Deeper Waters

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters, where we are diving into the ocean of truth! We’ve lately been going through Victor Stenger’s book “God: The Failed Hypothesis.” Tonight, we look at the title called “The Failures of Revelation.

Stenger’s point in this chapter is the failure of revelation in Scriptures to give information that can be empirically verified. He states that there are three areas. He first states that no information has ever come through a religious experience that could not have been known beforehand by the individual. Second, there are gross errors of scientific fact. Third, not a single risky prophecy can be objectively shown to have been fulfilled. Unfortunately, the term “risky” is not defined.

The first problem is that Stenger says he’s going to use scientific criteria to measure these. That might have some possibility with the first, but with the second, he’ll also need to make sure he has good skill in studies of literature to make sure he’s not reading like a fundamentalist. As we have seen however, he usually is. The third one is not scientific however but is rather historical and he will need historical information to determine the truthfulness or falsity of the claim that a Bible prophecy has been fulfilled.

Stenger even says “Personal testimonials and anecdotal stories have little or no value as evidence for the truth of extraordinary claims.” Why should this be the case? For instance, suppose I played the same lottery numbers every week and a friend knew those numbers and he came up to me one week and said “I was watching the news! Your numbers got picked!” That would be just his personal testimony on what has happened, but I would accept it and be ready to cash in my ticket.

Now to an extent, I don’t think testimonies alone can seal the deal. I think there is something definitely to the power of Christ to change a life, but several people can point to Buddhist teachings changing their lives or a self-help seminar. I believe in what C.S. Lewis recommended. Let your arguers go forward first in evangelism to break down the walls blocking belief, and then send forth people with testimonies to show the practical value of Christianity.

Stenger’s look at religious experience is lacking. Discussing such stories of foretelling the future he says “Despite many stories, however, no such report has stood up under scientific scrutiny.”

I wonder at this point if I was to write a chapter in a book defending inerrancy how it would be if I just said “Despite many objections, no supposed biblical contradiction has stood up under scrutiny.” Then, I just left it at that. No sources. Nothing. Would Stenger accept it? No. I wouldn’t blame him. Would you? I hope not! Stenger however does just that here. He gives no sources for these claims. Where were these studies done? Who was studied? Who did the studying?

There is nothing. Stenger doesn’t even cite a single source. If I wrote the above in a chapter and at least provided a footnote or endnote with books listed, you could grant me that I at least pointed to references. With Stenger’s work, I don’t even know where to go for more information.

In looking at creation stories, Stenger says there are several but just a few will be selected, to show the Bible is not the sole source of creation narratives.

I wasn’t aware any apologist was making that claim….

That Stenger doesn’t know something like that tells me that he is indeed not researching his opponent’s opposition.

It’s a fair objection seeing as when Stenger even goes on to list some folk narratives from other cultures, he does not give a single source.

So what about the biblical account? Stenger tells us that the Bible teaches the world was created around ten thousand years ago and all kinds of things were created that remain immutable and the universe sits as a firmament above a flat, immovable, Earth.

His source here is to point to various Scripture passages. Gone is any mention of a commentary. In fact, the first reference early in this chapter was a quote from Gleason Archer in the Encyclopedia of Biblical Difficulties. Naturally, Stenger did not consult said encyclopedia on these passages.

To begin with, the firmament does not refer to some metal canopy, but rather to an expanse, as Archer himself says. Stenger did not bother to check and likely is banking on the hopes that his readers are ignorant. Other passages do not speak of the Earth being unmovable in a physical sense, but rather that God’s intention will take place.

For example, 1 Chron. 16:30 (Stenger only has Chronicles. One wonders if he knows there’s a first and second of that book.) says that the Earth cannot be moved. However, before that, it is speaking about it being established. The Psalm is not speaking about geographical movement but about God’s sights as it were being set in a favored position on our planet and how God is focused on what’s going on in our world. It would not make much sense for David to say “Praise God! The Earth is not moving through the universe!” It would have been nonsensical to those around him. The same is going on in Psalm 93 and 96 and 104 is clearly full of symbolism, seeing as the Hebrews did not believe God literally rode in a chariot. I frankly do not see the issue with Isaiah 45:18. As for Isaiah 40:22 describing the Earth as a circle, the Hebrews simply had no word necessarily for a sphere at the time. The same word was used for any circle.

It seems more likely that Stenger just went to a website like Skeptics’ Annotated Bible and didn’t bother doing his own research on the topic.

Not like such hasn’t happened before.

As for these references to immutability in species, again, I would love to see the references for that.

Stenger later goes on to cite the objection of how the Bible says the value of pi is 3. Ironically, in the same paragraph we find the following:

Ancient peoples cannot be expected to have understood the language of modern science or have needed an exact value of pi (except for the builders of great monuments like the pyramids).

Here, Stenger is actually correct, but then he fails to apply this to all he said. It gives the impression that Stenger is more interested in having a certain interpretation that he can easily prove wrong, rather than seeing if there might be a truer interpretation that fits with the literary and historical context of the passages. The Bible must be taken in a wooden literal sense for that is the only way it can be debunked so easily. Let’s not risk actually studying it.

For more information on Pi, I refer the reader to this.

For prophecy, Stenger believes that there should be something esoteric in the Bible that is not understood until a future date when it becomes true. (Yet ironically, he says prophecies have never been fulfilled. By his demands, maybe he should just wait longer?) He gives this example. Suppose the Bible said:

Before two millennia shall pass since the birth of our Lord, a man will stand on another world within the firmament and he will smite a tiny orb with his staff such that it will fly from sight.”

Honestly, I wasn’t even sure what Stenger was referring to until he went on to talk about how men in Jesus’s day could have anticipated men being on the moon nor known anything about golf.

So Stenger would have a saying remain in Scripture for 2,000 years that would be absolutely nonsensical and handed down. Personally, I prefer Jesus’s idea. Speak to the people in language that they understand so that when the events happen, they can be sure of their fulfillment.

Stenger cites Genesis 3:15 as its often used a fulfillment of the birth of the Messiah and says “I am not sure what the prediction is here; that Jesus was to be born of a woman?”

Any commentaries cited? Not a one. Stenger says “I’m not sure.” There’s nothing wrong with being unsure of what a passage means. The best way to remedy that is to go to those learned in the Bible and find out what they say about what the passage means. Stenger doesn’t do so. Had he done so, he could have found out that seed is often attributed to a man and Jesus is said to be of the seed of woman rather than the seed of a man, a hinting at his virgin birth.

In a statement even more humorous, Stenger says “I would not be too far off base to note that Jesus sitting on God’s right hand has not been verified scientifically.”

It’s hard to imagine how someone can even think that way.

Heck. Whether I’m sitting in my own chair is not verified scientifically. You don’t have to do repeated experiments to see if I’m sitting at my computer as I write this. I wonder since Stenger is married if he says the same thing. “Well, when I scientifically verified that I loved my girlfriend at the time, I proposed to her and today, she is my wife.” Does he say “I know my children are special because I’ve scientifically verified it.” ?

The statement of Jesus at the right hand of the Father is not a scientific statement. It is a theological statement and a specifically ontological one as it describes a relationship between the Son and the Father. Of course, a literalist like Stenger is probably wondering if anyone has counted the number of fingers on God’s right hand.

In looking at fulfilled prophecies, he brings up the account of Jesus being born in Bethlehem and says “We have no reason outside the New Testament to believe Jesus was born in Bethlehem.”

There’s this great double-standard in history that if any other source makes a claim, that claim can stand on its own, but if that claim is found in the Bible, it has to be backed by something else in order to be verified. The gospels were written in the time of the eyewitnesses. Had Luke and Matthew made it up, witnesses could have said “You’re changing the story! We know where he was born!” Stenger needs to have a reason for thinking the Bible is wrong other than “It’s the Bible!”

His source for his criticism is Randall Helms’s “Gospel Fictions.” Helms is not accepted as an authority among mainstream historians. For more information on Helms, I recommend a start with this particular book here.

Stenger also brings up the slaughter of the innocents of Bethlehem and asks why it wasn’t mentioned elsewhere. The reason is that Herod was simply a bloodthirsty king who regularly murdered possible threats to his throne. This slaughter would have killed about a dozen boys. With all that was going on at the time with Roman occupation and the Jewish wars, this was something small not worth mentioning.

Stenger also treats seriously the pagan copycat thesis. His source for this? “The Jesus Mysteries.” This is a book I have as well and a critique of it has been written by the Bede that can be found here and also includes other links within it. It’s sources like these that tell me Stenger is just looking for sources that agree with him and going on from there. The above books mentioned are cited again by Stenger throughout the rest of this chapter. He will not cite mainstream historians, Christian or non-Christian.

In conclusion, Stenger does not make his case. There is nothing scientific in this chapter, odd for a book supposed to be about science.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters, the blog where we dive into the ocean of truth! We’ve lately been going through Victor Stenger’s book “God: The Failed Hypothesis.” Tonight, we’re looking at the chapter on the Uncongenial Universe.

Most of you reading this are probably reading it on a computer assuming someone didn’t print it out for you. It is traveling around the world to reach you, likely as you sit in your own homes with heating and air conditioning, indoor plumbing, and a steady supply of food. Many of you sleep safely and have cars to drive you around. You live your life without major worries of life and death.

That’s not all. There are some exceptions, but by and large, life is usually good. We tend to get around well on this planet and so now having said that, I’m going to start discussing Stenger’s chapter meant to show the bad thinking behind such productions as “The Privileged Planet.”

To which, Stenger had a problem with the Discovery Institute wanting the Smithsonian to show the film. The Smithsonian did eventually, but they did not accept payment. Why is this a problem? Because the sectarian motives of the film were not overtly made known and we sure can’t show religious material.

It’s something that’s rather confusing. Whether you like the Discovery Institute or not, I always thought that science was supposed to be based on the evidence and not the motives behind a worldview. Sure. DI could be entirely wrong, but they are not wrong ipso facto because they could have “religious motivation.”

Of course, if we accepted religious motivation as a standard, we would have to throw out Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, etc. None of these men saw religion as a hindrance to science but rather saw it as a great aid to science, or rather believing in God gave them reason to do science, but that science benefited their religion overall by showing the glory of how the creator created.

The next section to deal with is life in the universe and how common is it. Naturally,we know for sure of no other life, at least life as we know it, beyond ourselves. Often we can be told that this is a cause to not believe in God for if God existed, surely he would not create a universe of just empty space! On the other hand, if there were life on other planets, we can be sure we would be told that this is why we can see how easy it is for life to arise up by natural processes and therefore there is no need for God. The argument can work both ways.

It’s for reasons like that that I prefer other arguments. Now if someone can argue the science well, by all means go for it. I believe Christianity is established on better grounds, but I would hope atheists would at least be consistent.

Stenger in this section tells of how we hear the sun is a typical star, but this isn’t true, and I agree with him on the sun. I disagree with him on how we hear it is a typical star. For his ranting against The Privileged Planet, you’d think he’d know that in the book, a good portion of chapter seven is spent arguing that this is not the case. The writers want to stress that the sun is no ordinary star.

Stenger goes on speaking of the authors of the book to say “The very reasons that Gonzalez and Richards give for Earth being ‘privileged’ make it very unlikely that humans could survive without extensive life support, even on those planets that might otherwise be suitable for some kind of life.”

Why, yes. I do believe that’s what they mean when they say our planet is privileged. The book is called “The Privileged Planet.” It’s not “The Privileged Planets.”

So I suppose Stenger thinks stating the case of Gonzalez and Richards is somehow an argument against them.

Stenger goes on to say:

Obviously, if the physical parameters of our environment were just slightly different, life as we know it on Earth would not have evolved here.

Note: This is something obvious. You should obviously know that life being here as it is is something unique and incredible.

Last I checked, That’s what DI is saying.

Stenger goes on to explain this however that since the universe contains so many planets, we would expect one of them to have life. We just happen to live on that planet!

Earlier, Stenger had gone after Hugh Ross for mentioning the probabilities of factors of our universe that make it unlikely that we are an accident and increases the likelihood of theism. Stenger said that Ross did not give a probability of divine design itself being right or wrong however.

Yet when Stenger gives a probability here, he can say “Pretty good” and that counts.

The claim of Ross and others is not a God of the Gaps argument. Instead, it is saying that God has explanatory power because there’s reason to believe there is a God behind it since there are marks of intelligence. Ross is not positing God because he is stumped on life. He is positing God based on positive evidence.

As for Stenger, he has given the problem Richard Swinburne spoke of. Swinburne asks us to imagine ourselves sentenced to death. We are tied to a post and blindfolded and before us are one hundred sharpshooters with laser sights on their rifles. At the command of “Fire!”, they shoot. If something goes wrong, it is considered justice that we can go free.

So you are there and you hear the command and you hear one hundred rifles go off. However, you realize you have not lost consciousness. Someone comes and undoes your blindfold and your ropes and you find out that while the guns went off, somehow, you didn’t die. A friend later sees you and comments on your luck to which you say “Nothing lucky about it. Surely sometime all of them would miss!”

If you said that, your friend would rightfully find you crazy. We all know that the reason one hundred of them would miss is because of some intelligence wanting them to miss. Maybe they were all given blanks or maybe they were all bribed. Either way, it wouldn’t just happen. That’s the point. To say “We just happen to be on the right planet” is to come up with an excuse. We are wondering if there is a why as to why we are on the right planet. Now it could be this is a fluke, but the more evidence we can find, the more that will seem unlikely.

Now Stenger goes on to discuss fine-tuning, to which I think in the examples, he more indicates fine-tuning than goes against it. I will not argue the points however since that is in the area of physics and I am not a student of physics. I study philosophy, theology, and history. Thus, let us move ahead to the parts where he discusses theology and philosophy.

To begin with, he speaks of waste, which is again implying a theology. It is saying that if God existed, he would surely have planted life on all these planets. To have waste however is to have something not fitting its purpose, to which Stenger never gives the purpose. As for an example of waste, Stenger says “Why would God send his only son to die an agonizing death to redeem an insignificant bit of carbon.”

Now maybe I’m mistaken on this, but Stenger has said that Sam Harris started writing because of 9/11 and the new atheists are worried about the dangers religion brings. I wish I had known earlier that these dangers were simply dangers to an insignificant bit of carbon. That’s a good question then Stenger! Why should anyone care if all we are is an insignificant bit of carbon?

Of course, it could be we are not, and that could be based on the belief that man is more than just the material that makes him up. There is something in humanity that is inherently good and this is not based on just his material. It is based on his very existence. Man is not insignificant. In fact, the biblical view says just the opposite. Man is that who bears the image of God.

Stenger goes on to tell of how the universe bears no resemblance to what is described in Genesis. Genesis tells of Earth as a flat and immovable circle at the center of a firmament or vault of fixed stars, circled by the sun, moon, and planets.

I wonder what translation Stenger is reading. I don’t see that. Of course, these are the people who complain about people who take the Bible literally and whenever it comes their time to interpret the text, they always interpret it literally. Never mind that we could actually try to understand the historical context, the words used, the way knowledge was communicated, etc.

With reasoning like this, it’s a wonder if any of the new atheists could ever pass a class on literature.

Continuing his bad theology, Stenger says:

In fact, when you think of it, why would an infinitely powerful God even need six days? Wouldn’t he have the ability to make everything in an instant? And, why would he have to rest when it was all done?

There are times it’s hard for me to imagine how someone could be more ignorant of his opponents’ views while writing against them.

To begin with Stenger, you’re not the first to think this. Augustine himself knew that God didn’t need six days. He believed in an instantaneous creation. Why six days then? (I am not at this point discussing if they were literal 24-hour days or long periods of time) God need not do everything immediately simply because He can. I would argue that God was getting the Earth ready for life and using a gradual process rather than an instant one. I would also point to poetical ideas in the first chapter. For instance, in the first three days, the habitats are made and in the corresponding last three days, they are inhabited. An excellent look on this can be found in the book “The Genesis Debate.”

Why rest? That is not to be taken literally but to show the importance of taking time out from work. The Jews were commanded to do this. It was a time to appreciate what was done. Stenger takes this text literally and thus creates a straw man. I do not know of any evangelical, young-earth or old-earth, who would say God literally needed to rest because He was tired.

Maybe Stenger could point me to them.

In conclusion, I see Stenger again as unfamiliar with what he critiques and I am left once again believing that the Earth is designed and in fact, Stenger has given me more reason to think such.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! We’ve lately been reviewing some of Victor Stenger’s books and tonight, we’re dealing with chapter 4 of “God: The Failed Hypothesis” on the case of cosmic evidence.

This chapter is a search of the cosmos for evidence of God’s existence and it right off starts with miracles. Now I would think a chapter like this should have started with a discussion of the cosmos, but okay. Stenger claims that cosmological evidence should show evidence of well-established laws of nature or a causal ingredient not understandable in material or natural means alone.

To begin with, why should there necessarily be miracles throughout the history of the cosmos in order for God to exist. Is Stenger saying that if there are no miracles, there is no God? A deist would have just said “Of course there are no miracles, but there is still God.” This is not science then but theology. It is saying that if God exists, He must act in such and such a way and to say how He must act is theology. As for whether the universe itself needs a cause, we’ll look into that as we go on.

So let’s do that. The first is the creation of matter. Stenger tells us that matter can be created out of energy and disappear into energy. Where does energy come from? Stenger does grant that it has to come from somewhere. Stenger doesn’t say where. He just says that the positive and negative energies in the universe cancel each other out. Once again, the question is where did those energies come from? Stenger doesn’t say. Instead, that the universe is so finely balanced seems to argue more for an intelligence than anything else.

What about order? Stenger tells us that since we have a universe starting in a Big Bang, then there wasn’t order. It started as chaos and then turned to order.

However, Stenger is again doing theology. Upon what basis does he argue that God must begin with everything orderly instead of God using laws of physics to bring order to the universe? Why must God create the exact way Stenger wants Him to create to exist? Stenger should keep in mind the title “Big Bang” was at first a pejorative title for the theory. This wasn’t a chaotic explosion but an orderly event.

Does the universe have a beginning? Most of us use the Kalam argument to demonstrate that and we use the horizontal version (Although I prefer the vertical one). The argument includes the point that if the universe existed for an infinite number of moments in the past, we would never reach today because we would have completed an infinite number of moments and an infinite set can’t be completed.

Stenger’s answer is that we can always have one event precede another and one event come after another.

This is why people who do physics should stick to physics instead of philosophy. Stenger doesn’t even get the point that it is being argued that an infinite set can’t be completed. To say “We can add one more before that” does not deal with the Kalam argument

Stenger also gives us the syllogism for the Kalam argument.

Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Stenger tells us that William Lane Craig, famous for defending this argument, takes the first premise to be self-evident. He also says Craig does this with no justification other than common every day experience. This is the same experience that teaches us that the world is flat. In reality, events at the atomic and subatomic level are observed to have no evident cause.

First off, anyone who has actually read Craig notes that Craig is well-aware of objections to the first premise and defends against them. Many Christians have read the Lee Strobel books and this is an argument that Craig even deals with in “The Case For A Creator.” That Stenger is unaware of this indicates to me he hasn’t really read Craig’s material.

Second, common experience teaches us many beliefs that we hold to be true that we would be hard-pressed to prove. For instance, I believe there is a world outside of my mind and I believe that matter is real. I believe it’s self-evident that it’s wrong to torture innocent children for fun. To say that common experience is not a good teacher is simply false. It is where most of us learn our most basic beliefs.

Third, Stenger is again falling for this flat Earth myth which shows me just what kind of researcher he is when he steps out of his field. Aristotle taught the Earth was a sphere. The ancient Greeks knew it well. The medieval church continued the tradition. However, we have known for some time that Stenger is a man of faith.

Finally, to say that the events at the atomic and subatomic level have no evident cause is not the same as to say they are uncaused. Either causality, a principle we’ve understood for years, is in error, or else we are lacking in our understanding of a field that’s still relatively new. I’ll wager for the latter.

Stenger asks that even if the universe is caused, why does that cause have to be something other than a natural cause? That’s the point however. The argument is that nature itself needs a cause and nothing is self-caused. Not only that, matter is always in a state of potential moving from one mode of existence to another. It has limited existence and not pure existence. It is limited by something greater than itself. We have covered this in our look at simplicity in our study of the doctrine of God in the Summa.

Stenger eventually gets us to where the laws of physics came from. What’s his explanation? I’ll quote him here.

“They came from nothing!”

Hard to believe Christians are supposed to have the absurd position when Stenger believes laws can just come into existence from non-existence. I am even more amazed that some people find this to be an explanation. Let me spell something out Stenger. Nothing is non-existence and it is incapable of causing anything.

Why is there something rather than nothing? Stenger comes to this question and quotes a philosopher who says the answer is “There has to be something.” Why? Why does there have to be anything?

Stenger asks about conceptual problems. How do we speak of nothing. What are its properties? This has already been answered. Nothing is non-existence. It does not have properties. It has no causal power, aside from in the atheist universe where apparently it can somehow make everything.

Stenger also asks why is there God instead of nothing? The answer is that God is the basis of existence itself because He is being without limits. God’s existence is not caused but rather He is His existence. His unawareness of history answering this objection or even presenting any arguments shows me the lack of research on Stenger’s part.

Stenger instead tells that the transition from nothing-to-something is a natural one because nothing is instable. Again, it isn’t. It is just nothing. You cannot say what nothing is other than describing it as nothing. However, for Stenger, that something exists is evidence enough that there is no God.

Because if there was a God, there would obviously be nothing…..

Except God is something…..

We shall have to see if the rest of the work is more pleasing> For now, Stenger just gives cop-outs and has lazy research on his topic. Let him stick to physics, for he cannot do philosophy or theology.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! We’ve lately been looking at the work of Victor Stenger, one of the new atheists. Tonight, we’re looking at the chapter of “Searching For A World Beyond Matter.”

As is normal for Stenger, we have the usual problem of a lack of sources. For instance, Stenger said that the ancients believed the heart was the center of being and intelligence. Now it could be that this is the case. I’d be willing to grant it for the sake of argument. However, he gives no sources. For a man who raises a battle cry against blind faith, he expects his readers to have blind faith in what he says.

For Stenger, the ancient view of man began to change around the time of Descartes. Once that was done, Europe abandoned blind obedience to authority that had stifled progress for centuries. Instead, people began to rely more on empirical data.

This isn’t really the case. Aristotle was an empiricist and Aquinas followed that tradition. It was around this time that some began to complain against empiricism. Descartes himself was a rationalist. Authorities were also not followed blindly. The teachings that had been handed down had worked for years.

Consider Stenger in his own field. Is it likely that most physicists today have read Ptolemy’s Almagest or works of Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton? It’s quite unlikely, and in some ways, understandable. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Most scientists want to read the latest work in their fields that can be found in their journals and work is built on the foundation of the great scientists of the past.

Philosophy is based on principles more and these are the principles of thinking that tend to trace back to either Plato or Aristotle. There are two competing schools of thought with variations in between them. In theology, it is important to read the ancient texts of the deity one worships and older can be better.

Science on the other hand was not held back. People just did not have the resources or finances to do science until some practical issues were dealt with. These included agriculture and medicine. Knowing the motion of the planets just wasn’t relevant to someone who had little leisure time and simply wanted to keep his family alive.

Going through this chapter, much of what is said isn’t relevant to our purposes until we get to the studies on prayer. Now I will grant I am skeptical of these prayer studies because I do not believe a free-will agent such as God is required to act in such and such a way. However, I also disagree with Stenger that God does not exist based on these studies.

To begin with Stenger, tells us that published findings showing prayer has a positive value have been found unconvincing. He simply points to another book of his to demonstrate this. No reason otherwise is given. It would have been nice to have seen somewhat of an argument.

The numerous problems are ones such as we cannot control all the people praying. Different people are praying for people even if they are not in a “prayed-for” group. These people surely know some other people who are praying for them. You might find one or two who don’t, but it’s likely most people today know a Christian who is praying for them, especially in America where these studies often take place or other developed nations.

Second, God is not forced to answer any prayer and his refusal to do so says nothing about His existence or non-existence. God’s existence is best established by sound argument rather than by experiments of this nature. I believe Christians should stick to the traditional arguments.

Finally, prayer’s greatest benefit will not be seen in the miraculous healing, but in the changing of lives. Prayers may not always change external circumstances, but they will change our relationship to those circumstances. They can change us more than they change the world. Growing in holiness is the best purpose of prayer.

Much of the case showing Stenger’s problems with Near-death experiences and the existence of the soul I have written about elsewhere. I recommend the reader go here

We shall review the next chapter tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are continuing to dive into the ocean of truth! We’re continuing our look at Victor Stenger’s book “God: The Failed Hypothesis.” Our subject tonight will be the second chapter, “The Illusion of Design.”

Early on, Stenger has a great section on how before the age of science, religious belief was based on faith, tradition, Scriptures, and teachings of holy men and women specifically selected by God. However, science began to erode these teachings such as a flat Earth and the planet being at the center of a firmament of stars and planets. People then began to look to science for proof of a supreme being apart from revelation.

It’s a fascinating paragraph. What’s most interesting about it is how wrong it is. As we saw in the other book, Stenger has a problem when speaking on history that he does not use sources. He tells a story, and this story is just wrong.

For instance, the theologians of the early church and the medieval period were willing to use reason to make their case without Scriptures. This is not to deny they saw authority in the Scriptures and in the teachers that came before them. Indeed, every field recognizes authorities in that field. Stenger’s own field would recognize Einstein and Newton as authorities to not take lightly. Hear for instance what Thomas Aquinas said in the second chapter of the first book of Summa Contra Gentiles:

Secondly, because some of them, as Mohammedans and Pagans, do not agree with us in recognising the authority of any scripture, available for their conviction, as we can argue against the Jews from the Old Testament, and against heretics from the New. But these receive neither: hence it is necessary to have recourse to natural reason, which all are obliged to assent to. But in the things of God natural reason is often at a loss.

If I debate with a Jehovah’s Witness, that person recognizes the New and Old Testament as an authority so I can use that. For the Jew, it is just the Old Testament and I can use that. For the Muslim, atheist, Buddhist, Hindu, etc., it would be reason or any holy book of theirs that I could use.

But what does Aquinas mean to say natural reason is at a loss? It is not that natural reason is bad. It is that it requires much reasoning to reach the knowledge of God and few have the time or intellectual power to do it. Aquinas does go on to give reasons for belief apart from the New Testament.

Second, Stenger believes in the flat earth myth. The truth is, the church knew the Earth wasn’t flat. The ancient Greeks knew it. The medievals knew it. Most people could even tell you its circumference. How? It wasn’t from the holy books, but from using science. In Article 1, Question 1, of the Summa Theologica, we have an example of this:

Sciences are differentiated according to the various means through which knowledge is obtained. For the astronomer and the physicist both may prove the same conclusion: that the earth, for instance, is round: the astronomer by means of mathematics (i.e. abstracting from matter), but the physicist by means of matter itself. ,/blockquote.

Atheists have been spreading this myth for so long that they’ve come to believe it themselves.

Did they believe Earth was at the center? Yes. They got that from Aristotle and at the time, it was good science. The Ptolemaic system worked and it worked well. Copernicus’s objections were not only questioning the understanding of Earth but that of motion. It took time for the new idea to be accepted and this is the way changes take place in science. An excellent look at this is Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.”

However, the center was also not a good place to be. God was seen in Aristotlean thought as on the outer edges. At this point in time, Aristotle had been practically canonized. Galileo’s most difficult battles were not fought with the church but with the secularists of the day who were accusing him of bad science and frankly, the evidence wasn’t there at the time. We can say now that Galileo was right, but we cannot say a theory in the past should have been accepted by modern standards. The question is if those people at that time had sufficient evidence to believe the new theory and they didn’t.

Finally, what evidence does Stenger have of people using science to try to prove a supreme being as if it was the final authority? When did this happen? Who were the minds behind this? Stenger gives no examples. The reason he doesn’t is most likely that he has none.

Stenger of course brings up Paley and then counters with Darwin, to which I have the same objection. A different instrumental cause does not prove a different efficient cause. Now I do not believe God used macroevolution to achieve His purposes, but if He did, my faith would not be damaged.

Stenger also says the Bible describes creatures being made in fixed and immutable forms. It would have been nice to have seen a verse of Scripture that actually teaches this. None is given. It is the idea of fixism that was replaced by Darwin’s idea. The idea was based more on philosophy than on Scripture however.

The movement of ID does not depend on fixism either. It would not even necessitate the destruction of macroevolutionary theory. It simply says that it could be that there is a guiding intelligence involved and if so, we can look at the world around us as the result of intelligence and seek to understand why things are the way they are, which is the question of teleology. Now teleology exists in some extent already in macroevolutionary theory in the idea of survival of the fittest.

The solution then is to look at the claims and realize science cannot rule out the idea of a designer. Let sides present their case in science labs and not in courtrooms as has recently been the case. To bring the court into this is to say that what is to be considered science should be determined by someone outside of the field of science. If the idea is bad, it will surely die out a natural death. In the meantime, it will raise objections that will help the true side. If the idea is good however, it will open up further ideas of research and I would add could make those of a more religious nature prone to enter science and enrich it with their ideas.

Stenger also writes about those who think simple organisms cannot explain the complex lifeforms we have today. He writes that “Simplicity easily begets complexity in the world of locally interacting particles.” Fair enough. I’ll grant it for the sake of argument. I just want to know if Stenger is willing to take this to the realm of metaphysics.

If he is, then he will need to dismiss Dawkins’s 747 argument against God’s existence, that God must be very complex to have all the attributes He has. Dawkins assumed a material understanding of God. If Stenger thinks God must be complex, I will ask him the metaphysical basis for such a statement. What is his training in that field and his qualifications?

In talking about complex specified information, Stenger says that Dembski can walk into his garden and see petals on a flower that follow the Fibonacci sequence and realize that this came about by a natural process.

Dembski would easily answer however that this is begging the question. Stenger says there is no God and there is complex specified information. How did it come about? Simple. It came about by natural processes. How do we know this? There is no God. In fact, I think Dembski could in fact thank Stenger for giving an example of intelligent design and how there is then an intelligent designer behind the universe since so much follows a mathematical code.

Stenger believes that simple rules are enough. Now I do not believe that to be the case, but I will grant it. He then says that for these, at most, a simple rule maker of limited intelligence is required.

I wonder how he would respond to someone who said this. “I am an atheist, but I believe that outside of the universe there is a simple rule maker of limited intelligence.” If Stenger wants to start at just that level, I’ll take it. My theism is still around then, but atheism is not.

Stenger also brings up bad design and says how a properly designed human should look. The question is “properly designed for what purpose?” To ask if something is properly designed assumes that there is a purpose for which that thing is designed. To speak of improper design is even to speak of proper design. Stenger is bringing in teleology and to bring in teleology is to bring in God. Also, if Stenger does not know the purpose to man, how can he speak of humans being designed wrong? If he says there is no purpose, then how they’re designed doesn’t really matter.

Stenger concludes saying that the universe looks exactly as it would be expected to look if there was no God. How does he make this comparison statement however? Does he know of a universe where there is God and he can then compare? Stenger has earlier used the idea of fixism, but could it be Stenger is a victim of his own theology?

That’s right. Even atheists have a theology. They have an idea of the kind of God they disbelieve in. This God possesses certain attributes and does not possess others. As soon as Stenger says “If God exists, he would do things X way,” then he is arguing theology and not science and I can say “Very well. Now let’s look at theology and philosophy and see how good your idea is.”

For someone who is wanting to use science to disprove, Stenger is really slipping in more presuppositions than anything else. That is the problem with his worldview. It is not the science. It is the presuppositions that he brings with that science that is really driving the science.

Stenger has claimed to show the illusion of design, but in reality, he has not made an argument against design, but made the illusion of an argument.

We shall continue tomorrow.

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Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Tonight, we are continuing our look at the work of Victor Stenger in God: The Failed Hypothesis. We will review the first chapter titled “Models and Methods.”

In this chapter, Stenger lays out the methods that he plans to use to examine the evidence. He mentions good criteria like protocols need to be clear so possibilities of error can be evaluated, the idea being tested must be clearly established prior, the least biased people should be doing the study, the ones making the hypothesis must know how it could be falsified, and results can be independently replicated.

This works great for science, but not necessarily for everything else. What of falsifiability? Can that concept be falsified? What would it mean if it was. There are some principles that cannot be proven wrong by their definition such as the Law of noncontradiction. If you think you have, then you have proven that B is true as opposed to non-B positing a difference between B and non-B which relies on the LNC.

Stenger states when speaking of falsification in fact that God is supposed to be everywhere so if we look inside of a box we should find his, thus confirming his existence, or not find him, refuting his existence.

Yes. He really says that.

It is a category fallacy as we say that God exists but he does not exist as we do and His being everywhere does not mean He is spatially everywhere. He is in all places as He is the cause of that place existing and He is sustaining it. Does Stenger really think we should see that which is immaterial by looking in a box?

Stenger does say that some who want to limit science to natural forces provide “unwitting support for the assumption that science is dogmatically naturalistic.”

I don’t know anyone who assumes that it is. I do know several people, myself included however, who believe that some scientists are dogmatically naturalistic, and I would include Stenger. I have no problem with science being the study of natural causes. Would Stenger tell me what kind of scientific experiments he thinks he could perform on God if he found God’s existence?

Stenger makes the case that many giants in history of science were not dogmatic (Although I could argue that Galileo was). I do agree that science requires being demanding and not believing claims blindly. I do believe it is difficult and requires work. However, none of that rules out that scientists can be dogmatic because they are unaware of their own presuppositions that they bring, which includes Stenger. To be fair, it can include Christian scientists as well.

Stenger asks why a scientist would object to data for the supernatural. I answer that it is more than just a question of the intellect but also of morals and volition. There is no reason that the concept of God would hinder scientific research. If anything, it gives more meaning to it as one comes to discover the glory of God and the pursuit of science becomes a branch of theology in a way studying the greatest mind of all.

Stenger goes on to argue what he believes are some definitional disproofs. The first is the virtue argument. The premise I first disagree with is that God being great includes the greatness of virtue. This is based on Anselmian thought of the greatest possible being. I do believe God is the greatest being there is, but we must have a definition of greatness prior. Aristotleanism gave us that which Aquinas used. This was looked at in our study of the doctrine of God and of goodness based on the Summa. God being a moral agent treats morality as something God ascribes to that is above Him. God is all good and all He does is good but not because He has to do good based on something beyond Himself, but because His own being is goodness and He cannot violate Himself. Hence, I do not believe God has to overcome pain and suffering to be good. He is good by nature.

The next is that of worship and moral agency. Stenger says that no being could be a fitting agent of worship since worship requires the abandonment of one’s role as an autonomous moral agent.

I have no idea where Stenger got that definition from. I find the entire argument incoherent.

Next is the problem of evil. I have written about it elsewhere on this blog, but the problem of evil does not follow from the premises and most atheists have dropped it. Note also Stenger never gives a basis for good or evil.

Next is the argument that all that a perfect creator creates must be perfect, but the universe is not perfect. I recommend seeing the work done on perfection in the Summa here, but that which is totally perfect would have to be its own existence. Everything else is imperfect in someway though it can be perfect according to its mode of being, but it must not be necessarily so.

Stenger’s argument just doesn’t follow.

Stenger also says omnipresence is impossible. A transcendent being cannot exist anywhere in space and an omnipresent one must exist everywhere in it. Stenger just does not know his terms. Transcendent does not physically exist and omnipresence does not require that. God is omnipresent in that He is the cause of the existing of all places.

Stenger’s next argument is that a non-physical being cannot be personal. It would have been nice for him to have given an argument that a requirement of being a person is being physical. None was given.

Finally, the objection of “God cannot create a rock so big he can’t lift it.” That Stenger comes to this level shows how weak his argumentation is. Christian theologians have long said God cannot do nonsense. God is incapable of making contradictions because reality does not function in contradictions.

These are all the disproofs Stenger gives, and he does not deal with the counterarguments for God’s existence at all.

Interestingly, Stenger makes this statement later on:

The elements of scientific models, especially at the deepest level of quantum phenomena, need not correspond precisely to the elements of whatever “true reality” is out there beyond the signals we receive with our senses and instruments.

Paging Immanuel Kant anyone?

And here all this time I thought science had the goal of understanding reality. Stenger’s statement seems to indicate otherwise. Consider this also in light of what Stenger says on the same page:

Metaphysics has surprisingly little use and would not even be worth discussing if we did not have this great desire to understand ultimate reality as best we can.

Yes. The doctrine of being is of little use in understanding existence….

Stenger states that it would not be worth discussing if we did not have this great desire to understand ultimate reality. We do have this great desire however, therefore metaphysics is worth discussing. It would seem then that metaphysics is needed to understand ultimate reality, and yet Stenger says it is of little use.

Stenger tells us also that God models are human inventions. Stenger finds it amazing that so many people in a sophisticated and modern age cling to primitive and archaic images from the childhood of humanity.

First off, I had no idea Aristotle was so primitive.

Second, we also still hold to ideas like the objectivity of truth, the existence of objective moral values, there is a world outside of our minds, evil ought to be punished and good ought to be rewarded, etc. Using a calendar does not refute an argument and Stenger does not understand the arguments he attempts to refute.

But ignorance has never stopped the new atheists.

So Stenger has set forward his method and his models. Unfortuntely, his method doesn’t really apply and his arguments just don’t work. Maybe we’ll see some more substance later on.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Tonight, we’re going to start another book of Victor Stenger’s. This time, we’re looking at “God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist.”

You know it’s going to be fun when the title is even a category fallacy.

That, of course, is something we’re going to get into.

To begin with, Stenger wants to make the case be entirely scientific. He says that philosophy and science have played their roles, but science has sat on the sidelines. I agree in some ways. However, that is because of what science is. Science isn’t capable of settling the debate once and for all either way. I don’t think theists can use science to prove God. I don’t think atheists can use science to disprove God. That doesn’t mean science is useless in the debate. Inferences can be drawn. An atheist can infer from what he believes to be a sound case from macroevolution to atheism being true. I don’t think that’s sound, but he can. The believer in Intelligent Design can infer from that a designer, which I do think is more sound since the ID believer is positing intelligence and the case of macroevolution does not rule out intelligence.

This is my first problem with Stenger. Stenger places science over these areas which happens to be the problem of American culture today. It is assumed that the scientists are the ones who know the best and religious people are those who know the least. Granted, many religious people have abandoned the intellectual grounds of their faith, but for those of us who bear the name of Christ, that is not because of a command of Christ but of not following the command of Christ. I’m not saying we should all be intellectuals. We’re not all meant to be. I’m saying we can all however know what we believe and why and realize blind faith is not even faith at all and is certainly not a virtue.

Stenger says he is aware that sophisticated theologians have developed highly abstract concepts of a god they claim to be consistent with the teachings of their faith. Stenger says that this can be abstracted enough to be beyond the realm of scientific investigation, but your average believer won’t recognize this deity.

First off, we do not just have sophisticated concepts of God, but also arguments for them. For many people for instance, when they read about how Aquinas believed God is simple, they just assume that he just thought that up without any reason whatsoever. At this point, I don’t care if Aquinas was right about what he said, even though he was. I care that he did have reasons for believing what he believed and that was based also on his epistemology. He argued like a philosopher.

Second, the church has not had a history of ignoring science. I also don’t just mean that they saw science as a threat. They didn’t. They saw science as an aid to understanding the glory of God in creation. When philosophers made arguments for God, it was not because they were afraid of the realm of science.

Third, Stenger should really not be seeking to just speak to the typical believer, which is a point I was getting to last night with the new atheists not wanting to take on the toughest arguments but appeal to only those who do not know their faith well. Throughout the works of the new atheists, you will consistently find that they do not interact with what their opponents say. They consistently make the same mistakes, such as none of them has a valid definition of faith that is based on a study of the ancient languages.

Stenger’s case in fact is built entirely on the God of the Gaps. He states that “If God exists, he must appear somewhere within the gaps of scientific models.”

Why think this however? It is as if to say that if Shakespeare does not appear in any gaps in his plays, then he does not exist. This doesn’t mean that God cannot step in, but there is no requirement that says that he must. For instance, a deistic concept of God is still God and it would not be ruled out.

In fact, for centuries, Christians doing science were pleased when they filled in the gaps and saw more of the glory of God. Consider what Proverbs 25:2 says:

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter;
to search out a matter is the glory of kings.

I have several times seen the question of atheists of why doesn’t God do something like tell us immediately all that we need to know. He doesn’t because part of the joy for us is discovering more about Him. This is also for those who want to know Him. I do not wish to enter the debate about the so-called hiddenness of God, but for early Christian scientists, they believed that they were revealing further the glory of God by doing their science. For too many atheists, showing an instrumental cause is the same as disproving an efficient cause.

Stenger’s main point isn’t even valid in the Preface. I will condemn a God-of-the-gaps mentality just as much. I am against it in the sense that because we have an unknown, we should not automatically try to put God in. However, this does not rule out that God could be what does fill in some gaps. I don’t think there’s wrong in thinking that. I think there’s wrong in thinking that without having sufficiently examined alternative explanations. It does no harm to God considering those of us who are theists have good reasons to uphold his existence such as the existence/essence argument, the argument from beauty, the moral argument, the kalam cosmological argument, etc. or we can believe in times that he did act in the past with sufficient and justified reason such as the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

But it would not be sufficient to just end here and say “Thus, we have no reason to read further.” By all means, let us let Stenger make his case, but as he wishes to examine the data as a scientist, so we wish to examine the inferences he makes from the data as philosophers and theologians.

Let the challenge begin.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Sorry about last night, but I had some business that I needed to take care of. If the blog doesn’t come up, there’s no need to assume the worst. Tonight, I’d like to give my conclusions after reading Stenger’s book on the future of atheism.

I see the future of atheism as bleak, and this is largely based on the work of the new atheists. The new atheists come at their topic being unfamiliar with the arguments hoping to prey on a people who are unsuspecting and do not know why they believe what they believe well. It is banking on the ignorance of man.

This is also because of the age of the internet. In many ways now, the internet has been good to us. We do have ready access to much information and one can read scholarly articles online. It is also a good place to have the public exchange of ideas, such as how this blog reaches an audience through Theologyweb.com as well.

However, it has also been said that when ignorance meets ignorance, you simply get more ignorance. This is often why our Bible studies don’t go well as we just sit around and discuss what the text means to us. How many Bible studies get at what the text means? How many sermons really dig into the meat of the Word rather than just go straight to application?

On the internet, this happens often through wikipedia and youtube. With Wiki, anyone can edit anything and ignorance can become fact easily. Who wrote that article? You don’t know. Now I will look at wiki at times for simple basics or at things in the entertainment industry, but not for a real scholarly debate.

YouTube can be a tool for good, but you need to look at who’s making the video? Do they have the credentials that they need? Are their arguments sound? Remember, the presentation of the argument can blind you to the actual argument. This is a way the images can come to do your thinking for you.

In a culture of such ignorance, I think the new atheists will reach some. However, the more informed people are the ones who will not buy into their argumentation. I’m not saying that’s only theists. I admire the atheists who have the guts to come out and say the new atheists are hurting the cause of atheism, and I have seen some atheists write and speak about how bad the books of the new atheists are, and I’m grateful.

Lest anyone misunderstand me, such ignorance is also bad from the theistic perspective, as I’ve hoped to show in speaking about our Bible studies and about our sermons. Too many theists have based their whole worldview on how they feel. In fact, that is where our culture is going entirely. We often make the most important decisions of all based on nothing but feeling.

The problem with the new atheists is not only that they do not know theism. I also do not think they know atheism. An atheist like Nietzsche if he were around today would be tough as nails on the new atheists. He would tell them to get rid of this silly idea they have of morality being a reality apart from God. I disagree with Nietzsche’s conclusions, but he at least had the guts to stand by them.

The new atheists pull ideas of morality and truth out in the air without anything to support them. In this, they make the same error Christians can make. They do not argue at the level of presuppositions. They argue at the level of application. They take as a given morality and objective truth and the knowability of the world through rational means. They do not give a framework for these.

This is also what is done with the problem of evil. The debate does not even start with the basis of good and evil. Instead, the new atheists just assume that something is evil. In many cases, I will agree with them. When they speak of murder done in the name of Christ, I agree that that is evil. I just ask if there is a basis for that.

This is also why so many debates are so simplistic. Consider the creation/evolution debate. It is assumed by many in the debate that if evolution is true, then Christianity is false. I am not a scientist, but I know enough to know that evolution is not the end of the story and it’s a mistake for atheists and theists to think it is. I have no problem with atheists being critical of movements like ID or Christians being questionable of evolutionary theory. We need to examine the reasons.

This also applies with miracles. The atheists often make the case that these are the accounts of people who were superstitious and believed anything. If you begin with the presupposition of naturalism, of course a miracle is going to be ridiculous. That presupposition is what needs to be discussed. Someone is not foolish for believing in a miracle. You could make the case for them being foolish for believing in a miracle blindly.

Stenger thinks the future looks good for atheism. I disagree. I see it more as a knee-jerk reaction to a theism that is not satisfying, and that is the fault of those of us who are Christians at times as well. We Christians need to be living the light, but we need to do more than live it. We need to know it. A faith that is devoid of content and simply a list of rights and wrongs is not going to convert the world.

My call to Stenger and the new atheists and myself and fellow Christians and other theists is to return to the debate. Books like those of the new atheists do not take the debate seriously. The new atheists do not interact with the material and that will be their downfall. Whether it comes at the hands of theists or other atheists, I do not know, but those who treat the new atheists as serious debaters simply do not know the debate, and they only drag it down to a polemical level.

Tomorrow, we shall start a new book.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Tonight, we’re going to do the final chapter in Victor Stenger’s book “The New Atheism: Taking A Stand For Science And Reason.” In this chapter, Stenger looks at the future of atheism.

I recall the words Ravi Zacharias said once that he got from an unnamed professor of his. Ravi stated that prediction is always difficult, especially about the future.” Stenger and I predict very different things about the future. I will give mine another day, but for now, let us spend our time examining his.

To begin with, Stenger starts with a history of religion. He tells of how supernatural forces were invoked as leaders sought to control the people. What’s missing? You guessed it! Sources! Stenger gives a just-so story that does not have any documentation and sounds more like a Freudian idea (Which has no backing) than any actual reading of history (Of course, we already know if he had read scholars of history, he would not treat the Christ-myth idea seriously).

Stenger also tells us that religion and morality have always gone hand in hand, but is this the case? The Greeks, for instance, believed in objective moral values, but never seemed to tie them to God. Their gods were often just as depraved as they were, if not more so! Such happened also with gods in other religions. More often, it was about power more than morality. When Sennacherib marches against Judah for instance, he says it is because God told him to. It was the drive for territory and power rather than the goal of being a righteous people.

Stenger instead relies on the social contract idea and says that religion often leads to the breakdown of the conflict. Any examples given? Not one. The problem with social contract theories is that the only reason I should abide by them is that I don’t want to get punished. It’s not because I seek the good of my fellow man. If I can do X and get away with it, then why not?

What about the reformer’s dilemma? What happens when someone wants to change the contract for how we live. Gandhi did. Martin Luther King Jr. Did. The abolitionist movement did. Yet each of these are seen as heroes and if we see ourselves as better, then we have a standard outside of the contract we are pointing to.

Morality without a referent is flawed. Anyone can change the rules at any time and no change is better or worse than another change. In theis, there is a transcendent basis that says that man is good because he exists and existence is good because that is the very nature of God.

How does one live without religion? Stenger tells us that we make our own meaning and meaning, value, and purpose are human ideas. Does he really believe this? Did Charles Manson and Timothy McVeigh and others make their own meaning by determining what lives were of value? If I decide that life has no purpose, then who is to say that I am wrong if that is a human idea? If it has no purpose, why not obliterate my neighbor rather than love him? Now I could instead love him. There’d be no reason to do so. There’d be no reason to not do so. It’d just be something to do.

What about Stenger’s own words? Can I determine my own meaning for them? Could I close the book and say “Stenger wishes we were all theists and thinks atheism is bankrupt!” We rightly decry the postmodern movement, but could it be that the postmodern movement is, as Nietzsche saw, the logical outworking of man’s murdering God?

In talking about religious views, Stenger says it is not coherent to kill for your religious beliefs. Now I do agree my Christianity condemns the taking of innocent life, but if Stenger believes that killing for religious beliefs is incoherent, I’d like to know why. I’m not saying it is. I’m just wondering if he could make an argument for it. The only way would be to describe a way that the universe is in a moral sense and a way we ought to act in response in an obligatory sense. His worldview denies both of those!

In reply to evil, Stenger says the big questions of evil are not answered by theism. Now I believe they are, but my question to him is, are they by atheism? What answer does atheism give? Bertrand Russell once asked what a Christian will say by the bedside of a dying child. That’s a good question! Here’s one that was asked in reply by William Lane Craig. What will Bertrand Russell say?

One reason for adopting a worldview should be the explanatory power that it possesses. If you are going to adopt atheism as your worldview, you need to do so because it can answer questions others can’t. If atheism has no such answers, then I would say be an agnostic instead. It’s far more reasonable.

In summarizing the new atheism, Stenger again repeats the mantra that faith is believing something without evidence. As we have shown, this proves that Stenger is a man of faith since he believes his definition of faith even though he has given no evidence to support it.

Stenger also says many biblical practices such as slavery and the subjugation of women are immoral by modern standards. Now we could argue what slavery is in the biblical period and I think Stenger would come up dreadfully short on what he thinks the Bible is talking about. The most in-depth review online can be found here . I also recommend the book by Walter Kaiser “Towards Old Testament Ethics.” Subjugation of women will wait for the next book we review.

What I’d like to comment on however is this idea of modern standards being the source. By this standard, we can simply say everyone else is wrong because they’re different. It is congratulating yourself for reaching a goal and that goal is defined by the place you’re at. Who says modern man is right? Now he could be, but he could also not be and we can’t know unless we have something beyond modern man.

Ironically, Stenger next says that this shows that morality is not constant but evolves with time. Evolves to what? Are we reaching some goal? But if that is the case, then this is no longer naturalistic evolution as that would exclude a final cause, especially in the area of morality. We could agree that morality is changing, but without a standard, it is doing just that. It is not changing for better or for worse. It is just changing.

Finally, Stenger says that religious believers are driven by fear. Stenger reveals more about himself than about his opponents. My life is not lived in the fear of God but the joy of the adventure of learning more every day. I wonder how many religious people Stenger has really talked to to come to this conclusion. I know his research has been lacking, but when I meet someone who is Christian and driven by fear, they are definitely the anomaly.

Stenger has hope for the new atheism. What’s my response to the future of the new atheism?

That will be in my conclusion tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters, where we dive into the ocean of truth! Right now, we’re going through Victor Stenger’s book “The New Atheism: Taking A Stand For Science And Reason.” So far, not much of a stand has been made yet. Tonight, we’re looking at the chapter called “The Way of Nature” which is simply a look at the way we should live.

A bulk of this is spent looking at the way other worldviews have treated the way of life. How have great thinkers suggested we should live. Stenger will then contrast that with the atheistic worldview and tell us how it is that an atheist should live. Of course, he’s not too far in the chapter before another statement of faith shows up. Stenger says the following about the time of the Jews in and around the exile:

Having lost everything that was external, the people of Israel began to turn inward. The exiles in Babylon also reoriented their view. The book of Job may have been written there. Since YHWH behaved so badly in that story, this may indicate that the exiles were losing faith in him. Other parts of the Old Testament may also have been written then–almost certainly Genesis, which is at least partially based on the Babylonian creation myth.

Sources cited? Not a one. Again, Stenger would not put up with deep scientific claims being made without some backing behind them. He’s quite fine however with making claims about history, and particularly religious history, without bothering to tell a source for the information.

To begin with, if the exiles were losing faith in YHWH, it’s a wonder that when they returned, the first thing they did was begin to build a temple starting with the altar so that they could offer sacrifices. Does he have any indication that the Jews decided to abandon their heritage in this time?

Also, what evidence is there that Genesis was written at this time? Absent is any look at biblical archaeology with data on dating the Old Testament books. No mention of the work of evangelical scholars like Walter Kaiser or Meredith Kline. There isn’t even a mention of the JEPD theory which Stenger seems to be alluding to, nor is there any response from those who contend against it.

Furthermore, if Genesis was written then, why would the book include commands about what Abraham’s children were to do which Israel failed to do? Why would it focus on YHWH entirely when the people were supposedly losing faith in YHWH? This doesn’t mention the other books ascribed to Moses that repeatedly chronicled the failures of Israel and how they were to be holy.

Why say God performed badly in Job? Does Stenger know that Job is commonly said to be the oldest book there in the Bible? Does he refer to any scholarship in the book of Job so that he can understand what is going on? No. It is enough for Stenger to just assert.

But he is a man of faith after all.

Finally, what evidence is there that the Genesis account of creation was a copy of the Babylonian account? Stenger does not give any sources. Not only does he not give any sources, he acts as if there were no rebuttals. It’s hard to take Stenger’s side seriously when he seems ignorant of what his opponents are saying.

Stenger also says science would have continued on the rise had it not been for the dark ages. First off, what historians today refer to the period as the dark ages? Second, the reason many sciences were not on the rise was that they were not seen as practical. Medicine continued well because medicine had an impact on day to day life for people. Knowing how the planets moved, on the other hand, did not. Now I’m not saying that’s unimportant. There is much we can learn. However, most of us would prefer that if any money be invested, it would be invested in the medical field more than other fields since we rely on medicine so much more.

The church was not hostile to science and many great scientists rose up in the church, but that was after the church made it possible to have more leisure time. Prior to that, most families spent the majority of their time just trying to survive. Progress was made in agriculture that enabled people to get a good supply of food with less time and effort on crops. The printing press came which allowed for the distribution of ideas faster and more efficiently. Thus, more people were educated and able to study.

For further research, I recommend Rodney Stark’s “The Victory of Reason.” I also recommend the material that can be found at the site of the Bede here .

Stenger goes on to write about other worldviews but of course, his worst criticisms are saved for the monotheistic faiths of the West. He says:

In the West, this emphasis on the ego is even more pronounced. Jews continue to regard themselves as the chosen people of God. And who could be more self-centered than Muslims and Christians, who believe that for a few simple duties for a short period on Earth they will live forever in perfect bliss!

Do Jews regard themselves as the chosen people of God? Sure they do. That proves they’re not how. Now if there is no God, of course they’re not. Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean they believe that for self-centered reasons. They could believe the Old Testament texts are reliable for various reasons and if that’s what they say, then they are to believe them.

However, where does he get his view of Christian faith? Stenger is making the mistake of thinking what the believers believe is supposed to be all about them. Now in a sense, the modern church can grant that impression and I will give Stenger that. That is the fault of the modern church however.

The offer of God is not meant to show how incredible His followers are. It is meant to show how awesome and wonderful His love and grace are. When the Christian speaks of the way God loves him, it is not meant to emphasize the Christian, but God. God loves someone so much who does not deserve that love. The proper response to the love and grace of God is not pride. It is humility.

In going on to talk about spirituality, Stenger brings up psychic phenomena briefly, which he doesn’t believe in. He brings up the question of how a mind is possible in a material world. Stenger replies “As we saw in chapter 8, while we do not know the answer yet, there does not seem to be any obstacle to a purely material mind.”

Now it could be that there is a purely material mind, but Stenger has evoked a naturalism of the gaps in contrast to a God of the gaps. What evidence has Stenger presented for his naturalism? I could grant all he says about physics and still not have a problem (I do not grant his inferences of course). We’ve seen repeatedly that Stenger is also lacking in his criticisms of theism, and particularly Christian theism. Stenger does have faith indeed, and it is a faith that is built on sand.

Stenger continues to say that being an atheist, it means that one is free to live their life as they wish without anyone telling them what to do or think. Since there is one life, they live it to the fullest.

Meaning what?

There is a best way to live life? How can that be unless there are ways that are better than others? Who is to say Stalin did not live his life to the fullest? Stenger will require an objective moral standard in order to make this claim and thus far, he has yet to give one or seriously interact with theistic arguments for one.

He also says the observable facts are that atheists are at least as moral as theists. Maybe so. But on what grounds? I contend that a lot of atheists still live this way because we live in a world that has been Christianized with morals that our ancestors in pagan times did not observe.

Furthermore, the claim theists make is not an argument about “Who lives better?” although I think we as Christians are put to shame when those without the Holy Spirit live better than we do as a whole, but who has the basis for morality. This is the same mistake often made by both sides when they ask “Who’s the most educated?” or “Who’s the happiest?” Those are interesting areas to study, but they do not change the truth content of the beliefs.

Stenger can enjoy his life, but even to enjoy means that there is something good to enjoy, and he has yet to establish that.

Tomorrow, we shall finish the book with his final chapter.