still depends upon the periodic, indeterminable acquisition of useful traits in order to even define “evolution” as a term. Such fundamental question-begging is again to the advantage of the special creationist.
Presuppositionalists come at the subject a bit differently and are able to deal with the paradigm issue. Cornelius VanTil, probably the best known of the modern presuppositionalists, takes the first philosophical step and confronts the Kantian/quasi-Platonistic character of modern science by attacking its inability to know (epistemology). As VanTil says:

Such then seems to be the present situation. Modern philosophy in
practically all of its schools admits that all its speculations end in
mystery. Speaking generally, modern philosophy (and science) is
phenomenalistic. It admits that ultimate reality is unknowable to
man. All systems of interpretation are said to be necessarily relative to
the mind of man. And so it seems at first sight that modern philosophy
ought, on its own principles, to admit that there is a dimension of reality that
is beyond its reach and about which it ought therefore to be ready to listen by
the avenue of authority. Modern philosophy would seem to be ready
therefore to listen to the voice of “religion.”[3]

Alas, Van Til has no specific answers to the particular claims of the naturalist but instead proposes a general solution by exposing the philosophical shortcomings of modern science and philosophy. By presuming the truth of the Faith and exposing the false premises of Naturalism it is hoped that the thinking adversary will recognize the error and come to faith, or at least, as a starting point, reject the errors of naturalism. That leaves the apologist with one unanswered area, the region of philosophy.

Matters of epistemology, cosmology, ontology, ethics, et al, are now open to criticism. To this point we have dealt with the very particular and the very general. Now it is time to assault the construct of naturalism itself.

The PT Solutions
Enter philosophical theology (PT). Now we take a step beyond the general arguments of presuppositionalism and we are able to better deal with the particulars of naturalism. It has been left to the evidentialist to say that evolutionary biology may be in error and it has been left to the general presuppositionalist to clarify the broader paradigm errors of naturalism. Now it is the task of philosophical theology (at least one segment of the field) to deal with all of the particular philosophical components of naturalism.

To get more specific than the broader paradigm we need to delve into the particulars of scientific thought and theory. This means that we will be looking at the content of philosophy, in this case epistemology.

The Structure of Scientific Theories [4] by Frederick Suppe is considered one of the standard texts of the field. But Suppe depends upon a logical positivism that leaves basic theory structures vulnerable. As Seager says:

The positivist theory of meaning has fallen (far) out of favor nowadays, but the distinction between the two contexts of scientific activity remains an important bulwark against metaphysics. Yet I believe that even a cursory examination of modern science will show that there is no easy way to separate metaphysical from “purely scientific” doctrine unless one is willing to swallow a radical (neo-empiricist) vision of science which itself embodies a metaphysical position. Furthermore, if we follow this route, the legitimate place of science within our culture is sadly diminished.[5]

Not only does Seager expose the vulnerability of the more-traditional system of modern science but at the same time makes clear that science, philosophy, and even religion are inseparable. (I think VanTil might agree.) For Suppe:

Thus, without attempting to delimit the class of theories which properly qualify as being scientific, I will establish that not all scientific theories admit of the canonical axiomatic formulation required by the Received View. Then I shall argue that some theories do not admit of the required canonical formulation, thereby establishing that the Received View is plausible for some but not all scientific theories.
To demonstrate that not all theories commonly referred to as scientific admit of the canonical reformulation required by the Received View, it will suffice to show that some of these theories cannot be axiomatized fruitfully. The question here is not whether all theories can be axiomatized – for it is the case that any theory, scientific or otherwise, can be “axiomatized” in a trivial fashion by the mere listing of the symbolizations of all known results – but rather whether they all can be axiomatized fruitfully.[6]

And for Plantinga:

Now it must be conceded that the notions of purpose, design plan, proper
function, damage, and their colleagues are most at home in thought about
artifacts, machines, and other devices that have been designed and constructed
by such conscious, purposeful agents as human beings.[7]

More simply, not all science is as obviously scientific as it might first appear and the content of scientific theory becomes religious[8] in nature when it becomes “axiomatized.” This is a contextual matter and describes how a theory is framed or treated and is a suitable criticism for theory construction.

Opportunities
Over the years many who give support to special creation have made statements which have turned out to be silly and the evolutionists are not afraid to point these out. But many evolution supporters do the same thing and we would be remiss to ignore the other side’s silliness. Take this statement[9] by Rob Boston of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State:

If advocates of ID or any other form of creationism believe they have a sound
scientific argument, there is a mechanism and a forum they can use: the
double-blind experiment and the peer-reviewed journal.

In this case it is clear that Mr. Boston knows nothing of the philosophy of science, of theoretical sciences, or that ID is a criticism of evolution, not a full science on its own. This is the type of demagoguery that exposes the fallacies of many critics’ positions.

Conclusion
As these three approaches mature and develop a more solid framework. Our Christian apologetic frameworks cover the greater breadth of what the naturalist and evolutionist have to offer. There is more work to be done and we can look forward to further advances over the coming years.

[1] Ford, David and Muers, Rachel, Editors, The Modern Theologians: An Introduction to Christian Theology, Since 1918, 2005, Blackwell Publishing, p. 305.

[2] Dr. Rosenhouse’s essay can be found at http://www.math.jmu.edu/~rosenhjd/sewell.pdf.

[3] Van Til, Cornelius, Christian Apologetics, 2003, R&R Publishing, p. 167.

[4] Suppe, Frederick, The Structure of Scientific Theories, 1977, University of Illinois Press.

[5] Newton-Smith, W. H., editor, A Companion to the Philosophy of Science, 2001, Blackwell Publishers, p. 289.

[6] Suppe, Frederick, The Structure of Scientific Theories, 1977, University of Illinois Press, p. 63.

[7] Plantinga, Alvin, Warrant and Proper Function, 1993, Oxford University Press, p. 195.

[8] Clouser, Roy, The Myth of Religious Neutrality, Revised Edition,2005, Notre Dame Press. Dr. Clouser proposes that the assignment of transcendence to any concept gives that concept the quality of deity. It’s a type of “common sense” observation that is intended to keep the secular philosopher or scientist from encroaching on the world of what is truly “religious”.

[9] Posted by Rob Boston on TalkToAction, http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/3/25/122335/740/Dominionism_in_the_military/Deceptive_By_Design_The_FRC_And_Creationism

Warranteed Disbelief

2008-02-15T07:32:00.000-08:00

If valid belief is driven by warrant and justification, then where do falsifiers fit into the scheme as possible negative warrants? Here's what I'm getting at:

Joe believes A to be true. A is qualified by a belief that A1, A2, and A3, supporting infromation, is also true. These qualifiers are so defined that if any of them is false then A may be rejected if any of A1, A2, or A3 proves to be false.
But Jack comes along and shows A2, though not false, to be a weak support. That is, A2 is not really the best way to support A. So Jack modifies A2 in an attempt to make it stronger and replaces it with A2+.
Jane comes along and sees that A is no longer supported by its traditional system, but by the new, modified system. She concludes that A is therefore false because the basis for belief has changed. Not only has it changed from its core material (A1, A2, A3) but it is also appears, to Jane, to be so seriously modified that it must have been erroneous from the beginning.
Does Jane has a reason to disbelieve A? On the one hand she can conclude that A is false because its foundation (the apparent problem with A2) is in error. On the other hand, if A2+ provides an adequate correction to A2 then A cannot be reasonably rejected because a correction has been made.
Is "A2 is in error" a valid falsifier of A if A2+ corrects the error? No. If there is no way to correct A2, then A is false, given the starting conditions. But if A2 is correctable then correcting A2 leaves A as, at least, a warranteeable belief.

Let's discuss the subjects of special creation and evolution in this regard. Christian doctrine (orthodox) depends upon special creation (let's make this our A), specifically a 6-day creation at some point back in time. Some say about 6000 years ago (A2); others say that there was a real 6-day creation but further back in time (A2+); some allow for theistic evolution (A2-). The apparent age of the earth, more than 6000 years, certainly forces the special creationist to modify one's understanding of special creation.

Erickson, in his Systematic Theology, allows for theistic evolution. That's a dangerous direction to take because it affects other doctrines like original sin and Jesus' and Paul's specific statements about a real Adam. Those who have built constructs around this have found methods they deem acceptable, but they still appear to have a great deal of inconsistency.

I've chosen the A2+ route, accepting both the core of special creation, that specific 6-day event with a real Adam, but must allow for the Jewishness of the writing style. That means I see the Real Adam of Genesis in two different ways -- the first created and fallen person and the continuation of his name to his posterity. Very simply, if we read the material as both specifically literal but which is formed in a poetic structure then we can see a literal Adam along with a religious Adam.

Taking this approach is consistent with literal interpretation methods. But I'll save that for future discussions.

Evolutionary theory (A) depends first upon randomness (A1) and second upon natural selection (A2). Randomness has been the critical plank that the special creationist has attacked with the most success. Randomness requires time and without enough time for randomness to occur with the presumed consistency,

But apparent discrepencies in the fossil record have led to criticism that things did not occur slowly, that there were abrupt changes. The old Hopeful Monster was an explanation of abrupt changes, but it was so silly that it was quickly rejected. Then there was Punctuated Equilibrium to accout for time and rapid changes. Not at all the same (in content) as Hopeful Monster, though it does address the character of the apparent changes in speciation record. Here's what Gould says:

We proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium largely to provide a different explanation for pervasive trends in the fossil record. Trends, we argued, cannot be attributed to gradual transformation within lineages, but must arise from the different success of certain kinds of species. A trend, we argued, is more like climbing a flight of stairs (punctuated and stasis) than rolling up an inclined plane.

Why did these responses come about? It appears that the universe is not old enough for pur randomness. This is part of Dembski's argument in Intelligent Design. Randomness requires such an extensive amount of time and material that a chaotic universe is not adequate to provide the needed stability.

The special creationist finds the weaknesses of Time (among other things) to be a warrant for rejection of evolution. The evolutionist finds that same Time (again, among other things) concern to be its equal cause to reject special creation.

Scientific Presuppositionalism

2008-02-11T07:48:00.001-08:00

Presuppositionalism, assuming certain things to be true as the basis for one's argument, is not limited to theisitic apologetics. Wikipedia has a useful paragraph on the matter:

Van Tillians insist that all worldviews are ultimately circular and cannot justify their foundational principles except by that principle itself. Therefore, while presuppositionalists agree that circularity makes for an invalid argument in some circumstances, they contend that in the case of ultimate presuppositions, there is no other option. So when considering worldviews, the concern must not be for vicious (or, "small") circularity, but for internal coherence ("large circularity"). In other words, presuppositionalists believe that the question to be asked is not, "Do I begin with my ultimate presupposition?" but rather, "Do my beliefs and practices comport with my ultimate presupposition?"[26]
For example, presuppositionalists will point out that a secular scientific worldview is built on the core presupposition that only what is incorrigible, that which can be observed and that which can be immediately inferred from what is observed, can be known with certainty. However, that core presupposition is not incorrigible, cannot be observed, nor can it be immediately inferred from that which is observable. Therefore, it involves large circularity -- internal incoherence.[27]

So I ask this of the physical scientist: If you accept that this is not true, that scientific observation is not a matter of presupposition but of simple, pure empirical observation, the why the change in the sciences? For those who cling to verificationism, relying on the scientific method to show what is verifiable or falsifiable, then it seems appropriate to reject those things which are merely calculated or predicted, not simply testable and not readily falsifiable, or which does not tolerate a falsifiability criticism. As yesterday's dialogue displayed, the evolutionary theory, while having proved itself useful in many practical instances, is held as axiomatic (giving it the status of religious) and is so held above critique. No falsifiable criticism, no scientific Popperism, is allowed. Censorship rules, and not only at the blog level.

The old joke regarding a theology test is this: "Prove the existence of God. Give 3 examples." While theists think this silly, the secularist sees it as an evidence that we are not operating in the real world because we can prove nothing. So likewise a corollary for the naturalistic evolutionist is suitable: "Prove the whole process of evolution. Give 3 examples." In like manner the naturalistic evolutionist has nothing with which to answer.

Scientific presuppositionalism, we might also call it philosophical science, is not new, though it is now being matured. Alp Öktem has a useful introduction to the matter. It appears to be very similar, in at least the broader construct, to the philosophical theology we encounter within Christian thought. The matters of scientific theory construction, coupled with general principles of theory making, provide adequate evidence that there is more to science than observation.

Presuppositional analysis works at two different levels: discourse and belief system. Questions and problems are the objects of analysis at the first level, where basically the main types of prior belief that attach to these objects are examined. On the other hand, at the level of a belief system, presuppositions themselves become the objects of analysis, where their ultimate and relative status comes into focus. Thus the use of presuppositional tools is not only essential to identifying scientific problems, but as the latter analysis shows also to mapping the presuppositional structure of belief systems.

If only life were simple and answers were easy. If only people would challenge their own thoughts and ideas. But alas.

Yes, It Is

2007-11-11T15:05:00.000-08:00

Science has changed significantly over the past several "modern" centuries. There was a time when much of Western science both depended upon and acknowledged its dependence upon God. Those days are gone. Even so, "science" has not been quite so "rational" as people think. The place of verificationism is one example of science's acceptance of sound challenges and corrections to its framework and presuppositions.

The perpetual connection between science and philosophy also expresses itself in a link with religion. It's not that science is linked with some example of ecclesiology that we're familiar with because of their buildings all around us. Rather, as Roy Clouser clarifies so well in The Myth of Religious Neutrality, to be religious is to depend upon something divine. Marxism, for example, depends upon the presumption of a divine materialism and dialectic. Perhaps someone can find a suitable avenue to apply these principles to law; perhaps a judge who is a philosopher will recognize that the porported neutrality and objectivity of science; perhaps giving ID the hearing it deserves.

The Post-Enlightenment Problem

2007-11-07T17:04:00.000-08:00

Writings on an Ethical Life is a collection of Peter Singer's various writings over a couple of decades, plus change. Mr. Singer capably establishes his position against both the Hegelian position and the relativists. In this short section is a valuable lesson for the Christian thinker.

When you read his material it is plain that utilitarianism is his bent, with a great emphasis on John Stuart Mill and others. His related position regarding human dignity flows directly out of his naturalistic framework. As he says on page 130, in the section entitled What's Wrong with Killing?:

Now that we are reassessing our speciesist view of nature, however, it is also time to reassess our belief in the sanctity of the lives of members of our species.

Ok. That's enough to raise concern in our minds. But there is a much deeper concern. His view of human dignity is only symptomatic of his borrowing from some serious error. For Hitler was a product of that post-enlightenment thinking and Singer (who raised the name in the section Euthanasia: Emerging from Hitler's Shadow, so it's no Godwin) struggles desperately to separate himself from that movement. Alas, he resorts to a redefinition of terms and completely ignores the relationship of Sanger and Hitler and the siblings motivations of the US and Nazi movements. To his credit, he raised the issue. To his loss, he was unwilling to deal with it in a holistic fashion.

His work should be viewed a benefit to the pro-life movement. He's one of the few willing to deal with the base philosophical problems of the utilitarian ethic. His failings are our benefits.

Book Review: The Two Tasks of the Christian Scholar

2007-10-22T18:55:00.000-07:00

The Two Tasks of the Christian Scholar Redeeming the Soul, Redeeming the Mind
William Lane Craig & Paul M. Gould, Editors
Crossway Books
ISBN-13: 978-1-58134-939-9
ISBN-10: 1-58134-939-4

The imperative for the Christian thinker is to integrate being a Christian with living and working in the academic world. A decade ago Should God Get Tenure? explored the legitimacy and participation of the Christian in the academic world. In The Two Tasks of the Christian Scholar, William Lane Craig and Paul M. Gould, with a cadre of academics, take the work of Charles Malik and propose the place and participation of the Christian in the academy. What they propose is specifically Christian, without compromise and without equivocation.

There is no honest Christian in the academy who compromises Christianity and attempts to segregate Faith from Knowledge. The fully integrated life is the best life for ministry.
As Christian scholars continue to permeate academia we will have the opportunity to open doors for the gospel. That is one of the themes of this book. Not theocracy, not a conquest of the university, but an advance into a world often untouched by the Christian. It is sometimes closed, but when it opens, Christians as capable scholars and participants will gain the opportunity for ministry in the secular cathedrals.

Ideas have consequences, and the university in general and professors in particular are the gate-keepers of ideas -- influencing directly or indirectly all aspects of thought and life in our world. Christian professors must live a fully integrated life even in the face of challenges from within and without, for the sake of the lost -- and as Malik states, for our future generation of children. (p. 19)
...this very obvious fact -- that each generation is taught by an earlier generation -- must be kept firmly in mind .... None can give to another what he does not possess himself. No generation can bequeath to its successor what it has not got. You may frame the syllabus as you please. But when you have planned and reported ad nauseum, if we are skeptical we shall teach only skepticism ot our pupils, if fools, only folly, if vulgar only vulgarity, if saints sanctity, if heroes heroism. ... Nothing which was not in the teachers can flow from theminto the pupils. We shall all admit that a man who knows no Greek himself cannot teach Greek to his form: But it is equally certain that a man whose mind was formed in a period of cynicism and disillusion cannot teach hope and fortitude. (p. 30, quoting C. S. Lewis, "On the Transmission of Christianity," in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics)
Gone are the days of Constantinian Christianity where Christianity rules the culture. Rather, we should be principled pluralists -- recognizing that to be a Christian is always to stand in tension with what the Bible calls the world. (p. 41)
The Christian scholar is on the front lines of the battle of ideas. (p. 49)

I urge every Christian in the academy, as a student or a professor, to read this work along side Should God Get Tenure? Then take some time to evaluate your position and your ministry with all honesty.

Things You Don't Like

2007-10-16T18:21:00.000-07:00

Is there any legitimate basis for criticizing evolution and its functional paradigm? Yes. But I'm not going the ID route. Instead, let's deal with the meta-narrative of evolution. That meta-narrative is deterministic naturalism. (Yes, there are others, but they all seem to end up as obscurantists. So we will deal with the most consistent position.)

The premise is that the universe is simply matter/energy. Whatever form this matter/energy takes is of no real concern because that's all there is. Period. And all that happens, the bouncing of atoms off atoms, everything that happens -- even life itself -- is simply an anomoly of the universe. The material is all there is.

So what's wrong with that? (This is where it gets fun. But we'll boil it down to simple principles, for the sake of space.) If everything is mechanistically determined, where is free will and where are knowledge and science? If what we're experiencing is simply an anomoly of this mechanistic universe, how do we know anything? And how can we know even that?

To be concise, the naturalistic framework for evolution is trapped in a neo-Platonic/Kantian confusion about reality, perceptions, and truth. The framework for determinism does not fit reality, and this leaves Darwinism and other evolutionary models all open to a fundamental criticism of their validity. If the paradigm is so seriously flawed, then how can we accept its conclusions?

So why bring this up? Rob Boston praises the state of California for demanding that Christians, despite their beliefs, teach evolution. (Mr. Boston goes so far as to state that evangelicals who hold to traditional special creation should not hold certain jobs. Nice.) The state steps into the life of a religious establishment, completely in violation of the First Amendment. (Hear any complaints from the Left on this one? Nope. Dead silence.) And why? Because they don't teach evolution but instead propose an alternative. Sorry, but that doesn't cut it. If you're going to teach pluralism, implicit in Tolerance is a willingness to put up with something you don't like or agree with. Not so in California. Not so for Rob Boston. So much for Tolerance from the Left. (chuckle)

The Hijacking of Jesus: A Short Survey of the Left's Rewriting of History

2007-09-23T05:33:00.000-07:00

Introduction
It is held by many that the Religious Right has accomplished something new. This group is accused of remaking the historical Jesus into something political, a tool for conquering the world by way of a neo-conservative agenda. The assorted merits and failings of this conclusion are not the direct topic of this essay. Rather, the nature of the religious battle within politics is my concern, and specifically how the presence of liberal theology and liberal politcs have operated hand-in-glove, largely above criticism, for decades longer than the Religious Right has existed.

There are some who say this isn't new -- that it's just a revival of the old Nazi regime's manipulation of religion in order to establish racism and intolerance -- to kill and harm people in a sick and twisted desire for world conquest.

Liberalism's History with Jesus
A bit of history regarding the Left and religion is the goal, and the foundations of liberalism are not to be ignored. The philosophers behind much of the modern Liberal movement deserve a quick review.

Kant
The idea that one person might bear the responsibility for another person's action was an affront to Kant. After all, the ethical life is one of personal responsibility, not one where a substitutionary atonement has any place. It is the individualism that defines our era -- there is no need for Christ's work.

Hegel
The next founder of the modern Left presented Christ's work as merely an example and some form of social construct. History is ignored for the sake of philosophy.

Marx
Completely in line with his predecessors, Karl Marx saw Christ's work socially, especially with respect to rights and rebellion. Jesus was, to Marx, the first true socialist.

Liberal Politics and Jesus

The Religious Left
Even while speaking flowery words of "pluralism" and "tolernance" where religion is to be kept out of the political realm, the Left has made full use of religion in promoting its positions. It's no secret that politicians on the Left (like some on the Right) see religion as a tool to social and political ends.

Revolution & Feminist Theology
In Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross: Reappropriating the Atonement Tradition, Hans Boersma provides a summary of the Marxist influence within these venues.

What Difference Does All This Make?
When someone from the Left complains about too much religion mixed with politics, this person is either extremenly naive about their movement's own history or the person is being intentionally deceptive. The social movements ont he Left have always held their clear and discernable religious components. They have all disregarded the history of the Bible and instead wrap a philosophical construct around around Jesus, producing the desired result instead of the facts of history.

Today's Issues
The work of Christ is not the property of the Left or the Right. The Right has made political hay directly from Christian theology. The Left has made its hay for a much longer time using a modified Jesus wrapped in philosophical constructs.

Today's Campaigns and Elections
In The Hijacking of Jesus, Dan Wakefield rewrites history. He takes a cleary Pelagian postion and reduces Jesus to a mere example of how to live.

Christianity in this country has become almost synonymous with right-wing fanaticism, conservative politics and -- courtesy of Mel Gibson -- a brutally sadistic version of religious experience. Millions of Christians like me are appalled by this distortionof our faith ...
The Jesus of the Gospels had no possessions, ministered to the poor and the sick, befriended society's outcasts, blessed "the peacemakers," and told a wealthy young fellow that a rich man had as much chnce of getting into heaven as acamel did of passing through the eye of a needle. (pp. 1,2)

The Marxist flavor is impossible to miss, along with the moral influence theory. And like the Left's progenitors, the same seeds are being planted today as they were 150 years ago. (I'll consider writing a thorough review of the book at a later time.)

Patisans are expending a lot of energy to downplay and denigrate religious involvement in conservative politics and complain that evangelicalism is out of line with its current level of influence. But one cannot avoid history -- it is the Left which has first redefined Christ to its own ends and continues to distort history for political advantage. This is the substantial historical lie and religious bigotry of certain Left hate sites.

Postmodernity & ESCR

2007-08-27T13:34:00.001-07:00

If being postmodern means the rejection of being modern ("progressive") then it also means the rejection of the epistemology that goes along with the (perceived) certainty of modernity. This would seem to include the rejection of the ethic that would keep any society intact. But times are never so simple.

So often all of us hold to positions that appear otherwise to be mutually exclusive. We want progress and advancement and science and knowledge and everything that modernity supplies. Then, at the same time, we want to leave it all, move to the mountains, live in a small village and raise our children in nature. The schizophrenia is part of the insecurity of our age.

Let's look at ESCR in this light. It is progress, advancement, and the growth of knowledge. It is the promise of another way to alleviate a degree of human suffering. It is also a way to reduce humans to machines, just cogs in the wheel of unstoppable progress. Yet it exhibits the loss of ethics, morality, and the rest of Truth that have been critical parts of Progress.

No longer is the betterment of the internal human condition the goal, but the betterment of the external human condition is all that remains. By rejecting even a Kantian transcendent set of values, ESCR represents what could easily be considered a purely Cartesian and utilitarian view of human life. Postmodernity here has taken us back, not to a period apart from modernity, but to its very secular foundations.

We cannot cry for human dignity within ESCR because there is none. The movement as it is cannot exist if dignity is ever considered.

The Politics of God

2007-08-19T13:55:00.000-07:00

I'm looking forward to reading Mark Lilla's forthcoming book, The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics and the Modern West, based on an essay in the NY Times that was adapted from the book. Not that I expect one little bit to agree with his conclusions, but that it may be considered in some respects a valuable summary of history with respect to government and theology makes it worth review. At least the published essay is certainly suitable.

Though he is rightly critical of the liberal/progressive era and its evident failures of the 20th c., noting specifically the Great War, he appears (because I've only read this piece, not the book) to be clinging to modernity and what it has offered the world. While modernity dealt a blow to Augustinian Christendom, the more general idea of Christianity as a meta-narrative is being explored further (e.g., the Religious Right and Left).

Turf Wars

2007-08-18T08:35:00.001-07:00

The radical pluralist is a concern for the Christian. (I would also maintain that radical pluralism is a real danger to the West, but that's another discussion.) As the believer attempts to confront the issue of the relative equality of all religions and world views, especially the idea that the influence of one's Christian speech must actively be limited in order to maintain "equality", the confrontation of the pluralist can be quite demanding. Whether at work, in the public school system, or local politics, the offensive position of the pluralist is a nearly-identical framing: "Who made you the boss of them?" It's a tough issue.

In The Gagging of God, Dr. D. A. Carson provides a framing (part 2) that the believer can use to confront the issues:

4. The truth and authority questions must not be raised only against believers. They must be raised against religious pluralists as well.
By this I mean two things.
First, in the same way that confessing Christians are constantly challenged by pluralists to justify the authority of their position in a world characterized by so much demonstrable empirical pluralism, so pluralists themselves must be challenged to justify the authority of their position. They are claiming things about God, truth, the nature of reality. The question is, How do they know?
Second, there is an array of questions to be put to pluralists regarding their handling of the various world religions, their persistent reductionism of these religions' respective claims, the (in)coherence of pluralism's logic, and much more. The best accessible treatment of these topics in recent years, especially the discussion of Hick's position, is that of Netland. I shall avoid repeating most of his arguments here, but I emphasize that they repay careful reading.Perhaps the most powerful challenge in this regard is how the relativist can avoid destroying hos own position. Any statement of relativism, whether grounded in culture, linguistics, or hermeneutics, is fundamentally self-destructive. For example, cultural relativism affirms that notions of truth and the structures of reason are so decisively shaped within the culture in which they are found that they are relative to that culture. But that means the proposition defining or defending cultural relativism, uttered within that culture, is no less relative; there is no particular reason why someone from another culture should adopt the position of cultural relativism. But very few pluralists have recognized the devastating nature of this criticism. As Nash put it:
For Hick, truth is a function of geography, that is, where people happen to have been born. This idea, carried to its logical implications, would make Nazism, cannibalism, infanticide, and witchcraft true because they would all be a result of geographic and cultural conditioning. And Hick's position also implies that beliefs can be true and false at the same time, true for people conditioned in one way and false for others. Furthermore, it implies that the truth of pluralism is also a function of geographic and cultural conditioning.

(The Netland reference is to his work Dissonant Voices, chapters 5 and 6. Nash is quoted from his book Is Jesus the Only Savior? John Hick is the author of God and the Universe of Faiths.)

The pluralism faces a problem that he cannot solve -- his own over-arching story (aka meta-narrative) must also be seen as a part of culture and thus equally relative. Then, when confronting the pluralist, some of whom are quite capable, quick quips and overly-concise arguments are generally inadequate. The radical pluralists are able to put together well-stated strategies that should not be taken lightly. We should not be afraid to challenge them on their own territory -- both physical territory and philosophical. To take the fight to where the battle is raging is how the war is won. The battle of ideas is not the end -- it's a tool to keep the door open to the Lord's redemptive Gospel.

Review: The Gagging of God

2007-08-11T17:17:00.000-07:00

The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism
(c) 1996, D. A. Carson
ISBN: 0-310-47910-X

Ok. so I'm catching up some good recent books. Yes, the book has been around a few years now, but that only makes it more available. As teachers and pastors become more familiarized with the problem of postmodern issues, this book will provide a Christian framework for understanding the issue and dealing with it in a Christian and Biblical manner.

These meta-narratives are breaking down. Marxists are not as plentiful as they used to be; Hegel's universal spirit eventually collapsed under the desks of Soren Kierkegaard and those who followed him; the idea that progress is inevitable has been sandbagged by two world wars, the Great Depression, Vietnam, and dawning realization of the world's limited resources. Even the naturalist assumption in theology is being questioned. But as they break down, the sheer hubris of modernity is exposed. Doubtless many ages have suffered under the conviction that truth and a proper perception of reality are the particular prerogative of the contemporary thinker. Modernity raised this stance to a philosophical necessity, ties as it was to "science" and "progress" and method and naturalism. (p. 63)

As we Christians interact with society in general and the political in particular, one can see that many are completely out of touch with society. It seems that the Right wants to talk about economic progress, with all the optimism of Adam Smith and Ronald Regan combined; all the while the Left tries to maintain their variants of Marxist social progressive ideals with the idealism of an ivory tower university professor. And the political commentators on the ends of the political spectrum often evaluate no better.

This book will be a useful framework for dealing with secular Pluralists like those over at TalkToAction. as well as social institutions having similar sensibilities. It's a big book. Get it and take your time. It's worth every minute invested.

Diversity Matters

2007-08-10T12:38:00.000-07:00

Diversity, rather the enforced Pluralism of today's secularists, presents both the church and society with serious confrontations. A quality discussion of this matter in D. A. Carson's, The Gagging of God. Yet even as we address these matters, today's secularism faces its own issues.

In his IHT column, The downside of diversity, Michael Jonas exposes the changes in society that occur becuase of our envorced pluralism.

But a massive new study, based on detailed interviews of nearly 30,000 people across America, has concluded just the opposite. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam -- famous for "Bowling Alone," his 2000 book on declining civic engagement -- has found that the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings.
::::
"It would be unfortunate if a politically correct progressivism were to deny the reality of the challenge to social solidarity posed by diversity," he writes in the new report. "It would be equally unfortunate if an ahistorical and ethnocentric conservatism were to deny that addressing that challenge is both feasible and desirable."

It's apparent that a lack of cultural cohesiveness removes incentive. I'd like to know why. That would be valuable information for cultural anthropologists and missiologists.

There is challenge here for the church as well as for the whole of society: How do we integrate another culture and avoid both the problems of nationalism and individualism? How can we appeal to the individual within a cultural context and maintain a ministry that does not necessitate an imposition of our culture upon theirs? How can we integrate people of another culture into American culture and still maintain a positive ministry?

A New Testemant Position Slavery

2007-08-05T04:49:00.000-07:00

The letter of Paul to Philemon
(NASV, but with verse marking removed for easier reading)
Just some brief comment about something on my heart of late.

Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother,To Philemon our beloved brother and fellow worker, and to Apphia our sister, and to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I thank my God always, making mention of you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints; and I pray that the fellowship of your faith may become effective through the knowledge of every good thing which is in you for Christ’s sake. For I have come to have much joy and comfort in your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, brother. Therefore, though I have enough confidence in Christ to order you to do what is proper, yet for love’s sake I rather appeal to you—since I am such a person as Paul, the aged, and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus—
I appeal to you for my child Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my imprisonment, who formerly was useless to you, but now is useful both to you and to me. I have sent him back to you in person, that is, sending my very heart, whom I wished to keep with me, so that on your behalf he might minister to me in my imprisonment for the gospel; but without your consent I did not want to do anything, so that your goodness would not be, in effect, by compulsion but of your own free will. For perhaps he was for this reason separated from you for a while, that you would have him back forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.
If then you regard me a partner, accept him as you would me. But if he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge that to my account; I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand, I will repay it (not to mention to you that you owe to me even your own self as well). Yes, brother, let me benefit from you in the Lord; refresh my heart in Christ. Having confidence in your obedience, I write to you, since I know that you will do even more than what I say. At the same time also prepare me a lodging, for I hope that through your prayers I will be given to you. Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, greets you, as do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, my fellow workers. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

Items of note, with brief snippets from the text:

1. The Christian Faith was designed to transcend class relationships.

If then you regard me a partner, accept him as you would me.
but more than a slave, a beloved brother

Christianity provides the ontological equality between social classes that is real unity. But it does not impose them upon society as a whole. Within the fellowship of believers it is a character trait meant to reflect God's respect for His creation -- he did not design us to enslave each other.

2. Christianity is more than a life and death commitment.

a prisoner of Christ Jesus
I appeal to you for my child Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my imprisonment
But if he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge that to my account

Paul extended the class discussion to himself as a servant of Christ who is imprisoned for what really matters -- the Gospel. And going even further, while imprisoned, he is willing to pay any debt that may have arisen because of this situation. Paul's commitment of his life included a commitment of his resources. Paul's commitment took his coin purse and his liberty.

Paul writes this letter personally, so he didn't begin with his regular appeal to his bond-servant/slave relationship to Christ. Philemon would have known that and thus understood completely Paul's commitment. This is where the effect of the Gospel is seen clearly -- it is to change lives, and Paul is making a direct, personal appeal to Philemon to behave in a certain manner, a manner becoming a Christian.

Conclusion:
Dealing with matters of class elitism and racism has its place in the church. It is a must if we are to build the kind of relationships necessary to reflect God's open acceptance of all. At the same time, this is not an imposition upon society as a whole. Slavery is not condemned socially but it is clearly condemned as wrong. The language may not be so strong, but the fact that it does not fit within the body of Christ is clear.

Taking the Theological Offensive

2007-07-19T14:39:00.000-07:00

How does anyone decide what is Good, Better, or Best? How are Right and Wrong determined and how do we state principles in terms that are not only applicable not only to our individual life experience but also in a way that others can make use of them. Going a step further we must decide if and how these principles might be applicable to ghe greater society.

Those of us from an evangelical framework see the value in the Biblical ethic and would see, to varying degrees, the principles and ethics of the Bible as both valuable and effectual in our society. The West's other major ethical competition is Relativism. This approach is fundamentally individualistic and acknowledges only the individual as the source for Ethics and Morality.

At the same time that this relativism was on the rise, evangelical theology struggled well and matured well against the initial thrusts of Liberalism. A great deal of fine theology and apologetics was accomplished by Hodge and Warfield against the onslaught of rationalism. During the next century, however, the rise of relativism as the mainstay of liberal theology would present new challengs. The response of some fundamentalists was to avoid the hard questions and retreat from the battle for the heart and soul of the thinker, especially in the like of Scopes.

Others, however, were willing to take on the challenge. August Strong took on the problem directly and remained orthodox. He did not mix philosophy with theology but instead dealt with philosophical matters in this theology -- he stayed in the fight.

Under the influence of Ritschl and his Kantian relativism, many of our teachers and preachers have swung off into a practical denial of Christ's deity and his atonement. We seem upon the verge of a second Unitarian defection, that will break up churches and compel secessions, in a worse manner than did that of Channing and Ware a century ago. American Christianity recovered from that disaster only by vigorously asserting the authority of Christ and the inspiration of the Scriptures. We need a new vision of the Savior like that which Paul saw on the way to Damascus and John saw on the isle of Patmos, to convince us that Jesus is lifted above space and time, that his existence antedated creation, that he conducted the march of Hebrew history, that he was born of a virgin, suffered on the cross, rose from the dead, and nowlives forevermore, the Lord of the universe, the only God with whom we have to do, our Savior here and our Judge hereafter. Without a revival of this faith our churches will become secularized, mission enterprise will die out, and the candlestick will be removed out of the place as it was with the seven churches in asia, and as it has been with the apostate churches of New England. (Systematic Theology, August Strong, preface)

Let's make to mistake here -- the evangelical is not infiltrating the liberal organizations. It is the evangelical who is attempting to recover the church from those who have become apostate because of historic liberal infiltration.

Strong's view of the net result of this turn in theology is clear:

The universal presence of Christ, the Light that lighteth every man, in heathen as well as in Christian lands, to direct or overrule all movements of the human mind, gives me confidence that the recent attacks upon the Christian faith will fail of their purpose. It becomes evident at last that not only the outworks are assulted, but the very citadel itself. We are asked to give up all belief in special relevation. Jesus Christ, it is said, has come in the flesh precisely as each one of us has come, and he was before Abraham only in the same sense that we were. Chrstian experience knows how to characterize such doctrine so soon as it is clearly stated. And the new theology will be of use in enabling even ordinary believers to recognize soul-destroying heresy even under the mask of professed orthodoxy.

I hold the same confidence as did Strong -- that we must educate our churches in the nature and errors of relativism, to not accept the variations of relativism, including the current postmodern trends, within the scope of orthodoxy. Relativism is neither orthodox nor a suitable component of orthodoxy.

Book Review: Reclaiming the Center

2007-07-11T05:46:00.000-07:00

Reclaiming the Center: Confronting Evangelical Accomodation in Postmodern Times
Millard J. Erickson, Paul Kjoss Helseth, Justin Taylor, editors
Copyright 2004, Crossway
ISBN 10: 1-58134-568-2

Ok, so it's been out for a couple of years. Gimme a break. I just got a chance to read it. Thanks.

The first half or so of the book deals with academic matters. That's important because that's exactly what postmodernism does -- it minimizes and redefines both Truth and the Arrival at Truth to such a degree that the substance of both is lost. The several authors toward the beginning present a sound confrontation to postmodernism's weak epistemology. Though I think Moreland and DeWeese could give better support to, or come closer to, classic foundationalism, what is presented suffices nicely.

The later chapters, while not specifically pastoral, are valuable to pastors as a framework for thinking through the influence of postmodern theology as it influences local churches in music, educational curriculum, and popular events. (Evaluation of these commonplace matters is easily neglected because the events occur so frequently and passively.) The understanding gained here are useful for doing the needed evaluations and making certain that quality worship, praise, and education are a part of church life.

Put the book onto your reading list. You'll not regret it. If you're not strong on philosophy, the first half may go very slowly, but stick with it. It all fits together nicely as you work your way through.

Can We Hang Onto Foundationalism

2007-07-10T14:15:00.000-07:00

A brief discussion about indubitability and epistemology as related to dealing with postmodern thought and theology ...

In Reclaiming the Center, J. P Moreland and Garrett DeWeese argue that a full or classic foundationalism cannot be sustained because we are not able to provide indubitability to truth claims. The requirements of Cartesian framework, it is argued, are so rigid that we are left with no other option than to dismiss the idea of indubitability and retreat to the position of a modest foundationalism. The modest position allows us to hold ideas that are "truth-conductive", thus more in line with the real world and still maintain a sound framework when confronting various arguments.

I don't know that indubitability should be seen as the real problem. That is, can one hold a belief which has a basis in fact (it is indubitable) even though one has no idea what that basis for truth may be. The fact of truth or error for any particular statement seems a separate one from the presentation of the indubitable character of that statement. When indubitability question is removed from the discussion of the postulation's character and placed within the evaluative skill of the supporter and critic, then the question of indubitability is changed into two different questions: Is the matter True? Can I prove the matter True?

I'm stlll working throught this matter, and so this is not my funal conclusion on the situation.

Post-Modern or Post-Relative

2007-07-02T06:26:00.000-07:00

If Postmodernism is about late-Enlightenment relativism, along with its nihilistic tendencies, individualism, and uncertainty, and if Modernism is about being progressive, certain, and intentional, then should our age not be considered the end of, the failure of, Enlightenment relativism? Has everything we've been shown as having failed over the past several decades been the failure of the Modern Progressive or has it been the failure of the Relativist to be able to carry the ball any further?

We live in the post-Relative period. It is Relativism which has failed, not Modernism. That is, the progressive work of the modern era to grow, develop, and enhance the human context has been largely successful. But the contradiction that relativism brought us -- that we cannot be certain and that we most certainly must do everything for everybody -- has lend us to failure. It is time we reject the relativism of the late Enlightement and return to Progress.

It is also time for the Christian to take the Gospel into the areas where the Modern fails. Only the Gospel can fix the human condition.

It's Easy to Find Postmoderns

2007-06-25T05:34:00.000-07:00

The particulars of the system are everywhere. One the easiest way to find them is by their use of language. But more particularly, by their abuse of language. (Let's not reduce this to spin, because that's too simple a definition.) Becasue words are free to change meaning, one can now provide a new set of definitions. And because history is composed of words, not facts, one is free to recreate the meta-narrative (overarching story) of history. Here's an example:

Neoconservatives and the Religious Right are also dead wrong about those who have a more progressive view of their religion: their faith is not less strong because it does not adhere to the canons of contemporary orthodoxy. For example, it does not take less self-discipline to be non-violent or to question the basis of a given religious doctrine, in fact, it usually requires greater moral courage. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi or Dietrich Bonhoeffer were spiritual dissenters paid with lives because they challenged a status quo.

Now comes the fun part. Let's evaluate this paragraph as there are several items to note.

The first is the question of orthodoxy and its place. Can one be a strong Christian and not be orthodox? That's one question. After all, who among us has a doctrinal statement that can be made so accurately that none would question us? It's a small percentage who have thought through everything. But that question is really taken another direction, and a completely different point is being made.

Look who is placed within this new, "progressive" system. Mahatma Gandhi. The discussion about the Religious Right and their orthodoxy is not a specific, pointed critique of some particular content of their belief system. It is how their belief system is expressed which is at issue. For Mr. Cocozzelli, it is dissent against the status quo which is more Christian than certain other behaviors (particularly evangelical political involvement).

This position also expands the discussion beyond Christianity and into "religion" in general. It's not a streach to say that Mr. Cocozzelli is exiting orthodoxy in order to place Gandhi within his broader scope of acceptable (orthodox-enough) belief systems. And he is doing so because of acceptance of dissent as a highly-valued religious response.

This type of discussion also clarifies the lack of importance placed on doctrine by postmoderns. Not only is orthodoxy rejected, but it is also to be questioned. And in the context of this discussion, I don't know that he really means "question" to be query and investigate but instead doubt and reject. And that includes something as simple as belief in God and basic questions of truth (epistemology).

The history of liberal Christianity is, consistent with Mr. Cocozzelli, one of dissent, doubt, and rejection. It one of belief, but not necessarily belief in the factual, historical matters of the faith. It requries a leap of faith into those doubted areas. (In this it reflects something of the deism of its original days in the early 19th c., trying to accept something that is otherwise out of reach.) And it is also not one without its own form of orthodoxy. But in this postmodern example, even liberal orthodoxy is effectively rejected in favor of something far more generous, which would even include the Hinduism of Gandhi.

Evaluating the remainder of his column is for you to enjoy.