Category: Morality

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Chapter 6

Does God go too far? Let’s plunge into the Deeper  Waters and find out.

In this chapter, Christopher tells us about how God goes too far sometimes in His judgment. Surely, I’m exaggerating that. Right?

If only I was.

God destroys in wrath, but God also repeatedly repents of his wrath. God changes his mind about his methods and decisions. Sometimes this takes the form of realizing after the fact that punishment has gone too far.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 91). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

So we have then a story of a God who gets angry and then brings about destruction and then says “oopsie. I went too far that time.”

Excuse me. Why should I trust this god with anything? This doesn’t come across as the loving god that the Hayses want us to believe in. This comes across as a flippant god who will fly off on a whim and then want to say at the end, “Hey. A few lives lost. No harm done. Right?”

The idea that God does not foresee and control everything, and feels pity and regret even concerning his past judgments, is troubling for some theological views, but if we take the Bible seriously, it is hard to deny.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 92). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

It’s nice to know that Christopher has declared with one sentence that thousands of years of theologians and scholars didn’t take the Bible seriously. Where would we be without his magnificent wisdom to guide us? It would be bad enough to say that all of them were wrong. I am to believe that the church fathers, the medieval writers, and the reformers who held to classical doctrines didn’t take the Bible seriously?

Christopher brings up Calvin, who apparently didn’t take the Bible seriously. Whether you are a full-fledged 5-point Calvinist or a total devotee of Arminius, most all would agree at least that love his doctrine or hate it, Calvin took the Bible seriously. So what did Calvin say?

Calvin goes on to explain that “the change of mind is to be taken figuratively,” like every instance in which God is described in human terms. These descriptions of God are “accommodated to our capacity so that we may understand it.”

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 95). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Which is a reasonable idea and what has been held for thousands of years. Unfortunately, it is also one Christopher doesn’t interact with. I remember when I was going through this book at first that I shared a quote on Facebook and someone said that the Bible says God doesn’t change His mind. Being humorous, I said “Well, maybe God changed His mind on if He changes His mind.” I thought it was funny.

And yet what do I soon see in the book itself?

All this tends to undermine the relevance of these statements. But in light of what we know about the Bible as a whole, it may be better to admit that there are indeed contrasting perspectives in dialogue with each other in the Bible. So if the Bible as a whole is the word of God, then perhaps we should say that God changes his mind about whether he changes his mind.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 96). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Just even thinking about this leads to nonsense. God changes His mind on if He changes His mind? Did He forget His past apparently and that He had changed His mind? Did He say “I don’t change my mind” and then say “Oh. I do change my mind here” and then say “Well, I have changed my mind and now state that I never change my mind.” Do you need a Tylenol yet?

In the end of this chapter then, Christopher has written about a god who he says shows mercy. Unfortunately, we cannot trust this mercy since he could change his mind for all we know. Maybe tomorrow he will change his mind and decide to thoroughly punish all people who claim he changed his mind and that also say he is LGBTQ friendly.

The Hayses are an example of what happens when you fail to take seriously the history of the text and the tradition it came out of.

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

 

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Chapter 5

Did God change His mind on war? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Christopher Hays says there is no better example of God changing His mind in the text than on looking at the way the Bible presents war.

So there’s a history here of war in Israel and then Christopher drops this on us:

Why would Isaiah have been concerned about a reaction against Cyrus? Perhaps because his anointing as king was a violation of the Mosaic law, which said: “you may indeed set over you a king whom the LORD your God will choose. One of your brothers you may set as king over you; you are not permitted to put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother” (Deut 17:15).10 That was the word of the Lord—but now the Lord has changed his mind.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 88). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

I must have missed that part when Cyrus sat on the throne of David in Jerusalem…

Largely, what is in this chapter is an emotional appeal. If God’s plan was for the salvation of these people, why would He go to war against them? Well for starters, He did. Second, God’s plan was for things to come in the fullness of time. That would include having to protect Israel from those who wished to destroy her as well.

At this, many will go to the New Testament, which Christopher does not do, which is fine since he is focusing on the Old Testament. I personally do not think the New Testament is meant to give us instructions on warfare and when it is right to go to war or not. Most of us will never be in that position. Here in America, only 45 different people have ever been president and had to make the decision to send us into war or not.

The New Testament is more written to the average every day person. We do not know what foreign policy advice Jesus or Paul or any of the apostles would have given to a king if need be. We do know what rank and file people were instructed to do, but even then, instructions to turn the other cheek were not given in response to life-threatening violence, but to personal insults, meaning to stop the cycle of retaliation.

Ultimately, something that needs to be pointed out is that if God could change His covenants like Christopher says He did with Cyrus, how could anyone trust Him for salvation? He made a covenant promise with Israel and then broke it on His own? Why should I not think He won’t do the same with me someday if God changes His mind? If God can change His mind on what marriage is, then maybe God will change His mind and say you can marry your minor cousin someday and hey, who could say otherwise?

Christopher’s god is one that I do not recognize. I am thankful the God of Scripture is not like that.

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

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Chapter 4

Was the Law not good? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Remember how last time I said it gets worse?

Prepare yourselves. Here it comes.

In the midst of this speech, God says that because of the people’s disobedience, “I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live. I defiled them through their very gifts, in their offering up all their firstborn, in order that I might horrify them, so that they might know that I am the LORD” (Ezek 20:25–26).

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 68). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

It has been my contention that for the Hayses to defend same-sex romantic relationships from the text, they will have to demean God and/or the text. This is a prime example. Christopher especially should know better. If he wants to say the law and statutes of God were not good, I think a guy named Paul would have something to say about that.

No. What is going on here is God is saying “You don’t want to live by my laws and statutes? Deal. Enjoy Babylon. See how you like their laws!”

And yet, it gets worse.

The implication probably isn’t immediately clear to those who don’t live by the Mosaic law, but God’s comment refers clearly to Exod 22:29b–30: “The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me. You shall do the same with your oxen and with your sheep: seven days it shall remain with its mother; on the eighth day you shall give it to me.” And how did they give oxen and sheep to God? By blood sacrifice—as Exodus 22:31 makes clear with its reference to eating meat.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 69). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

The problem is, Christopher didn’t tell you all of what Exodus 22:29 said. If he had, you would have seen right through this.

“Do not hold back offerings from your granaries or your vats.

“You must give me the firstborn of your sons.

This is about an offering of service more than anything else. It is certainly not human sacrifice! Even if we were unsure, it is best to read the text in a way of charity and the Israelites detested human sacrifice.

If the text has to be made to say this to justify what Christopher wants it to justify, then the mainstream reading is on good grounds.

He even takes this over to the story of Abraham and Isaac saying God doesn’t want human sacrifice, but wants people willing to sacrifice their children. Never mind the real historical context that this is seeing if Abraham trusts that Isaac will be the one who will fulfill the promise made.

The propagation of these Deuteronomic laws is generally associated with the reign of Josiah in the late seventh century BCE, which was also the time of the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah goes farther than the other texts; in one of the book’s divine speeches, God similarly recounts “all the evil of the people of Israel and the people of Judah that they did to provoke me to anger” (Jer 32:32), including, “They built the high places of Baal in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them, nor did it enter my mind that they should do this abomination, causing Judah to sin” (32:35). He doesn’t simply forbid the practice; he denies that God ever commanded it. This is irreconcilable with Ezekiel 20:25, which says God did command it.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 72). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Look at that paragraph very carefully.

According to Christopher Hays, in the Old Testament, God commanded human sacrifice.

And what does Christopher draw from this in the end?

The harmful effects of social pressures on LGBTQ youth can be measured in various ways, but one of the most stark, tragic, and comparable is their rate of suicides and suicide attempts. A recent study endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association reported that 20.1 percent of sexual minority teens reported attempting suicide in 2017—3.8 times the rate of heterosexual teens.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 74). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

If these people are willing to kill themselves like this, there is something deeper going on. He is really just engaging in emotional blackmail here and saying “If you do not affirm them the way they want to be affirmed, then they will kill themselves and it will be on your head.”

No. No, it isn’t.

If anything, I think what Christopher is doing is the unloving thing. He is enabling them in a path of destruction that will result not just in a temporary death, but an eternal one.

If he is also wrong on this, he will have to give an account before God, the one who he says commanded human sacrifice and gave laws to His people that were not good, why he did what he did.

My stance is made. I will stick with what Jews and Christians have always said about what the Bible says about LGBTQ relationships. He who marries the spirit of the age is destined to be a widow.

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

An Addendum on Andrew Handley

How could God kill 70,000? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

After yesterday’s piece on Andrew Handley, it occurred to me that I had left something out and something important. It was in his last entry on the piece saying that God had outrageous morals. Let’s see what he said.

We’ve seen commands for rape, religious genocide, the killing of children, and human sacrifice. What we haven’t seen are the burning of whores, a ban on crippled people, or the killing of 70,000 men. There are 136 words in this paragraph, and if we linked a verse on every single word, it wouldn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the acts committed either by God’s hand or under his command that would be considered immoral—or blatantly insane—by today’s standards. But that’s the thing, right? Today’s standards are held to a different moral code than the standards of the 800 years or so before the birth of Christ. But, then again, how does that make any sense?

Frater, Jamie. Listverse.com’s Epic Book of Mind-Boggling Top 10 Lists: Unbelievable Facts and Astounding Trivia on Movies, Music, Crime, Celebrities, History, and More (p. 543). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Here we have a condemnation of the killing done by God. Note that it is just assumed that God has to abide by a moral code, which I said yesterday was false. There is nothing God is subservient to. God is good and that goodness is His nature. He is what it means to be, to exist. (If you want more information on the meaning of good, I recommend getting Edward Feser’s Aquinas which is on sale on Kindle as of this writing.)

Now let’s compare this with another statistic. Abortion. See the information here.

If you look at that chart, the positive is abortions do seem to be going down. Why is that? There are a number of factors, but one I can easily think of is that Americans are becoming more and more pro-life, Those who kill their own children tend to have less children to raise with that belief. Those who believe children are sacred tend to have more children to raise with that believe. It’s why I think the problem with leftist ideology is it is often a snake eating its own tail.

Let’s put aside even the idea of abortions done for rape, incest, or saving the life of the mother. Regardless of where you stand on those, everyone should agree they are the minority. What this means is that most women are getting their abortions for other reasons and also, claiming it as a moral right.

Woman kills a life in her womb for her own personal reasons? A moral right we must defend.

God, the author and source of life who owes no one anything, takes the life that He provides and can resurrect even if He desires? A great evil that must be condemned.

Also, note that Handley ends this by saying it is repugnant to our morality. Okay, but who says our morality is the right one? Do we have some things right? Yes. Do we have some things wrong? Absolutely. This is true of EVERY time and place and culture. There is not one moral system that gets everything wrong.

Now as a Christian, I can say that morality has a goal of getting us to be good people and that there is a real and objective good. Yet if Handley takes a place of moral relativism, as he seems to in this piece, then there’s no such thing as the Bible having outrageous morals. They just have different ones. On moral relativism, there can be no grounds to really condemn them. You cannot like them, but you cannot call them wrong.

While I think Listverse does tend to try for accuracy, this list is one that was a failure across the board. Hint. If you’re going to study an ancient culture and people, you need to study the culture and the people themselves.

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

Why Did Listverse Let Andrew Handley Write On This?

Were these people in the Bible immoral? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I have been enjoying going through this book by Listverse. There are a lot of interesting claims in there I check up on to see what is going on with them. No doubt, a lot of writers have done excellent research.

Andrew Handley is not one of them.

Recently I read his list of 10 biblical characters with bad morals. Being a seminary student and someone who has spent decades studying the Bible, nothing he said surprised me. People with bad morals could be best read as “People who did things I don’t understand and/or like.”

So let’s see. The first one, not a shock, is Elisha. What does Handley say?

Here’s what happened: Elisha was walking into the city of Bethel when a group of kids ran out and started making fun of his bald head. It’s the only mention in the Bible that Elisha was bald, which is probably good, because the next thing Elisha did was curse the children to death. Immediately, two bears ran over and tore the kids to pieces. The most important—most Godly—prophet in the land brutally murdered 42 children because they laughed at him. He is now a venerated saint.

Frater, Jamie. Listverse.com’s Epic Book of Mind-Boggling Top 10 Lists: Unbelievable Facts and Astounding Trivia on Movies, Music, Crime, Celebrities, History, and More (p. 539). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Ha! What a wimp! Elisha couldn’t take some kids laughing at him because he was bald so he had 42 bears tear them to pieces!

Well, no.

First off, Elisha’s baldness was intentional. He shaved his head to demonstrate his life of consecration as a prophet to YHWH. Second, these weren’t kids. The word is used to refer to soldiers in the military also and likely, these were teenagers at least, and a crowd of at least 43, since it doesn’t say all were mauled, would be sufficient to be considered a threat. Third, go on up too, is saying that this is a generation telling the prophet that he should get lost like his master Elijah did, a reference that they don’t care about YHWH at all. Fourt, these kids weren’t torn to pieces. The bears in that area are Syrian Brown Bears and they weigh up to 550 pounds.

Next question. How do two bears that weigh that much hurt 42 people? Note. The text never says that they were torn to pieces. The word can refer to any number of injuries. Still, either a bear would have to move at supersonic speeds or else something else would happen.

Like the kids staying behind and fighting the bears. Why would they do that? Meat and honor both. Either way, the bears were powerful enough that 42 of the kids were injured, a good warning to a generation that could grow up denying God.

My ministry partner has two videos on this here.

Next up is the story of Jael. Who was she? She told the fleeing commander of the Canaanite army to come into her tent when he was on the run after being defeated by Israel in battle. One would have thought Jael would be an ally, but no. As he slept, she took a tent peg and ran it through his temple killing him on the spot. Never mind that Israel was the one being oppressed and Sisera was on the side of the oppressors.

Keep in mind that in Judges 5, a song is sang and an account is given picturing Sisera’s mother waiting for him to come back from battle.

28 “Through the window peered Sisera’s mother;
behind the lattice she cried out,
‘Why is his chariot so long in coming?
Why is the clatter of his chariots delayed?’
29 The wisest of her ladies answer her;
indeed, she keeps saying to herself,
30 ‘Are they not finding and dividing the spoils:
a woman or two for each man,

I want you to keep this in the back of your mind.

Next is David.

In 1 Samuel 27:8–11, David takes an army and invades several neighboring lands. The Bible doesn’t give any reason for him to do this, other than a side note that the people he killed were “of old the inhabitants of the land,” so it seems he was just wiping out the indigenous people. David’s army killed all the men and women in the towns he defeated, then carried all the livestock back to their own land, leaving the towns in ruin.

Frater, Jamie. Listverse.com’s Epic Book of Mind-Boggling Top 10 Lists: Unbelievable Facts and Astounding Trivia on Movies, Music, Crime, Celebrities, History, and More (p. 540). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Handley is one of these people who expects the Bible to spell everything out. An Israelite reader would know that these were the people who were hurting the people of Israel at the time and were their enemies. David was on the run and hiding in Philistia from Saul. He knew that if word got out about what he was doing, the king of Philistia would not take it well, so he left no one behind who would tell the king what David was really doing while he was there. He was still fighting the enemies of Israel.

But Handley doesn’t understand that and assumes these people must have just been peaceful people minding their own business and David was just a great big meanie.

Next is Samson who killed 30 Philistines just for their clothing. Handley tells us this is just short of the 35 people Ted Bundy killed and not even counting the 1,000 Samson kills later with a jawbone. Never mind of course that Philistia is the bad guy in this scenario and they are oppressing the people of Israel. Israel is wanting deliverance from them. Apparently, Handley thinks people suffering under those who are mistreating them should just shut up and take it.

What about Elijah? Well, he has that famous contest with the prophets on Mt. Carmel and ends up killing all of them.

Mean! Mean! Mean!

Except Israel was a theocracy at the time and leading people away from God is an act of treason in such a situation. These people were also in service of an evil king as well. Elijah is protecting the people so they can get back to the covenant. Israel is in an agreement with God that they will abide by the terms of the covenant or judgment will come on them. Those who are leading the people astray are guilty of treason. There was no separation of church and state.

Handley isn’t too happy about Elijah calling down fire to burn those who come after him later, but again, this is the same kind of scenario.

Jephthah is the sixth. We know the story. He allegedly sacrificed his daughter in the flames. Of course, it’s not that cut and dry. My ministry partner has the lowdown on that one again. You can see the first video here and a second response video here.

Jehu is the seventh and his crime? He killed a lot of the prophets of Baal. Again, this is a case of people leading Israel into treason, much like Elisha.

Eighth is Joshua and this is what Handley says:

What the story doesn’t tell is that this an isolated battle; Joshua was on a zealous tirade all across Israel. Here are five meaningless words: Libnah, Lachish, Eglon, Hebron, Debir. Each one of those is a city filled with people, which, according to Joshua Chapter 10, the army of Joshua completely devastated. He “utterly destroyed all that breathed.”

Frater, Jamie. Listverse.com’s Epic Book of Mind-Boggling Top 10 Lists: Unbelievable Facts and Astounding Trivia on Movies, Music, Crime, Celebrities, History, and More (p. 542). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

They were filled with people?

Too bad he never demonstrates that.

No. The story of Rahab tells us that it was known that the people were coming for decades. A city would be more likely a more fortified region where the hardiest of warriors would live. Women and children would easily flee before any combat started. Also, the language of battle is extremely hyperbolic. This was the way ancients wrote about their conquests.

Ninth is Moses. Why? Well, look at Numbers 31 where he left alive the women who had not slept with a man! Why would he do that? Oh yes! The men wanted to sleep with them!

The text never says that happened and that Handley jumps to that conclusion first tells you more about how he views women than how the text does. “Gosh! The women who were virgins were kept alive! Obviously it was for sex! What other reason could there be?!”

Um. Handley. Women who aren’t virgins can have sex too. In fact, they already have!

I have written about this here.

So why were the virgins spared? Because they were innocent! This is about what happened in Numbers 25 and the women had seduced the men of Israel into abandoning YHWH. The women spared were young children who would be taken into the Israelite community. Sex slavery was not allowed and Deuteronomic law said even if a man wanted to take a woman in combat to be his wife, he had to give her a 30 day mourning period so no, these guys weren’t getting it hot and heavy that evening.

Oh by the way, think back to Sisera.

Israel defeats a man who will be seen as dividing up the women for spoil among his men.

BAD!

Israel is dividing up women allegedly?

ALSO BAD!

So I guess Israel was supposed to do nothing about people doing that then. Right?

And wouldn’t you know it? The last on the list is God. God has outrageous morals.

No, Handley. God doesn’t have outrageous morals. He has no morals.

Come again?

Yeah. That’s what I said. God does not have morals in the sense that he has a code that is called morality that He has to follow. There is nothing that God “ought” to do. No one can come after God and say “Well, God. Were you a good boy today? Did you preserve justice today?”

That does not mean God is evil though. God is good. All moral behavior is good but not all good behavior is necessarily moral. After all, morality is doing what you ought. Acts that go above and beyond what you ought are good acts, but they are not moral in the sense that you are commanded to do them.

Now God takes a life. Okay. Question. Who does God owe life to? On what grounds could someone go to God and say “You had no right to take the life of XYZ?”

None.

Most of Listverse’s material has been good, but lists like this can really damage their reputation. I have emailed them once before about a list they got the facts wrong in, but it was ignored. Hopefully they will change this one.

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

 

Book Plunge: Irreligion — Pascal’s Wager

Should you take the bet? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

As it turns out, last night I was listening to Playing with Reality on Audible. The author started talking about Pascal and how he got into gambling as a hobby and then started looking at ways to predict outcomes. This became trying to predict the future. Probability theory began right here. Such an example also was Pascal’s Wager, an argument not really understood today.

Paulos writes about it:

1. We can choose to believe God exists, or we can choose not to so believe.
2. If we reject God and act accordingly, we risk everlasting agony and torment if He does exist (what statisticians call a Type I error) but enjoy fleeting earthly delights if He doesn’t.
3. If we accept God and act accordingly, we risk little if He doesn’t exist (what’s called a Type II error) but enjoy endless heavenly bliss if He does.
4. It’s in our self-interest to accept God’s existence.
5. Therefore God exists.

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (pp. 133-134). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

The problem Paulos sees is that this could be used for Islam or any other system.

Okay.

And?

People don’t bother to understand Pascal. Pascal is talking to those who are sitting on the fence between Christianity and unbelief. He is only including two positions because those are the two his audience in mind is wrestling with. He says “You’re already playing the game! Might as well bet on the side where you can at least win something!”

Is that an argument Christianity is true? No. Is it an argument for why you should become a Christian? Yes. Of course, he goes deeper than that addressing questions such as if this is fake and other such matters. If all you know about Pascal is just his wager, you really have no business talking about him.

In talking about God’s existing, Paulos goes on to say that:

But forget probability for the moment. Is it even clear what “God is” statements mean? Echoing Bill Clinton, I note that they depend on what the meaning of “is” is. Here, for example, are three possible meanings of “is” involving God: (1) God is complexity; (2) God is omniscient; (3) there is a God. The first “is” is the “is” of identity; it’s symbolized by G = C. The second “is” is the “is” of predication; G has the property omniscience, symbolized by O(G). The third “is” is existential; there is, or there exists, an entity that is God-like, symbolized by ∃xG(x). (It’s not hard to equivocally move back and forth between these meanings of “is” to arrive at quite dubious conclusions. For example, from “God is love,” “Love is blind,” and “My father’s brother is blind,” we might conclude, “There is a God, and he is my uncle.”)

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 136). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

With the final syllogism, it has four terms so it’s invalid right at the start. Let’s still be generous.

God is love.
Love is blind.
God is blind.

This could work, but we have to ask what is love in each sense. The modern phrase means something very different from the biblical usage.

Love is blind.
My father’s uncle is blind.
My father’s uncle is love.

This time, the fallacy is in the form of the argument. Imagine if I said:

Dogs have four legs.
Shiro has four legs.
Shiro is a dog.

He would beg to differ!

On top of that, the real tragedy is that Paulos asks a great question. What does a “God is” statement mean? Unfortunately, he doesn’t explore that question at all. He just throws it out and ignores it.

He then goes on to say that:

The connections among morality, prudence, and religion are complicated and beyond my concerns here. I would like to counter, however, the claim regularly made by religious people that atheists and agnostics are somehow less moral or law-abiding than they. There is absolutely no evidence for this, and I suspect whatever average difference there is along the nebulous dimension of morality has the opposite algebraic sign.

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 139). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

Personally, I don’t know people making this claim. That being said, Tom Holland in his Dominion has argued that this is also because we still have a background Christianity. I contend that the further we move away from that, the worse we are going to get. He also cites Japan as an atheistic country as a counter-example, when it is much more complicated than he presents.

There really isn’t much here. He still gives no grounding for goodness whatsoever and he doesn’t bother to understand what he is talking about. Also, considering what he’s said earlier in this book, I don’t think Paulos is the one to talk to us about how to be moral.

Next time, we’ll see what he has to say about “Brights!”

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

Book Plunge: Irreligion — Morality

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

Since I have been skipping some chapters, it’s now easier to just go by what the subject is. It’s about time Paulos got to the question of morality. As for me, I see morality as a subset of goodness in that in order for the idea of the moral to exist, the good of which it is a part has to exist first.

At any rate, let’s get to it.

1. Across cultures the similarities in what’s considered right or wrong are strikingly apparent.

2. The best explanation for these similarities is that they stem from God.

3. Therefore God exists.

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (pp. 122-123). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

This isn’t exactly how I would phrase it. I would simply say that if God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist. That is because goodness would not exist as goodness is an immaterial reality and not a material one.

Count on Paulos to think he can easily deal with the first two claims. Let’s see how he does.

Of course, proponents of the argument don’t say much about the blasphemers, disobedient sons, homosexuals, Sabbath workers, and others who, the Bible demands, should be stoned to death. Happily, even most believers today don’t believe this. Nor do they expatiate on the similarities of the draconian constraints on women—single, married, or widowed—sanctioned by Christian, Muslim, and Hindu theology. The general point is that, contrary to Assumption 1, the similarity of moral codes across cultures is either somewhat dubious except on the broadest level—murder, theft, child care, basic honesty—or else not something proponents wish to herald. Assumption 2 is even weaker than Assumption 1. There is a compelling and irreligious alternative to it: an evolutionary explanation for the similarity of moral codes. Humans, even before they were humans, have always had to deal with a set of basic requirements. How will they get food, keep warm, protect themselves from predators and other humans, mate, and reproduce? Any group that doesn’t meet these basic requirements doesn’t last long.

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (pp. 123-124). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

The first paragraph is just an appeal to emotion and saying “These people did stuff I don’t like.” What of it? You can only complain about that if objective moral values exist. If they don’t exist, there’s nothing fine with celebrating same-sex attracted people or stoning them to death. Both of those just are.

For the second, Paulos is confusing ontology with epistemology. I could grant him entirely that we came to know moral truths through an evolutionary system and yet the question is not how do we know morality, but how is there a morality to know. For evolution to get us to know truths, those truths have to exist prior to evolution. If all he says is “These work” then we have to ask “For what end?” which assumes that that end is good.

If He chose the laws capriciously, then it makes little sense to say that God is good, since He arbitrarily concocted the very notion of the good Himself. On the other hand, if God chose the laws He did because they are the correct ones and encapsulate the good, then their correctness and the good are independent notions that don’t require God. Furthermore, He is presumably Himself subject to the preexisting moral laws, in which case there’s once again little reason to introduce Him as an intermediary between the moral laws and humans.

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (pp. 124-125). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

Classical theism deals with all of this. We define good as that at which all things aim and God is the epitome of that, the ultimate actualization. Goodness is based on what a thing is. Without God, goodness has no meaning. Not only that, no. God is not subject to moral laws. That’s a nonsense claim.

Of course, don’t count on someone like Paulos to seriously study what he’s talking about. He might be too busy helping women trick men out of money.

He later can’t help another potshot when he says:

Throughout the world, for example, pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, is the same number, approximately 3.14 (except in the Bible, where inerrancy apparently extends to only one significant figure and it’s stated to be 3).

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 127). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

Last I checked, Purple Math is just simply a math site and yet, they dealt with this objection. Paulos is the guy who just looked up something and jumped up and down like he had found buried treasure. He is totally unaware that people have been examining these claims for thousands of years.

Next he deals with a similar argument about math. Why is it that math explains the universe when it would seem to be just ideas in our heads?

He says:

But is the usefulness of mathematics, although indubitable, really so mysterious? It seems to me that as with the argument from moral universality there is a quite compelling alternative explanation. Why is mathematics so useful? Well, we count, we measure, we employ basic logic, and these activities were stimulated by ubiquitous aspects of the physical world. Even such common experiences as standing up straight, pushing and pulling objects, and moving about in the world prepare us to form quasimathematical ideas and to internalize the associations among them.

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 129). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

And then says that:

The universe acts on us, we adapt to it, and the notions that we develop as a result, including the mathematical ones, are in a sense taught us by the universe. Evolution has selected those of our ancestors (both human and not) whose behavior and thought were consistent with the workings of the universe. The aforementioned French mathematician Henri Poincaré, who came within a hairbreadth of discovering special relativity, agreed. He wrote, “By natural selection our mind has adapted itself to the conditions of the external world. It has adopted the geometry most advantageous to the species or, in other words, the most convenient.” The usefulness of mathematics, it seems, is not so unreasonable.

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (pp. 131-132). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

But this is the exact same problem he has with morality. He confuses epistemology and ontology. Well, of course it works! We couldn’t do our measurements without it! No one is disputing that! We want to know why it works.

Tomorrow, he’s going to take a look at what he calls gambling in dealing with Pascal’s wager. Spoiler alert: He doesn’t understand it.

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

Book Plunge: Anarchy Evolution Chapter 9

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

In wrapping up this book, we are going to look at the afterdeath, which is what I prefer to call the afterlife seeing as one’s life never truly ends. That being said, at the start, Graffin says without the thought of an afterdeath, we would all act like spoiled infants. Kind of hard to deny that if you look at the world around you.

Unfortunately, I fear a lot of people will act worse if they have power as well. Look at the greatest atheist tyrants in history. No Heaven to gain or Hell to shun. No judgment to be given to them. Why should they care about anyone else?

Graffin says many naturalists care more about improving the world than theists do because theists are focused on the next one. The problem with this is history. Many of those people most focused on the next one, as Lewis said, made the most improvements here. They did so because Jesus taught them to change the world.

Graffin also says many religious people say without Heaven and Hell there is no incentive to live a good life. I would hope more of my fellow Christians would say we live a good one because Jesus commanded us to, but that is a further incentive. If naturalism is true, why should I be good if I can get away with otherwise? What does good even mean?

He also says none of us have a plan for our lives from an intelligent designer. If he means an individual will, I agree. He then says that because there is no designer, we can wake up each morning and say what’s done is done and what can I do today?

You can do that as a Christian.

In many ways, you should do that as a Christian. We should realize the old is gone and all things are new. We should realize the grace of forgiveness.

So now it’s time to wrap things up as this is how the chapter ends and overall, this has been a rare enjoyable book on atheism. Some chapters, like this one, are short because a lot of the material is also about Graffin’s own life. If you care about music, you will probably like that.

I also made sure to highlight for my studies in my PhD program I am hoping to get into the information about music and resonating that showed up in this chapter. Graffin says it is a delight to hear someone listen to music he did and call it “My song.” It’s amusing to hear of how sometimes he pulls up next to someone and he can hear them playing his music in their car.

As a writer, I consider it a great compliment to hear someone say that something I wrote touched them in a powerful way. I still remember having someone at a church I used to attend in Tennessee tell me how much he liked a sermon I gave. When I asked what he did in response he said “That’s why I’m teaching Sunday School now.”

So this is actually a book that’s worth reading in the atheist world. Definitely so if you have a keen interest in music.

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

Book Plunge: Anarchy Evolution Chapter 8

What does believing entail? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

A surprising statement in this chapter is that Graffin doesn’t like the word natural. He says that in a sense, everything is natural. There are some problems with such a statement. If we don’t know what natural means, what does it mean to say everything is natural? Second, if we don’t know what it means, how could we know that everything is natural? Finally, if you are equating natural with what is real, is that not begging the question?

This is also one reason I don’t speak of natural/supernatural. The terms are too vague. I prefer to speak of material and immaterial or extramaterial.

He also says he has a similar problem with God. If the word refers to something that is everything and everywhere, what purpose does the word serve? First off, the word would likely still have some meaning. Second, that’s pantheism, Patrick!

He then goes on to say that if God is something, it should be observable by everyone, examined, and shared by other people. If this is the standard, then several immaterial realities cannot be real. That would include triangularity, goodness, love, numbers, and even existence itself.

“But I see existence every day!”

No. You see things that exist just like you see good things and you see triangles, but you do not see existence, goodness, and triangularity.

Not too long after this, Graffin says the naturalist worldview says that everything is capable of being observed, experimented on, and understanding. Again then, none of those things I mentioned can exist on naturalism. That is the problem with it.

If there is no destiny, there is no design. There’s only life and death. My goal is to learn about life by living it, not by trying to figure out a cryptic plan that the Creator had in store for me.

Graffin, Greg; Olson, Steve. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (p. 214). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

This is a problem science has got under naturalism where it denies final causality in denying ultimate purpose. Get rid of final causality and science can’t exist. There has to be regular connection between A and B. I do agree that there is no cryptic will of God for our lives that we are to discover, which will be the subject of soon-to-come blogs.

Standing among those remnant populations, it is impossible not to conclude that we are somehow a part of all this. Some would call this a “spiritual connection”—the sense of being part of some larger web of life. Whatever you want to call it, the feeling is inescapable that we are living among the leftovers of a recent mass extinction. This realization is as emotionally moving to me as, I’m sure, the realization of God’s will was to my great-grandpa Zerr.

Graffin, Greg; Olson, Steve. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (p. 232). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

I find it fascinating that Graffin so often makes these statements in this book. He says earlier there is no destiny but just life and death, and then says this. It’s like he’s almost there but refuses to take that final look to see if there is something more. It’s tragic really.

In the last chapter, we’ll see what Graffin says about the after-death.

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

Book Plunge: Anarchy Evolution Chapter 7

Is there a place for faith? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Once again, it’s a relief to read Graffin in comparison to other atheists. Graffin does not speak down on faith entirely. There is a problem that he never defines it, but at least he’s not on a tirade like someone like Richard Dawkins is. He says there is a place for it.

So let’s start with this quote I found directly relevant to me:

Not everyone feels empathy to the same degree. On the one hand, some autistic people appear to be born with a neurological condition that severely limits their ability to appreciate the emotional state of other humans, despite having similar experiences. On the other hand, sociopaths either feel no empathy or have become so adept at suppressing it that they never bother to assume another’s perspective. And all of us can become so tired, frustrated, angry, or bored that we ignore our empathic impulses, even when doing so makes others and ourselves miserable.

Graffin, Greg; Olson, Steve. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (p. 184). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Speaking as one such person on the spectrum, it’s not that I do not care about other peoples’ emotional states. It’s that I cannot tell what those states are. If someone is silent around me when I think they should say something, I wonder if the problem is me or not. This is especially so when it comes to the opposite sex. I know other neurotypical men struggle with this, but I suspect much more with me. Is the girl flirting or is she just talking? If she speaks with me is that interest or not?

That being said, empathy is not a good basis for our relationships since people have different degrees of understanding and just because I can feel X with someone, it doesn’t mean that I am obligated to do anything. Not only this, this is a highly western way of thinking. This is not a Woke thing with saying Western Civilization is bad. Western Civilization is incredible. It’s saying that in Eastern honor-shame cultures, empathy wouldn’t have the same appeal. People would think not based on how the individual feels, but on the attitudes of the group at large.

Graffin goes on to say that Western religions base moral codes on analogizing human nature and then looking at superhuman figures, such as Jesus or for a lot of Catholics and Orthodox people, saints. (Not to say Protestants don’t have saintly role models as well.) I do not know what he means by analogizing human nature, but I contend he would be benefitted by reading a book on Christian ethics to see how we make our decisions.

In a surprising twist, he says that science is based on empathy. He says that it relies on a shared experience of the world. He then turns and says it is also the best basis for human ethics, which again does not work since many cultures actually have quite different experiences of how the world should work. How do we adjudicate between them? We have to point to something beyond them.

Many religious believers mischaracterize naturalists as people without faith, but that is absurd. Everyone must believe in something—it’s part of human nature. I have no problem acknowledging that I have beliefs, though they differ from more traditional kinds of faith. Naturalists must believe, first of all, that the world is understandable and that knowledge of the world can be obtained through observation, experimentation, and verification. Most scientists don’t think much about this point. They simply assume that it is true and get to work. But this assumption has relevance to people other than philosophers. When intelligent design creationists, for example, speak of replacing methodological naturalism in science classes with theistic naturalism, they are threatening to remove this assumption from the shared presuppositions of public discourse.

Graffin, Greg; Olson, Steve. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (p. 204). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

This is a surprising statement again, but yet a refreshing one. He is right in that science assumes that the material world exists and we can have knowledge of it. This is something they should consider. I am again unsure what he means by theistic naturalism.

He also says natural selection is not the main driving force of evolution. He says luck is actually a big part of it. He also says we cannot base our lives on the idea of saying “I am more fit than you, so I get to reproduce and you don’t.” The problem is, “Why not?” Graffin may say he doesn’t like that, but the person who thinks they are more fit could just say “Why should I care about what you like? I need to produce progeny!”

He also says we cannot judge people with respect to an arbitrary idea of what should be considered optimal, but from a naturalistic perspective, why not? It can be granted he would not like that. It is not granted that from his perspective, that is automatically wrong. Graffin has to give the reason why the person in power should care.

He then tells us that simply by existing in the human race, we all have a worth and a dignity that is inherent. Okay. Why? If all we are is matter in motion from a cosmic accident that will die in a universe that will cease to be, why should I think any life has inherent value? I agree that all human life has inherent value, but I do not think it can be supported in naturalism.

I don’t believe, for instance, that evolutionary biology or any scientific endeavor has much to say about the value of love. I’m sure a lot can be learned about the importance of hormones and their effects on our feelings. But do the bleak implications of evolution have any impact on the love I feel for my family? Do they make me more likely to break the law or flaunt society’s expectations of me? No. It simply does not follow that human relationships are meaningless just because we live in a godless universe subject to the natural laws of biology. Humans impart meaning and purpose to almost all aspects of life. This sense of meaning and purpose gives us a road map for how to live a good life.

Graffin, Greg; Olson, Steve. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (p. 206). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Why doesn’t it follow though? If Graffin’s worldview cannot explain love, it is a quite weak worldview. Humans can import meaning to loving relationships, but they could also just as easily import it to destructive ones. Who is to say someone would be wrong in doing so in naturalism? What is this good life Graffin speaks of? Again, there is no real in-depth look at the questions.

He lastly speaks of love in relationship to Allison, his now wife. Love requires a trust in that there is no 100% knowledge, though there can be good evidence. He describes love as a unique feeling. I contend love produces feelings, but it is not a feeling. It is an action that one does. Still, Graffin does speak of that trust as a form of faith, which again is refreshing.

Next time, we’ll talk about what it means to believe.

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