Church Voices

After reading Alvin Plantinga’s Advice to Christian Philosophers, I feel both shamed and greatly motivated. In this article, Plantinga expounds upon what attitude he thinks Christians in all fields of study should reflect in their disciplines. He discusses three points:

First, Christian philosophers and Christian intellectuals generally must display more autonomy—more independence of the rest of philosophical world. Second, Christian philosophers must display more integrity—integrity in the sense of integral wholeness, or oneness, or unity, being all of one piece. Perhaps ‘integrality’ would be the better word here. And necessary to these two is a third: Christian courage, or boldness, or strength, or perhaps Christian self-confidence. We Christian philosophers must display more faith, more trust in the Lord; we must put on the whole armor of God.

Shamed, because all too often I cower from situations that I know might lend themselves toward me defending my faith. For example, how many times I flip a book whose cover may read something apologetically oriented face down to avoid making it seem as if I “dogmatically” affirm/deny various beliefs, having the pressures of both an antisupernatulistic and religiously pluralistic society force me into silent retreat before anyone even draws a sword. Coincidentally, I was just recently enjoying fellowship with a brother who was telling me about how the Lord was giving him a message similar to the one Plantinga is suggesting: we need to be bold with our faith. Passivity simply will not suffice. And motivated, simply because Plantinga’s and my friend’s wise words remind me of what needs to be done in order for an impact to be made today.

Plantinga then gives examples of how we, as Christian philosophers, have in the past failed to take the reins and exercise these qualities when opposing ideas dominated philosophical thought; which, in essence, resulted in primarily secular (if not wholly antisupernatural) presuppositions in most universities and contemporary scholarship. He writes:

…[M]ost of the major philosophy departments in America have next to nothing to offer the student intent on coming to see how to be a Christian in philosophy—how to assess and develop the bearing of Christianity on matters of current philosophical concern, and how to think about those philosophical matters of interest to the Christian community. In the typical graduate philosophy department there will be little more, along these lines, than a course in philosophy of religion in which it is suggested that the evidence for the existence of God—the classical theistic proofs, say—is at least counterbalanced by the evidence against the existence of God—the problem of evil, perhaps; and it may then be added that the wisest course, in view of such maxims as Ockham’s Razor, is to dispense with the whole idea of God, at least for philosophical purposes.

This is so true. I can’t even begin to recount how many college syllabuses of philosophy courses I’ve read that resound exactly these sentiments, not to mention the professors with which I’ve actually had dialogue who parent this attitude (and as I’m sure reflect in the classroom). Further, perhaps the saddest part of this historical blunder is the lack of depth in those who wantonly entertain these presuppositions prima facie. Apologist William Lane Craig agrees, making the following observation regarding the many leaders working under similar notions in the college atmosphere:

As I travel around North America and Europe speaking on university campuses, I think that most of the non-Christian university professors that I meet would probably say [there’s not enough evidence for belief in God]. And this attitude is in turn communicated to their students…[M]ost people aren’t even acquainted with the evidence for Christianity. This is true in particular for university professors. One of the most interesting aspects of my work is the debates I participate in on university campuses. Typically I’ll be invited onto a campus to debate some professor who has a reputation of being especially abusive to Christian students in his classes. We’ll have a public debate on, say, the existence of God, or Christianity vs. humanism, or some such topic. And you know what? I find that while most of these fellows are pretty good at beating up intellectually on an 18 year [old] student, they can’t even hold their own when it comes to going toe to toe with one of their peers. In their first speech they usually trot out the obsolete, 18th century objections of Hume and Kant, and after I answer these, they’re just left with nothing much to say, so they start repeating themselves or making emotional appeals…Most of them turn out to be just big, inflated, intellectual blowhards who have no good reasons for rejecting Christianity and ridiculing their students’ faith. [Both the audio and text version of this can be found here]

While the above observations may be true, and Plantinga’s suggestions definitely worthwhile to consider/practice, I think the best point he made was that just as the secularist presupposes antisupernaturalism in thought, it should be no less justified for the believer to likewise presuppose the fundaments of theism in his:

Many Christian philosophers appear to think of themselves qua philosophers as engaged with the atheist and agnostic philosopher in a common search for the correct philosophical position vis a vis the question whether there is such a person as God. Of course the Christian philosopher will have his own private conviction on the point; he will believe, of course, that indeed there is such a person as God. But he will think, or be inclined to think, or half inclined to think that as a philosopher he has no right to this position unless he is able to show that it follows from, or is probable, or justified with respect to premises accepted by all parties to the discussion—theist, agnostic and atheist alike. Furthermore, he will be half inclined to think he has no right, as a philosopher, to positions that presuppose the existence of God, if he can’t show that belief to be justified in this way. What I want to urge is that the Christian philosophical community ought not think of itself as engaged in this common effort to determine the probability or philosophical plausibility of belief in God. The Christian philosopher quite properly starts from the existence of God, and presupposes it in philosophical work, whether or not he can show it to be probable or plausible with respect to premises accepted by all philosophers, or most philosophers at the great contemporary centers of philosophy. Taking it for granted, for example, that there is such a person as God and that we are indeed within our epistemic rights (are in that sense justified) in believing that there is…

Although already somewhat familiar with Plantinga’s arguments for belief in God to be properly-basic, admittedly, my stance when approaching philosophical endeavors has always been one similar to that given in the example above: feeling wrong to assume God’s existence before rational justification could be granted my positions. I suppose I never thought to apply Plantinga’s good reasoning to my approach in apologetics (perhaps such a starting point is inappropriate in apologetical work, but I don’t think this “epistemic right” of ours should be considered exclusive to any said field(s) of study). The main point I think Plantinga was making is that it’s obvious from various past issues in philosophy that the Christian has failed to speak out with strength, and thus we now have secular overtones in most all of education generally accepted without question. The only way we can reverse this is by demonstrating the autonomy, ‘integrality,’ and boldness now that we lacked in history. After considering the words in this article and those of my friend’s, it has given me a more solid perspective on engaging in apologetics in particular and managing my faith before others in general. I highly suggest this article for anyone with similar interests.

Here’s a re-phrasing of the argument that human conciousness, if produced by random chance ala evolution, is unreliable. Evolution doesn’t produce an entity that is good at finding the truth, it produces entities that is good at surviving just long enough to reproduce. As a result we cannot trust our own facilities when exploring the truth if we are the product of atheistic evolution. Read the whole thing, its a good primer to the more complex argument produced by Plantinga.

So, recently I read that a guy I sorta knew in college doesn’t believe Christ was virgin born. Not a big surprise, unless you attended, as we did, Cincinnati Christian University. Now, I haven’t talked to him about why he came to this position, but I bet I can guess based on past experiences with others. Generally its a reaction to modernism, its unbelievable how powerful the phrase, “you don’t really believe that, do you?” is. Of course they’re all set and ready to explain how the word translated in Isaiah 7:14 really means young woman and not virgin etc. While I disagree with that analysis I’m not really sure what advantage going the non-virgin route offers.

For example, if you’re going to maintain any connection with Christianity whatsoever then you have to concede the existence of a creator God who is capable of creating the entire universe. Does it take some sort of leap of faith to believe that God is capable of arranging a virgin birth? Maybe at this point it would just be ok to chuck the Christian worldview completely and become an outright materialist, because once you dump the virgin birth a lot of other key issues go with it.

But lets hold off on that conversion to material atheism for just a moment. Does believing in a non-virgin birth pose any other problems? Well, first you have the fact that Matthew 1:22-23 explicitly links the passage in Isaiaah with Jesus as a virgin birth. What this means is the entire idea of inspiration is pretty much out the window, at least for Matthew. No big deal, you say, we can just toss out things like the virgin birth passage and stick with the historical passages that Matthew and the other gospel writers record. The problem is that sticking with that leaves you with a narrative in which a guy is born, lives, ticks everyone off, rises from the dead and disappears with no explanation as to why, or what was accomplished. Even something like John the Baptist saying, “Behold the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sin of the world”, which is simultaneously explicit and pregnant with meaning would have to be ignored. The other issue this brings up is the assumption that we can, two thousand some odd years later know better what was going on than someone who studied under Christ for three years and was a product of the same culture that produced the Old Testament scriptures. Personally, I’m not arrogant enough to believe that I know better than one of Christ’s disciples whether the Hebrew word in Isaiah 7:14 meant virgin or not.

But, this also poses another problem. If Christ was conceived the old fashioned way we have to wonder exactly what makes him unique. Throughout scripture Christ is held out as unique, above even Moses (Hebrews 3:1ff), but if he was nothing more than the bastard child of a couple of crazy Jewish kids who didn’t use protection how can he be referred to as the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world? How can he legitimately refer to himself as I AM? And more importantly, how can he be a legitimate propitiation for sin if he was a created human? Because once you give up on the virgin birth divinity is out of the question due to one of the attributes of God that separates God from everything else is his eternal nature, his complete lack of being created to begin with.

But, lets explore the possiblity, for a moment, that Christ wasn’t virgin born, and so was fully human and not divine in the least. This opens up a whole bunch of worms. For example, when Paul writes that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God that’s just not true. After all if Christ could do it then why not everyone else who was just as human and non-divine as he was? Its my opinion that even if the explicit endorsement of the virgin birth were not found in Matthew and Luke it would be necesary to create a case for it in order to support the fitness of Christ as a propitiatory sacrifice which is tied directly to his diety.

But I guess there’s a reason it made it into the Nicene Creed to begin with.

The apex of my studies on deism reached a mountaintop experience last night as I finally compiled and added an exhaustive critique of it to the apologetics section on my blog. Let me now add a few final remarks I thought slightly inappropriate for the pseudo-scholarly tone of that in my apologetics pages.

Though not included in my critique, deism should be accredited several positive historical contributions, specifically to the development of a strategical defense of classical theism; namely, validity of the scriptures. Considering the intellectual capacity of deism’s defenders (Voltaire, particularly, not to mention deists siding with the likes of Hume and Spinoza with their arguments against miracles) in the eighteenth century and their relentless attacks on both the scriptures and special revelation such as miracles, much work has been done philosophically and historically in defense of classical theism in their wake. I’d even go as far as to say that without the barrage of Christian responses the deists were met with, both the historical value of apologetics and a strong theology of miracles would be altogether lacking. As Norman Geisler put it,

“The deistic siege called forth some of the most scholarly and stout defenses of orthodox Christianity in modern times. Bishop Berkeley, Bishop Butler, and William Paley [and much more] all contributed masterful works to this apologetic cause. Even skeptics like Lord Lytleton and Frank Morrison were converted and became ardent defenders of Christianity. Deistic criticism gave impetus to the study of archaeology which yielded not only the conversion of such notable men as Sir William Ramsay, but hundreds of thousands of archaeological confirmations of the Biblical worldview. For all of this the bitter and sustained attack of deism on Biblical Christianity is to be indirectly thanked.”

Some other positive aspects deism birthed was its stress on natural revelation, which served much to the development of the teleological argument. Moreover, deist’s stress on reason and rationale in religious belief I think really improved the bravado of those participating in the intellectual arena in years past and present. And admittedly, deism’s outspoken skeptical outlook on the supernatural really helped thwart the uprising of much cultic and or other significant religious activity at the time as well as cleaned any dust off the traditional miracles professed by Christianity that might have settled. For one must remember, for almost an entire century, it wasn’t theism versus atheism; it was Christian theism versus deism. Thus, we were brought a reform in much Biblical scholarship—to which we may now say that the presupposition against miracles survives in theology now only as a hangover from the earlier deistic age and ought now to be once for all abandoned.

So one might ask, “where is deism today?” Technically speaking, primarily in the scientific community where Newtonian-like mechanistic thinking might dominate, kind of similar to that of scientism and the empirically verifiable language constructs found in its literature. But personally, I think it can be efficiently surmised that deism has since been relegated to those who have submitted themselves to the present domineering grip theism has on cosmology but have yet to or cannot reconcile the personal convictions that would follow belief in the Judeo-Christian God. Clearly, deism has nothing to offer intellectually, for it’s shown to be both philosophically and scientifically wanting, or experientially, for what difference could this belief possibly yield in one’s personal life (if you say none, then I think you’re on the same page as the deists, which is exactly my point)? In other words, it’s far easier on one’s conscience to profess a God of no concern who resides afar off (thus leaving said individual without, say, a transcendent paradigm imposing certain sexual decorums by which to oblige) than to reckon the holiness and self-sacrifice that a real personal and loving God would demand of them.

The great atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell was once asked what he would say if he found himself standing before God on the judgement day and God asked him, “Why didn’t you believe in Me?” Russell replied, “I would say, ‘Not enough evidence, God! Not enough evidence!’”

To me for one who claims there not to be enough evidence for the existence of God possesses either little thinking power or has neglected thought altogether. For when I look around at times I’m simply overwhelmed by how many ontologies seem to necessitate the existence of a Perfect Being from which we have such conceptual notions as perfection, rationale, meaning, morale, aesthetical appeal, etc. (Not to mention the innumerous subsets which fall under each category.) Boldly I say, one of the most assuring aspects of my faith is its alternative—life without it. Meditate on like cosmic questions apart from a loving God and before long the lights start to fade, eventually becoming so dark, in fact, the mere possibility of life itself is breached. William Lane Craig writes,

“Modern man thought that in divesting himself of God, he had freed himself from all that stifled and repressed him. Instead, he unwittingly discovered that in killing God, he had also killed himself. For if there is no God, then man’s life becomes ultimately absurd.”

There are a great many examples of how God makes His presence known in our everyday lives, at times more obvious than others depending on the caliber of intellect and spiritual convictions one might have. Take simple quantifications, for example; like C. S. Lewis’ famous argument from joy, Hartshorne’s musings on the nature of meaning, the various classical forms of ontological arguments that link perfection and being to a Necessary or Necessarily Perfect Being. Similarly, the axiological argument seeks to draw all moral notion directly from an absolute moral Being—even the basic constructs of language itself breaks without a transcendent signified from which understanding is wrought. Even Nietzsche recognized this as he once said, “We cannot get rid of God until we get rid of grammar.” The possibility of all subjective distinction is literally impossible without God.

Take one look at the newest television programs and any number of commercial advertisements and you’ll quickly note that culture has put all its eggs in one basket; that is, sex appeal. Conditioned to think nothing is more virtuous than sexual freedom, people carelessly have bought into the sham. Presumably without the chains of guilt and shame to tame their unbridled passions, culture has done nothing but mask the consequences as praiseworthy. Yet it’s common for believers and nonbelievers alike to voice long struggles of lust and acts of defiling the body, themselves knowing there to be ‘oughts’ and ‘ought nots’ in such a regard. Feelings of dissatisfaction and dirtiness after having promiscuously indulged oneself to the ‘enth degree quickly reframes the once thought frameless surfeits professed by the hedonistic lifestyle. It seems even sexually people cannot hide themselves from the Creator’s face.

The only answer is that there’s in all of us a telos, purpose or end goal in our nature in which to conform in order to bring the coherence and understanding our lives cry for—and when averted, varying emotional disparities inescapably follow. The severity of the effects of course differs accordingly (in this life, anyway), but the noetic despondency of sin and disconcertedness in life without God is clearly etched into the hearts of men everywhere. God is everywhere, whether we identify Him or not. I once heard Christianity be compared to a very big inside joke. One can only make sense of the joke’s applications once sense is made of the joke itself. Likewise, one can only make sense of this life once sense is made of the Life Giver.

James 4:7, 8 – [Submit therefore to God…Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.]

Here is Frank Schaefer’s latest column. In it he lumps the Pope, radical Islamists, Left Behind readers, Orthodox Jews, and Francis Schaefer together under the label of “fundamentalist”.

I’ve commented before that the word “fundamentalist” has undergone a slow evolution in meaning. The word first came about as a result of a specific series of writings in the early 1900s and was a very precise term used to describe a specific set of beliefs and was generally used in a self-identifying manner. As time wore on it became less precise and came to mean simply conservative Christians. As more time wore on it became an even fuzzier term and acquired a negative connotation. After that negative connotation was solidified the word “fundamentalist” became an insult to be slung at anyone who the slinger disagreed with. In this way it became code that the subject of the slur is not only wrong, but a horrible human being to boot.

And now we have this latest mutation of the term “fundamentalist”. Frank Schaefer has, in effect, defined anyone who is “certain” as to the veracity of their belief as a “fundamentalist”. Of course, his philosophy of ambiguity fails where every explicitly agnostic philosophy fails. For all his deriding of “absolutist dedication to unchangeable “certainties” he himself embraces with absolutist dedication the unchangeable certainty that he is uncertain. It gets even more absurd the deeper we look into Frank Schaefer’s life. He deliberately walked away from the worldview of his father, that is he is so certain of uncertainty that he made a major decision concerning his views of the nature of the universe, a decision that impacted his life to the point that it changed the people he knows, the types of writings he writes, and also most likely the lifestyle he leads. What are the chances that he would be writing for the San Francisco Gate if he hadn’t made this decision?

And of course that brings us to the final irony. Because Frank Schaefer has embraced with “absolute certainty” his particular worldview it makes him one of the very fundamentalists he criticizes so severely.

More commentary on this topic can be found here.

I’ve been exceedingly astonished countless times after reading many of the famous philosopher’s writings, but none seem to excite in me such unique intrigue as the French physicist, mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal.

While Pascal is not one of my availing favorites, his latter writings are most peculiar. His late conversion to Christianity shed little contributions to classical theology in general but does illustrate a great example of God’s power to draw all kinds of men to Himself.

Greatly influenced by notable fideistic skeptic Michel de Montaigne, theology had little bearing on Pascal up until about the last decade of his life. Pascal was a man of immense intellect; before the age of thirteen he had already offered several genius mathematical additions as well as discovering a flaw in one of Rene Descartes’ own mathematical publishings. Also rumored to have been the first person ever to wear a wristwatch, (tying a string around a pocket watch and fastening it around his wrist) a man of Pascal’s sheer intellectual capacity in his day was uncommon to have mentioned such a religious conversion as he did.

Amidst his scientific/mathematical studies, Pascal abruptly abandoned his past fields of experience to study theology. When I was an atheist, I decisively remember criticizing my beliefs, pondering my own variation of the famous Pascalian Wager (though today the Pascalian Wager we might think of is in most cases a misunderstanding of what Pascal was actually reasoning), unaware of the similar maxim introduced my Pascal years before my time.

His alleged unique and divine experience is what compels in me most interest pertaining to Pascal’s life. At the age of 31, Pascal came to know God personally through Jesus Christ. Though scarcely written about from Pascal himself, this experience undeniably changed his life forever. In fact, when Pascal died, there was found sewn into his clothing a reminder of that experience which he constantly carried with him:

“From about 10:30 at night until about 12:30. FIRE. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob—not of the philosophers and of the learned. Certitude! CERTITUDE! Feeling, joy, peace! God of Jesus Christ…Jesus Christ…Let me never be separated from Him.”

What did Pascal experience? Does that not give you chills?

I’d be lying if I said that I don’t often empathize with the elucidating writings of the great Danish thinker Soren Kierkegaard, reflecting themes of the utmost despair, sadness and pain. Although a Christian, Kierkegaard couldn’t seem to dodge the concept of life as a whole being anything but meaningless and absurd. “I stick my finger into existence,” He said, “it smells of nothing.” In fact, Kierkegaard even claimed we must believe by “virtue of the absurd”, which the more you actually read into the development of that philosophy, the more interesting it seems to become.

I’m sure oftentimes identifying himself with the writings of Solomon in Ecclesiastes, Kierkegaard geared much of his melancholy postures toward poetry; although shown not to have been ignored in his philosophical/theological works either. Kierkegaard even innovated a form of Christian existentialism which held that basically the individual is thereby subject to an enormous burden of responsibility, for upon his or her existential choices hangs their eternal salvation or damnation. It’s not hard to see how this burden could lead to perpetual anxiety in life. Of course I would not go as far as to personally adopt these views myself, but I feel Kierkegaard’s struggles of meaningless and absurdity are frequent imposters of my faith—leaving me with a shrewd sense of alienation within this world and my beliefs thereof.

Sometimes I too can’t help but think existence is wholly absurd. The very concept, making and creation of life seems at times irrational, nonsensical, and utterly pointless. What can we make sense of in this cosmos? What epistemic millstone must we burn to defeat this mysterious paradox? The only answer I seem to reach, no matter by which way of reasoning, is death. Must we simply outlive it to breach it? Maybe I’m defeating the thought altogether by anticipating beyond the existential context in which it presents itself, but if the solution were death, it seems it would be sufficiently resolved by life eternal. If the solution were truly life in the existential, it would therefore be conquered by death. Thus, death ultimately suffices.

1 Corinthians 15:51-58
Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory.

55 “O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?”

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; 57 but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.

We groan, being burdened…So that mortality may be swallowed up by life.