Is there a case from suffering? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
When we go through this chapter, as per the last chapter from Skydive Phil, I will not be responding to scientific matters seeing as I am not a scientist. There are others who are who can handle that. It is the philosophical and theological matters that interest me. Let’s look at this first point Phil has:
Justin’s first point is the theist has many arguments, the cosmological, the fine tuning, the moral etc. and he suggests the atheist has just this one argument (i.e. the problem of suffering) on their side. So weighing the two sides, the theist comes out on top. Of course this is only true if the theists’ arguments are valid. If they are not, then this is irrelevant. You can have as many bad arguments as you like, they don’t add up to one good argument.
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 true, but I have found that the authors of this book do not understand a lot of the arguments and do not touch the Thomistic arguments. Thus, I contend I still have several excellent arguments. Phil is also not denying the claim that atheists have one big argument, that of evil.
From here, Phil goes on to talk about morality:
Suppose that morality is subjective and not objective. That would still not stop someone from making statements about moral right or wrong. We can still say a painting is beautiful, even if beauty is subjective. We don’t need objectivity to make reasonable statements, especially if people share our aesthetic instincts. Similarly if people share the same moral instincts (and they do), we can find common ground. Justin writes in very black and white terms as if moral questions are binary, either purely subjective and anything goes, or purely objective. “Anything less than an objective standard makes our moral beliefs a matter of opinion and feelings”. But why should we think this?
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.
So morality is subjective and we can still make statements? If morality is subjective, we are not saying anything about objective reality. We are saying something about our personal preferences and just saying “Other people agree with my personal preferences” doesn’t mean those preferences are right. For instance, if we went back to the Roman Empire, everyone had the “personal preference” that slavery was just fine. Would Phil like to say that back then, slavery was moral?
It’s interesting that right after this he says he found Robert Nozick’s case for vegetarianism convincing. If there is no objective morality, then upon what can such a case be made? Nozick is just stating his personal feelings. In what way could anyone deny that? “I feel like eating mean is wrong.” “No you don’t! You feel like it’s just fine!” The atheist can deny that God exists, but he cannot deny that I think that God exists.
Another confusing statement from Phil is the following:
Literature can also have truthful statements, so the claim that science is the only way to truth is false. ‘The Emperor is the villain in Star Wars’ is a true statement, but not in the same way as ‘The Earth is smaller than the Sun’.
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 am glad he doesn’t hold to scientism, but what does he mean he mean these statements aren’t true in the same way? He doesn’t explain. Both of them are true. It’s not that the Earth is smaller than the sun is more true than the emperor is the villain in Star Wars. They are different fields of truth and we could say one is more important than the other, but they are both true.
Being objective usually refers to depending on something outside of mind, and since God has a mind, it just pushes the problem out further: if morality comes from God, then it is not necessarily objective. To counter this, theists claim that God simply is good. But this is pure assertion. When I think of something that is purely objective, I think of something a machine could measure.
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, people like Aquinas and others for centuries made a case apart from Scripture that God is good that they got straight from Aristotelian thinking. Phil doesn’t touch these cases at all. He doesn’t bother to define goodness.
Also, none of this can be measured by a machine, so per Phil’s standard, how can it be objective? How would you measure goodness using a machine? How would you measure beauty? How would you measure the idea that all objectivity can be measured by a machine?
My moral instincts told me this was wrong. And here comes the problem for Justin’s argument: If my moral instincts come from God, why do they tell me God is immoral? Justin claims we know objectively that rape is wrong. OK, so why shouldn’t we also say objectively that killing every first-born Egyptian is also wrong?
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.
Because moral instincts are not infallible. This was also something taught for thousands of years. There are some beliefs that Christian thinkers said you can’t not know, in the language of Budziszewski. However, there are some beliefs that you can be mistaken about that are moral.
Also, saying the killing of the firstborn is wrong assumes that God is again, Superman. He’s a big man who is on the same moral plane as we are and has to obey a moral law. He’s not. God does not owe anyone life and can take it whenever He wants to.
Have you noticed that when theists try to convince us of the existence of moral facts, they always use cases such as torture or rape, but never genocide? Surely if there is such a thing as moral facts, genocide is chief among them. And this leads to a contradiction: God commands genocide in the bible, so he must not be the source of our morality. When God asks Abraham to kill his own son as a sacrifice, is this not torture? Ask how you might view a person who forced someone to go through a mock execution of their own child (keep in mind they don’t know it’s not going to happen). Would they be guilty of psychological torture? I certainly think so and the International Red Cross rule #90, forbidding torture and degrading treatment, seems to agree.
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.
There is no interaction with Copan and Flannagan obviously. As for Abraham and Isaac, Isaac was at least a strong teenager by then. Does anyone think he could be taken down by a 100 year-old man? Isaac is shown as a willing sacrifice. Life in the ancient world was a lot tougher than it was for us today. Everyday was about survival.
But God is supposed to be able to predict the future with 100% certainty, so it’s hard to see how free will is consistent with God’s foreknowledge.
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. Let’s try a simple idea. God knowing what I would freely choose does not mean that God causes me to choose that. For instance, I did not watch the Super Bowl. Suppose you did and you watched it multiple times because you loved it so much for some reason and you ask me to watch it with you. You know everything that will happen, but it doesn’t mean that you caused it.
In the New Testament we learn that all sins are forgivable except one: Matthew 3 28 Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: 29 But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation: 30 Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit. So we have a God that can forgive murder, torture, rape or even genocide but not blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. Does this really look like a God that favors free will so much that he reluctantly accepts terrible human and animal suffering? I think it’s clear this argument is extremely implausible.
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 reason blasphemy against the Spirit is not forgiven is because it is a lifelong sin in that someone refuses to believe the Spirit. If you do not believe, you cannot be forgiven. It is not a one-time deal. It is something done forever.
1 Samuel 15 is cited as an example of genocide but added with “Why did the animals suffer?” What is assumed is that this is wrong, but he doesn’t tell us why. I am not supporting going out and wanton killing animals, but not all of it is wrong. If hunters didn’t kill the deer population to some extent, for instance, there would be more deaths from traffic accidents involving deer. In this case, the people were not to profit from a holy war at all.
If Jesus is God, does it really make sense for him to ask why he himself has abandoned himself? If Jesus doesn’t know the future how is he able to make predictions and do miracles? It seems he has God’s properties when it’s convenient for the Christian.
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.
Hint. If you are going to argue against the Trinity, try to learn about it first. This is like the anti-evolutionist asking “If people came from apes, why are there still apes?” It has been a traditional Christian position that Jesus gave up access to a lot of His divine attributes except for when they were necessary to His mission.
Next time, we will deal again with David Johnson talking about miracles.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
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