Andrew Perry on 1 Cor. 8:6 Part 6

How did Paul view Jesus? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

There are however literary identities. One kind is a typological identity.
Nevertheless, when it [the heart, v. 16] shall turn to kyrios, the veil shall be taken away. Now the
Lord is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 2 Cor 3:17 (KJV revised)
And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and
they were afraid to come nigh him. And Moses called unto them; and Aaron and all the rulers of
the congregation returned unto him: and Moses talked with them…And till Moses had done
speaking with them, he put a veil on his face…But when Moses went in before Yhwh to speak
with him, he took the veil off, until he came out. Exod 34:30-34 (KJV revised)
The comparison here is with Moses ‘going in’ before Yhwh without a veil. The use of the verb ‘to turn’
picks up the children of Israel ‘outside’ who ‘turned away’ from Moses (Exod 34:31 – they turn back,
same verb in the LXX). Paul is saying that when the heart of the Jews turns to Yhwh, the veil will be taken
away, i.e. they will then be like Moses.
Paul’s first exegetical comment upon the incident is that ‘The Lord is the Spirit’. The identity here is
typological; Yahweh in Moses’ day stands for ‘the Spirit’ in Paul’s day. That Paul is thinking in terms of
typological comparison is shown by his earlier remarks. The Corinthians were not a letter written in
‘tablets’ of stone but one that was written in the ‘tablets’ of the heart with the Spirit of the living God (2
Cor 3:3). In order for the Jews to be such a letter, they would have to ‘turn’ to the Spirit. Paul is stating
this imperative by his assertion that ‘the Lord’ (Yahweh) is ‘the Spirit’.

Or, maybe, just maybe, Paul does mean the Lord is the Spirit.  Could this interpretation be possible? Sure, but why should I think it is likely? It is true that Perry goes on from here, but I find nothing that I think really clinches this argument. It’s as if he gets to make an assertion and then moves on. Responding to David Capes, he says:

Capes says that “the most convincing evidence that ku,rioj in [2 Cor] 3:16 refers to Jesus comes from [2
Cor] 4:5”,
For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.
2 Cor 4:5 (KJV revised)

Well, yes. That does seem convincing. Paul speaks of the Lord in one chapter and then a scant few verses later, he says Jesus is Lord, a common saying of his.

This illustrates the problem confronting exegetes; ku,rioj is used to refer to Yahweh and Jesus Christ and
commentators can get confused over usage. Paul’s point here in v. 5 is about the content of preaching,
whereas in the previous chapter, his concern has been with understanding the driving force of preaching
– the Spirit. Paul’s teaching about the Spirit takes the form of a typological comparison with Yahweh.
Capes is therefore simply mistaken. With typological identity, the type may have the same role, status or
function as the anti-type. In the comparison between Yahweh and the Spirit, both are the source of
instruction.

I look over this and I wonder how this is a response to what was said. The content of the preaching would be Jesus is Lord which would mean…..Jesus is Lord? And then when we see a reference to the Lord in 2 Cor. 3, perhaps that same Lord is Jesus? There doesn’t seem to be anything odd about this reading.

For Perry who seems to suspect theological motives under every interpretation he disagrees with, it looks like he is the one who is letting his theology guide his interpretation.

Next time, we will discuss alleged cases of mistaken identity.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Andrew Perry on 1 Cor. 8:6 Part 4

Is Jesus YHWH? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

What dose it mean to say Jesus is included in the divine identity?

If we consider relative identity (‘a is the same F as b’),45 it doesn’t seem that this framework will give us
an understanding for inclusive identity. Logically, two are one (the same) relative to their satisfying a
categorical predicate (‘the same F’; Fido and Pooch are the same breed’). Does Paul think that Jesus is the
same God as Yahweh? One doubt would be that he distinguishes them in terms of ‘God the Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ’. However, putting this doubt aside, if Paul believed that they were the same God,
this doesn’t necessarily imply that he is ‘including’ Jesus in the divine identity of Yahweh/God of Israel

Yet Perry never seems to define what is meant by this. Do we mean they are the same God? If you mean they are the same person, then no. I am not surprised that Jesus is differentiated from the Father. If anything, this convinces me. They needed two different ways to speak of them to avoid confusion.

The language of the divine nature deals with this. There are two persons at least that share the divine nature. Again, what that is needs to be fleshed out for us, but for the ancient audience in a high-context society familiar with Jewish thought, that would have been much better understood.

If we think of shared identity or group identity, these are examples of ‘inclusive’ identity. We might say
‘a is a member of the same class as b’. There are many gods and many lords and these would be classes in
which we might place the God of Israel and the Lord Jesus Christ. Putting it in this way, doesn’t
obviously include Jesus in the class of many gods, but rather the class of many lords. In fact, 1 Cor 8:6
doesn’t lend itself to an inclusivity thesis, since Paul would seem to affirm that the “to–us” class of gods
has only one member and likewise the “to–us” class of lords. He assigns deity to the Father and lordship
to Jesus

IF Perry goes with this, then he would have to deny that the Father is Lord since the Father is not in the class of Lords but Jesus is. If Jesus not being in the category of gods means He cannot have the divine nature, then the Father not being included in the category of lords means He cannot have the nature of Lord. Is there any Jew that would remotely think that possible?

It is one thing to claim that Paul includes Jesus within the divine identity of the God of Israel; it is another
thing to show this worked out in his writing. We have noted the declarative quality of Christological
Monotheism. For example, we might ask whether (for Paul) it was God the Father that included Jesus
within his identity. If this were the case, and suppose that he did so through the bestowal of his Spirit
upon Jesus, does this have any implication as regards intrinsic deity in respect of Jesus? If Jesus is
included within the divine identity of the God of Israel, is the identity nevertheless still retained by the
God of Israel as his identity in such an inclusion?

Perry is responding more to adoptionism in this case than to Trinitarianism. First off, there is nothing that says Paul has to work this all out in his writing. In his society, his listeners would be expected to work that out and know the background knowledge to do that. Perry wants an ancient writing to read like a modern one.

Next time, we will look at some verses that seem to identify Jesus with YHWH in the New Testament.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Andrew Perry on 1 Cor. 8:6 Part 3

What about the Shema? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Perry begins this section with this:

J. W. Adey comments, “The ‘one God’ of Biblical revelation is a single ‘person’ God, the Father only,
unambiguously unitarian or monotheistic…” The Shema would seem to be a clear expression of that
monotheism. The singleness of God is not about his (compound) unity, but about there being a sole
God.

We all agree that the Shema refers to one God, but thus far, that does not equal one person in the one God. I have long said that the biggest mistake Arians make is the assumption of unipersonalism. Every Trinitarian agrees that there is one God.

Christological Monotheism holds that Jesus is included within the divine identity of the God of Israel. As
a second move it affirms a continual adherence on the part of Paul to Jewish Monotheism. The two
propositions introduce a confusion into the definition of monotheism between what is one and unity.
Jewish (as well as scriptural) Monotheism is not about unity but about there being a single God. The
compound unity of the Father and the Son is not informative for Paul’s use of the Shema

Perry can say all he wants that this introduces a confusion, but what is meant? If he means hard to understand, that applies to most everything about God. God is omniscient and people have free-will. God is eternal and acts in time. Now if he could show something was a contradiction, that would be a problem, but thus far, he hasn’t. If his point is that there is a sole God, then he is not arguing against Christological monothiesm. We hold to that.

This observation introduces a requirement for Christological Monotheism: it needs to show that
‘inclusion within the divine identity’ is actually relevant to a characterization of ‘monotheism’. The contrary
challenge is that we can characterize Jewish Monotheism, Scriptural Monotheism and Pauline
Monotheism, referring to the singleness of God, as well as showing that Jesus is included within the
divine identity of the God of Israel – but without this being a matter of monotheism and instead being a
matter of cosmology. The drive to have ‘inclusive identity’ part of a definition of monotheism seems
anachronistic and based in the needs of Christian theology rather than an accurate description of NT
history.

Even if Perry was right about motives, so what? The data is what matters. Besides that, the assumption is that the later Fathers got a Christology in mind and then went back and plugged that into the New Testament. Maybe, just maybe, they read it out of the New Testament?

If we want to be faithful to the etymology ‘mono/theism’ (mo,noj/qeo,j), then we should include the
following Pauline ‘mono’ texts ‘only God’ (1 Tim 1:17; cf. Jude v. 25) and ‘only Sovereign…who only has
immortality’ (1 Tim 6:15-16). These texts, coupled with the distinction between the Son and the invisible
God in Colossians, gives us a consistent monotheistic pattern in Paul’s thought that doesn’t include the
Son.

Yet a Christological monotheist can say the Son is included in the divine identity and so when we speak of the only God, then that is what is going on. Does Perry do the same though when we get to Jude 4 and Jesus is our only Lord? Based on what is said here, if Perry interprets that the same way, then the Father cannot be our Lord.

We should ask whether it is possible for the Shema to be rewritten or rearranged so as to include Jesus Christ
within the divine identity of the God of Israel. The question here is whether the semantics of ‘one’ (dxa,
́eHäd) in the Shema allow this possibility. Our argument is that they do not, because ‘one’ is about
singleness and not unity whereas ‘inclusion within the divine identity’ is about unity, i.e. requires a sense
corresponding to ‘unity’ in the Shema.

Okay. Let’s see then.

A quotation of the Shema in Zech 14:9 assists this analysis.
And Yahweh shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be Yahweh one, and his name
one. Zech 14:9 (KJV revised)
Adey comments on this text, “the way
́HD qualifies Yahweh and ‘Yahweh’ in Zech 14:9, classifying but not
(it is said) identifying, connects and complies syntactically and semantically with reading
́HD as a numeral
‘one’ in the Shema.”35 And a further quotation,
Have we not all one father? Hath not one God ( ́ē
l) created us? (Mal 2:10 KJV)
Adey’s comment on this text is, “The singularity of ‘God’ is further emphasized by the grammatically
singular form ́ēl”.36 The singleness of Yahweh is also seen in the complementary statements that God is
alone God or that Yahweh is alone Yahweh (2 Kgs 19:15, 19; Neh 9:6; Ps 83:18).

And the problem is? I don’t see it. We all affirm that there is one God. What is the problem?

Where ́eHäd might be used for ‘oneness’ or ‘unity’, then there is a two that remains two, as for example in
the case of “the two shall be one flesh” (Gen 2:24). Adey observes,
“…whilst ‘one’ in the appropriate context may be transposed into a metaphoric sense as ‘unity’
(‘oneness’), dismantling ‘one’ as ‘unity’ does not end up with ‘one’ (thing). ‘Unity’ requires at least two (parts or persons) for its meaning. In Deut 6:4 the only theistic party is Yahweh. The text has
none other that is God but He, and this justifies asserting that the given four semantic units in the
Shemastatement are insufficient to provide for or even evoke the concept of (some pluraloneness
as) unity.

And again, I don’t see the problem here. Unity requires at least two. That’s what we have. At least two persons. Thus, God can be a unified one since He has three persons.

That’s all to say about the Shema for now. Let’s see what comes up next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Andrew Perry on 1 Cor. 8:6 Part 2

Is Jesus in the divine identity? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So let’s just jump right back into it.

Wright asserts that Paul has taken kurios from Deut 6:4, but offers no argumentation for this proposal.
He then concludes, “There can be no mistake: just as in Philippians 2 and Colossians 1, Paul has placed
Jesus within an explicit statement, drawn from the Old Testament’s quarry of emphatically monotheistic
texts…producing what we can only call a sort of christological monotheism.” We have criticized
Wright’s exegesis of Colossians 1 and Philippians 2 in previous articles, but only Philippians 2 uses a
characteristic monotheistic OT text (Isa 45:23). We might agree that Phil 2:10 places Jesus within the same
eschatological situation as Yahweh in Isa 45:23, but placement within a situation is not the same as
inclusion within the divine identity and so Wright’s comparison is false.

This seems to be too easy a dismissal of Wright. YHWH is the one who won’t share His name with another and for all the talk that Perry made last time about there being no parallel to the Shema for Jesus, can he find a parallel where everyone else bows at another name besides that of God? If it works one way, it ought to work the other way too.

The case for the christological monotheist is based around the claim that kyrios is picking up ‘Yhwh’ from
Deut 6:4 and using this name for Christ, thus identifying Jesus with Yhwh in some sense. The first
counter-argument to this claim is that, even if Paul is picking up ‘Yhwh’ from Deuteronomy, bearing the
name ‘Yhwh’ doesn’t imply an identification of Jesus with Yhwh. This is shown in two ways: first, the
name that is above every name was given22 to Christ by God (Phil 2:9); and secondly, the name was also
given to the Angel of the Lord who led Israel through the wilderness (“My name is in him”, Exod 23:21).

For the first objection, this is an assumption of unipersonalism whereby if a name is given, then that person cannot be in the identity, but this is not explained why. Jesus is given this name as a public vindication of what He had done publicly. Had He not done a public act, He would not have been known in this way.

For the second, I have regularly pointed to the Angel of the Lord as a Trinitarian precursor. He acts in ways that only God can act. He is the one speaking in Exodus 3. He appears to Hagar in Genesis 16 and she refers to Him as the God who sees me. Rather than demonstrating the point is incorrect, Perry is actually with this demonstrating the point is highly accurate!

The Angel of the Lord is a type of Christ leading his people through the wilderness. In the same way that
he bore the name, so too Christ bears the name. Hence, any basis there might be in the possession of this
name for identifying Jesus with Yhwh would also apply to the Angel of the Lord. Yet the Angel of the
Lord is distinguished from Yhwh in the same way that Paul distinguishes ‘one…and one’ in 1 Cor 8:6.

Obviously, great scholars like Bauckham and Wright never noticed that there was a distinguishing here. The Angel of the Lord is often treated as YHWH, but yet somehow is seen as a servant of YHWH. Consider how in Genesis 19:24 we read that YHWH on Earth rained down fire and brimstone from YHWH out of Heaven. If you come in with the assumption that God must be unipersonal, you have to read the texts in a way to avoid any plurality in the Godhead. If you dismiss that, you must remain open to the idea that perhaps God is a unique being in a sense that He is multipersonal while we are unipersonal.

However, before we reach this conclusion, we should ask, as a second counter-argument, whether
kyrios in 1 Cor 8:6 is actually picking up ‘Yhwh’ from Deut 6:4 in the first place. ‘Yhwh’ is a proper name,
but kyrios in 1 Cor 8:6 is not being used here as a proxy for this proper name precisely because it is
modified by ‘one’. The ‘one’ is in a semantic contract with the ‘many’ of v. 5, which in turn has the
plural of kyrios. This in turn brings that plural into a semantic contract with the singular of v. 6. Thus,
because the plural is functioning as a descriptive title, so too kyrios in v. 6 is functioning as a title and not
as a proxy for the name ‘Yhwh’. Accordingly, we can observe a symmetry between the two clauses: just as
‘God’ is not a proper name in ‘one God’ so too ‘Lord’ is not serving as a proxy for a proper name in ‘one
Lord’.

I am unclear as to what difference this makes. It is as if Perry is treating YHWH as a personal name. (By the way, aren’t all names given to someone?) Paul is making a contrasting statement indeed saying that the pagans have many gods and many lords, but we only have one. If he submits two different beings here, then he has a sort of ditheism going on. If he has one God with at least two persons here as both are in the divine nature somehow, then he does not.

Even if we went to the Shema, saying Lord as a proper name wouldn’t make sense. Did the Jews need to know there was only one YHWH? Even when they were  living in idolatry, they could say there was one YHWH, but there was also one Asherah, one Molech, etc. Yet if they say there is one God and one Lord and those are combined, then they have monotheism.

If the first clause, ‘there is one God, the Father’, is monotheistic, what type of clause is ‘there is one Lord,
Jesus Christ’? Is it possible to have a god and a lord within a scriptural faith? Is this conjoining of the Father and the Son so innovative that it redefines Scriptural Monotheism and Jewish Monotheism? Is the
associative partnership implicit in ‘of whom are all things’ (the Father) and ‘by whom are all things’ (the
Son) actually (or still) monotheistic?

But this is just begging the question. It is saying that if we go with the understanding of Bauckham and Wright and Capes and others, then we are redefining monotheism. It’s kind of hard to redefine a term that means “There is only one God.” The Trinity necessarily has it that there is only one God. Perry also since he is refusing to look at intertestamental literature is ignoring any data that Jews had to the contrary in pre-Christian thinking. Once again, if anything is redefining it, it is somehow having Jesus being a being that is separate and yet somehow Lord. By framing the Shema in this way, Paul is saying that you can’t have one without the other. If the Son is exclusively Lord, then the Father is not, but if the Father is exclusively God, the Son is not. Putting them both in the same identity avoids the problem.

Our two clause reading of 1 Cor 8:6 is immune to Bauckham’s reasoning for Christological Monotheism.
He says, “there can be no doubt that the addition of a unique Lord to the unique God of the Shema‘
would flatly contradict the uniqueness of the latter…The only possible way to understand Paul as
maintaining monotheism is to understand him to be including Jesus in the unique identity of the one God
affirmed in the Shema‘.” All we have to observe here is that the second clause is not ‘adding to’ the ‘one’
of the monotheism in the first clause and that ‘one…and one’ does add up to two! We do not have to
maintain Paul’s monotheism by deploying a late-20c. theological construct like ‘included in the divine
identity’. We can maintain his monotheism by confining his avowal of monotheism to the first clause.

The language is 20th century, but is the idea? That is the question. We could just as well ask if anyone in the time of Paul was going around talking about Christological monotheism like Perry is. Would that invalidate his case? Absolutely not.

One and one does indeed add to two. So you either have two persons in the divine identity, or you have two beings, one distinctively God, but then the other must be distinctively Lord. If this is the Shema then, it is Perry that is dividing it and not Bauckham.

We will continue next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

Andrew Perry on 1 Cor. 8:6 Part 1

Is 1 Cor. 8:6 a Trinitarian text? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In light of my blog on 1 Cor. 8:6, I was challenged to go through a paper by Andrew Perry that can be found here. So I did go through and sadly, much of what I saw from someone who is no fool on the topic was still going by the same mistakes many anti-Trinitarians make. Let’s dive in and see what i saw.

Wright says that it has an “apparently extraordinary ‘high’
christology” and it is a “Christian redefinition of the Jewish confession of faith, the Shema”. This remark
shows that Wright (and it is true of others4) is conducting his analysis within the socio-historic context of
Jewish Monotheism in the Second Temple period. He (and it is true of others) is not considering the text
just within the context of inspired Scripture, i.e. what text means within the context supplied by the Spirit
alone. This narrower and different context of appraisal generates the questions: does the Spirit present
Deut 6:4 as a ‘Jewish’ confession of faith or rather a proclamation of divine revelation? Would the Spirit
‘redefine’ its own presentation in Deut 6:4?

One wonders how it is that one is supposed to know what the Spirit, which here is listed as an “it” is saying. Does Perry alone have this insight or is it just that no Trinitarian has it? Has Wright committed a major flaw in actually going to the socio-historical context to understand the text? Could it be that Paul did not write in a vacuum but that Jews actually did some thinking about the Old Testament from the ending of the Jewish canon to the time of Jesus?

And if they did, could it perhaps be beneficial to us to look at that? Yes it could be, but Perry will have none of that. This reminds me greatly of Francis Beckwith’s statement that if they can’t win with logic, they will trump with spirituality.

This also assumes that the Shema has been redefined in an evangelical understanding of 1 Cor. 8:6. It has not been. The Shema is still a statement of monotheism. Instead, Jesus is being included in that monotheistic context. Were the Shema changed into a statement of ditheism, yes, that would be a change, but that is not what is going on here.

The intertextuality of the NT with the OT is so vast and any intertextuality with
contemporary Jewish and non-Jewish literature so tiny that the method of bring extra-Biblical parallels to
bear must take second place.

Tiny? Not at all. Are we to assume that in all those Jewish writings, they didn’t really have anything much to say about the Shema, the defining statement of Jewish monotheism? On the one hand, we have it that this was supposed to be a defining doctrine of Israel. On the other hand, the references to it would be tiny.

The flow of ethical argument in this part of the Corinthians’ letter is also not essential for a discussion of
how Christological Monotheism reads 1 Cor 8:6. The situation in Corinth and the teaching about
knowledge which Paul was opposing is addressed by a statement with two main clauses: one that is
monotheistic and one that is about the Lord Jesus Christ. To say that there are two clauses, only one of
which is monotheistic, is to take the opposite position to Christological Monotheism, and it doesn’t
depend on any particular view about the situation in Corinth regarding food offered to idols. This is our
‘critical’ argument against Christological Monotheism. Hence, we are characterizing the position of this
paper as ‘monotheistic Christology’.

Yet the argument from us is that all of the clauses here are monotheistic. If they are not, then it is not the Shema. As soon as Perry presents it any other way, then he is not really engaging with the argument as is from the evangelical perspective. He can say that to interpret his position is opposite of Christological monotheism, but it seems to boil down to “This position is wrong because it disagrees with my position.” That only works if you establish your own position.

In looking at 1 Cor. 8:6, Perry says that the proposal is:

“Any Greek-speaking Jew who hears a Christian say what 1 Cor 8:6 says is
bound to hear those words as a claim that Yhwh is now somehow identified with Jesus Christ.” Such a
proposition, without evidence in Second Temple writings from Greek-speaking Jews, is of little value as it
stands.

First off, I thought that the Second Temple writings didn’t matter. Now supposedly a silence from them does matter. Which is it?

Second, what is actually supposed to be said in these writings? Are we to expect Greek Jews outside of the apostles were talking about Jesus? However, if the question is could the Jews conceive of someone being in this kind of position, the answer is yes.

If you asked the Jews how God made the world, they would tell you through Wisdom. This is seen in Proverbs 8 especially. The extra irony to this is that this is a passage ancient and modern-day Arians point to to say Jesus is a creation. However, what do Jewish writings say about Wisdom? Let’s go to the Wisdom of Solomon starting at chapter 9 verse 9.

With you is wisdom, she who knows your works
and was present when you made the world;
she understands what is pleasing in your sight
and what is right according to your commandments.
10 Send her forth from the holy heavens,
and from the throne of your glory send her,
that she may labor at my side
and that I may learn what is pleasing to you.
11 For she knows and understands all things,
and she will guide me wisely in my actions
and guard me with her glory.
12 Then my works will be acceptable,
and I shall judge your people justly
and shall be worthy of the throne of my father.
13 For who can learn the counsel of God?
Or who can discern what the Lord wills?
14 For the reasoning of mortals is worthless,
and our designs are likely to fail,
15 for a perishable body weighs down the soul,
and this earthy tent burdens the thoughtful mind.
16 We can hardly guess at what is on earth,
and what is at hand we find with labor,
but who has traced out what is in the heavens?
17 Who has learned your counsel
unless you have given wisdom
and sent your holy spirit from on high?
18 And thus the paths of those on earth were set right,
and people were taught what pleases you
and were saved by wisdom.”

No doubt, Wisdom is being referred to here. Yet let’s look at what happens in the next chapter.

Starting at verse 18:

She brought them over the Red Sea
and led them through deep waters,
19 but she drowned their enemies
and cast them up from the depth of the sea.
20 Therefore the righteous plundered the ungodly;
they sang hymns, O Lord, to your holy name
and praised with one accord your defending hand,
21 for wisdom opened the mouths of those who were mute
and made the tongues of infants speak clearly.

Beg your pardon?

Wisdom did that? Isn’t that what God did in the Old Testament? Indeed. It also doesn’t say God by His Wisdom did X. It said Wisdom did this. At the same time, there is still an idea of the Lord being praised. Go ahead and keep reading and you can ask “Is this praising Wisdom or the Lord?” Not only that, but if we look at the last verse quoted above, we can see a parallel to Exodus 4:11.

Then the Lord said to him, “Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?

All of this needs to be taken into consideration. One cannot just say “Well, the Wisdom of Solomon isn’t in the Bible” (I realize some Christians do have it in theirs, but for those who do not, that does not mean we can disregard it even if we don’t view it as Scripture.). Data is data. The Bible was not written in a vacuum.

One more point for tonight. Perry goes on to say this:

A more plausible proposal would be that a Greek-speaking Jew would see an allusion in Paul’s words to
the Shema in, for example, ‘God’, ‘us/our’ and ‘one’, but it is not obvious that Yhwh is to be identified
with Jesus Christ. Rather, the descriptive aspect of ‘our God’ and ‘one’ is picked up by ‘to us…one
God’, which therefore in turn identifies ‘the Father’ as Yhwh rather than Jesus Christ. Further, the
counting aspect of Paul’s conjoined statements, ‘one…and one’, rather militates against the interpretation
that Christ is being placed within the identity of the one God of Israel. The Shema has a single
occurrence of ‘one’ whereas 1 Cor 8:6 has two occurrences. Finally, if we accept Wright’s claim, we still
have to do the work of saying what we mean by ‘included within the identity of the one God of Israel’ –
this could be explained as simply as the indwelling of God’s Spirit rather than anything more complicated,
say, such as a recognition of an incarnation.

But if Kurios is a reference to YHWH in the Shema and it is applied to Jesus here, then yes, Jesus is being identified as the Lord in the Shema. The problem with making a divide is ultimately, you can say Jesus isn’t the one God, but then you have to say that YHWH isn’t the one Lord. If anyone is guilty of dividing the Shema and splitting it, it is the anti-Trinitarian.

Do we still have to do the work of explaining what is meant by being included in the divine identity? Yes. And? Having to do the work of explaining the concept isn’t a problem. Saying the indwelling of God’s Spirit is quite complicated. There were plenty of people in the Old and New Testaments that were said to be indwelled with the Spirit of God. Are they to be included in the Shema because of that?

We will continue with more of this next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Still Unbelievable Conclusion

How does it all end? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

We return to Sophie to find out where her story ends.

Where the rubber really meets the road though, is in the personal experience of god. It’s where Christians return to, and what they rely on.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Not me. I will point her consistently to the Thomistic arguments and to the case for the resurrection of Jesus. Personal experience usually only convinces those on the inside already and is way too subjective. The irony here is that throughout this chapter, Sophie talks about her personal experience regularly as a now non-Christian.

It was woven into my being, but for me there had not been a defining, dramatic conversion. It is fair to say I knew no “before” but I had, what I considered to be, a personal relationship with the Christian god through Jesus and there was nothing more normal to me than that. I could hardly conceive how people functioned without it. During my deconstruction, eventually I had to take a cold hard look at this aspect of my belief, and my overall feeling on the matter boiled down to this; How most unremarkable this ‘walk’ with the Lord was. How completely underwhelming this supposed supernatural, life-to-the-full experience had been. How completely hidden this deity had been despite purporting to desire deep connection.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Which is a reason why I encourage Christians to NOT go by personal experience. We present Christianity in a way that is outside the experience of most people and then they feel let down, when it was really never Jesus that let them down, but an idealized version of what He’s supposed to do. If your Christian walk is built on anything other than the resurrection of Jesus, your walk is going to fail.

I didn’t seem capable of discerning God’s will, I just had ‘hunches’ much like secular folk.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Which is again nothing that has been part of historical Christianity.

I was assailed by anxiety, depression and fear as much as the next terrified little humanoid. There was no peace in the storm, there was Xanax.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

We need to show grace to people suffering from mental stress beyond normal. I take medication for anxiety. It’s great for me. Since my divorce, I was regularly in the throes of panic. If we can go to doctors for physical healing and take medications, we can do the same for mental healing.

I eventually had to concede that, despite trying, there was no “personal relationship” with God. I had tried but found it lacking and I could hardly see the point, much less muster up the enthusiasm anymore. I stopped communicating.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

I have argued against the idea of Christianity as a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus is my king. I am His slave.

The amazingness of us even being on earth has given me goosebumps, awe and gratitude.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Sure, but gratitude to who?

If I’ve learnt anything from the experience, it is that I am not qualified for the job of evaluating this religion and its claims. I don’t have the theological training, the language expertise in Greek or Hebrew, and I have neither evolutionary biologist nor cosmological background. I don’t have sufficient historical information that I can evaluate on how much Christianity copies from other religions, or just how much neuroscience can explain spiritual phenomena. Needless to say, it’s a minefield with the added difficulty of the credibility of the sources and the cognitive bias present in almost everything. And that, that in itself, is enough to discredit it. Surely God would not have made the matter so hard that reasonably intelligent, truth-seeking people end up on either side of the fence and it’s just down to chance as to whether you can make the leap of faith or not? It seems it is. For that reason alone, I find it therefore quite improbable that this particular god exists.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Go back and listen to old sermons preached centuries ago and find that the common man was being taught what we would consider difficult today. However, if you say you don’t possess the ability to evaluate, then why are you just doing this evaluation right now? Once again, I don’t think Christianity is Sophie’s problem, but an idea of Christianity instead.

in the end, Sophie looks to be open. I hope she is. I hope if she ever reads this blog she will reach out. I would love to introduce her to a Jesus who doesn’t want you to find “His personal will for your life”, but just asks that you serve however best you can. You aren’t supposed to listen for His “Still small voice” but you’re supposed to study the Scriptures diligently. He doesn’t always take away the storm, but He is there with you and no, you won’t always feel it.

Also, if this book is ever redone, the only parts worth keeping are the ones by Skydive Phil and Ed Atkinson, even though I highly disagreed with them still. Definitely find someone better than David Johnson who regularly had some of the worst argumentation. Overall, this one really won’t provide you with decent argumentation for the most part.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

 

 

Book Plunge: Still Unbelievable Chapter 12

Do atheists live in reality? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This is the final regular chapter which yes, thankfully means the last writing by David Johnson. He describes his exodus from Christianity by saying he grew up. As he goes on to say quite early on:

In the Christian view of reality, the worst thing you can do is learn to think for yourself, do for yourself, and rely on yourself. The most heinous crime you can commit in Christian never-never land is to grow up.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

This is why Christians built libraries, spread literacy, and built universities and copied the works of the pagans as well. If anyone doesn’t seem to think for themselves, it’s Johnson who just repeats regular atheist slogans. He has simply gone from believing Christian claims uncritically to believing skeptical claims uncritically.

Christians don’t know what is right in any given situation. They are incapable of thinking morally for themselves. They must consult god. Like children, they must mindlessly obey, not think for themselves.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Johnson reveals himself more than he does Christianity. This is modern pop Christianity. It’s not based in Scripture. There’s nothing wrong with going to God and asking for wisdom. I don’t see anything asking Him to tell us what to do. I don’t see anything asking him to give us signs. He gave us wisdom and we are to use it. There’s also nothing wrong with going to wise friends and receiving counsel, but in the end, you must make the decision.

The Christian can never take credit for any good thing they do. They can never feel the slightest bit of pride in their own accomplishments. That is because they are led to believe that they can accomplish nothing without god.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Which is another problem. There is nothing wrong with celebrating your accomplishments. There is a problem if you get a big head from it. It is a false humility when you do something great and say “It wasn’t me. It was the Lord.” You were the instrument the Lord used. Why not delight in that and be thankful?

A relationship with god is a relationship on your knees, apologizing for all the bad things you have done, and taking the blame for things that are not your fault.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

If you read this chapter, you will learn little about Christianity and much about Johnson. If this was his Christianity, I don’t blame him for leaving it. I just would that he would not have thrown out the baby with the bathwater.

He then looks at the prayer in John 14 with “Ask me anything in my name and I will do it” and reads it as a blank check saying anyone four years old knows this doesn’t work.

All of the excuses can be lumped into two categories: You are a sinner, and You did it wrong. These are impossible barriers to overcome. As the Bible describes it, of course we’re sinners. We never really stop being sinners. If prayer doesn’t work for you, that means you have some unreported sin in your life holding you back. It is not possible to be in any other state.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Again, what kind of Christianity did Johnson grow up with? Could it just be that God says no? After all, Jesus prayed for another way and there wasn’t one. Was there unrepented sin in his life? Not at all.

In order to hear his voice, we have to listen carefully for it. In order to experience his presence, we have to empty ourselves. It is hard work to live in the Christian reality. Regular reality (otherwise known as reality) is much easier to access. You don’t need to listen for still, small voices.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Christians. Please hear this. This is a methodology that is not taught in Scripture and yet we have treated it as foundational. It does more harm than good and leads to atheism like this.

Next time, we return to Sophie to hear how her testimony ends.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Book Plunge: Still Unbelievable Chapter 11

What is faith? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

There were times doing this chapter where I was thinking “They’re almost there. They’re about to get it right.” Then the authors would, as if thinking they might get too close to something actually accurate, would pull back and go for the standard ideology in atheism.

So let’s see what all they have to say.

So, when we read books like Unbelievable? or any book making a persuasive case for a world view, we should necessarily ask to what degree the author or authors is asking us to take on faith the views offered, and we should also ask what kind of faith is being promoted. Are we being asked to accept the claims based on equal evidence, or are we being asked to cover some lack of knowledge by simply having faith?

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

I don’t really have a problem with this. I also think it applies to this book as well. As you have hopefully seen by now, this book does not make a persuasive case. The best chapters are by Skydive Phil and Ed Atkinson as they seem to actually research what they disagree with to some extent. The others do not.

For Christians, they go on to say:

Here, the idea is that there is some amount of empirical confidence that a Christian can have and the remainder is covered by faith.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

I will try to put this in a better light. There are some things that can be known with certainty. These are things that can be known deductively from logical syllogisms that have a sound form and true premises. This definitely includes mathematics. There are some that are believed, but not known with certainty. Some are ridiculous to deny, such as Jesus dying by crucifixion or Abraham Lincoln being assassinated. Still, insofar as you have to believe something you can’t know with certainty, there is faith involved. Faith often entails an element of risk as well. You cannot know the plane will get you there safely, but you have faith it will and normally, that is well-founded.

What they will sometimes dispute is the definition of faith. We are not suggesting that there is an absolute definition of faith on which everyone must agree. But we must come to some consensus on what the bible means by faith when its writers use the word. We might also consider the fact that different writers might have used the word differently in different places.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

The latter part is definitely true. We need to know what the Biblical writers mean when they used the word faith. Like I said, I started having hope sometimes that the writers might get it right.

A better way to understand the kind of faith to which James is referring is actionable trust. It is not merely agreeing with a claim. It requires taking some type of action as a result of that agreement. I can’t just say that I believe that the poor should be provided the needs they cannot provide for themselves. But the kind of faith James writes about requires that I not only believe that, but become an active participant in taking care of those needs.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Okay. This is promising. Keep going. Keep realizing faith is not just a belief statement, but also entails acting properly on the knowledge one possesses.

In the same category, inviting someone to our church is not an act of faith. That is no more an act of faith than is inviting someone to your school play. One is hard-pressed to come up with anything the average Christian does on a semi-regular basis that would constitute a genuine demonstration of actionable faith. In a place like the US, taking a strong faith-based position on an important issue is still not an act of faith. The majority of the US population claims to be either Christian or god-believing. Here, you are viewed with suspicion if you don’t have some type of openly faith-based orientation. So stepping out on a stage and saying controversial things in the name of your religious faith is not a risk. In fact, it is the best way to get your crazy idea a serious hearing. It is a good tactic even for people without faith.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

I get what they’re saying, but I think going out on a stage and saying Christian beliefs is a risk today. If a famous person says they’re a Christian, they’d better be prepared. Go out in public and say you disagree with the LGBTQ squad and see what happens.

I think if we really want to understand faith as it refers to religious commitment, we have to go to the bible and see what it means there. I will start with the closest thing we can get to a definition of religious faith in the bible: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Heb. 11:1 I like the King James Version for this passage because it uses two words that play well with secularists: substance and evidence. We understand substance. That is the stuff of the universe. We understand evidence because that is the proof of a theory. You see, Christianity is substantial. And it has plenty of evidence. But a closer look explodes that notion. The real words to watch in the verse are things hoped for, and things not seen. Your hopes are only as substantive as your faith. And unseen things are backed only by the evidence of faith. It is the confidence that your hopes will be met, and the assurance that invisible things are real.  The Christian hope is entirely in the insubstantial, invisible realm that offers no proof outside of faith. The chapter goes on to call out one example after another of people who showed confidence in the face of uncertainty.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

And here it starts to go downhill. The writers don’t bother to look up any lexicons or anything to try to understand the word. I happen to regularly use my article on what faith is due to the common misunderstanding.

When it comes down to it, I believe this is the only definition of faith that matters. It is confidence in the absence of tangible proof.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

If this was the case though, then the writers need to admit everyone is a person of faith. A huge amount of what we believe comes by authority. However, a lack of proof does not mean we don’t have a lot of evidence. Court cases are not settled by which side proves their case but which side best explains the data.

Then the writers go to John 20 and doubting Thomas and say this:

Thomas believed because he saw. But the greater blessing is reserved for those who believe without seeing. Jesus was not fond of evidence. He preferred faith from his followers: the kind that did not involve seeing convincing evidence.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

If Jesus was not fond of evidence, why did He do miracles? Why in Acts did He do many proofs? Why did He show Himself to His disciples at all? The writers have created a straw man here. Thomas’s fault was not asking for evidence. It was rejecting the evidence he already had.

They then think they have found a verse from Paul that tells what faith is:

It is blind faith.  Paul says it as a matter of fact: We live by what we believe, not by what we can see. 2 Cor. 5:7

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Paul is not here talking about how we make a case and evaluate evidence. He is saying that when we see ourselves suffering the aches and pains of mortal life and fear death coming, we have trust in Jesus that He will provide for us in death and take us to be with Him. Our eyes may tell us that our end has come, but Jesus tells us it has not.

Note that Paul is also the one who appeals to the Galatians to what they saw with their own eyes. Hardly someone who thinks that across the board you deny what you see. But hey, since when does biblical context matter to these guys?

Peter Boghossian, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Portland State University, defines faith as pretending to know things you don’t know. Christians do not react positively to Boghossian when he defines faith in these terms. It is easy to see why. It combines the worst implications of blind faith with an intent to deceive. At the very least, it implies self-deception. It is both definition and accusation.  Boghossian cuts to the heart of why Christians do not like to be painted with the brush of blind faith. It would actually require Christians to admit to all the things they don’t know, but espouse with the confidence of those who do. To take it a step further, is it not an act of dishonesty to promote a thing as true with more confidence than the evidence permits.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Imagine if I said this. “Christian author XYZ made a convincing case that atheism is just an excuse to engage in sexual immorality. Atheists don’t like to hear this and be painted with this brush. It would require them to admit they don’t have rational reasons for what they believe. To take it a step further, atheists care for indulging their pleasures more than they do for truth.”

Now it could be that some Christian has made that argument out there somewhere. If they do, I disagree. Are there some atheists that mainly hold to atheism to allow them to do what they want? I am sure there are. Are there a lot of Christians that really do have a blind faith? Yep.

Yet the reason I object to Boghossian is a simple one. His claim wasn’t true. Writers like the ones we have here never seem to consider that notion and say Christians react as if it means that it is true. By this standard, if I say the above and an atheist reacts, then I can say “See? That proves it’s right.”

As we get closer to the end, in a statement of irony, the authors say:

We become hardened to our conclusion and lose the ability to give contrary arguments a fair hearing. We become so invested in the belief that it ceases to be a mere true/false proposition. It becomes something more – a part of our identity without which we would no longer know who we are or how to live our lives.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Unfortunately, this matches atheists I meet more than Christians. I have Christian friends who love to read atheist books. When I interact with atheists, the overwhelming majority would rather commit ritual suicide than read a book they disagree with.

There is a war between faith and the forces of reason, evidence, and science. Many Christians want to deny it. They want to be seen as reasonable people with a faith based on evidence and backed by science. But faith is antagonistic with, and even antonymous to those concepts.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

And this will be the last point I cover in this chapter, but no. The first Christians were scientists and saw no problem. There is none today. It is doubtful that either of these authors have ever read Plantinga’s Where the Conflict Really Lies or Tim O’Neill’s articles or even books such as Newton’s Apple, Galileo Goes to Jail, and other such books.

Okay. Looks like there’s one more chapter and then the conclusion. What do we have coming?

Chapter Twelve Choosing to Live in Reality David Johnson

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

…….

Saying this will be awful is not a faith proposition definitely. It’s a knowledge proposition.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

 

 

 

Book Plunge: Still Unbelievable Part 12

Is there such a thing as necessary evil? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Once again, David Johnson is back, unfortunately. Let’s see how this one goes.

You can suffer without any evil being done. It can simply be the consequence of living in this world. Before sin, suffering was possible. Presumably, falling down a hill would have still left a mark. On the other hand, evil can be done without anyone suffering. One only needs to displease god by acting against his desire. It might make you happy, and benefit people around you. But to god, it is still evil, and must be punished.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

The problem I see here is there is no clear explanation of what is suffering and what is evil. What is the difference? If all suffering is not an evil, then how can you tell which is which? As I often say when it comes to good and evil, atheists never seem to define their terms.

Johnson says we can have ethics without God. No explanation is given for this. Could we have systems we agree to live by? Sure. (Granted though I don’t think anything could be without God so this is a huge hypothetical) Would they be true systems? On what grounds?

Since evil is both cause and result of sin, it also can’t exist without god. This bears repeating: By Christian formulation, there can be no sin and evil without god.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Well since there couldn’t be anything in existence without God, then yes. The difference is God did not actualize evil. He did not create the reality. He left it a possibility for us and for the angels, but He didn’t make it real.

I wonder if the Kalam Cosmological Argument applies here. Did evil have a beginning? Or was it always in existence? It is a problem for the Christian either way. If evil had a beginning, then it must have the same beginner as all things with a beginning: god. It does not work to say that one of god’s creatures created evil. One wonders how such a thing would even be possible. A creation might choose evil. But evil would already have to exist for it to be a choice. The other option is to say that evil is as old as god. It is as eternal as good. Can there be good without evil? Can morality be represented by a one-sided coin? If good is the only option, then in what way is it good. Evil is a necessary opposite. Some Christians argue that we can’t know a straight line unless we know what a crooked line is to which we can compare it. If that were the case, then god could not have been always good unless there was always evil for comparison.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Johnson has really mastered the art of muddled thinking. On the first, what does it mean something has to exist to be chosen exactly? Does the future exist to Johnson such that I am choosing it? Johnson is treating evil as if it has a real substance on its own, when Christian thinking has always argued against this and said evil is the absence of good or choosing a lesser good over a greater good.

As for the line about a crooked and straight line, you would think Johnson would go back and look at the most likely source of this quote, C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, to see what he said.

“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such a violent reaction against it?… Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if i did that, then my argument against God collapsed too–for the argument depended on saying the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies. Thus, in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist – in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless – I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality – namely my idea of justice – was full of sense. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never have known it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.”

Lewis argues the exact opposite way Johnson says Christians argue. I only know that something is wrong, because I know there is some idea of what is right.

As we go on, Johnson does get predictable with one Scriptural citation:

That is because god is not only the personification of good, but of perfection. Yet in Isaiah 45:7, god takes responsibility for evil by saying that it is he who creates darkness and disaster.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

I have answered that here.

But Christians tell us that god is perfectly good without the option of evil. He does not avoid doing evil. He cannot do evil. That is very different. Evil is not even an option for the one who is the personification of perfect good. So why would evil be an option for his offsprings? The Christian would say that it is so we could freely choose to love him. But that also makes no sense. God is in some kind of love relationship within the triune godhead: the father, son, and spirit. They all choose to love one another without the possibility of evil hanging over them. So we shouldn’t need it to choose love either.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

hmmmm. Let me think about this for half a second.

How about we’re not God? Could that be it? We are not perfect beings who lack nothing. We are limited creatures. God is not limited. God is not in time and does not make choices like we do.

This theodicy of choice is also utterly defeated by the doctrine of heaven. There, we will be like god, perfectly good without the possibility of evil. Yet we will still have our free will intact. Choice offers us no excuse for god allowing the possibility of evil.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Except Heaven is the result of choices. Those who are there are there by choice and are now in a place where they will eternally freely choose the good based on seeing the blessed presence of God. That is not forced. It is chosen.

Not too much later in this chapter, Johnson says:

We have thoroughly explored all the Christian claims that exonerate god for the presence of evil.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Imagine if I wrote about 30 page in a book, and I doubt that this chapter is that long, and I was arguing against position X, be it evolution, Arianism, dispensationalism, old-Earth creationism, anything, and saying “We have thoroughly explored all the claims used to defend this position.”

Yet Johnson thinks he has done this, and without citing ANY scholars that disagree! Amazing!

It is only a rhetorical device to say that god is all good with no possibility of evil.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Again, there is no interaction with church history at this point. Aquinas wrote on this issue, for example You can read that here. Too many atheists seem to raise what they think is an objection, and just stop right there.

In speaking about Eden, Johnson says:

God gave them an order that they couldn’t have possibly understood, or fathomed the consequences. The forbidden fruit imparted the knowledge of good and evil. That means they went out into the world with no real ability to sort right and wrong. They didn’t have the knowledge of good and evil.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Good and evil is a merism. It refers to wisdom in this case. What Adam and Eve were being tempted with was making themselves the center of wisdom.

Everything after here I have already addressed multiple times, but for now, let’s see what’s coming up next. Ah. A chapter on faith and what it is. This should be a train wreck. Who is behind this?

Chapter Eleven Faith: All the Way Down David Johnson Andrew Knight Michael Brady

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Well, after this chapter, I guess we can say that some suffering is self-inflicted.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

 

 

Book Plunge: Still Unbelievable Part 11

What about spiritual warfare? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Why oh why did these people give David Johnson so many chapters to write?

Let’s get into it:

For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against persons without bodies—the evil rulers of the unseen world, those mighty satanic beings and great evil princes of darkness who rule this world; and against huge numbers of wicked spirits in the spirit world. Eph. 6:12 This passage reads like something out of a dystopian fantasy, or the manifesto of a crazy person. It does not read like something well-adjusted people should take seriously. Christians take this both seriously and literally.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

I’m not sure what he means by both seriously and literally. It’s nice to see that he thinks people who are well-adjusted will not take this seriously. In all fairness, I don’t really take Johnson seriously either. Is this really any different from a lot of political language that we can often see from both sides in speaking about the evils of the other side? Not really.

Yet let’s see if Johnson can show that this is all nonsense talk and there is no spiritual warfare going on.

So the first tactic Johnson asks is “Why is the war still going on? Why isn’t the devil defeated already?”

In concluding it, he says:

If god is omnipotent, there is no war. If there is a war, then god is not all powerful. He is limited. The devastating consequences of that idea render the Christian faith position irrecoverable. A limited god is indistinguishable from a powerless one. And a powerless god cannot be trusted to save anyone, not even himself.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Now with my Preterist eschatology, I say for the most part, the devil has been defeated. Why did God wait so long to do it? I think the plan of salvation somehow requires that Jesus be the one to go toe to toe with him and defeat him. Can Johnson show I am wrong? Doubtful. If he cannot, then as long as my case is possible, then Johnson’s case is not demonstrated. If Johnson can show I am wrong somehow, he still has to show there is no good reason whatsoever. Good luck with that one. Remember, he is making the claim so he has the burden of proof.

Why does God just not end things now? For some reason, He wants more people and people only last for a limited time this side of eternity. He wants to get a great multiplicity of people into the kingdom. Again, that’s my answer. It’s up to Johnson to show it is wrong.

On the side of the angels will be Jesus leading the fight as general. He will overtake the strongholds of the god of this world, and physically occupy a physical throne for a literal thousand years. It will be the apocalypse. And for many, it can’t come soon enough.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Apparently, Johnson only knows one kind of eschatology. He does say some Christians hold this view, but he doesn’t take on any other positions. If he wants to knock down this one, go right ahead, though I think most any able dispensationalist even could take Johnson down on this.

Beyond a few passages in a book written by people who believed animals used to talk, what evidence do we have that such a war is raging just behind the scenes, or anywhere else? I have never had a Christian provide me an answer when asked. Let’s see if I can help them out:

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

This is another snide remark that Johnson makes thinking it’s a major dig. It’s not. He needs to show that Jews did believe that animals used to talk. Pointing to one serpent in the garden and what would be a miraculous occurrence of a talking donkey is not sufficient.

He then talks about “You shall know them by their fruit.”

Before progressing, I need to pull out a part of this quote for closer examination: A variety that produces delicious fruit never produces an inedible kind. And a tree producing an inedible kind can’t produce what is good. This is not only wrong, but completely wrong. Not every apple on a tree is good. One bad apple does not constitute a bad tree. But it is most wrong when it comes to people. Just because a person does some good things, that does not make them a good person who can do no wrong. And just because a person does some bad things, that does not make them a bad person who can do no good. The very idea is dangerously absurd.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Jesus is speaking to people far more agricultural than Johnson and I are. They know this. Most of us on Planet Earth know that this means that generally, good trees produce good fruit and bad trees produce bad fruit. That Johnson thinks this is a gotcha shows the kind of bad argumentation he has.

There really isn’t much more to be said that hasn’t been said before. Next time, we’ll cover chapter 10. Hopefully, it will be better and….

Chapter Ten Necessary Evil David Johnson

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

……

Why did I get myself into this?

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)