Reflections on the Church of Christ: Biblical Positivism

In a prior post, I said a little about a certain doctrine that holds sway in the Church of Christ (CofC from here on). I called it Biblical Positivism and described it thus:

It [the CofC] treats Scripture like a great storehouse of spiritual and moral truth, and thinks that all the Christian may say is already explicitly said there. Thus in the CofC, all that one may do is gather together texts. One does not attempt to discern how they hang together; one does not attempt to state the Bible's most important doctrines in the form of creeds, and (heaven forbid) one does not attempt to engage in scriptural interpretation if that requires that one do more than simply restate (perhaps in a folksy way) what's already said there in exactly the way it's said. In the church of Christ, one just assembles verses, without, I should add, much regard for context.

If we carve through to the heart of the doctrine, we find that Biblical Positivism is this: in the interpretation and promulgation of Scripture, all that one is allowed to do is state what Scripture already says in the ways that it says it. One cannot introduce distinctions not already there. One cannot introduce language not already there. Instead one just says what it says in the language and with the conceptual apparatus it says it.

Biblical Positivism of course assumes the inerrancy and the sufficiency of Scripture. Scripture, it assumes, contains not even a hint of error, and is sufficient to answer all questions of a moral or spiritual nature. But it also assumes more than inerrancy and sufficiency. It is at bottom a linguistic/conceptual sufficiency thesis. It says not only that Scripture is sufficient to answers all moral/spiritual questions. It says also that mere repetition of Biblical assertions, in the very language that they're made, is sufficient to answer all moral/spiritual questions. One then never need extend the Biblical vocabulary in any way. Indeed to do so is to fall into serious error.

This doctrine may be attacked in various ways. One may for instance ask for the Scriptural sanction for this principle. (There is none. Nowhere in the Bible will you find the claim of the linguistic sufficiency of Scripture. Thus Biblical Positivism seems to self-refute in much the way that Logical Positivism self-refutes. Apply the doctrine to itself and you find that it must be rejected.) But I wish to consider Biblical Positivism's consequence for Christian doctrine.

Consider first the doctrine of the Trinity. It surely has Biblical roots. (The Gospel of John stands out in this regard. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the word was God" is but one of may assertions found there relevant to the doctrine of the trinity.) But those Biblical roots are not linguistically sufficient to generate the orthodox doctrine of the trinity, for they do not tell us the precise sense in which the three persons of the trinity are one. Might Father, Son and Spirit be one in the sense of essence only? If so, they need not be one in number, for essence is something that can be shared among a number of entities. (You and I share an essence - humanity - but are two, not one.) Might they be one in the sense of some shared property - perhaps of goodness, power or some such thing? Again if so, they need not be one in number, for goodness is something that can be shared among a number of entities. Scripture provides no explicit answer to these questions. Indeed it nowhere states the orthodox doctrine, that Father, Son and Spirit are one in substance and so in number. The language of substance is foreign to Scripture. The result is that if one assume the linguistic sufficiency of Scripture, one does not even have the vocabulary to state the orthodox doctrine.

This state of affairs is dangerous, for it can very easily descend into heresy. If we cannot say that the three persons of the trinity are one in substance and so in number, the possibility is left open that they differ in substance and so in number. But if this possibility is embraced, monotheism has been abandoned. So too is the possibility left open that only the Father is God, and that Son and Spirit are mere creations who have no share in the Godhead.

The same can be said about the Incarnation. The orthodox doctrine - shared in common by Catholic, Orthodox, and most Protestants - is that Christ is the hypostatic union of divine and human nature. But you will search in vain for this language in Scripture. No doubt Scripture alludes to this truth; no doubt it naturally - indeed I would say inevitably - leads to this truth when interpreted properly. Nonetheless, it does not explicitly state it. Thus heresy lurks. If we cannot say of Christ that he is the hypostatic union of divine and human nature, many possibilities are left open: that Christ was merely human, that he was merely divine, that he was two natures, as it were, side by side but not joined into a single human-divine nature. All are heretical, and all are to be rejected.

Now, I don't doubt that the CofC does for the most part reject these heresies. But this shows not that Biblical Positivism is sufficient for the articulation of a fully orthodox Christian world-view. On the contrary all it shows is that CofCers do not consistently adhere to Biblical Positivism. They take over many of the conclusions of past Christian thought - that Christ is fully human and fully divine, and is of one, undivided nature; that God is one god but three persons; etc. - but do not acknowledge the origin of these conclusions. As I said, these conclusions are not extra-Biblical; rather they represent inevitable conclusions derived from reflection upon Scripture. But they do go beyond the language of Scripture.

True Desire

Some desires are true and some false. The true in their fulfillment lead towards God; the false lead away.

I have desires, deep but unfulfilled, that I believe are true. I'll begin with the one that burns most at present. Later I'll come around to others.

I desire close, continual communion with a small group of friends, all kind and intelligent, all passionately devoted to the pursuit of truth.

The Meticulous Conscience: Downward Spiral

The title is overstatement. My conscience isn't really meticulous. But I have begun to search it more diligently than I have since I was in the late teens. I search it now with a seasoned eye, an eye that sees deeper that it could before, and eye that is less likely to believe a lie than it was before.

I often have evil little thoughts. (I'm deeply ashamed of them and cannot bring myself to say what they are.) I am able to put them away almost instantly, but to my chagrin I commit a second little sin as soon as the thought is supressed. I congratulate myself on my ability to catch the evil thought and put it away.

A third sin soon follows. I excoriate myself for the self-congratulation, and then almost immediately after congratulate myself once again, this time for the self-excoriation.

No matter how wicked the thought, I always seem to find the good in myself. I'm such a good man, I tell myself, else I never would have realized just how wicked I am.

Thus I spiral downward. Self-congratulation follows upon self-congratulation. The evil of the thought is smothered in the self-created illusion of goodness. Indeed the "goodness" consists in the repudiation of the evil.

Even now I congratulate myself for the ability to discern my predicament. I just can't seem to get away from it, this thought of mine that I am so wise and so good. I've always been like that.

What's worse is that, when I congrulate myself, I often compare myself to others. I tell myself how much better I must be because, unlike them, I harbor no illusions about myself.

How absurd this all is! This need of mine to pat myself on the back, to tell myself how much better I am than those around me - this, I think, is the sin most deeply rooted in me. I pray that God will rip it out.

Why I Am a Christian: Chapter One

I thought that it might be a useful exercise to explain why I've become a Christian. What I will say does not add up to an argument for the truth of Christianity. Though I will explain why I am Christian, I do not justify my Christianity. But nonetheless I think that my story is not without interest.

The story will be told in chapters. The first is told here. It concerns my life as philosopher. Another will tell my story as teacher, and a third my story as churchgoer. (I became a churchgoer before I became Christian. For one of my habits of thought and behaviour, I suspect that this is not uncommon.) In the last, I will discuss those bedrock moral commitments - commitments that I've had for as long as I can remember - that led me to Christianity.

Chapter One: Philosopher

When I began graduate work at Purdue's philosophy department in the fall of '90, I was a naive scientific naturalist. I thought - with little in the way of genuine reflection on the matter - that the scientific inventory of the inhabitants of space-time exhausted all of being; I thought, that is, that there was nothing but what scientists, qua scientists, said there was. There were quarks, electrons, photons . . . and all the other creatures in the particle physicists' zoo, there were the thing composed of these, and there was space-time - but there was nothing else. There was no soul, no God, no heaven, no hell.

I recall vividly a drive in the Indiana countryside one Saturday. (Some of my most vivid memories are almost exclusively intellectual in nature. I recall above all what I thought, not what I did. I suppose that that reveals much about the kind of man I am.) I was alone in the car with my thoughts. In an instantaneous flash of insight, I conceived the outlines of a complete philosophical naturalism. For a reason that I cannot now explain, I was excited by it. Perhaps it was simply that such a thing was new to me.

But though I was a scientific naturalist, I was still drawn to philosophy, in particular to metaphysics. (I still self-identity as a metaphysician. It's where my philosophical heart lies.) So then I was very much drawn to the study of - to speak for a moment like Aristotle, or like Thomas - being qua being. I wanted to know how, at bottom, things hang together. I wanted to know what the most basic categories of being are, and I wanted to know how the entities in those categories were related.

In retrospect, I suspect that it was this appetite for metaphysics that was the crack in the door that finally opened up into faith. My work in metaphysics led me to take Christianity seriously, and to this day if I encounter a metaphysician who rejects Christianity out of hand, I dismiss him out of hand.

In my study of metaphysics, I became acquainted with the work of a number of great metaphysicians of the past. As my first graduate teacher of philosophy once said to me, philosophy carries its baggage along. Great philosophers of the past are never dropped from the tradition (though popularity does wax and wane). Rather, their works demand scrutiny today just as they did when written. Their works still matter, and very likely always will. The list of metaphysicians whose work I studied is long, and among the most important to me were: Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Thomas, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, McTaggart, Plantinga and van Inwagen. (You might not know the last three. If not, you should.) It was not their theism (and all but one - McTaggart - are theists of one sort or another, and even he was a supernaturalist) that drew me to them. Rather it was their philosophical acumen and the beauty and power of the metaphysical systems they constructed. I identified strongly with these men, and with the project of metaphysical inquiry that bound them together. I made their project my own, and thus hoped to carry on the tradition - even if only in a small way - that they had begun. This proved crucial in my conversion. Because of my great respect for their work, I came to realize (slowly, ever so slowly) that theism must be take quite seriously because men such as this took it seriously. Indeed I think this as good an argument as you're likely to find in philosophy: Aristotle and Leibniz (by my lights the two greatest philosophers ever to have lived) adopted the view that P, thus P must be taken with great seriousness even if one ultimately judges it false. But Aristotle and Leibniz were theists, etc. etc.

If like me you have a love of philosophy and wonder how to bridge the gap between mere interest in religion and genuine faith, I suggest that you read the great theists of Western philosophy with this idea clearly and firmly in mind: the theism of this author informs all of his work. It is not something merely tacked on at the end. Rather the whole of their work reflects and indeed culminates in their theism.

Of course my study of metaphysics (and the other branches of philosophy, too) was not carried out in isolation. Rather it was done in the company of others. The most important to me were (in temporal order, not order of importance): Jan Cover, Jacqueline Marina (now my wife of 14 years), and the men and women I came to know when I was at Notre Dame.

The most important of my teachers was Jan Cover. He exercised a quite extraordinary influence over my intellectual development, though later we were to break. Of a more committed Christian I do not know. My conversion came after the break, but he was still instrumental in it and for this I thank him. He also exercised a quite decisive influence on my philosophical development. I suspect that much of his philosophical method and demeanor persists in me still. I suspect too that, if not for the path he set me on, I'd not now be Christian, for under his hand, I became a metaphysician.

My wife is Christian (albeit of a non-traditional sort), indeed has been for the whole of her life. She never made any effort to convert me; for she thought that our moral concurrence was of much greater importance than any theological concurrence, and in moral concurrence we were. Rather she wore her Christianity on her sleeve. This could not have failed to influence me. (Sometimes I think it a fault, but I am, if nothing else, highly influencable. I'm a little bit like Woody Allen's Zelig.) I suspect that there was a kind of Christian osmosis in our home. It seeped from her to me.

Let me end with the year I spent at the University of Notre Dame. I was a fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Religion from '99 to '00. While there, I was surrounded by Christians of many stripes, men and women of great acumen who were deeply committed to the faith. I did not become Christian at that time, though I suspect that if I'd stayed their influence would have won me over. But though I did not convert, still that year had a great influence upon me. I began to feel the power of the Christian world-view. There too I began to truly learn about Christianity. As a child, I was under the influence of my mother's Christianity. She was a member of the church of Christ. (I love her dearly. She's a wonderful woman. But I would that she were not a member of the church of Christ. I don't think it good for either mind or soul.) The church of Christ thinks itself the only true heir of the first century church; the rest of us Christians are apostates, it holds, and are hell-bound. But this is mere bluster. The church of Christ is but one of many small Protestant sects, one distinguished by its extreme Biblical positivism. It treats Scripture like a great storehouse of spiritual and moral truth, and thinks that all the Christian may say is already explicitly said there. Thus in the church of Christ, all that one may do is gather together texts. One does not attempt to discern how they hang together; one does not attempt to state the Bible's most important doctrines in the form of creeds, and (heaven forbid) one does not attempt to engage in scriptural interpretation if that requires that one do more than simply restate (perhaps in a folksy way) what's already said there in exactly the way it's said. In the church of Christ, one just assembles verses, without, I should add, much regard for context. The result in my case was that, when I left the church of Christ, I knew little or nothing of the essentials of Christianity. Oh, I could quote verses. I could tell you what the church of Christ thought was wrong with every other variety of Christianity. But I did not know what Christianity was, and this ignorance was not remedied until my year at Notre Dame. While there I began to read widely in Christian theology, and I came to realize just how powerful an intellectual system Christianity was. The metaphysician in me was deeply impressed. Later the metaphysician in me was to find rest in God.

On Evidence and Irrationality

One often hears the claim that Christians are, since they do not apportion their belief to the evidence, irrational. This must be carefully distinguished from the claim that Christianity is false. Though the claim that it is false might well entail that belief in it is irrational, they are yet distinct claims. The first is epistemological in kind, the second metaphysical.

I wish now to consider the epistemological claim - that claim that, since Christians do not apportion their belief to the evidence, they are irrational.

"Consider" is perhaps not the best word. "Attack" is better. Now, one might attack the epistemological claim is various ways. One might do so as did Thomas. He would attack my means of arguments meant to establish this or that Christian truth. (For my own part, I'm suspicious that arguments such as this can be made to work against the religious skeptic.) However I won't take the Thomas path. Instead I'll take on the charge of irrationality by means of a tu quoque. (Tu quoque is a form of rebuttal in which one claims that one's opponent violates some principle that he has put forward. This leaves one's opponent with two choices: (i) take back the principle, or (ii) take back the claim or claims he's made that violates that principle.)

Call the one who wishes to defend the claim of Christian irrationality in the way I've describe "Clifford". (William Clifford famously made the charge that Christians believe where there is no evidence and are thus irrational.) I think it clear that Clifford means to endorse some such principle as this:

One ought in all cases to apportion one's belief to the evidence available.

Call this putative principle "P". Now let us ask what seems an obvious question: What is the evidence available for P? I would guess that there is none on offer. (William Clifford certainly gives us none. Nor do any of the others of whom I know give us any reason to believe it.) Indeed it is difficult to think of what might count as evidence in favor of P. Let me explain.

Evidence for the truth of some claim is a set of propositions (perhaps a unit-set) the members of which are (i) all true, and (ii) together tend to show that the claim is more likely than not. (This isn't a complete definition, but it does state two necessary conditions; and those two are all we'll need.) Now, what might a set of propositions be that would tend to show P more likely than not? They would have to be epistemological, for P is epistemological; and they would have to be, in some sense, more basic or fundamental than P. (From the more basic or fundamental we derive the less basic or fundamental.) But if P were to be true, there would be no more basic epistemological principle from which it could be derived. It is the sort of principle that, if true, is absolutely basic. There is nothing "beneath" it which has the potential to prove it true. (Or so it seems to me upon reflection. My only argument here is this: I've looked and haven't found anytying more basic than it from which it might be derived.)

So, then, here's where we're at: very likely P has no evidential support. But if this is so, P is, if true, not to be believed. For if P is true, nothing - and this includes P - is to be believed without evidence. Where does this leave us? P ought not to be believed. For P is either true, or it is false. If true, then as we've seen it's not to be believed; and if false, then (as should be obvious) it's not to be believed. Conclusion: belief in P is irrational.

This is our tu quoque. Very likely the principle brought to bear upon Christianity - the principle P - can't pass the test that it itself sets up. The upshot of all this should be clear: we must all believe something without evidence if we're to believe anything at all. (This was also argued for here in a direct way. The argument of this post is indirect and proceeds by way of refutation of the contrary opinion.) We must, as it were, all strike out into the evidential void. Does this mean we're all irrational? It does not, for as we've seen the claim that lack of evidence entails irrationality is simply not to be believed. There is of course a lacuna here. We still need it explained to us how we can rationally believe a thing when we have no evidence of its truth. But I will not attempt to fill the lacuna here. Nor will I attempt to divide propositions into those that are in need of evidential support and those that are not. These tasks must be left for another day.

We must all strike out into the evidential void and plant a flag. I've planted mine. Clifford has planted his, but refuses to admit that he's done so. He says that the evidence must dictate where one plants it, but this very claim lacks evidence. If the Christian plants his flag arbitrarily, so does Clifford.

A Tiny Little Change

I'm curious to know whether anyone noticed the change I made in the masthead. If you think you know what it is, tell me first what the change is and then second tell me why I made it.

Power and Beauty

If Christianity is a fantasy, is it a most beautiful and powerful fantasy.

The Face at 45

It was once said to me that, at 45, the face you have is the face you deserve. The bodies of the young are able to hide their sins. The bodies of adults (and adulthood does not really begin until one's powers reach their summit - 45 perhaps) bear the marks of their sins. This is why some of the old are beautiful and why some are ugly.

And Love Them Nonetheless

When I look back at my attempts at aphorism, I feel that they mostly fall flat. Let's see if I can do a bit better.

One must know all in their sins - must see their sins in them - and love them nonetheless. To do this with others is difficult. To do the same with oneself - nearly impossible.

Anscombe on the Purpose and Value of Life

"G. E. M. Anscombe" is a near-legendary name in analytic philosophy. But unlike most analytics, she is Christian; and unlike most Christian analytics, she is Catholic. In an article on birth control titled Contraception and Chastity, she says this about the purpose of life:

What people are for is, we believe, like guided missiles, to home in on God, God who is the one truth it is infinitely worth knowing, the possession of which you could never get tired of, like the water which if you have you can never thirst again, because your thirst is slaked forever and always. It's this potentiality, this incredible possibility, of the knowledge of God of such a kind as even to be sharing in his nature, which Christianity holds out to people; and because of this potentiality every life, right up to the last, must be treated as precious. Its potentialities in all things the world cares about may be slight; but there is always the possibility of what it's for. We can't ever know that the time of possibility of gaining eternal life is over, however old, wretched, "useless" someone has become.

In the middle we find this claim: every life (and Anscombe of course means "every human life") is precious because of its ability to know God. Thus for Anscombe our purpose and our value are intimately linked. Our purpose is to know God, and our value lies in our ability to achieve this purpose.

Note as well what Anscombe says about the ability to know God: it is present at every moment of life. Thus at every moment life is precious; it is precious at its start, at its end and at every point in between.

This consequence is of course to be embraced. Life is in fact precious at every moment. But that the consequence is true does not imply that the view is true; false views do sometimes have true consequences.

(If you doubt this, consider this little argument:

God, though not eternal, is the creator of all things distinct from himself.
Thus God is the creator of humanity.

The conclusion is, by my lights, true; but, say I, God is eternal and thus the premise from which the conclusion is derived is false. False claims do sometimes have true consequences.)

I do worry that Anscombe's view - that the value of life lies in a certain ability of ours, an ability that is not realized at present - is false. On Anscombe's views, our life at present seems to have its value in virtue of a certain future possibility - the possibility that we will come to know God. The value that life has at present seems parasitic upon that future possibility. Does it then not follow that, if we consider only our present state and ignore that future possibility, we find little or nothing of value? I find that I can't rest content with that conclusion. As I've heard said (though I can't now remember the source), we love children not because of what they will become but because of what they are. Are they - indeed are not we - precious as we now are? Surely we are not like a plain vase whose only value lies in its ability to be filled with a substance of value? Plain we may be in comparison to God, but are we not precious as we are? God loved the world, Scripture tells us; it does not tell us that God loved what the world might become.

Some will be tempted to say that I ignore here the corrosive effects of sin. Sin, they will say, has made us plain, perhaps even ugly, and whatever value we had before the Fall has, now that live under the rule of sin, been erased. If one accepts this, it seems quite natural to say that, though we have little or no value at present, yet the possibility remains that we will come to know God and that our value at present lies solely in that possibility.

Note a consequence of this view of our present value. If at present we have little or no value, anything may be done to us so long as the possibility of the beatific vision is not thereby attenuated. I take it that this is absurd. Not anything may be done to us. We may not be mercilessly tortured, for instance. (If you say that we may, my only reply is that I part company with you. Embrace your moral absurdity if you like, but do not expect me to do likewise.)

Last point. I do not doubt that the purpose of our lives lies in the beatific vision. But I do doubt that our value at present lies, wholly or mainly, in the ability to achieve it (or have it imparted). This of course leaves us with the question of the ground of our value at present. At present I do not know what to say to this.

Reflections on the Church of Christ: Inerrancy

I was brought up in the Church of Christ - a Southern fundamentalist sect with strongholds in Tennessee and Texas. It has much in common with Evangelical Christianity here in the states, but it is in some regards unique.

In this post and others to follow, I'll examine some of the core beliefs of the Church of Christ. As should come as no surprise to those who know my views, I find many of those beliefs indefensible. They suffer - or so I will argue - from severe logical defect.

This for me is an opportunity to examine the Christianity of my youth with an eye much more critical than it was when I was young. Only in the last few weeks have I begun to recall the details of my indoctrination. It's curious how the mind keeps things hidden from itself and then chooses to reveal what was hidden all at once. (There is much in us that we keep hidden from ourselves.) The catalyst must be my decision to begin initiation into the Catholic church. Religion has become for me not merely an intellectual curiosity (as it was before) but a very real, very insistent fact. But enough about me. Let us turn to the argument.

Bastell Barrett Baxter is one the best-known preachers in the Church of Christ. His church is the Purcellville Church of Christ in Purcellville, VA. (I should note that the name that they give for themselves is not "Church of Christ". Instead it is "church of Christ". Churches of Christ believe that they are not merely "another denomination". Rather they claim that they are the one true heir to the 1st century church and thus they are not a Church among Churches, but the sole body of Christ here on Earth. For a reason that is and always has been opaque to me, they take this as good reason not to use the capital "C".) On the Purcellvill Church of Christ site, one finds a good summary of the doctrines that unite the Churches of Christ. For instance, this is said about the Bible.

The original autographs of the sixty-six books which make up the Bible are considered to have been divinely inspired, by which it is meant that they are infallible and authoritative. Reference to the scriptures is made in settling every religious question. A pronouncement from the scriptures is considered the final word. The basic textbook of the church and the basis for all preaching is the Bible.

[The distinctive plea of the Churches of Christ] is primarily a plea for religious unity based upon the Bible . . . .. This is [a plea] to go back to the Bible; It [sic] is a plea to speak where the Bible speaks and to remain silent where the Bible is silent in all matters that pertain to religion. It further emphasizes that in everything religious there must be a "Thus saith the Lord" for all that is done.

The view here articulated is - I'll not mince words - absurd. (The argument I'll give is a slightly more sophisticated version of the one found here.) Let us go back in time to the 4th century. The Bible had not yet assumed its canonical form, and debates raged about what books to include in it and what books to exclude. Now let us ask what would have happened if the Catholic theologians who gave the Bible its final form had followed the dictum to "remain silent where the Bible is silent". If they had, they could not have produced the canonical Bible that exists today, for our Bible did not even exist then. If Baxter were to say that its various books did exist and that recourse could have been made to them, I will reply that nowhere in any book of the Bible are we told just what books should be part of the Bible. Thus if one remains silent where the Bible is silent, one could not not have gathered together the books that compose the Bible. The dictum "remain silent where the Bible is silent", if followed, would have left the world without the Bible.

Perhaps Baxter would reply that the dictum "remain silent where the Bible is silent", though applicable now, did not bind theologians in the 4th century. (Indeed I think that this is the only reply he can make.) This, however, cannot be simply said. It must be explained too. Why would that dictum have come into force only later? I can think of only one answer: the Spirit was at work in the editors of the Bible in a way that it is not now. (Surely the Christian must say that the authority of the Bible lies in the authority of its writers and its editors, and that the source of their authority lies in the fact that they were Spirit led.) But this seems an arbitrary and indefensible assumption. Moreover, it is an assumption in no way supported by Scripture - nowhere in Scripture will you find the claim that the Spirit does not now act as it acted in the 4th century. Thus if we follow Baxter and say that where the Bible is silent, we too must be silent, we must not say that the Spirit does not act now as it acted before.

Where are we left? The dictum "remain silent where the Bible is silent" simply cannot be believed by Christians. There must be a source of extra-Biblical religious authority, else the 4th century Biblical editors could not have produced an authoritative text. The source of this extra-Biblical authority should be clear - it is the activity of the Spirit upon the minds and hearts of believers.

Little Things

The way in which I view the world has begun to change. I have, after all, begun to swim the Tiber (as Bill Vallicella put it). Little things, things that before I would never have noticed, now make me happy. When with my family I walk into Mass, I see families whole and healthy. There is a father, a mother, and there are children well-behaved and respectful. The sight of this makes me happy. It reminds me that there is much good left in the world, and it gives me hope that, so long as such families exist, there is yet hope for the world.

I attribute this change in vision to the 10 weeks I recently spent in a local high school. I saw there the result of broken families. Children of broken families are poorly motivated, and they are disrespectful. The result comes as no surprise: they do poorly in school. (How do I know that the children of which I speak come from broken homes? They told me. As they came to know and trust me, they began to tell me their stories. I did not pass judgment. I only listened. And remembered. And drew conclusions.)

It looks to me as if there is a deep pathology in today's family. I see it in the children. So many are on medication. So many have little or no interest in their studies. So many take no thought for the future but seem content to live a life of ignorance and poverty. So many have little or no respect for their elders. (Should we blame them? The first and most important authority in their lives - parental - failed them spectacularly.) So many flee to those things that will harm them: drugs, premarital sex, gangs, etc. If I were to see only this, I would despair for the future of society. But I go to Mass, and I see that, with some families, all is well; and I am happy, if only for a moment.

(I do not mean to condemn all that I saw in those 10 weeks. There was much good there, too. The teachers that I came to know are extraordinary. The are like soldiers who run to a breach and againts all odds attempt to hold back the attack. Many students are as students should be: hard workers who do what's asked of them. But the pathology is undeniable.)

The Bible and the Magisterium

The Bible was written by human hands, and its many books were assembled by human hands. What are we to make of the doctrine of Sola Biblia in light of this? Let us consider only the assembly of the Bible.

Nowhere in the books of the Bible do you find any instruction about what books to include in its final canonical form. So, then, when in the 3rd century the Bible took its current form (let us put aside for the moment the dispute between Catholics and Protestants about the inclusion of the Apocrypha), the men responsible for its assembly were not guided by any explicit Biblical instructions.

Nor as a matter of logical necessity could they have been guided by Biblical instruction, whether explicit or implicit. It's quite possible that a book say of itself that it should be included in the Bible. But this alone does not mean that it should be. I could at this very moment produce a document that said of itself that it should be made part of the Bible, but this does not mean that it should be. Books can tell falsehoods. Moreover, when in the process of assembly, the assemblers did not yet know what should be included and what should not. They thus could not point to this or that book and say of it that it was canonical and thus authoratative, and this of course means that they could not rely upon the supposed authority of this or that book in the decision to include the books they did. Their decisions were of necessity not Bible-guided. They were Spirit-guided, I should think.

Now, what must we say today of those men who assembled the Bible? Assume that we wish to place a supreme and unshakable confidence in the Bible (as Biblical inerrantists wish to do). We must place a supreme and unshakable confidence in them and their work, else we would have to admit the possibility that they erred; and if we were to admit that, we could no longer cleave to the Bible as we wish.

My point is this: trust in the Bible requires an extra-Biblical trust in the work of the men who assembled it. We must trust to their authority, and must do so for reasons that cannot be culled from the Bible.

Thus as the Catholic Church teaches, there are two sources of religious authority: the Bible and the Magisterium. Sola Biblia undermines itself. One we think through what must be true if we are to trust the Bible, Sola Biblia becomes (at least) Sola Biblia et Magisterium.

First Communion

The twins - Curtis and Katie - had their first communion a few weeks ago. Since they're only eight, I don't think they understand much about it. (I'm not certain how much that I understand about it.) But they did see to appreciate the seriousness of the occasion, and they did enjoy the many friends and family who came to see them.

Divorce

We in the West (and it seems as well part of the East too) have arrived at a strange view of marriage. It is this: the love that binds husband to wife is of a weaker and less valuable sort than the love that binds parent to child. We see evidence of this continually. Husband and wife divorce and no longer longer care about the good of the other (or perhaps care no more than they do about a mere acquaintance), and yet they still care about the children. Though they no longer feel responsibility for the other, they still feel responsibility for the children. (I know that there are exceptions to this. I mean to speak only in generalities, but they strike me as true generalities.)

Thus it seems as if divorce betrays a certain ugly truth about marriage in the West: the love of children is unconditional, but the love of a spouse is quite conditional (or at least the former is much closer to unconditional than is the latter).

Wherever this view is taken, it is a perversion. Within a family, there must be no distinction made as regards the strength of the bonds of love. Wife and husband should love another as much as they loves their children. Even when children are not present, the bond between husband and wife should be no less strong that the bond of parent to child.

Though parents do sometimes take this view, children do not. They love all in their family equally, and would be just as devastated by the loss of one as the loss of another. This I believe explains why divorce exacts such a heavy toll on children. For themselves, they would never choose to have their family split up. But it is chosen for them, and at the hands of another they suffer a loss of that which they value most. Moreover, since to a child the natural view is that family love - whether between parent and parent or parent and child - knows no condition, once that love has shown itself conditional in divorce, the child will inevitably wonder whether it will show itself conditional in the love the parents have for her. A bond that breaks once can be broken again, and a parent's reassurance to the contrary will ring hollow.

I do realize, of course, the divorce is in come cases a necessity. But we ought to recognize it for the great evil it is. It implies a profound lack of love by at least one spouse.

Since I've talked almost exclusively about the evil of divorce, perhaps I should end with a word or two about the good of marriage. As I've said many times at The Philosophical Midwife, I believe that we are for one another. This is our purpose. We are to seek our good, and the good of others, in the company of others, and we are to delight in their presence. We are to bind ourselves to others absolutely and unconditionally, and in this way and this way alone is our true felicity found. Marriage is thus a vehicle - indeed I would say the primary vehicle - through which the human good (at least on this Earth) is realized. So then let husband and wife make between them a bond unshakable, and let them thereby show that they are capable of the highest of goods.

My Creed Revisited

Some time ago I decided that I would write Franklin's Creed. It was this:

My Creed

The world revealed to the senses is not the whole of the world. The self revealed to the senses is not the whole of the self. The world did not come to be from nothing. Rather it had a cause that stands outside it. The cause is single, not multiple. The cause is God. The self did not come from nothing. It did not come from blind physical processes unwatched and not chosen. Rather the self was made by another and greater self. It was made by God. God wishes that we love both him and one another for eternity. But in our present state this is impossible. We live in a state of spiritual infancy, and our purpose in this life and in the life after is to learn to love perfectly. All are immortal. All will fulfill their purpose. The opportunity for spiritual growth does not end when we die. Rather it persists for so long as we fall short of perfection. Perhaps I will be perfected in this life. Perhaps my perfection will require the life-age of the universe. But no matter how long it takes, it will happen. Christ was perfect love made flesh. He came not to pay a price, but rather to evince love, give hope, and form a body of followers in which love might grow. Scripture is a human record of God's relation to the world of his creation and as such is subject to the very errors that plague all human work. Scripture is not inerrant. Scripture answers in us a felt need for guidance in our moral quest. We know that its ethic of love answers to our most fundamental need. Its sole authority rests in this.

I would like now to make a pair of revisions. The first concerns my talk of spiritual infancy. I suspect that it is inadequate. A few months ago, I had a minor religious experience. In it I became convinced that the whole of creation was radically transformed - ruined I should say - by the Fall. While this does not contradict my prior view that we humans now exist in a state of spiritual infancy - a child, while still a child, may still rebel and do harm both to himself and to those around him - it yet transforms that prior view.

Here is my proposed revision:

We came into the world as spiritual children, and while still children rebelled against God and thus ruined both our perfect, albeit infant, nature and the world in which we live. Both we and the world now bear the unmistakable signs of our rebellion.

Moreover, this revision requires that we rethink the work of Christ. I think now that in my Creed I trivialized that work. Christ was no mere teacher. He was no mere founder of the Church. Rather in a way that as present I only dimly understand, he came so that he might put right the damage we did to ourselves and to the Fall. Christ's work is not merely pedagogical or organizational. It is rather ontological. By His life, and His death, he reaches into the innermost recesses of our being, and the being of the world, and thus effects a transformation that could not be effected in any other way. In the original creed, what I say suggests that Christ could carry out his purpose and yet only act upon us externally. That's wrong. Christ has to, as it were, cut into the soul, remove what's ruined so that what's good might flourish. Christ isn't so much a teacher as a surgeon, or perhaps we should say that he wasn't only a teacher but was a surgeon too.

So, then, a second correction to the Creed is needed.

Christ was perfect love made flesh. He came not to pay a price, but rather to evince love, give hope, and form a body of followers in which love might grow. By his work, and by that work alone, our ruined natures, and the ruined world around us, are made whole again.

The Value of Human Life

A recent post at the evangelical outpost has proven a good opportunity for me to make clear my views about the value of human life.

I wish you to consider two worlds, and make a judgment about which you would create if you had the power. The first I call "Hor" and the second "Ver".

In Hor there live 6 billions human beings, but each is in a permanent coma. Moreover, each of the 6 billion will live until old age and will, since in a coma, die painlessly. The bodily processes of the 6 billion - expect of course for the brain processes responsible for consciousness - continue without malfunction until death, and thus if we discount brain malfunction, each of the 6 billion is in superb health. There are no other beings in Hor capable of consciousness except the 6 billion.

In Ver there also live 6 billion human beings, and their lives are much like our own. They sleep and then they wake. While awake, they go about the day's business. They work, they eat, they play, they read, etc. Like in our world, there is much pain is their lives, but there is much joy too, and most value both their lives and the lives of those around them. As in Hor, there are in Ver no other beings capable of consciousness except the 6 billion.

Now, my question to you is this: If you were a god, which of Ver and Hor would you create? When I ask myself this question, I find that the answer is obvious. I would create Ver. Indeed it seems to me that there's not really much of a choice. Ver so far exceeds Hor in value that it is obviously the one to create. The value of Hor is really quite small, if in fact it has any value at all. It is worth barely more than a world in which there is no human life at all.

Conclusion: mere human life, divorced from the possibility of consciousness and all that this makes possible, is worth very little.

Do not be tempted to conclude that a human being ceases to be of worth when she is unconscious. This does not follow. If we were to say of Hor that its inhabitants would soon wake from their comas, no doubt we would conclude that Hor and Ver are of equal worth. Thus it is not mere unconsciousness that makes Hor worth so little. Instead it's that the inhabitants of Hor can never regain consciousness. The possibility of consciousness is crucial here.

Let us apply the conclusion to the debates about abortion and euthanasia. When in the early stages of development the fetus is not yet conscious, we cannot conclude that it is then of little value. On the contrary, if there is no defect that would prevent normal brain development, it is of very great value, for it will at a later time gain consciousness. But if the fetus were to suffer from a defect that made it impossible for it ever to be conscious, it is, as it were, mere human life and as such is of little worth. Such a fetus may, it seems to me, be aborted. (I do not say that it must be. I say only that it may be.)

What now of euthanasia? As before, if a person falls into a permanent coma, she then loses the value that before she had. She may be euthanized. (Again I do not say that she must be. I only say that she may be. It might well be that, if a doctor or family member were to kill, or let die, the one in a coma, it would have a deleterious effect upon them. Perhaps it would make them callous, and if this is so, perhaps they ought not do it. Another way to put my conclusion is this: if one restricts one's attention to the one in a permanent coma, there is no reason not to kill or let die. But if one widens one's attention and consider the effects upon others, there might well be decisive reason not to kill or let die.)

Before I end, let me say a word of caution. The medical judgment that a person is in a permanent coma might be difficult to make, and I think it necessary to err on the side of caution. A human being that has the potential to regain consciousness is, because of that potential, of such great value that she ought not to consider euthanasia unless we are utterly certain that the potential no longer remains. (I would say this too of abortion. We ought to be utterly certain that all possibility of consciousness is gone before we consider abortion.) That said, I believe that certainty is possible here. If for instance the upper, cortical areas of the brain are simply dead, or not present, we can be certain that there will never (again) be consciousness.

Problem of Evil: The Structure of the Debate

Evil, many have said, is incompatible with God's existence. This is the notorious problem of evil.

There are many attempts to articulate this objection to theism. Some, like J.L. Mackie, think that the incompatibility is a logical sort: any evil at all, no matter how small, renders God's existence a logical impossibility. Others, like William Rowe, think that the incompatibility is rather evidential: evil of the sorts, quantity and distribution that we find in our world renders God's existence not impossible but rather unlikely.

I have encountered a certain clever response to this objection. It would have us consider whether the atheist can in consistency admit that there is such a thing as evil.

The dialogue format seems appropriate here. "T" is our theist, and "A" our atheist. A has just finished with her rendition of the argument from evil, and T is about to begin her response.

T: So you say that God and evil cannot both exist?
A: Yes, that's right.
T: But you say that evil does in fact exist?
A: Again, that's right. Indeed I think it obvious that there is evil in the world. Examples are legion.
T: But then must you not say that there is some standard of good and evil?
A: Yes, I suppose I must. There is such a standard, and the things we call evil fall short of it.
T: When you say that, you've opened the door to theism.

T will now attempt to prove that a standard by which we distinguish good from evil of necessity leads back to theism. Lewis seems to have had just such a strategy in mind when, in Mere Christiantity, he said this:

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? ... Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying that it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist--in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless--I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality--namely my idea of justice--was full of sense.

I do not doubt that some who press the problem of evil would admit to the existence of evil and thus to a standard of good and evil. But they need not do so. One can reformulate the argument from evil so that it no longer assumes that evil exists. This may seem paradoxical at first, but let me show you how it's done. The dialogue begins as it did before.

T: So you say that God and evil cannot both exist?
A: Yes, that's right.
T: But you say that evil does in fact exist?
A: No, you've misunderstood. All that I've said is that the theist must say that evil does in fact exist.
T: But don't you have an opinion on the matter?
A: I do, but my opinion is irrelevant to my objection. Here, let me map out the argument for you. (A stands up and walks over to a nearby chalkboard.) I'll write out the objection to make sure it's clear. (A numbers his propositions like a good analytic.)

1. There are such things as murder, rape, cancer, hydrocephaly, etc.
2. The theist must say that these things are evil, or to put it in conditional form: if theism is true, murder, rape and all the rest are evil.
3. But if murder is evil, then given that murder is all too real, there is such a thing as evil.
4. If evil exists, God cannot exist. (After he writes 4, A turns to T and asks him to recall the argument he gave for 4. He reminds A that it has to do with the impossibility that a perfect God would allow evil to exist.)
5. Collect together 2, 3 and 4 and we reach this sub-conclusion: if theism is true, God cannot exist.
6. But this leads us straight into logical paradox. For surely we must say that if theism is true, God must exist. Indeed theism just is the claim that there exists a God.
7. Thus if theism is true, we must say both that God exists and that God does not exist.
8. We find, then, that theism entails a contradiction - the contradiction that there both is and is not a God.
9. Hence we must say that theism cannot be true.

(A returns to his seat and begins to talk about what he's just written.)
A: So you see, then, that in my argument I do not say that there's such a thing as evil. Rather all that I say is that there are such things as murder and cancer and that the theist must say that these things are evil. In short, it is not I who say that there's evil. Rather it's you who says that there's evil, and in my argument all that I do is report that belief of yours. After I report it, I attempt to isolate an inconsistency in your belief-set.

I'll break off the dialogue at this point. I can think of nothing for T to say but to grant A's point. The upshot, of course, is that, when the atheist presses the problem of evil, she needn't leave the door open to theism (at least not in the way Lewis thought). In particular, she need not herself assume that there's any such thing as evil. She reports a belief in evil. She does not assent to it. Moreover, let us be careful about what T has attemtped to do. She has not attempted to show that there's no God. Rather she has attempted to show that there's deep inconsistency in the Christian world-view. The Christian's assent to God's existence and to the existence of evil, says T, shows that the Christian's world-view is deeply inconsistent. In this context, A offers no suggestions about how to remove that inconsistency.

Anonymous Christians

In a previous post, I concluded this:

The dispute over UR [the doctrine of universal reconciliation] is not unique in this regard. One can gather both Pro and Con lists [of Biblical verses] for each of the five Solas, for instance. The conclusion that I would draw about each is the same as I drew about UR: there is ample room for disagreement, and one ought not simply dismiss one's opponents out of hand. It might well turn out that you are wrong.

I wish now to draw a certain inference from this conclusion. It is this:

If, as is the case with UR and the five Solas, Scripture provides ample room for disagreement, one's salvation cannot in all cases depend upon knowledge of what in fact is true.

How do we reach this conclusion? We say that if non-culpable error about a certain matter is a real possibility for us, our salvation cannot require that we have true belief about it. By "non-culpable", I mean an act for which we cannot be held responsible, and we cannot be held responsible for an act, I assume, when it was done with as much care as we could muster. An example will make what I mean clear. We heat our home with natural gas. Every year when the weather begins to turn, I have our unit inspected. What if (God forbid) it were to malfunction and explode? I would not be responsible, for I had exercised proper care in the matter. (If I had not had it inspected, then possibly I am responsible. I need not be - an inspection might not have been able to identity the risk of explosion - but if I'd failed to have it inspected, we must at least consider the possibility that I was responsible.)

Now, the argument of the previous post was intended to establish the claim that, in the case of UR (and the five Solas too), error is a very real possibility, even for those who exercise proper care in the interpretation of the relevant texts. If that argument succeeds, we must conclude that a mistake to do with UR (and the Solas) cannot by itself be a reason to deny salvation. For if error persists even though proper interpretative care was taken, it is not culpable error; and if it is not culpable error one cannot be held responsible for it.

Arguments such as this make a certain kind of religious non-cognitivism attractive to me. By this I mean that our salvation cannot depend upon the beliefs that we have about religious matters. I am attracted to this view because I've come to think it clear (because of - among other reasons - arguments like the above) that non-culpable error about religious matters is a very real possibility.

Think of it this way. God is merciful, and so cuts us slack wherever appropriate. But as regards religious belief, there is much non-culpable error, and thus God does not (indeed cannot if he is perfectly merciful) hold that against us.

Arguments such as this also point in the direction of what before I called "practical Christianity". The purpose of the Christian life is not to hold certain beliefs (though I do not doubt that these can be helpful). Rather it is to act in a certain way, and if you act as you ought, the rewards promised to Christians, though you may never have heard the name "Jesus", are yours too.

I know that this will strike many today as absurd, but I think it a view entailed by what Christ told us of the law. The law does not command belief. Rather it commands action. We are told that the essence of the law is the command to love God with heart, mind and soul, and to love the neighbor as the self; and the love Christ here means is not mere emotion, but is rather essentially action. What do we say, then, of those who act as Christ commands but do not believe as Christians believe? We must say that they have grasped the essence of the law. They are, to use Rahner's term, "anonymous Christians". They live the law, but do not know Christ for who he was. They are saved.

The Chief End of Man

For God so wished to righteously judge the world that he sent his only begotten son? No!

For God so wished for his own glorification that he sent his only begotten son? No!

For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son!

What then is the chief end of man? Is he the material on which God's judgment is exercised? Was he made so that he might glorify God? No! The chief end of man is to love, and to be loved by, God.

Universal Reconciliation

What is better, that a sinner be saved or that he not? That he be saved.
Does God wish that the better or the worse occur? The better.
What then does God wish for me? That I be saved.
Is it possible that I be saved? Yes, of course. Each is such that he might be saved.
Might God lay a path before me that will convince me of the need of my salvation? Yes, this is possible. The path might be long. It might be arduous. But it is possible.
Will God put my feet on that path? Yes, he must. For it is what he wishes, and it is possible for him to do. Indeed I am on that path now, as are you.
Will I reach the path's end? Sin is misery. Salvation is bliss. All wish bliss, and will, if given sufficient time, choose it.

The "Silver Bullet" School of Scriptural Interpretation

There is a school of Scriptural interpretation that I will call the "Silver Bullet" school. It is committed, either explicitly or implicitly by its practices, to this interpretative principle:

If one wishes to establish that proposition P is a view expressed in Scripture, all that one needs to do is find a single passage which seems to say, or to entail, that P.

The Silver Bullet school is quite common among Evangelicals. I often hear it in their radio sermons (and where I live the radio waves are saturated with Evangelical radio). I have heard a "proof" of the doctrine of Sola Fide of this sort, for instance. A single passage was named, and on this basis alone the truth of Sola Fide was derived.

The Silver Bullet school is hopelessly naive. If we consider for a moment what Scripture tells us about universal reconciliation, we can easily show that this is so.

By "universal reconciliation" (UR) I mean that view that, in the end, all will be saved. UR thus entails that no one will spend an eternity in hell, however we might conceive of it. Of course UR does not imply that we do no suffer for our sins. We do. Nor does it entail that there is no place where sinners are sent to suffer for their sins. There might be such a place on UR, but if there is, none remain there for eternity.

Two sorts of arguments might be offered for UR, one Scriptural and the other philosophical. Let us consider the Scriptural for a moment. Collected below are verses which seem support UR and verses which seem to reject it.

Verses that seem to embrace universal reconciliation:

• John 12:32: "And I [Jesus Christ], when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself."

• 1 John 2:1-2 "My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for[a] the sins of the whole world."

• Acts 3:21: [Jesus] "must remain in heaven until the time for the final restoration of all things, as God promised long ago through the prophets."

• Ephesians 1:9-10 "And he (God) made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ."

• Romans 5:18-19 "Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous."

• Romans 8: 18-19 "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."

• Romans 11:32: For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all

• 1 Timothy 4:10: "We have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe."

• Revelation 5:13 And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever.

Verse that seems to entail a rejection of universal reconciliation:

• Matthew 7:13-14 "Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it. ¹⁴"For the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it."

• Matthew 22:14 "For many are called, but few are chosen"

• Matthew 12:32: "And whoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age, or in the age to come."

• Matthew 25:46 "And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life"

• Mark 16:16 "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned."

• 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God."

• Matthew 10:23 "And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved"

• Hebrews 10:39 But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.

• Revelation 21:6-8 And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

(The list of passages is taken from the Wikipedia article on universal reconciliation.)

Each verse in the first list seems clearly to entail UR. Each verse in the second seems to clearly entail the denial of UR. (Let us here put emphasis upon "seems". We might well find that our considered judgment will diverge from what seemed to us true as first. More on this in a moment.) What then are we to do if we wish to know what Scripture tells us about UR? We might of course pick one passage from either list and simply say that it's decisive. But that would be arbitrary. Why choose one passage instead of another? In particular, why choose a passage from the Pro List instead of a passage from the Con List? Surely one cannot provide good Scriptural support for a thing by arbitrary choice of passage. This alone is sufficient to undermine the Silver Bullet school. But let us press on. The water here is deep and we've barely broken the surface.

If we do not pick one verse and render our judgment by it alone, there is but one strategy left: in their context, and in the context of the remainder of Scripture and the theology that seems most concordant with it, weigh the passages against one another and thus (hopefully) come to a judgment about which seem decisive.

Now, I will not argue here that the proper judgment favors Pro UR or that it favors Con UR. Instead let me make what seems an obvious point: the arguments that one will marshal in support of one's view will likely be subtle, difficult and long, and since this is so, there is ample room for disagreement. My plea is thus as follows: let the parties to the dispute about UR recognize that there is room for disagreement, and let them not dogmatically assert that their view is certain. Hold to your view (I hold to mine), but do not dismiss out of hand the views of those who oppose you. They have some measure of Scriptural support, and some measure of reason too; and if your view should prevail, it is not because it was the obvious victor from the start, but rather it because it came out on top after a lengthy, subtle and difficult dispute.

The dispute over UR is not unique in this regard. One can gather both Pro and Con lists for each of the five Solas, for instance. The conclusion that I would draw about each is the same as I drew about UR: there is ample room for disagreement, and one ought not simply dismiss one's opponents out of hand. It might well turn out that you are wrong.

Still an Analytic: Does Present Duty Reflect Future Loyalty?

I'm an analytic philosopher both by education and by inclination. I love to map out arguments and pick at them until I find their weak spot. Indeed I love the succinct but decisive refutation.

Joe Carter of the Evangelical Outpost says this:

I contend that certain obligations that are recognized after we marry are binding on us even before we meet our future spouses. Although we are separated “relative to temporal perspective” this person exists now and is not in any morally relevant respect different from the person we will wed. The duties of a husband, therefore, would extend not just from the present (when we marry our spouse) and future (throughout our marriage) but also backward into the past (the time prior to our marriage, or even before we meet).

I believe that this admits of a succinct, decisive refutation. Here it is:

Joe assumes that I have a duty of loyalty now to those to whom I will at a later time pledge my loyalty. In particular, he assumes that unmarried adults who will later marry have a duty now to their future mate to have sex with no one else.

This principle (call it Fides) is open to refutation by counter-example.

Let us say that Curtis will marry twice in the future. First he will marry Margaret, and next he will marry Peggy.
Let us assume, moreover, that both marriages are, from the moral point of view, permissible for him. Perhaps Margaret will die and a year later Curtis will marry Peggy.
On Fides, at present and while still single, Curtis has a duty to Margaret to have sex with no one else and he has a duty to Peggy to have sex with no one else.
Moreover, once he marries Margaret (and before she dies), Fides has the consequence that he has a duty to Peggy not to have sex with Margaret.
But this is clearly absurd. The pleasures of the marriage bed are not closed to Curtis and Margaret simply because, at a later time, she will die and Curtis will marry another.

What Joe's principle seems not to take into account is that one can have different loyalties at different times.

Now perhaps Fides can be fixed up. I don't know. But it seems to me more likely that, with all loyalties, the duties entailed by that loyalty do not begin until the loyalty is pledged. Do I have a duty of loyalty to the Marine Corps before I join up? Surely it would be strange to say Yes. (Indeed if the answer were Yes, it seems the Corps could come and haul me away before I signed up. But surely that's absurd.)

This of course is perfectly consistent with the assertion that, before marriage, it might well be wise to remain celibate. (Perhaps if I intend to marry, I have a general duty - a duty not to a particular person - to make of myself a good match; and perhaps sex before marriage will for some reason make me less of a good match.) But the argument seems not to show that.

Brown Replies

My goodness. Brown replied to my criticism of her argument to do with IVF and child-objectification. She seems to me, though, to simply reiterate the points she'd made before and makes no real attempt to counter the objections I offer. But she is gracious; if you're curious, it's worth a look.

I sent Brown this reply:

Thank you for the response.

My objection at bottom comes to this: the reason you wish IVF banned concerns at most certain abuses of the practice, abuses which need not occur. Why isn't the appropriate response to the abuses not to call for an end to all IVF but instead to call for its reform?

You think it wrong to test embryos for genetic abnormality. Well, then, let us not do it. But that by itself does not imply that we should put an end to IVF.

You think it wrong to destroy embryos so that we might experiment upon them. Well, then, let us not do it. But as before this does not by itself imply that IVF should be banned. All that it implies instead is that it should be regulated.

Of course you do offer another sort of argument, one religious in nature. You say that infertile couples were chosen by God for a task other than to raise their own children. But does this not imply that, no matter what physical abnormality we find ourselves afflicted with, we should simply accept it as God's will and not attempt to correct or overcome it? Let us say that my daughter's legs are not the same length. It seems that you would have us say that this is something desired by God and thus that we should let her limp. I disagree. We live in a world marred by the Fall, and much in it does not go in accordance with God's design. Disease of all kinds is like this - and this includes the disease of infertility. Unless you would require us to simply accept all disease, I do not see how you can ask infertile couples to simply accept their infertility.

Matter and Spirit

God is spirit. The body is matter.

We often assume that spirit and matter are fundamentally different in nature. Matter is spatial. Spirit is not. Matter is divisible. Spirit is not. Matter is governed by blind physical law that takes no account of purpose. Spirit is not. Rather in all that it does it takes purpose into account. Matter is finite. (Perhaps there is an infinite amount of matter, but any bit of matter that we might consider is finite is extent. Moreover, whatever characteristic of matter we might care to consider - weight, size, momentum, etc. - is always finite in quantity.) Spirit is infinite. (It is not infinite in extent, for it is not spatial. But those qualities that it possess it possess infinitely. Its power, knowledge and goodness and all the rest are infinite.) Matter is quantifiable in a myriad of ways - it is of so much weight, such and such size, etc. Spirit is not quantifiable in this way.

Thus there's little wonder that we think matter and spirit fundamentally different. But let us pause for a moment and consider what's been said in the light of the Incarnation. Christ is both spirit and matter. He is the two joined. Thus we must say that at bottom there can be no opposition between them. Matter is such that it take house spirit. Spirit is such that it can take up residence in matter.

How is this possible? How can the spatial and the non-spatial (the divisible and the indivisible, the finite and the infinite, etc.) be joined so that they form a genuine unity? I do not know. It is a mystery to me.

Let me sharpen the question. Christ is both matter and spirit. But should we say that he is infinite as spirit is infinite or finite as matter is finite? He must be one, and he cannot be both. But if he is merely finite, it seems that spirit has within him lost an aspect of its essential character; and if he is infinite, it seems that he cannot be matter, for the finitude of matter is essential to it.

Do we say that, qua spirit, Christ is infinite, and, qua matter, he is finite? Perhaps. But then we are left to explain what's meant by this 'qua' in such a way that the unity of spirit and matter in Christ is preserved. I am at a loss about how to do so.

Are We Lovable in God's Eyes?

We must be, else he would not love us.

Some say that God loves us though we are not lovable. We are not lovable, they say, because we, all and one, are sinners. But does our sin make us unlovable? Of course not. Your child sins. Do you love her any less? You do not. You make clear her sin to her because you love her. She remains lovable though she has sinned, and if you ceased to love her because she had sinned, your sin would be greater than hers.

Do not believe, then, that God's love for you is arbitrary and baseless. He could not but love you, for no matter how sinful you are, you are yet lovable.

Does IVF Render Children Mere Objects?

Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, makes a quite extraordinary claim about IVF.

No one has a right to a child . . .. IVF turns children into commodities. When a couple undergoes IVF, they say,“We want a child, no matter what,” and the child becomes an object.

Let's examine her three claims in order.

No one has a right to a child.

Brown must mean that no one has a right to bring a child into the world. I most surely do have a right to my three children, but they are, as it were, already here. What then of the claim that no one has a right to bring a child into the world? It's obviously false. One of the basic rights of a couple is the right to attempt to conceive. But what is the attempt to conceive but the attempt to create a child? Thus couples must have the right to attempt to create a child.

Would Mrs. Brown attempt to deny them this right? Would she have us monitor bedrooms? Would she endorse forced sterilizations? If not - and one must assume that she would not - she thereby admits, even if only implicitly, that there is a right to conceive.

Couples who undergo IVF express an unqualified desire for a child.

This is false too. My twins are a product of IVF, but my wife and I did not have an unqualified desire for children. If it had been unqualified, we would have pursued it, as Brown says, no matter what. But we would not have pursued it no matter what. If we had discovered that my wife was likely die in pregnancy, we would not have undergone IVF. If we had discovered that there was a high probability that one or more of our children would suffer from severe genetic abnormality, we would not have undergone IVF.

Other examples could be generated quite easily.

No doubt almost all couples who pursue IVF are the same. They do have a great desire for children, but it is not unqualified. Indeed I can think of no reason to suppose parents who pursue IVF have a desire for children that, in general, is greater or less qualified than that of parents who have been unable to conceive but continue to pursue a child in the usual way. Parents of both types very much want children and often work quite hard (though in different ways) to conceive.

IVF turns children into commodities, i.e. into mere objects.

I suspect that Brown intends us to infer this from the claim that couples who undergo IVF have an unqualified desire for children. But does it follow? It does not. Why should an unqualified desire for a thing imply that the thing is thought of as an object. I suspect that many religious folk have an unqualified desire to enjoy the bliss of the beatific vision. This is something they want, no matter what. But does this mean that they think of God or their enjoyment of him as a mere commodity? Of course not.

What now of couples who undergo IVF. Is the child they desire, the child they attempt to create, a mere commodity for them? I do not know what to say except that this need not be so. It was not the case for me and my wife. It is not the case for many other couples who've undergone IVF.

Perhaps Brown objects that the embryos created by IVF are not treated with due respect and thus become like objects to the parents. Again I do not know what to say except that this need not be so. What if every embryo is implanted? If so, each embryo is given no less of a chance to develop than is an embryo created in the usual way. (Implanted embryos are sometimes donated embryos. My wife and I donated our leftover embryos to an agency that makes them available to infertile couples. Does this not imply respect?)


A few minutes at the American Life League makes clear that Brown believes IVF a great evil. But throughout she seems guilty of a certain fallacy. She points to abuses of the procedure and concludes that the procedure itself must be wrong in all cases. But the mere fact that a thing can be improperly done does not imply that it may never be done. It only implies that one must be careful when one does it.

Turn or Burn

"Turn or burn" nicely sums up one of the foundational beliefs of most evangelicals. (I recently encountered it here, but it is nearly ubiquitous.) Turn to Christ, or you'll be banished to hell where you will suffer for an eternity.

I well understand the motive for Turn-or-Burn. It seems Biblical to many, and it seems just. But let us see about the second. Is it just?

Let us conjoin to Turn-or-Burn a second doctrine admitted by all orthodox Christians. It is that we come into the world ruined creatures for whom sin is not merely likely but is inevitable. Let us follow Augustine and call this doctrine Original Sin.

Consider now Turn-or-Burn + Original Sin in light of the empirical fact that, through no fault of their own, that many have died with no knowledge of Christ. I contend that here we have an absurdity. For consider one who died with no knowledge of Christ. On Turn-or-Burn, she now roasts in hell. But she was not responsible for her sin-nature, nor was she responsible for her lack of knowledge of Christ and thus was not responsible for the lack of that knowledge that might have saved her. This is absurd. How would you feel if you were punished for a thing you could not help but do? What if I were to add that there was a way to save yourself, and that, though you could not be expected to know anything of it, we will punish you anyway. You would of course feel that you'd been treated unfairly, and you would be right.

Turn-or-Burn thus has no place in the Christian faith. It violates the basic principle of fairness that if one cannot help one's sinful state, and one cannot be expected to know how to put it right, one may not be punished for it. (Indeed it seems strange to even call it sin in such a case. Sin is a moral failure for which one can be rightly held responsible and thus sin must be free.)

Let the Argument Speak

It's curious how those on both Right and Left say of themselves that they, and they alone, are in touch with reality. The others suffer from some (usually self-inflicted) illusion indicative of deep moral and intellectual failure. Let your argument speak, say I. Do not speculate about the others' irrationality, for that borders on ad hominem. Treat them with the respect they deserve and leave them out of it.

Like Lock and Key

Gregory E. Ganssle argues that God, if conceived in the traditional way, likely would wish to communicate with humanity, and that the most likely form of communication would be the written word. (What is the traditional conception? God is the all-good, all-powerful, all-wise creator and sustainer of the world who so loves his creation that he acts within it to insure its redemption. Orthodox Muslims, Jews and Christians all assent to this.)

I accept the claim but think that the view stands in need of extension.

1. God's message to us would be of value only if we believed that it was from God.
2. But in all matters to do with belief about such things, we ought carefully to weigh the reasons to believe that the message really does come from God.
3. To weigh the reasons, we must have already have in our possession some knowledge of the characteristics that must be possessed by divine communication.
4. These characteristics, presumably, would derive from God's perfect nature - the divine message would reflect God's goodness, God's love for us, God's justice, God's knowledge, God's power, etc.
5. So, then, for God's message to find its mark, we must already possess (even if only implicitly) knowledge to do with God's nature.
6. This seems a kind of knowledge that cannot be derived empirically. Rather it must be, in some sense, innate.

The most obvious of the lacunae in the argument is found in 6. Why think that our knowledge of God's nature cannot be of empirical origin? That is a difficult question to answer, and let me here say only this. (I will limit myself to the attribute of goodness.) There is nothing that we observe by means of the senses that possesses the perfection of omnibenevolence. Indeed it seems that by the senses we do not so observe even imperfect goodness. We do of course observe things that are imperfectly good. But though the thing is observed, its goodness is not. Thus if we have some notion of goodness (and we do), it cannot be derived empirically; and if it is not

The upshot is that God must have made us such that we have within ourselves the means to verify that God's message does truly originate in God. An analogy: if God's message is the key, within us there must be a lock that precisely fits that key.

(A hat-tip to Jeremy at the Parableman. His discussion of Ganssle is quite good.)

Do We Feel God?

Today when I put his bowl of Cheerios down in front of him, Gabriel - my youngest - asked me a curious question. "My heart is medium-sized, and God is huge. How can God be in my heart?"

I attempted to explain that, when we say God is in our hearts, we mean that we don't see, hear, or taste him but rather feel him.

How good an answer is this? Do we really feel God?

Well, what are the sorts of things we feel? Love, hate, disgust, elation, etc. It seems a strange thing to add God to this list. Take the example of love. It seems to be something purely relational - it concerns how a person feels about a thing. Love, as it were, reaches out beyond the lover and finds its object in a second thing. The same seems true of the other things we feel.

Is God, then, something purely relational? This seems wrong. Relations depend for their existence upon the things related - if one or the other were to cease to exist, the relation would cease as well. Thus if God were relational, he would be a dependent being. But he is not.

What, then, is the source of our experiential knowledge of God? If we cannot perceive him via the senses and cannot feel him, what is the matter of our contact with him?

Midwifery

It occurred to me that there might me those here who would not understand the historical reference in the title of the blog. It comes from Plato's description of the philosophical labor of Socrates.

My [i.e. Socrates'] art of midwifery is in most respects like theirs; but differs, in that I attend men and not women; and look after their souls when they are in labor, and not after their bodies: and the triumph of my art is in thoroughly examining whether the thought which the mind of the young man brings forth is a false idol or a noble and true birth. Like the mid-wives, I am barren, and the reproach which is often made against me, that I ask questions of others and have not the wit to answer them myself, is very just-the reason is, that the god compels me to be a midwife, but does not allow me to bring forth. Therefore I am not myself at all wise, nor have I anything to show which is the invention or birth of my own soul, but those who converse with me profit. Some of them appear dull enough at first, but afterwards, as our acquaintance ripens, if the god is gracious to them, they all make astonishing progress; and this in the opinion of others as well as in their own. It is quite dear that they never learned anything from me; the many fine discoveries to which they cling are of their own making. But to me and the god they owe their delivery.
(Theaetetus 150 b-151d)

I make no such grand claims for myself as Socrates does. I cannot claim to have "delivered" in anyone any worthwhile idea. Nor do I say of myself that I am completely barren of ideas. I am not (nor, of course, was Socrates). Nonetheless, I very much like the metaphor. I do hope to think along with others, to help them and myself too to think a bit more deeply and clearly about the matters I take up. Midwifery seems a not completely inappropriate metaphor for this.

God's Love

For God so loved the world? Absurd! A thing loved is a thing desired, and a thing desired is a thing not possessed. But God cannot desire that which is not good, and thus if he desires a thing, there is some good that he lacks. A god that lacks some good? Such a being cannot be God!

On Righteousness and the Fate of the Soul

What do we mean when we speak of "righteousness"? First we must say that "righteousness" means something like action in accordance with divine command. But once we probe deeper, we will find that opinion on how precisely to articulate the relation of righteousness to God's commands divides into two sorts.

On the first, when we wish to explain what we mean by "righteousness", the primary explanatory entity is God and His will. We begin with that, and explain righteousness in terms of it. What does this mean? God does not command a thing because it is righteous. Rather he commands a thing and then it thereby becomes righteous. (This, presumably, is not the "and then" of temporal succession. Rather it is the "and then" of explanatory inference.) Thus on this opinion, God is not constrained in His choice of what to make righteous. Rather that choice is perfectly free, or as is sometimes said, it is arbitrary. In sum: on the first opinion, righteousness is, at bottom, conformity of action to arbitrary divine command.

On the second, the primary explanatory entity is humans and their welfare. We first articulate that in which their welfare consists, and then we explain righteousness in terms of it. How is this done? We assume that God wishes us to live well. Indeed we assume that when he commands us to do a thing, he does so because he knows that, if we follow the command, we thereby become more likely to live well. Thus on this opinion, God's choice of what to make righteous is not free. Indeed it is constrained by his knowledge of that in which our welfare consists conjoined to his desire that we live well. Note that this does not imply that God's commands are absolutely necessary. God was of course free not to create us. But once he did, he was no longer free in his choice of what to make righteous for us. For in the very act of our creation, our welfare was thereby defined. (Indeed one might say that the idea of Homo sapiens - an idea that God perfectly grasped before he created us - already contains within it a definition of human welfare. Thus the definition of human welfare is at it were "there" before Homo sapiens was created.)

One might reasonably conclude from Matthew that Christ's opinion was of the second sort. He tells us that the law is for us and not we for the law. What can this mean except that God commanded as he did so that, if we but follow his commands, we will do better than we would have done otherwise? Christ subordinates the commands of God to human welfare, and he pleads with us not to reverse the proper order of the two.

Note that, on the second opinion, human welfare need not be defined in independence of God. Rather it's entirely possible that human welfare in some way involves God. Perhaps humans live well only if they love, and are loved by, God. But this does not require that we alter the relation of explanatory precedence between human welfare and God's commands. God commands as he does so that we might live well, though he perhaps commands us to love him.

(One cannot defend a third sort of view on which righteousness concerns not human but rather divine welfare. God's welfare does not wait upon his choices. Rather it is already in place, perfect, before any choice that he makes. God is of necessity complete in himself, and nothing that anyone can do - not even God - can make him any better off. Nor can one defend a third sort of view on which God commands as he does simply because it is right. For then we must ask what is the relation of God's commands to the right. If we say in response that the right is the right because God commands it, we are back to the first of our opinions above. If on the contrary we say in response that God commands what he does because it is right, then we are forced to inquire into the nature of the right, in particular of the right for human beings. What are we to say here expect that, if the right for human beings is not to be defined in terms of God's commands, it is to be defined in terms of human welfare? But once that is said, we are back to the second of the two opinions above.)

Let us now consider the relation of these two views of righteousness to the fate of the soul. On the first opinion of the relation of righteousness to God's commands, eternal retribution for human sin makes at least prima facie sense. On the first, God's commands are prior to righteousness and serve to define it. Thus they would seem to define as well what the retribution for disobedience must be. Perhaps the severity of the retribution must, as it were, match the distance between the perfection of God and the imperfection of the sin, and thus sin might perhaps merit eternal retribution. But on the second opinion of the relation of righteousness to God's commands, eternal retribution for human sin makes no sense at all. To punish eternally diminishes human welfare. Indeed it diminishes it to an infinite degree. Thus to suppose both that God commands as he does so as to maximize human welfare and yet that God punishes eternally those who break his commands seems a flat contradiction.

Conclusion. If one thinks sinners are punished eternally, one must think that the righteous is made righteous by God's arbitrary commands. But if one thinks that God commands as he does so as to maximize human welfare, one must also reject that doctrine of hell on which sinners are cast there to suffer eternally.

If There is a Being Who Would Condemn

If there is a being who would condemn my wife and children to hell, I stand against him. If there is a being who would condemn any to hell, I stand against him. He is my enemy, and I will not worship him. He is not good. He is not wise. He is not God.