Tag: religion

The Importance of Wonder

Do we live in a society that values wonder today? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Several years ago, Josef Pieper argued that leisure was the basis for culture. He meant by this more than that we should go and have fun. He meant that we should be free to contemplate and appreciate reality and celebrate. In the later chapters, he especially emphasizes wonder.

Wonder is something our society has lost. We are told we need to live in the real world. We are told that some beliefs are often childish. Some people say “In a scientific age, how can anyone believe XYZ?”

He explains that science can in a sense explain everything about the material world. Philosophy, meanwhile, will never exhaust a single fly. It will always be asking questions, and this is not a downside. If anything, it puts science in a worse position because if you can explain everything about the universe, and if matter is all that there is, you hypothetically can, then what else is there.

Consider the question that came up in the Supreme Court nominee hearings a few years ago. What is a woman? Part of us laugh because the answer is so basic, and from a scientific perspective, it is. However, from a philosophical perspective, that is a deep question. One of the most profound questions you can ask about anything is what it is.

Wonder is the state when we are held in amazement by something. We realize that there is something greater than just the material composition of the thing in question. A young man can easily describe the body of his female lover, but he knows there is something greater before him than just her body.

In our age, it has become common to think that if you explain something scientifically, then that means there can be no otherworldly elements to it. However, Socrates, in a Peter Kreeft book where Socrates shows up at a modern college, is told the sun is not a god because we know it is a big ball of gas and fire. Socrates asks “How do we know that that is not what the god’s body is?” It could be that both are true. They’re not, but this is a hypothetical.

Dan Barker describes having his Christian brother drive with him and try to explain the wonder of the mountains. In response, Barker gives a scientific explanation of how mountains come to be. His brother says that he just has to ruin everything, but what kind of response is that? Could it be that yes, this is how mountains come to be, but yet there is still something wondrous about them?

I find one of the tragedies of Richard Dawkins is that he is truly a brilliant scientific writer. There is no sarcasm in that. When I have read some of his writings and he talks about science, it is a marvel. I find myself getting excited about the world of animals especially that he is describing. The problem is that he then wants to dispense of all these silly theistic ideas and then kills the very wonder that he has just described. As is said in An Atheist Defends Religion:

For religionists, therefore, the scientific worldview desacralizes nature, leaving it like a machine to be observed and manipulated, rather than an object of reverence as a creation of God. For this reason, the scientific response disappoints religious believers. Looking up to the night sky and feeling the immensity of existence is only the beginning of the religious quest for transcendence. For believers, wonder has to be met with oneness, a sense that the universe embraces them. But science does not provide a satisfactory way for believers to feel at home in the universe. That is why so many people turn to religion.

Sheiman, Bruce. An Atheist Defends Religion: Why Humanity Is Better Off with Religion than without It (p. 159). DK. Kindle Edition.

Now is this to say we need to dispense with the scientific enterprise? God forbid! It has done a marvelous benefit to mankind and MUST be kept up. The problem is if you make it ultimate, you will kill the wonder. We are meant to study and learn about the material universe, but the material universe is not the end. It is a pointer to something greater than itself. A finger is good for pointing to the moon, but woe to the man who mistakes a finger for the moon.

We should indeed scientifically study the fly, but let us never stop philosophizing about it either.

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

Book Plunge: In God We Doubt Conclusion

How shall we wrap this up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In these last two chapters, we find Humphrys being rather charitable. For instance, the main point he wants to get across is how the new atheists want to say we would be better off without religion. John Lennon’s Imagine would have us all think the world would be a better place if we got rid of religion.

Not so fast. Humphrys rightly points out that when you look at the mass killings of people in the 20th century, it wasn’t religion that was largely responsible. It was Communism. When you look at the major wars that happened, religion could be a factor, but it was way down the list if it was.

How about those Muslim suicide bombers? They weren’t the first. It was the Tamil Tigers that came up with the suicide bomber strategy. That was a Marxist-Leninist group in Sri Lanka. He does say that Muslim bombers today are not reflecting mainstream Islam to which I want to say “How are they not?” After all, the first Muslim groups were hardly peaceful.

He also points out that some might say extreme religion is a danger, but materialism and consumerism is also a threat. What about all these kids who are wanting to go on apps like TikTok and become celebrities? What about a culture that wants more and more and more and yet is never happy?

This isn’t to say Humphrys is entirely positive about religion. He says that it’s not that religious people don’t have time to reason out their beliefs. They don’t want to. They don’t want to think about things that have been done in the name of God. His example of this is an alleged Roman Catholic who doesn’t even believe in the deity of Christ, but finds theism comforting.

It is true that God can be a great comfort, but I do not believe in God for comfort. I believe in Him because of the evidence. I am also not bothered by the “Christians have done evil in history.” Yeah. All of us have. That’s because we’re all fallen creatures. I don’t think we should ignore the question, but it’s not a defeater.

In the end, what do I think keeps Humphrys from believing? It’s not reason. He doesn’t really deal with any arguments for the existing of God in this book. If anything, his argument seems to be more emotional. He has a hard time with evil, but if he does, that should make it all the more reason for him to be a theist.

I think about a meme I saw an atheist share yesterday with a woman, presumably in Africa, holding a dead child and crying and for us to think about how easy it is to worship God when we’re not that woman. No doubt, that woman is suffering, but as I have argued before, take away God. What do you have? This is definitely a hypothetical as I think if you take away God, nothing can exist, but you still have the crying woman and the dead child.

The problem is still the same. What you have removed is hope. On Christian theism, there is a God who will deal justly in this situation. There is a God who can bring good out of evil. There is a God who can raise the dead. Atheism takes away the possibility of hope and still leaves the problem. How is that reasonable?

Keep in mind, I am not saying that that makes Christianity true, but it sure gives you reason to consider it seriously and to at least want it to be true on some level, especially if you say you care about the woman involved. If there is no greater source of justice and hope in the universe, well some people just get dealt a very bad hand of cards and it sucks to be you if you get that bad hand. Christianity has someone overseeing the game who will make sure justice will come out right in the end.

That should give us hope and also give us a degree of fear. Justice will come for us as well. We better make sure we are ready.

We can pray that Humphrys reconsiders his opinion. Perhaps those arguments really are better than what an inquisitive child can see through. Perhaps there really is a God who loves Him out there and can give hope and justice.

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

Book Plunge: Ready Player Two

What do I think about Ernest Cline’s sequel? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I don’t think it’s possible to talk about this without some spoilers so you have been warned. This is one of those books I have been reading just for fun as I am trying to get more fiction in my literary diet. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie Ready Player One and so I was glad to see when the sequel was available on Kindle for cheap.

As pertains to content, I still prefer the first story. In this second one, Wade, the main character, finds out that as the heir of Halliday, that Halliday left for the world a headset that one could use to log into the virtual world of the OASIS and it is up to Halliday’s heir to decide if he wants to mass produce and market this or not. The headset isn’t just a device to watch, but also a neural uplink. Wade does introduce it to the world, but the biggest critic of this decision is his then-girlfriend Samantha from the last movie.

Then along the way, a new quest is released like in the first one to find the seven shards of the siren’s soul. That quest is going okay until a threat rises up within the system of an AI that has gone rogue and decided that the seven pieces must be gathered for his own purposes. Wade and his friends then find themselves on a quest to get the shards in time and also find a way to defeat the AI.

Those are all the spoilers I want to give and I think they’re necessary. What strikes me again in looking at this is here we have the problem of technological geniuses creating an AI and lo and behold, the AI turns against its creators and decides it has its own plans. This seems to happen in every science fiction scenario involving it, but somehow, we’re the exception.

There is no doubt that science has been a means of bringing great blessings into our lives, but it has also brought great destruction into our lives. We can live in fear of nuclear weapons being used because we invented them. Whatever you think of the Covid situation, it was produced in a lab and had devastating effects around the world.

We are often told of the evils of religion, but what is really evil is the misuse of religion. Religion used for good does great things, such as fine charity work across the world and the love of one’s neighbor. Religion used for evil can have devastating consequences just as much, like 9/11.

In every scenario, the real culprit is the same actually. Us. Any good thing can be used just as much for evil. The problem is not the tool. The problem is the person using the tool. Science and religion in the hands of good men can be used for good. In the hands of evil men, it can be used for evil.

But let’s also include foolish men.

There are people in religion who are quite foolish, even in my own evangelical tradition. There are plenty of people who are sure they are called to ministry of some kind, but they don’t have the first clue how to do it and they think it’s unspiritual to get an education in what they study. Shouldn’t God just tell them everything? They’re not evil. They mean well. They just cause great destruction.

In the same way, there are plenty of people in science who aren’t evil at all. They could just have a lot of pride or foolishness, just like the person in religion, and think they can handle whatever happens. Both of them make great errors in judgment that affect not only them, but others as well.

It’s good to know we’re different, isn’t it?

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

 

 

 

Are Untruths Lies?

If someone tells something false repeatedly, are they lying? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I was watching a video today where the subject was the recent lawsuit against Alex Jones and how he had to pay out for what he said about Sandy Hook. Someone with me who heard me watching it was telling me that what was really bad about Alex Jones was not just what he said but he had lied about it knowing otherwise. I then played a clip where I heard Alex Jones saying Sandy Hook was 100% real. When I asked the person with me where Jones said he lied he said, “You just heard him.”

Unfortunately for the person talking to me, that’s wrong.

This is not to defend Alex Jones at all. He was entirely wrong in what he said about Sandy Hook. It was a horrible thing to say. However, that being said, he was not lying. Why?

Because when he said that Sandy Hook was not real, he said it because he honestly believed that it was not real. If he had thought it was real and yet he was saying it was not real, he would be lying. If he thought it was not real, and was saying it was real, he would be lying.

This also means that someone could even tell you something that is true and at the same time be lying. Suppose you hear about someone being a flat-Earther and you go up to them and ask “Is the Earth flat?” Suppose that this person though is scared by you and is a rather timid person and is scared of an argument and just wants to appease you and says, “Absolutely not. The Earth is round.” This person has just lied to you. It’s not because they told you something untrue. It’s because they were not honest with their words in what they were saying and told you something that was contrary to what they really believe.

Why bring this up? Often in the worlds of politics and religion, which often do coincide together, it’s easy to have the word lie thrown around carelessly. We are not only accusing someone of having their facts wrong when they say this, but we are also accusing them of an immoral action. If just saying something that was wrong was a lie, then any time that a kid puts down the wrong answer on a math test, then he is guilty of lying.

In order to show a lie, one must show that a person said X is the case, when they really thought non-X was the case, or vice-versa. Often, I prefer to think not so much about lies that are commonly told, but myths that are commonly told. For instance, it is a myth that Columbus sailed to prove that the world was round. Everyone believed that it was. Many of us were taught otherwise in school, but that doesn’t mean our teachers necessarily lied. They could have passed on something they thought was true as well. It just means people collectively bought into a myth.

Be careful with the term lie, regardless of what you think of the person. I have plenty of people who are my intellectual opponents, but I do not call them liars lightly. That is not just making a statement about what is said, but about the character of the person saying it and should not be done lightly.

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

 

Are Untruths Lies?

If someone tells something false repeatedly, are they lying? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I was watching a video today where the subject was the recent lawsuit against Alex Jones and how he had to pay out for what he said about Sandy Hook. Someone with me who heard me watching it was telling me that what was really bad about Alex Jones was not just what he said but he had lied about it knowing otherwise. I then played a clip where I heard Alex Jones saying Sandy Hook was 100% real. When I asked the person with me where Jones said he lied he said, “You just heard him.”

Unfortunately for the person talking to me, that’s wrong.

This is not to defend Alex Jones at all. He was entirely wrong in what he said about Sandy Hook. It was a horrible thing to say. However, that being said, he was not lying. Why?

Because when he said that Sandy Hook was not real, he said it because he honestly believed that it was not real. If he had thought it was real and yet he was saying it was not real, he would be lying. If he thought it was not real, and was saying it was real, he would be lying.

This also means that someone could even tell you something that is true and at the same time be lying. Suppose you hear about someone being a flat-Earther and you go up to them and ask “Is the Earth flat?” Suppose that this person though is scared by you and is a rather timid person and is scared of an argument and just wants to appease you and says, “Absolutely not. The Earth is round.” This person has just lied to you. It’s not because they told you something untrue. It’s because they were not honest with their words in what they were saying and told you something that was contrary to what they really believe.

Why bring this up? Often in the worlds of politics and religion, which often do coincide together, it’s easy to have the word lie thrown around carelessly. We are not only accusing someone of having their facts wrong when they say this, but we are also accusing them of an immoral action. If just saying something that was wrong was a lie, then any time that a kid puts down the wrong answer on a math test, then he is guilty of lying.

In order to show a lie, one must show that a person said X is the case, when they really thought non-X was the case, or vice-versa. Often, I prefer to think not so much about lies that are commonly told, but myths that are commonly told. For instance, it is a myth that Columbus sailed to prove that the world was round. Everyone believed that it was. Many of us were taught otherwise in school, but that doesn’t mean our teachers necessarily lied. They could have passed on something they thought was true as well. It just means people collectively bought into a myth.

Be careful with the term lie, regardless of what you think of the person. I have plenty of people who are my intellectual opponents, but I do not call them liars lightly. That is not just making a statement about what is said, but about the character of the person saying it and should not be done lightly.

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

 

Is The Pro-Life Position Religious?

Should we throw out the pro-life position due to being religious? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

When I have seen debates going on about abortion now, something that seems to come up consistently is that this is a religious position. We have separation of church and state. We are not to be controlled by religious laws.

Is this the case? After all, many people who are explicitly religious are pro-life. Would these people be pro-life if they abandoned their religion? If their reasoning is religious in nature, can we rule it out? Even if it isn’t, surely that is their motivation. Right?

To begin with, there are many laws that we have today that are found in religious texts. Most of us seem to think that murder and stealing are wrong and to some extent, lying, such as in cases of perjury, lying under oath. While there are people who are more loose than I think should be with sex, we generally tend to think you shouldn’t cheat on the person you’re with and condemn adultery.

Who among the most radical atheist would like to abandon the law against murder because it is found in the Ten Commandments? Anyone? Do you think it should be allowed for people to steal what belongs to you? Do you think your partner should be just fine with cheating on you?

Christians are often falsely accused of picking and choosing, but atheists do the same thing. They don’t want us to be ruled by ancient laws in the Bible, but they don’t seem to mind some of those laws. Let’s also keep in mind that those laws are not given as if they are new information.

Before the Ten Commandments, we see murder being condemned, even at the very beginning with the story of Cain and Abel. The Ten Commandments were not giving new information for the most part. They were giving beliefs that the Israelites already knew of and understood. It’s not as if they got the commandments and said “Whoa! Turns out murder is wrong!”

Now let’s suppose though that my motivation is largely religious, even if my argument is not. So what? That doesn’t matter. Imagine if you had myself here and with me was atheist Albany Rose. She is a well-known pro-life atheist on social media.

Let’s suppose that we each give the same argument for why abortion is wrong. Now my perspective you could believe was religious and that was my motivation. The same could not be said of Albany Rose. Is the argument valid when it comes from her but not when it comes from me?

Of course not. Arguments stand or fall on the merit of the argument and not on the merit of the person giving it. Now if you think that someone is untrustworthy and a liar, you can be possibly rightly suspicious of their evidences. However, suppose that those evidences do turn out to be true. If that is so, then the argument stands or falls on its own.

If it is the case that the person is not one who has a reputation of being untrustworthy, then pointing out the motivations of the person doesn’t matter a bit. Arguments are either true or false. They don’t have motives. Only the people presenting them do.

Saying someone is religious in their argument is not a refutation. It is just a dodge. Sure, if I quote the Bible and you don’t believe it, then you could say you reject on those grounds, but if I give a more natural law or scientific argument, that still stands or falls on the data itself. Dealing with the person will not deal with the argument.

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

Should Kids Be Taught Religion?

If we avoid talk of sex with our children, should we do the same with religion? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Earlier this week, I blogged about the problem of stealing our childhood from our kids. I was asked by a commenter if that would include religion since we don’t want to introduce kids to the world of sex early. Let them be kids before they get involved in a religious debate they don’t understand. Right?

I figured this would come up. Now to be sure, when I say don’t introduce kids to sex, I mean the actual graphic real sex. At the same time, sex is in a sense unavoidable. Girls should be raised to be girls and boys should be raised to be boys. Girls and boys should both be taught basics on how their bodies work and when they have questions and “explore” we should be willing to answer. I have heard it recommended that we don’t come up with nicknames for body parts. Call them what they are.

As for religion, I am not saying we need to get children involved in debates on the age of the Earth or about the rapture or if they should speak in tongues. At the same time, this should be age appropriate. You don’t need to show a teenager a porn video to explain sex to them, but you also aren’t going to talk to them the way you would talk to a five year-old.

Religion is often a family affair so parents will likely bring their children to church and thus to Sunday School. The kids should be allowed to ask questions about any subject matter brought up in class. My Dad and I both share a love of the Fox Trot comic strip and writing this brought to mind this.

Personally, if I was in Jason’s Sunday School class, I would be glad to see that he was thinking this way and not giving any look. This would be a student trying to grasp the idea. Now as someone who is not a Star Wars fan really, I can’t tell how accurate the description is, but if a student is asking, we should celebrate that.

And just as we teach a student in elementary school elementary math and we increase it as the kid grows older, so we should do with religion. When they start entering the teenage area, we need more than just Bible drills. We need them to be having an informed worldview about why they believe what they believe.

Also, this same route would go with politics. Let’s face it. When six year-olds write letters to the president and include statements about the economy and foreign policy, those are the overwhelming majority of the time coming from the parents and not the children. We can raise children with our ideas and we inevitably will, but we should not ban them from asking any question that they want.

As children grow older with the topic of sex and especially getting into puberty, we definitely need to be answering more questions and explaining more material. Girls need to learn what it means to be a woman and boys need to learn what it means to be a man. However, that is for that case.

When children are young and in Elementary school, we don’t need to be rushing them to be adults. We are preparing them for that, but they are also still kids and they only get to be kids once. Sex is often considered an adult topic for a reason. We can refer to a child’s innocence being taken from them.

There is no hard and fast rule, but do things in proper moderation and in proportion to the child’s skills. Many children should be taught math on their age level. For me, my parents knew I was advanced in math early on and I was treated accordingly. If a child seems to be a political prodigy or a religious one, then treat that properly too. However, sex is in the issue of morality and thus makes it different. Also, it’s done with other people and we don’t want small children engaging yet.

But please, don’t use children as pawns in political and religious debates. Let them be kids. They have plenty of years in adulthood to argue with the rest of us on Facebook. Let them enjoy being kids for now.

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

Book Plunge: The God Virus Part 1

What do I think of Darrel Ray’s book published by IPC Press? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Oh my! There are atheist books out there that actually try to make a convincing argument, but this is not one of them. At least, that’s not the way I see it. It’s as if today atheists want to compete to see who can write the worst one out there.

This one is an older one published in 2009, but while age might improve wine and friendships, it doesn’t always improve books. I was asked to read this by someone and thinking them someone I want to take seriously if I remember rightly who it was, I ordered it. Going through this one has been funny at times, but a labor at others.

Ray writes the whole time as if religion is a virus and he uses metaphors for viruses throughout. It really doesn’t work well. The work comes across as very depersonalizing and instead of really treating religion seriously, it looks like Ray, who apparently has a Master’s in religion, doesn’t really know much about it.

For one thing, he never even defines the term. He just comes out of the gate talking about religion and I’m sitting here wondering “What do you mean by the term?” This is especially problematic when later on he gets to movements like Marxism and the rise of Lenin and those get treated like religions too. Those are atheistic movements and yet somehow an atheistic movement is a religion.

Ray also says he starts with an experiment. You talk with a deeply Christian friend (Assuming you’re not a theist) about Muhammad. You agree he was delusional thinking he was talking to God and the Koran is definitely his work and he didn’t fly to Heaven on a horse, etc. Then he says imagine you wrote a transcript of the conversation and gave it to them.

“During the conversation you bother agree that Jesus was probably delusional to think he could talk to Jehovah. The Bible was clearly written by men and not by Jehovah. You both agree that it is ludicrous to claim that he is the last prophet and that all later ones are false. Neither of you can believe that he rose from the dead nor flew to heaven. It all sounds too crazy, and it is difficult to see how someone could believe such a religion. At the end of the conversation, you both agree that Christians did not choose their religion; they were born into it. Anyone who was exposed to both Christianity and Islam would see that Islam is the true religion.”

And thus is the experiment. Present this to your Christian friend and they will turn defensive (Imagine that. When you question what someone believes, they might actually defend what they believe! Gasp!) Will they make elaborate arguments that have no factual basis? Will they cut you off and terminate your friendship?

Some of us will give arguments and if Ray wants to say they have no factual basis, it will be up to him to demonstrate that. Good luck. Without that, he’s just engaging in presuppositional atheism.

However, on this very page after talking about a friendship enduring, he goes on to talk about an associate of his who lost a father to cancer. After that, he became a Christian and any time they talked religion crept in and before too long, Ray stopped seeing him altogether. This on the very same page as the above questions.

So if you challenge a Christian, your friendship might not endure. However, when Ray hears someone talking about Jesus so much, their friendship can’t endure. How is this not seen?

In just three paragraphs, Ray deals with near-death experiences. Does he look at any with evidential claims in them? Not a one. Does he mention any researchers in the field that endorse such arguments? No. He points to one doctor who says it’s the brain trying to make sense of an experience. He also tells us that we can bring about the emotion of NDEs by stimulating certain parts of the brain. This is likely true, but irrelevant. We can stimulate many things, but that doesn’t mean that we aren’t stimulating real things.

But again, without dealing with real evidential cases, Ray is not doing his proper work. Throughout the book Ray will talk about theists shutting off logic and critical thinking. Physician! Heal thyself!

On p. 30 in a footnote he says that during witch trials in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, historians estimate that 200,000 people died. Inquiring minds want to know who these historians are. Ray never tells us. Too many atheist readers will lap this up and believe it instantly. Those of us who actually care about evidence want to know more.

In a footnote on p. 32 he mentions Bruno as one who questioned the suppositions of religion and paid a price for it. Another such example he mentions is Galileo. People who make this claim have likely never read anything by Bruno. As for Galileo, he questioned Catholic interpretations, but he never once questioned the truth of Christianity.

On p. 39, he speaks about fundamentalism where people are immune to influence and ignore any evidence that contradicts their beliefs. Note, this is from a man who at least halfway through the book has not interacted with one opposing scholar so far. Ray also regularly writes about his fundamentalist upbringing. I do not question he had one. I also do not question that he has not escaped it. His thinking is still very much the same way.

On p. 42, he says Christians early on were instructed on how to take over political institutions. I would love to know where he sees this, but he does not say. Maybe all those things about honoring the emperor and praying for him and things like that. That’s how you take over government after all.

When we get to p. 48, he describes Marxism as a god virus. How this is a god virus when it is inherently atheistic is not explained. It’s a convenient way though to avoid having to question your own movement. Any movement that has mass death behind it must be a religious movement. It can’t possibly be atheistic!

Naturally, on p. 51, he says science education is the answer to religion. There is never a connection made here. There are plenty of fine scientists who have no trouble with being theists at all. Ray gives no arguments here.

When we return next time, we’ll start with the chapter on American Civil Religion, which is definitely a hideous chapter as far as evidential claims are concerned.

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

Book Plunge: Do Christians, Muslims, and Jews Worship the Same God? Four Views.

What do I think of Ronnie Campbell and Christopher Gnanakan’s book published by Zondervan? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

When a Wheaton professor wore a hijab, it led to a major evangelical controversy. Do Christians, Muslims, and Jews worship the same God? In this volume, four different views are shared on the topic. If you think the answers are simply yes or no, you’re mistaken. So what are these views?

Wm. Andrew Schwartz and John B. Cobb Jr. both take the view of yes, we all worship the same God. Francis Beckwith takes the idea that in a way, we all do worship the same as a referent. Gerald McDermott holds a shared revelation view where Jews and Christians worship the same God, but not Muslims. Jerry Walls takes the position that none worship the same God.

Now going in, my position was very much that of Jerry Walls. I do think there are generic theistic arguments that can be used for all three of the Abrahamic faiths and you can only know which one is true by special revelation, but when we look at the deities described in the revelation, they’re very different. Namely, it comes down to the view of Jesus. Since Jesus is fully God and fully man, Christians necessarily worship a Trinity.

I found the first view of all worship the same God being the most unconvincing. For instance, it was said that there are many Christianities. At this point, I have to wonder if the authors have any idea what it means to be a Christian because if Christianity can be anything, then it means nothing.

It’s hard to disagree with Francis Beckwith, and as Jerry Walls said in the book, especially when he begins with an analogy involving Superman. (We’ll try to forgive him for never mentioning the Smallville series.) Still, at the end of the day, I just can’t sign easily on the dotted line. It’s hard to think that the Father of Jesus is the God of Muhammad.

Gerald McDermott would agree as he thinks there’s a radical division between Islam and Christianity. However, there was not any dispute among the Jews and Christians at the start about which God was worshipped. Therefore, Jews and Christians worship the same God. Muslims do not. This can make sense, but I agree with Walls that McDermott does seem to move too quickly through the doctrines of the Trinity, the resurrection, and the incarnation.

Finally, we get to Walls’s view. This is the view I did find the most convincing. Now you could say it’s because I approached the book with this view so yeah, bias is always a part, but also when one studies for years, they don’t form positions lightly. In all fairness, the positions of Beckwith and McDermott I did think made some good points.

Walls also did bring up something else that needed to be discussed. Even if we think they all worship the same God, does that count towards salvation for them? I wish the other authors had said more about that question. I don’t think Beckwith and McDermott would hold to a pluralistic view, but I wonder if the first authors might.

There are also two essays afterwards, mainly on evangelizing Muslims. These are good to have, but shouldn’t we include something on evangelizing Jews as well? Judaism is much smaller in number to be sure, but why not have one chapter on Muslims and one on Jews? Jews need their Messiah too, after all.

If this question interests you, then you should get this book. The extra benefit besides just the replies to the authors on their essay is the author of each essay gives one quick counter-reply to all the others. I like this touch and wish it would be used more often.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 11/2/2019

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that has in its own way always been around, but wasn’t its own individual branch until sometime after Descartes. Differences have gone all the way back before from Plato to Aristotle. Plato had the theory of the forms to explain how we know things. Aristotle didn’t disagree entirely with the forms, but said we know things through sense experience, or at least that’s where our knowledge begins.

Today, we can look at the material world and see that we have a lot of science and think that that is the path to knowledge. By contrast, what is religion? Religion is done by authority. The adage of “The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.” Some leave out the “I believe it” which would be redundant in a sense.

Is that the way religion is done? Do we just believe something because we read it in a book? How can we know God exists? How can we know what He’s like? Can we have a proper experience of God? How could we tell if that was a valid experience? Can one just intuit God exists even if they don’t know how to articulate the Kalam Cosmological Argument?

We’re going to be discussing religious epistemology today. How can someone know something that is a religious claim? Does one just have to take something by faith? What is faith anyway?

To discuss all of this, we’re bringing on a young scholar. Young is the word as just checking, my wife and I were surprised to see he’s just a few months older than she is, and yet he already has an Oxford published book called Religious Epistemology.. His name is Tyler McNabb.

So who is he?

According to his bio:

Tyler Dalton McNabb (PhD, Glasgow) is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Macau. Before taking his current position, McNabb taught three years at Houston Baptist University. McNabb is the author of Religious Epistemology(CUP) and co-author of Plantingian Religious Epistemology and World Religions (Lexington). He has also authored/co-authored various articles published in journals such as Religious Studies, European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, International Journal of Philosophy and Theology, The Heythrop Journal, and Philosophia Christi.  

We are busy working on getting episodes up. I know we’re behind on schedule, but thanks for bearing with us. Please keep listening.

In Christ,
Nick Peters