THE WILLIAM LANE CRAIG / KEVIN SCHARP DEBATE

2/25/2016

Last night, I attended a debate between Christian philosopher William Lane Craig and Ohio State University philosopher Kevin Scharp on whether there is evidence for God. I had previously seen portions of several debates with Craig on YouTube, and in those he always appeared to do rather well. I was surprised, therefore, by how poorly he performed yesterday. Craig managed to misunderstand some pretty straightforward points made by Scharp and – what's worse – on at least two occasions, his misunderstandings appeared to be willful.

One of the things Scharp argued is that there is a difference between having a belief and merely having greater than 50% confidence that something is true. The example he used to illustrate this point made it very clear what he was talking about: although he thinks it's about 51% probable that Clinton will be our next president, it would be incorrect to describe that as having the belief that she is going to be the next president. Belief requires greater confidence than that.

Now, this point seems rather easy to understand, and yet Craig acted very confused about it – and not just once, but twice. In other words, even after Scharp explained what he meant, Craig still didn't seem to get it. This was bizarre. Nevertheless, it did appear that the confusion in this case was genuine. My guess is that Craig was having a hard time interpreting the point because he was trying to figure out how it applied to his claims and just couldn't make the connection. (I myself don't see that it necessarily does apply to his arguments – that is, I didn't understand Craig to be claiming merely that the existence of God is more likely than not.)

But as I've already said, in some cases Craig appeared to purposely misinterpret the point being made – and that's more troubling.

The clearest example of that occurred when Scharp claimed that the resurrection violates known laws of nature – and therefore that even outlandish explanations for what really happened that do not violate such laws are preferable. To make this point, he used the crazy example that perhaps aliens came down to earth after the crucifixion and stole Jesus's body. He actually used the word “crazy,” or something to that effect, in describing this example. But in spite of that, Craig immediately responded with something like “Is that really where you want to go? Is that what you are going to claim?”

It got a big laugh, as well as enthusiastic applause, from much of the audience. Many of those in attendance obviously thought Craig had just demonstrated how foolish atheists are – so foolish they think Jesus's body may actually have been stolen by aliens. But of course that's not what Scharp was claiming, and surely Craig knows that.

In an earlier post, I wrote of my suspicions that sometimes Craig is dishonest. I'm sorry to report that as of last night, those suspicions have been confirmed.

102 Comments

Anonymousss

3/3/2016 09:10:43 am

Contrary to yourself, I found Scharp to be the one who performed under par. While I don't think Craig performed as well as he usually does, I don't see how anyone could walk away feeling that Scharp's performance was supreme. Rather than address "is there evidence for God?", I found his appeals to epistemology weak in relation to the topic and Craig's arguments.

Franz Kiekeben

3/3/2016 09:37:04 am

I didn't say Scharp's performance was "supreme," and in fact pointed out that some of what he said didn't seem to apply to Craig's arguments. I think most of his claims were correct, but I agree with you that some of them, at least, didn't present a serious challenge to Craig.

John

3/14/2016 12:34:55 pm

Thanks for the write up! From what I understand, the event is being edited and published for all to see at a later date (hopefully sooner than later) As such, I havent seen it, and dont have an opinion, however Craig has already released a couple of post-debate discussions in the form of his March Newsletter for his Reasonable Faith Ministry, as well as his Defenders teaching podcast. See the following link for a transcript http://www.reasonablefaith.org/defenders-3-podcast/transcript/excursus-on-natural-theology-part-22

Have a nice day!

Franz Kiekeben

3/14/2016 01:42:10 pm

Thanks for the info.

Aaron Csicseri

3/15/2016 11:37:28 am

I appreciated Scharp’s due diligence. After pondering this for a while it seems like Scharps’s weakness argument was eponymously named. This is because it makes no actual claims about the objective probability of Craig’s arguments, but rather it is simply/only a claim about Scharp’s own personal psychology (the percentages his brain has assigned to certain claims). It’s like when atheists say they “lack a belief in God”. Such is not a claim that God doesn’t exist, it just describes the atheists relative experience at that particular moment in time.

Scharp: “[Dr. Craig] defends the premises of his arguments only to the point that they are more probable than not, but he expects his arguments to justify OUTRIGHT belief that God exists. However, OUTRIGHT belief requires more than just "more probable than not".”

I’m not aware of the proper term “OUTRIGHT belief” as opposed to just a plain old regular “belief”. I’m not sure why I should believe such a thing exists, other than because in Scharp’s personal experience, “outright belief” is such a thing, and it differs from regular belief in some meaningful and/or quantitative way.

Scharp: “… [Dr. Craig’s] conclusions, which are STRONG conclusions. The standard he has set for his premises (>50%) is not good enough to justify STRONG conclusions.

Dr. Sharp thinks that the claim God exists (or “Evidence for God exists”) is not just a conclusion, but a STRONG conclusion. But that adjective is just subjectively and arbitrarily assigned by him and for him only. He hasn’t actually shown that they are improbable in realty. I see this as a repackaging of Laplace’s “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Whether or not a claim is extraordinary is purely subjective, and even if some event were objectively extraordinary, I don’t think that it is always the case that one would always need objectively extraordinary evidence in order to believe or “outright believe” that it occurred.

Scharp: “The belief in something requires more than just thinking it more probable than not.”

I agree that he gives clear examples of this, but then there are many other counter examples where people act on beliefs (or simply hold beliefs) that they know are not probable. Since clear examples can be piled on for both sides, this claim is not meaningfully more probable than it’s opposite.

Franz Kiekeben

3/16/2016 05:29:18 pm

Thanks for the comment (even though they are about what Scharp said, rather than what I said!).

A couple of points:

I don't think that by "OUTRIGHT belief" Scharp meant anything other than belief. The "outright" was just for emphasis.

As to people believing things that they know aren't probable, that may be true, but Scharp was talking about what it is rational or reasonable to believe, not what people in fact believe. His argument is that it in order for you to rationally believe in something, it should be more than, say, 51% probable.That seems right to me. If something's only slightly more likely to be true than not, it's not reasonable to OUTRIGHT believe in it.

Aaron Csicseri

3/17/2016 12:10:34 pm

So Scharp and You think that we "should" only hold beliefs that are substanciated by >51% cofidence, but this is such an impracticle rubrick, as idicated by Scharp's admission that he himself can't put hard numbers on his own cofidence in atheism/theism (neither can I).

I just don't see why we "ought" to adhere to any higher a standard than something being more probable than not (for belief or outright belief). I get that he is not willing to organize his life around the idea that God exists, if he only has 51% confidence in the arguments/evidence for God. But that is just the way his brain works. Other people may happily organize their life around God even if they are only 40% sure...based on something like Pascal's Wager. Why is he more rational then them?

Scharp may not like/agree/preferr this way of thinking, but the confidence level any specific person needs to believe or OUTRIGHT believe any particular claim will vary from person to person, and Scharps prefference for 51-80% is not only arbitrary, but impracticle.

Randy

7/6/2016 03:13:56 pm

Good comment. One of the consistent rubs in these debates is the burden or level of proof. Atheists seem to take a "guilty until proven innocent" posture with respect to theists--unless the theist meets an often abritrarily high level of proof, the default position is that there is no God. But I think that assumes that materialism is true, and there are certainly strong arguments that materialism is not true (eg Thomas Nagel, Alvin Plantinga). This is an important topic that doesn't get much discussion in atheism vs theism debates. Both sides sort of proceed under their own assumptions on what level of proof is required. The question is whether the existence of God is "extraordinary" or whether the claims of materialism are "extraordinary"--i.e. the universe popped into existence, the laws of physics interacting with non-living matter resulted in not only life but intelligent life, consciousness, reason, etc and that the universe is essentially intelligible.

Franz Kiekeben

7/6/2016 06:28:02 pm

I am, coincidentally, planning to write an entry on the burden of proof (including a mistake some atheists make), so this comment is very timely.

I agree with you that if one claims there is no God, then one has a burden of proof to defend that claim. But I don't think most atheists would disagree with that. I think what most people who call themselves atheists are doing when they say that the burden is on the theist is something else: They maintain that they merely lack belief - that they are not convinced by any of the evidence for God - and therefore put the burden on the theist to convince them otherwise.

A few additional quibbles:

(1) "Either theism or materialism" is a false dichotomy. One can consistently be an atheist and not be a materialist. In fact, that's what Nagel himself is!

(2) Neither atheism nor materialism implies that the universe "popped into existence". Some atheists and materialists may believe that, but it's not necessary to either view.

(3) The laws of physics aren't "things" that can interact with non-living matter, or with anything else. The laws are merely descriptions of how the world operates.

Franz Kiekeben

3/18/2016 12:51:40 pm

Do you really think that if someone says both "I believe that Zeus exists" and "the chance that Zeus exists is 40%", what they are saying isn't at least somewhat surprising? Not only would that be surprising, I think that even if the second statement were "it's only slightly more probable that Zeus exists than not" it would be unusual.

As to someone believing because of Pascal's Wager, that is highly irrational! And I don't say that because Pascal's argument is logically flawed - after all, to many people the logical flaws aren't obvious. The reason that it is irrational is that it is an example of believing, not because one has grounds for doing so, but because one fears the consequences of being wrong. If that's not an irrational basis for believing, what is?

Finally, all this seems rather academic anyway, given that I don't think Craig's arguments provide even close to a greater than 50% probability that God exists. In fact, I think that, taken together, they increase the likelihood of God's existence approximately 0%.

Don Severs

4/1/2016 02:10:42 pm

Scharp came with very specific arguments and stuck to them, which I found aggravating. Here is what I'd like to say to WLC:

1. Theism doesn't ground objective morality any better than anything else. The only reason WLC gets away with this is that everyone present has been raised under the spell that if God is real that somehow grounds morality. But Euthyphro demolished that idea.

Now, WLC addresses Euthyphro. He calls it a false dilemma. I don't think WLC succeeds, but Scharp didn't even mention it.

2. Scharp lauded Christian philsophers who have refuted the Argument from Evil. This made him look like a good sport, but the Evidential Problem of Evil is alive and well. WLC is ready for it, but I don't think he succeeds. Just read what he says about the genocide of the Canaanites. (WLC's endorsement of genocide is the reason Dawkins gives for not debating WLC.)

3. WLC didn't respond at all to Scharp's observation that we all use Naturalism/Science in almost every area of our lives except God. Hector Avalos also points this out: even believers are Naturalists, but then they make an exception when it comes to God. This is ad hoc. WLC tries to pave over this inconsistency by peppering his arguments with science, but he is not a conservative scientist. He cites scientific claims only when they support his already existing belief in God.

4. WLC is very weak on "Why the Christian God?" and on hell. Scharp asked about hell and WLC actually said that our suffering is not God's fault if we refuse his love. Well, yes it is, because God sets the penalties. Scharp is correct that God's love is not what we humans call love. It is possessive and jealous. God is the ultimate stalker, and WLC has no way to refute that.

Franz Kiekeben

4/1/2016 06:23:57 pm

"Theism doesn't ground objective morality any better than anything else."

Exactly right. As far as this issue is concerned, the existence or non-existence of God is irrelevant.

"Scharp lauded Christian philsophers who have refuted the Argument from Evil. This made him look like a good sport, but the Evidential Problem of Evil is alive and well."

I agree. And even the logical problem of evil isn't dead. In my book The Truth about God, I present a new logical argument from evil that depends on the claim, not that evil per se is incompatible with a perfect god, but that certain evils are. Provided these evils exist (and it seems clear they do), a perfect god cannot exist.

"WLC... cites scientific claims only when they support his already existing belief in God."

Like all good theologians...

Don Severs

4/1/2016 02:18:26 pm

I was glad Scharp focused on divine psychology. He pointed out that WLC helps himself to much more than he is actually arguing. "There could be god capable of creating a universe but how do you know it's likely he would?"

Far more important to than the question of God's existence is the question of his character.

When I realized that any god who set up this word this way would be a monster, and our only hope is to get on his good side (but even then how could I enjoy heaven without my kids), that was the push I needed to let go of God.

I don't believe because of the lack of evidence. But I am overjoyed that the Christian God is not real because of the doctrine of hell and the Evidential Problem of Evil.

David Rengers

4/3/2016 04:35:13 pm

It seems to me that Kevin Scharp stipulated all of William Lane Craig's points during the debate. Scharp's only substantive objection was to additionally claim that a higher bar for the arguments beyond the majority of 51% would be better (70% or 80%).

Where Craig goofed was by allowing Scharp to even consider the arguments in isolation, as opposed to cumulatively. So rather than judging the cosmological argument as more plausible than it's negation (independent in a vacuum sans any other proofs), instead add in the ontological argument at 51%, the moral argument at 51%, the historicity of Jesus, and even people's personal experience of God in their everyday lives.

For example, the fossil record alone isn't compelling enough to make the whole argument for Darwin (indeed the Cambrian fossils are quite antithetical to his cause). So alongside the fossil record other arguments are evinced (molecular biology for example) which collectively create a richer, more robust case.

Or again, in a murder trial, evidential offerings (circumstantial, DNA, motive and opportunity, etc) do not stand on their own, but when taken together often convince juries to prosecute.

Franz Kiekeben

4/7/2016 06:13:42 am

I don't think Scharp actually conceded the 51% to Craig; I think his point was that that's all Craig himself claims for his own arguments, and that that's not enough.

But you make a valid point regarding the cumulative case - I don't remember that even coming up during the debate, which is odd. (Now I'll have to watch it again when it's on YouTube...)

Bob

4/6/2016 12:06:57 pm

I concur with you that Craig seems to have been engaging in some insincere confusion, but I am not sure that is unexpected from someone in Craig's position. He is an apologist, does not make any secret of that fact, and the other side simply needs to expect that type of conduct. If they don't I am not sure its Craig's fault. Instead its the fault of the other side who was caught off guard. Let me explain why.

I think there are a couple of good comparisons that provide a better understanding of what it means to Craig to be an apologist. The first would be to compare Craig to an attorney defending his client, and the second would be to view an apologist as an intellectual athlete playing a game. In both analogies the goal of the individual/apologist is not to reveal truth, but to win.

In the case of the attorney, while they cannot directly lie they are allowed to use misdirection to an extent. For example, assume you are questioning the other side's witness on the stand in a trial and they say something that could both hurt your case and is dense to the point of being confusing to a jury. In such a situation you might respond with a question and with mannerisms that indicate you find the last response incredulous or even beyond confusing to the point of being just plain stupid. You don't believe that, but by acting that way you might subtlety lay the ground work for convincing the jury of that in closing arguments. That sort of conduct is perfectly acceptable in that context, and in fact, the other side's attorney would likely be viewed as a rank amateur if they did not expect it to happen.

In the second analogy, that is viewing Craig as an intellectual athlete in a game, I think you actually get a good representation of Craig's attitude towards these things. And it is the attitude of a typical jock. In other words he is there to kick the other side's ass any way he can within the rules of the game. I think it is actually that straight forward.

Now the problem most intellectuals have in these encounters with Craig is they neither view it that way, nor do most have any real experience to deal with such a situation. As a result they are generally caught off guard with what is a full press aggressive attempt to WIN the night.

Now look, I don't think much of Craig's arguments. But you really have to ask a question here: He has been doing this sort of thing for decades now and if someone takes him on and they are not prepared for it is it really Craig's problem?

Franz Kiekeben

4/7/2016 06:20:35 am

The real question, then, is whether that sort of behavior is expected in debates. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the majority of the audience in these events thinks of the participants as making intellectually honest points. The notion that they're there to win at any cost turns the whole thing into a game, as you put it - which to me ruins it. (This is why I generally don't care much for debates, even if I couldn't resist attending this one.)

Now, it is of course reasonable to suppose that "professional debaters" like Craig themselves view it as you say - but that doesn't excuse them in the least. That is, even if one were to argue that debating as an institution is just a kind of game - inherently dishonest - that doesn't mean the participant who partakes in the dishonesty is off the hook - not unless the audience is in on the joke.

Bob

4/9/2016 10:21:10 am

Well I suppose I view it a little differently. I am an attorney - although I am more of a college professor now - and I was a litigator for almost sixteen years. If in the context of the law you look at trials, which are essentially stylized debates, the goal of each side is to win and not to seek truth. Not at all costs, as you say, but within the rules of the "game."

The argument for why that is effective for discovery of the truth has to do with the process and not the people involved or their motives. That is, both sides are being unabashed advocates for their respective positions, and its through this advocacy that truth arises out of the process. In other words the tension that is placed on both arguments by their opponents causes both the weaknesses and the strengths of their respective arguments to become clear.

Now this is a radically different concept for discovering truth than most academics have dealt with (which I think is why a lot of academics do so poorly against Craig). But, I can say as a litigator that if both sides play the "game" it works more often than not. The opponents of Craig simply need to find someone that is prepared to play the "game."

Franz Kiekeben

4/11/2016 05:56:11 am

But surely a trial isn't just about trying to discover the truth. Because it's preferable to let a guilty person go than to condemn an innocent one, in a trial one errs on the side of caution. That's why, it seems to me, there are legal "rules of the game".

When there isn't that kind of moral concern, however, our aim should be simply to reach the most probable conclusion. And I don't think playing the kind of games debaters play is the best way to do that: just look at how easily the wrong side wins if the debater happens to be more adept at the game. (Maybe, as you suggest, if both play by such rules it works more often than not. But what if both are honest instead? Wouldn't that work even more often?)

Russ Jones

4/11/2016 12:05:59 pm

I don't think Craig was being dishonest when he said "do you really want to go there". First, Scharp kept saying "where do you want to go with it" or "where do you go next" in goading Craig to take his arguments one step further. I don't think this was bad at all, but I think Craig was having a little brinksmanship here. Regardless, Craig is right in this regard. The reason why we throw away explanations like aliens sole the body is because they are ad hoc. There is no context from which they are derived, they are quite literally "naturalism of the gaps" type arguments. The strength of the resurrection argument (regardless of whatever you think about it ultimately) lies in the fact that the hypothesis God raised Jesus from the dead is not ad hoc, it fits with the religio-historical context of what Jesus claimed, what his followers experienced, and what they believed following the crucifixion. If Jesus had claimed to be an alien, and his believers experienced him as an alien, and then came to believe he had been stolen by aliens, then Scharp's example would not be ad hoc. Nor would any of the other contrivances like the twin theory. But they are enormously ad hoc.

Franz Kiekeben

4/12/2016 06:10:13 am

One comment: I don't think the resurrection hypothesis fits in with what Jesus claimed, since I don't think he actually claimed he was going to return. That's later interpretation and/or interpolation - which doesn't jibe with his basic apocalyptic message.

E.S.California

8/1/2016 12:12:28 pm

Jesus' claim of resurrection after three days was so public during his ministry, it was repeated back to him incorrectly during the trial before Ciaphas! "You say you are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days..." Also Mark 9:31 (NAS), "The Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him; and when He has been killed, He will rise three days later."

You must be saying that the gospel accounts aren't really true, even for those who think the premises true... but if so, how can anybody know anything about Jesus' message?

Benjamin Watkins

5/8/2016 12:54:21 pm

I think this a wonderful review. Great work.

Franz Kiekeben

5/9/2016 11:40:17 am

Thanks!

Kim_Sanity

6/6/2016 01:42:19 pm

I've watched half the debate before i had to go to work. But regarding the 51% confidence level, from what I saw Craig failed to make the following argument.

Even at 51% plausibility of God existence, there is a 49% possibility of no God. And if God did NOT exsist, all of Craigs "possible" arguements for God would have to be false. Therefore if Craig had 7 plausible arguements, 0.49 ^7 (power of 7) = less than 1% chance for no God, ie the chance that ALL of Craigs arguements has to be false, which would be the case if there was NO God.

E. S. California link

6/16/2016 10:31:09 am

What is the negation of Dr. Craig's assertions that "it is reasonable to believe that God exists?" Kevin Scharp seems to be saying it's "it is not reasonable to believe that God exists." But I think that's not true... the negation is really "I don't know if it's reasonable to believe that God exists." So by this token, if Dr. Craig's (or Kevin Scharp's) arguments rise your confidence level to 51% in one or the other side of this debate, this doesn't mean that you have already been convinced up to a 49% confidence level in the other side of the debate!!! It just means that you are 49% unconvinced, disinterested, or otherwise meh about the proposition at hand. It's the other side's burden to rise your confidence in their assertion to some level other than 50%.

So following the debate, each person was not evaluating one proposition, for which the question is A + B = 100% confidence... each person was at the very least, evaluating two propositions and walking away with four "confidence levels": A (it's true), 100% - A (I don't know if it's true), B (the other one is true), and 100% - B (I don't know if it's true).

Now while I admit that your confidence in both A and B in this case might be limited at 100% in that they both can't be true, what I'm saying is that merely reducing A does by no means increase B. If this were true, there could not be such a thing as an agnostic.

E.S. California link

7/7/2016 08:00:29 am

In "The God Delusion," Dawkins frames the question this way: "I shall suggest that the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other." This is the basis for asking what percentage-sure a person is that God exists, and I suppose, the basis for Dr. Scharp's most effective arguments this spring. But I think that framing the argument this way unduly puts aside certain claims by Christians (and perhaps, other deists) that give a coherent formation for the thought that "I believe God is real even though I haven't seen it proven scientifically."

This thought is formed this way, from what I can see:

1. Christians think that God's intent, between Christ's ascent and Christ's second coming, is to persuade humans to love Him without compulsion.

2. If God were to provide evidence of His existence, and furthermore of the correctness of the Bible, sufficient to satisfy the question scientifically, then humans would be under the same compulsion to believe as they are toward the first law of thermodynamics or the commutative principle in mathematics.

3. Therefore, God provides evidence for himself sufficient to satisfy a person who is willing to be persuaded but not to a person who is not willing to be persuaded.

If it is doubtful that Christians really think this way, I believe I can provide material from within the Christian "knowledge base" to support this formulation if anybody asks.

I don't hereby think that Dr. Craig's work is moot... I think that's good work as well. But I think that Christians are not under the misconception that the right argument will be convincing for everybody; in fact, I think that would take away the agency that God desires for all people to retain.

E.S. California

7/7/2016 08:10:28 am

Sorry about calling February "spring"... it's all the same to us in California, though this is probably not the case in Ohio.

Franz Kiekeben

7/7/2016 03:14:55 pm

You are correct that many Christians argue this way, but it's a terrible argument. God wants us to love him without compulsion. But being convinced of his existence would not force anyone to love him: in fact, the traditional view includes a very clear counter-example in Satan and the other fallen angels. In addition, if the idea is that one must love God/accept his offer of salvation in order to be saved, then it only makes sense for God to make sure everyone at least knows he exists. One cannot accept his offer unless one is first convinced there is an offer in the first place. (For a lot more on this, see the section on Nonbelief in chpt. 3 of The Truth about God.)

James link

7/8/2016 07:17:44 am

Folks stop calling this a debate. This was a DISCUSSION/DIALOGUE. That's how Veritas Forum promoted it. While Scharp seemed to approach it as a debate, Craig stuck with the agreed upon format of a dialogue/discussion. Had Craig known it was going to be a debate he would have prepared for it like he normally does which includes reading his opponents' literature (etc.).

For those interested, Craig commented on this discussion with Scharp in three Reasonable Faith podcasts for 2016/06/17; 2016/06/26; & 2016/07/04 which can be downloaded at www(dot)ReasonableFaith(dot)org.

E.S. California link

7/11/2016 07:26:32 am

"...but being convinced of his existence would not force anyone to love him..." I agree with this statement. However, since the Scientific Revolution, people often say that their unbelief in Jesus is corollary to their unbelief in anything supernatural. So I think that unbelief today stands on the shaky structure of "absolutely nothing supernatural ever happens," which could be undermined by anything from an answered prayer to a credulous reception of the Kalam Cosmological Argument.

Regarding the thought that it would only make sense for God to at least show that he exists, Jesus would not agree with this, I think... in Mark 4:10-12 Jesus says that his teaching was veiled in parables intentionally to confound some listeners. Furthermore, in II Thessalonians 2 we learn that not all people who act supernaturally are on Jesus' team. This means that a person who remains convinced by "nothing supernatural happens" will be vulnerable to deception by bad spirits, having not listened to Jesus... it would be a simple matter for a bad spirit to shatter this belief in materialism and compel such a person to participate in an arrangement much worse than Christianity.

E.S. California link

7/11/2016 07:39:36 am

The idea of being captivated by a bad spirit was fictionalized by C.S. Lewis in his book "That Hideous Strength," in which leaders of a British scientific organization believe that they have, against all odds, captured the real Merlin in the 20th century.

E.S. California link

7/11/2016 08:06:50 am

This policy of limited proofs was laid out by Jesus dramatically in his parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Luke 16:19-31. I think it's good enough to reproduce here.

Luke 16:19-31
New American Standard Bible (NASB)

The Rich Man and Lazarus

19 “Now there was a rich man, and he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, joyously living in splendor every day. 20 And a poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores, 21 and longing to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man’s table; besides, even the dogs were coming and licking his sores. 22 Now the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and *saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. 24 And he cried out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony. 26 And [a]besides all this, between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able, and that none may cross over from there to us.’ 27 And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, that you send him to my father’s house— 28 for I have five brothers—in order that he may warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ 29 But Abraham *said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 But he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!’ 31 But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Franz Kiekeben

7/12/2016 08:19:35 am

Thanks for the C.S. Lewis reference, btw. I've never heard of that one - sounds interesting!

E.S. California

7/12/2016 09:49:13 am

The book (That Hideous Strength) works just fine when divorced from the other two in the trilogy ('Out of the Silent Planet' and 'Perelandra'). I don't think anybody puts it among Lewis' top ten works, but I really did come to appreciate it after college because of the way it skewers organizational behavior in academics.

Franz Kiekeben

7/12/2016 08:16:47 am

Not sure what your point is when you say that belief nowadays is on shaky grounds. I don't think it is, but if you're right, then that seems to support my view: God could easily ensure everyone knows he exists.

As to Jesus wanting to confound some of his listeners, that seems a lot harder to explain on the view that he was who Christians believe he was. Why wouldn't Christ want people to receive the so-called good news?

My basic point is very simple: if God wants us to be free to either accept or reject his offer of salvation, he should make sure each of us is aware that there is such an offer in the first place.

I, for one, am not aware that there is such an offer - in fact, I'm certain there isn't, since when I look at the so-called evidence for it, all I encounter is a lot of BS. Don't you agree that, if God really is making such an offer, he should make it clear to me (and everyone else) that there IS such an offer? I cannot accept his offer while I remain in ignorance as to its existence - whereas if I were convinced it was genuine, I certainly might accept it (though even then it would depend on other things, such as what this God's morals are; if they are those of the evil tyrant portrayed in the Bible, I would, on moral principle, choose hell, thank you very much).

E.S. California

7/12/2016 09:34:21 am

Thank you for engaging me on this topic! Yes, it is hard to explain that Jesus would want to confound his listeners. But he does it again and again: in Matthew 16:1-12 he refuses to prove his miraculous power to the Pharisees, and he also does the same in Matthew 12:38-45. Since I would consider this many examples an indisputable aspect of the account of Jesus, there must be some misunderstanding driving the apparent confusion between one impression of Jesus, under which this kind of obfuscation would seem to be outlandish!... and what may be gleaned from the Bible's account of Jesus--- which totally includes the obfuscation, and without any comment like "...then Jesus apologized for his extreme statements and gave some miracles after all."

E.S. California

7/12/2016 09:37:28 am

One of these examples is repeated in at least one other gospel, at Mark 8:11-13... therefore, I don't think this can be isolated to one hypothetically deviant source.

E.S. California

7/12/2016 02:32:13 pm

When you imagine what a piece of convincing evidence would be, i.e. that thing that God still hasn't done... can you describe the deficient character quality of God that would be the root of the inaction? For instance, if it was a matter of a prayer unanswered, I would ask you to respond, "deafness," "powerlessness," or "lack of empathy."

Franz Kiekeben

7/13/2016 10:56:43 am

You said: "Since I would consider this many examples an indisputable aspect of the account of Jesus, there must be some misunderstanding driving the apparent confusion between one impression of Jesus, under which this kind of obfuscation would seem to be outlandish!... and what may be gleaned from the Bible's account of Jesus--- which totally includes the obfuscation..."

I agree. If these reports have a basis in fact, then that means that an interpretation of Jesus which would make them inexplicable is wrong. And an interpretation of Jesus which makes them at least VERY HARD to explain is the standard interpretation: that he was God in the flesh coming to give us the good news. On the interpretation that he was an apocalyptic Jewish preacher who expected the end of the world very soon, the obfuscation becomes much easier to explain (though even then it is a bit strange).

BTW, the fact that passages of a certain kind are found both in Matthew and Mark is not by itself evidence of more than one source: Matthew got much of his information from Mark. But there is a different reason for thinking the passages in question have some basis in fact: the so-called criterion of embarrassment. If it would be embarrassing for an early Christian to claim x, then the fact that he claims it must mean he really believed it. That's not very strong evidence, of course, but it does tilt the scales somewhat.

E.S. California

7/13/2016 12:20:41 pm

OK great--- we agree that the Biblical account includes this aspect of Jesus' personality, that is, not always indulging every request or demand for a miracle.

Now let's figure out where "very hard to explain" arises. By your thought that it happens if he was God in the flesh coming to give us the good news, then we have one or both of the following: "Jesus would not restrain miracles if he was really God in the flesh" and "Jesus would not restrain miracles if he was really coming to give us the good news."

Since a typical Christian takes Jesus as God in the flesh before he asks what kind of personality Jesus has, I don't think that "very hard to explain" can fall on "Jesus as God in the flesh" without implicating the Biblical account itself or the doctrine of the Trinity. These are rich places for inquiry, but I think they're less interesting for this discussion.

So does "Jesus came to bring the good news" make it very hard to explain why he might not satisfy every request for a miracle? Clearly, if Jesus wanted the Pharisees and Sadducees in Matthew 16 to receive the good news, one way would have been to offer proof of his supernatural authority to say what's what. Indeed, this is what he did at Mark 2:1-12 when he first forgave the lame man's sins and then healed his body.

So what made Matthew 16 different? Well, I guess one thing I could point to is the word "testing him," which the Biblical author specifies as the intent of the request. He wasn't being asked to heal somebody or fix anything, but to prove himself against a test. How easy would that have been? But let's look at it this way: on the Christian view that Jesus was indeed God, this request for proof was in disobedience to Matthew 4:7 / Deuteronomy 6:16, "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test [as you did at Massah]." Would it have been OK for God to grant their wish, like a genie, when he had made it clear before that this wasn't an OK way to proceed? Is this how good parents treat their toddlers?

Let's look at Deuteronomy 6:16. The command references Massah... apparently that's the name given to the place where the Israelites grumbled in the desert, having left Egypt miraculously, accusing God of letting their children and livestock die of thirst (Exodus 17). What was so bad about this that it got a shout-out in the Law later on? Whatever it was, apparently this is enough for Jesus to say "no" from time to time.

Intuitively, it seems that the good news never should say "no" to a person. But this situation is where a person already has received sufficient proof of God's nature and is refusing to trust God, instead demanding that God prove himself again and again. God definitely presents himself as humble and eager for people to trust him. But without boundaries to this, imagine what would happen! Every Christian who really, really wants to be president... yearns to be president... can they all be president? Can they all be rich? Comfortable? Safe? I think that Christians accept that God has the right to make demands on people, and find it fulfilling when they have the honor of following such a demand. Even Jesus prayed before the crucifixion that he wouldn't have to do it, yet acknowledging obedience to God's will. What would it say for Christians not to accept "no" from time to time if Jesus did--- at the most difficult, most painful time?

I guess another thing worth noting is that this request was coming from Pharisees and Sadducees… these guys knew the Torah, they had received miracles at the Temple Dedication (re: Hanukkah), together they represented a pretty big political force even under Roman occupation, these are people who know about God. Jesus doesn’t do a miracle on the spot, but he does utter a prophecy: they will be given the sign of Jonah. Jonah was underwater for three days and came on shore alive--- Jesus was claiming this as representing something he would do as well, which we know to be the Resurrection.

So Jesus’ answer to requests for miracles from disrespectful, disobedient people, God’s answer really, is the Resurrection--- which Jesus predicted over and over again during his ministry.

So I suppose it would be safe to offer this miracle as God’s response to “why should I think God is real?” from people nowadays. What are your thoughts on the real reality of the historical resurrection?

This is fun!

Franz Kiekeben

7/13/2016 11:01:00 am

"can you describe the deficient character quality of God that would be the root of the inaction?" IOW, you're asking what in my opinion is the psychological reason God hasn't revealed himself, if he exists? How should I know? Maybe because he doesn't concern himself with measly humans? That would be the deist view, which at least is much more in tune with the evidence than is the Christian one.

E.S. California

7/13/2016 03:08:32 pm

"So I suppose it would be safe to offer [the resurrection] as God’s response to 'why should I think God is real?' from people nowadays."

Not that I want to communicate that God won't reveal himself in any other way; quite the opposite--- the resurrection here seems to be God's answer when he already feels he's provided sufficient evidence, if I'm not mistaken about how to interpret all this, which I probably am.

Franz Kiekeben

7/14/2016 01:08:50 pm

"By your thought... we have one or both of the following: 'Jesus would not restrain miracles if he was really God in the flesh' and 'Jesus would not restrain miracles if he was really coming to give us the good news'."

No, I'm not claiming anything that specific. Of course there might be reasons for him not to perform miracles on command. What I'm referring to is the more general secrecy about the "good news" that you find, especially in passages like Mark 4:11-12 (which you mentioned above). There, Jesus says, "To you [the people he was speaking two, including the twelve] has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, BUT FOR THOSE OUTSIDE, everything comes in parables; in order that 'they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so that they may not turn again and be forgiven'." [Emphasis added]. That reference to outsiders is very interesting, wouldn't you say?

"So I suppose it would be safe to offer this miracle [the resurrection] as God’s response to 'why should I think God is real?' from people nowadays. What are your thoughts on the real reality of the historical resurrection?"

This is Paul's view, as you probably know: the resurrection supposedly is the reason we should all believe. Now think about that for a minute. Is it a good reason? Wouldn't you first have to know that the miracle occurred, at least, in order for it to be a good reason?

In case you're interested, I wrote about all this in The Truth about God, pp. 86-88 (or, if you look at the Kindle version, see the section on "Nonbelief" in chapter 3). I use a little trick there to clearly demonstrate to the reader that he or she himself cannot agree with Paul on this. I hope you're willing to check it out!

E.S. California

7/14/2016 02:39:50 pm

Thanks for the offer, but I'm not willing enough in order to get past the paywall. Besides, I think as a matter of principle that these kinds of conversations really should happen at the conversation. Presumably you have summarized the book here in your response, right?

You are drawing attention to the notion that Jesus was excluding outsiders. Is this in support of "there is no God," "Christianity has it wrong about God," or "God is really actually quite bad"?

I don't think this has any significance regarding "there is no God." As for "Christianity has it wrong..." I think it depends on where you think the inconsistency arises... probably between this and "...so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for ALL MEN.” (Romans 5.18b). How could it be ALL MEN if Jesus excludes some people? I think the answer here lies in what Jesus did actually offer them, even the people who were being excluded--- Jesus' prophecy about the sign of Jonah followed by his death and resurrection. These mere facts would have been enough, I think, to get the idea through to them as well. So I don't think they were actually excluded, except here and there temporarily.

What about "God is bad"? It would be dishonest for God to say that he's providing salvation for anybody if he prevented some people from getting it... and it would be unjust for him to select some people for condemnation if they didn't deserve it. But I don't see this happening here, on account of what Jesus does provide to the excluded listeners.

"That's what Paul says." You must be implying that Paul's contribution was tangential to Jesus' teaching. But how could this be, considering that Paul was accepted at the Council of Jerusalem, as well as in the epistle of Peter? Also, can anybody seriously point out something Paul taught that is contrary to the rest of the New Testament?

Is the resurrection a good reason to believe? Jesus seems to think so! "No sign... but the sign of Jonah." This was Jesus' words, not Paul's words.

Did the resurrection happen? Time and distance make it harder to be sure. Science, definitely, will never be able to say because it's not the kind of thing scientists can reproduce (including historical science). But I think the argument is compelling that says the resurrection is the best available explanation for what other facts and records we have about those times.

How can anybody "know" that a miracle occurred when the standard for "knowledge" is scientific? A good scientificistically-minded person would be careful to say that we don't "know" how life began... but of course he would say that we "know" it wasn't of supernatural origin. In my opinion, generally this is actually a fair point. My pastor has been saying that people shouldn't feel obligated to believe something, such as miracles, for which they don't perceive any evidence. Now this kind of thinking makes faith sort of a personal rationality, since the evidence each person uses to make the decision is not necessarily communicable... but I guess that's OK given that in my opinion, it's not God's intent to bring people into faith through compulsion... as if "not believing in Jesus is as dumb as not believing the commutative property of mathematics."

I myself regard origins to be miraculous, so I don't have a hard time accepting the miraculous interpretation of the resurrection records.

E.S. California

7/15/2016 08:14:35 am

"The standard for 'knowledge' is scientific"... I'm not writing these words to repeat an axiom but to present a problem. Here's my objection: How do you know that the standard for knowledge is scientific?

Franz Kiekeben

7/15/2016 01:41:01 pm

"Presumably you have summarized the book here in your response, right?"

Well, not the trick I alluded to (essentially getting the reader to realize they do not agree with x, and then showing them that x is what Paul says, that God has "given assurance to all" by raising Jesus from the dead). But you've already admitted we don't really know the resurrection occurred, so it seems you disagree with Paul -- though maybe you didn't intend to?

TAYnextQ, yes, the point I was making concerns the question of whether we have reason to believe Jesus was who Christians believe he was ("Christianity has it wrong about God"). His purposely keeping outsiders in ignorance of the good news is on the face of it inconsistent with basic Christian belief. I have no doubt that you or someone else can come up with some convoluted explanation why he might have done such a thing, but the simpler explanation is that he wasn't God.

"So I don't think they were actually excluded, except here and there temporarily." I don't see why you think you have shown this. How do you know about ALL the people who didn't understand his message because, as he himself admitted, he purposely expressed himself unclearly so as to exclude them? What if some of these people never heard about the resurrection? What if some died before Jesus did?

" 'That's what Paul says.' You must be implying that Paul's contribution was tangential to Jesus' teaching. But how could this be, considering that Paul was accepted at the Council of Jerusalem, as well as in the epistle of Peter? Also, can anybody seriously point out something Paul taught that is contrary to the rest of the New Testament?"

I wasn't actually saying that, but now that you mention it, yes, Paul's views are inconsistent with Jesus's, in more than one way. But that's a whole other issue which I'd rather leave aside right now.

"But I think the argument is compelling that says the resurrection is the best available explanation for what other facts and records we have about those times."

I know a lot of people who say this, including a lot of smart people, but it still makes my jaw drop whenever I hear it. I have never seen any evidence at all for the resurrection. Zero. (And yes, I have read what apologists say on this. Their arguments are very, very weak.)

"My pastor has been saying that people shouldn't feel obligated to believe something, such as miracles, for which they don't perceive any evidence."

Sounds like a great pastor! (Though he probably won't be thrilled to receive praise from a nonbeliever!)

"but I guess that's OK given that in my opinion, it's not God's intent to bring people into faith through compulsion... as if 'not believing in Jesus is as dumb as not believing the commutative property of mathematics.' "

But again - and this I think is where we began our discussion - God making his existence perfectly clear is not the same thing as God forcing anyone to accept him. Do you believe there are fallen angels? And if so, don't you also believe that they KNOW God exists?

E.S. California

7/18/2016 09:00:13 am

Thanks for continuing this conversation... I appreciate your patience with me. I hope you had a good weekend!

One thing I'm trying to do here is to classify atheist arguments by their scope. Just like apologist arguments can be either for "Natural theology" (some god exists) or "the Bible is God's word", and also "Christians aren't ignorant/bad/bigoted", I want to show that atheist arguments can likewise be classified according to "God doesn't exist", "Christians actually don't know the truth about God", and "God/Christians/religious people are bad."

If God doesn't provide conclusive universal proof of his existence, this leaves room for doubt on the first question, "Does God exist?" But I believe that it does not affect the second or third questions, "Is Christian doctrine right?" and "Is the Christian ethic actually worth my time?"

You might say that the second or third questions are predicated by statements like, "supposing God did exist" or "imagine that the Old Testament really is a record of what happened..." and therefore, contingent on the first question. But nobody upholds this relationship. Christians make all three arguments in parallel, and atheists do the same.

So while it's true that knowledge of God doesn't entail compulsion to believe (i.e. fallen angels exist, Judas walked around with Jesus but still betrayed him, etc.), lack of knowledge of God that satisfies the scientific standard doesn't prevent God from persuading folks by the second and third kinds of reasoning: "the Bible correctly communicates truth" and "the Bible's version of ethics is really quite excellent," as atheists seem to acknowledge when they make arguments against those kinds of reasoning.

E.S. California

7/18/2016 09:03:52 am

On further reflection, it seems that I readily accept that "Christians don't know the truth about God" and "Christians are bad." The caveats are that I have reasons for thinking that the Bible is true, and I hope that Christians aren't so bad as to prevent others from finding out about God.

Franz Kiekeben

7/19/2016 01:19:10 pm

' On further reflection, it seems that I readily accept that "Christians don't know the truth about God" and "Christians are bad." '

I was going to respond to your next-to-last post by pointing out (something you came close to admitting there) that if there is reason to doubt God's existence then (a fortiori) there is reason to doubt the Christian doctrine - and the fact that "nobody upholds this relationship. Christians make all three arguments in parallel, and atheists do the same" seems irrelevant.

But you are saying above that, on second thought, you don't agree with what you originally claimed, right?

E.S. California

7/19/2016 02:20:10 pm

No, I'm not retracting my claims. I am saying that the true knowledge of God is out of our grasp, in the scientific sense: it's not like we "know enough" to build anything out of God or achieve control over God... this is the scientific kind of knowledge: we know fluid mechanics, we know genetic rules, we know how to use quantum mechanics, and we can manipulate all these things.

I'm glad you said you were going to contradict my statement about nobody upholding the relationship... this is a point that I think deserves to be explored.

If atheists think that the dearth of scientific evidence for God is a non-starter for Christian or deist doctrine, then why is there so much material against Christian doctrine's details and against the influence of religious people in history?

I think it's because atheists are aware that people whose minds aren't made up on these points are willing to weigh evidence on various tracks at the same time. And a person who jumps into one camp or another, I think, is not usually making the decision in priority order but because of something particularly powerful for the person. Thus we have Satan, who knows God, but rejects God in his pride.

The reason this is relevant, I think, is because if such lack of evidence is a non-starter, then the atheist position has achieved an initial advantage by defining the rules. I think this is Dawkins' purpose in suggesting that the existence of God be treated as a scientific hypothesis: as soon as a person accepts this suggestion, they have already granted Dawkins the advantage, both because we know that God isn't visible to science and because Dawkins uses this position together with the God-existence priority to undercut all other arguments.

I don't think atheists really hold to this priority. Otherwise, I would expect to see the writings quietly withdrawn that try to show "Christians don't know the truth about God" and "religion is bad."

E.S. California

7/19/2016 03:43:31 pm

Do you think that if atheists make attempts on both tracks, and say all three of "here is evidence that God doesn't exist," "here are reasons why Christian doctrine is wrong about God," and "Christian doctrine is meaningless if you're not sure that God exists" ...that the person making these arguments is vulnerable to the accusation that they are not proceeding in good faith?

For to make the second point, the person must necessarily undercut their confidence in the third point, if they are promoting a coherent idea. As it stands, aren't these three points taken together incoherent because Christian doctrine has no content, and therefore, no truth/falsity, according to the other points?

E.S. California

7/20/2016 07:38:29 am

Another way of putting my comment would be to ask, "How can you go on arguing about unicorn anatomy if you are also asserting that unicorns don't exist?"

Franz Kiekeben

7/21/2016 08:40:58 am

“I'm glad you said you were going to contradict my statement about nobody upholding the relationship... this is a point that I think deserves to be explored.”

Whether people uphold this relationship or not is a separate question from whether logically there is such a relationship. So even if it's true that people don't uphold the relationship, that's irrelevant. If there is reason to doubt God, then there HAS to be reason to doubt the Christian doctrines about God.

“If atheists think that the dearth of scientific evidence for God is a non-starter for Christian or deist doctrine, then why is there so much material against Christian doctrine's details and against the influence of religious people in history?”

In my book The Truth about God, I present an argument that all gods (on the traditional sense of “god”) are impossible, and yet I also present arguments against believing in the Bible, etc. And the reason is simply that in order to even have a chance of convincing the average religious believer, one has to cover such things. A simple, straightforward argument against all gods, while logically of course precluding what the Bible says about God, does not accomplish the job psychologically.

“I think it's because atheists are aware that people whose minds aren't made up on these points are willing to weigh evidence on various tracks at the same time.”

Yes! I think you're exactly right on this point.

“Thus we have Satan, who knows God, but rejects God in his pride.”

You've lost me here, however. Satan rejects God, not in the sense of not believing that God exists, but in the sense of not accepting what God has to offer.

“Another way of putting my comment would be to ask, 'How can you go on arguing about unicorn anatomy if you are also asserting that unicorns don't exist?' ”

Well, suppose that “unicornists” believed not only in the existence of unicorns, but that unicorns (say) had, as part of their anatomy, a magical organ that could be used to power a perpetual motion machine. And suppose that unicornists were 80% of the population and had lots of influence – maybe even to the point that millions of tax dollars were being spent on the attempt to capture a unicorn so as to use the perpetual motion organ as a way to solve our energy problems. In that case, not only would “auniconists” argue that there are no unicorns, they would argue that the perpetual motion organ is something that science deems impossible. And I don't think in that case there would be anything wrong with making both arguments.

E.S. California

7/25/2016 08:19:24 am

Thank you for indulging my analogy. Now let's get back to the terms of our own discussion... in my use of the unicorn analogy, a unicorn represents the supernatural because it's invisible to science. And unicorn anatomy represents the collective body of knowledge about the supernatural that my own tradition, collectively the Bible and judiciously applied church writings (Nicene Creed, Westminster Confession, Augustine, Tertullian, Luther, Calvin, Vatican II, etc.) tells us about God and Jesus. People who live inside the church tradition sometimes debate about particulars of theology, such as transubstantiation and the definition of the word "catholic," but always agree on the basics, such as the Nicene Creed.

In your extension of my analogy, the unicornists and their opponents disagree about some aspect of unicorn anatomy that supposedly provides a perpetual motion machine, which science deems impossible. Guessing now, by this you could either mean the supernatural origin of the universe or the resurrection of the dead. Just like perpetual motion, a claim of resurrection would be instantly (or very soon) falsifiable, and just like with unicorns, whereas Christian resurrection is supposedly going to happen at an undisclosed future date, nobody has seen a unicorn and nobody knows when the next / first sighting would be.

But the perpetual motion machine is a very poor analogy for the supernatural origin of the universe, which is deadly easy to observe, right now, even to a child... the Big Bang needs a Big Banger. What's before the Big Bang? Not a "gap"... an origin!!! Instead of something promising a falsifiable miracle at an undisclosed time in the future, we have an indisputable miracle that already happened, which nobody denies except those who are willing to bend and stretch words until they are meaningless.

Meaningless? It's meaningless for people like Stephen Hawking to say that "before the Big Bang" is a pointless question on account of time compressing as you approach the singularity, and for others to say that time is not really advancing or receding, it's just a block. If this were not the case, then why are perpetual motion machines impossible?

Still, the resurrection is a promise that is not falsifiable today by science, and therefore I don't see it as a fruitful subject of debate between people who believe and people who don't. Of course, you may wish to falsify Jesus' resurrection, which is a fair question. Yet I do not believe that this is the question you wanted to raise.

E.S. California

7/25/2016 08:25:20 am

Hawking's point about "before" losing its meaning is meaningless because now my 4 year-old son will stump Prof. Stephen Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA with the simple question of "and where did the time-space block come from?" The good Dr. would have to answer, "It is uncaused." And you still deny the supernatural? There is absolutely nothing uncaused, Dr. Hawking!!! ...unless you're a meat-packer working next door to Louis Pasteur or my 4-year-old son, who doesn't know how that huge mess got on the kitchen floor.

E.S. California

7/25/2016 08:28:32 am

Of course, I was trained that God is uncaused but is instead, the "cause" or maker of "everything that is", or, everything that has the property of being. (Note that square circles and unmarried bachelors don't be)

E.S. California

7/25/2016 08:29:37 am

Typo... "married" not "unmarried"

E.S. California

7/25/2016 07:58:59 am

I recently read an atheist who did not deny that his confidence in human intelligence to answer today's unresolved questions through scientific means is in fact faith. He wanted to make sure that it was clear that it is about as much faith as is necessary to believe that the sun would rise tomorrow... but still, faith.

Would you balk at this use of the word, faith, to describe the primitive motivation that allows physicists to say that they will find multiverses in the "next collider [after LHC]" or resolve through cosmology, logic, and theoretical physics the answers that eluded philosophers for past generations?

E.S. California

7/25/2016 09:10:42 am

Not to unnecessarily narrow my question, put differently I would ask, "Don't Progressives have faith?"

Franz Kiekeben

7/26/2016 05:37:31 pm

"In your extension of my analogy, the unicornists and their opponents disagree about some aspect of unicorn anatomy that supposedly provides a perpetual motion machine, which science deems impossible. Guessing now, by this you could either mean the supernatural origin of the universe or the resurrection of the dead."

I did not mean to add to your analogy in any way: I was referring to what you had said, that discussions about its anatomy are like discussions about the specifics of Christian doctrine. My point is that one can be justified in discussing the latter even if one claims there is no God.

"the Big Bang needs a Big Banger. What's before the Big Bang? Not a "gap"... an origin!!! Instead of something promising a falsifiable miracle at an undisclosed time in the future, we have an indisputable miracle that already happened, which nobody denies except those who are willing to bend and stretch words until they are meaningless."

First, I want to point out that I really like the term “Big Banger”. However, there are problems with what you claim here. First, there is no reason to believe the big bang was the absolute beginning. Second, if it was the absolute beginning, that does not mean it had to have a cause.

“Meaningless? It's meaningless for people like Stephen Hawking to say that "before the Big Bang" is a pointless question on account of time compressing as you approach the singularity,”

If the big bang is the beginning to time itself, then by definition there can be no before. You can argue that time cannot have a beginning, but to claim that Hawking's claim is meaningless ON THE VIEW that it does have a beginning is surely incorrect.

“and for others to say that time is not really advancing or receding, it's just a block. If this were not the case, then why are perpetual motion machines impossible?”

The block theory of time has nothing to do with the laws of thermodynamics, so I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

“"and where did the time-space block come from?" The good Dr. would have to answer, "It is uncaused." And you still deny the supernatural? There is absolutely nothing uncaused, Dr. Hawking!!!""

But isn't God, in your view, uncaused? Just saw that you already answered, on your next comment, that he is. So... why can't one claim the universe is uncaused?

“Would you balk at this use of the word, faith”

Yes, I would. People often use “faith” as a synonym for “confidence”, but that's different from the kind of faith most commonly involved in religion.

E.S. California

7/27/2016 07:57:20 am

The Bible provides a definition for faith in the New Testament book of Hebrews: (Heb 11:1-3, New American Standard translation)

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible."

In my opinion, "what is seen" and "visible" are not meaningfully distinct from "things that can be observed" and "things science can observe."

While the Biblical author in this example acknowledges that God is invisible, he uses a legal analogy to explain how we should think about God's existence and his promises.

The legal analogy comes with the word "conviction" which my translation used for the Greek word ἔλεγχος or 'elegchos', which can be defined as conviction, proof, or evidence.

In this analogy, here we are in a courtroom, judging whether to convict based on the evidences given. There isn't enough evidence to force the decision one way or the other, but we need to decide none the less. Are the things that were presented as being unseen real? On this indictment, if you are going to convict rather than acquit, that's faith.

The book of Hebrews also says this: (Heb 11:6 New American Standard translation): "And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him."

Here the author acknowledges that a person's confidence is never going to rise to the 100% level, because if it was 100% faith wouldn't really be involved. But this is the same kind of thinking in science!

In stochastic analysis, which is most of science these days, there isn't enough evidence to force us to believe the results without some consideration, starting with "do we trust our methods?" ...and the answer is by no means always, "yes, we trust our methods." Typically, it's sufficient for our purposes if we have a 95% confidence that our conclusion isn't just a false positive, we think we have learned something. (http://www.bitss.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/False-Positives-p-Hacking-Statistical-Power-and-Evidential-Value-Leif-Nelson.pdf#page=9)

Where does this 5% number come from? Why don't scientists insist on 4%? 1%? 0.001%? I have heard the 95%-of-the-time called our "confidence interval"... and by your last few words in the comment here, we can say that "if there's only a 5% chance that the results were a false positive, scientists and everybody else feel justified in having faith that the result is good for the decision at hand."

I don't see a meaningful difference between overlooking the 5% false positive rate, as scientists do, and overlooking the possibility that the universe is the only natural object that is uncaused in order to place your chips on "God is real".

(The word 'elegchos' is Strong's # 1650. This word was used in AD 186 on the Petition of Dionysia to the Praefect to mean "proofs of the accusation" ... see https://www.studylight.org/lexicons/greek/gwview.cgi?n=1650 and also http://papyri.info/ddbdp/p.oxy;2;237 and finally, https://ia800203.us.archive.org/28/items/oxyrhynchuspappt02grenuoft/oxyrhynchuspappt02grenuoft_bw.pdf to chase down this definition just for fun.)

E.S. California

7/27/2016 02:18:22 pm

Rush to press... typos in place.

It was supposed to read:

[deleted] The Biblical author in this example acknowledges that God is invisible, AND he uses a legal analogy to explain how we should think about God's existence and his promises IN LIGHT OF THE UNCERTAINTY.

Typically, it's sufficient for our purposes THAT if we have a 95% confidence that our conclusion isn't just a false positive, we think we have learned something.

E.S. California link

7/27/2016 08:51:39 am

See the link to a 2015 book by Juilan Reiss... in his analysis in Chapter 2, he distinguishes between collecting facts and making up one's mind. I think that it's a fallacy of some people proclaiming "materialism only" that there is no such thing as making up one's mind when it comes to the question of the supernatural.

E.S. California

7/27/2016 03:53:35 pm

"If the big bang is the beginning to time itself, then by definition there can be no before. You can argue that time cannot have a beginning, but to claim that Hawking's claim is meaningless ON THE VIEW that it does have a beginning is surely incorrect."

This is a thought that has been addressed by William Lane Craig. If memory serves, he would explain that while there's nothing chronologically prior to the Big Bang, that doesn't preclude something from being logically prior to the Big Bang.

From Dr. Craig's website: "...given the success of the philosophical arguments against an infinite regress, we know that there must be a temporally first cause, which is therefore uncaused in the sense of having no temporally prior cause. If it is caused, it could have at most a sort of sustaining cause, what you call "a logically prior cause." But once more, the argument against an actual infinite will necessitate that such a causal regress cannot be infinite and that one must therefore arrive at an absolutely uncaused first cause."

Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/god-as-the-cause-of-the-universe#ixzz4FeVdDEYS

This also applies to the apparent conflict between God's foreknowledge of people's actions and Biblical affirmations that free will is a thing. See the following from Dr. Craig's website:

"Question: When you say that it would have happened differently if God foreknew it differently, is that in any way a confirmation of the B-Theory of time, where tenses are just illusions?

Answer: No, I don’t think this is dependent on your theory of time. Whether you think that all events in time are equally real or you think only present events in time are real is irrelevant to this fallacy. The argument is just modally fallacious, and if X were not to happen, then God would not have foreknown it. He would foreknow something else. What we want to say is that though God’s knowledge is chronologically prior to the event foreknown, the event foreknown is logically prior to God’s knowledge. First God foreknows it, then the event happens. So God’s knowledge is chronologically prior to the event. But the event is logically prior to God’s foreknowledge. Whichever way the event goes, God’s foreknowledge will follow it. If X happens, then God will foreknow that X will happen. If X were to fail to happen, then God will foreknow that X will fail to happen. God’s knowledge is sort of like an infallible barometer. An infallible barometer will tell you with infallible correctness which way the weather will be. But the barometer doesn’t determine the weather; the weather determines the barometer. From the barometer’s reading, you can know how the weather will be, but the barometer won’t determine the weather, it is the other way around. Such is the case with foreknowledge, too. It is X that is logically prior to what God knows. It is not that what God knows is logically prior to X. What God knows is only chronologically prior to X.2

Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/defenders-2-podcast/transcript/s3-14#ixzz4FeUtVDL9

E.S. California

7/28/2016 08:15:46 am

Block theory of time not related to thermodynamics? That's not what I read in Quanta Magazine, "A Debate Over The Physics Of Time" July 19, 2016 (https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160719-time-and-cosmology/):

'There are a few things that everyone agrees on. The directionality that we observe in the macroscopic world is very real: Teacups shatter but do not spontaneously reassemble; eggs can be scrambled but not unscrambled. Entropy — a measure of the disorder in a system — always increases, a fact encoded in the second law of thermodynamics. As the Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann understood in the 19th century, the second law explains why events are more likely to evolve in one direction rather than another. It accounts for the arrow of time.

But things get trickier when we step back and ask why we happen to live in a universe where such a law holds. “What Boltzmann truly explained is why the entropy of the universe will be larger tomorrow than it is today,” said Sean Carroll, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology, as we sat in a hotel bar after the second day of presentations. “But if that was all you knew, you’d also say that the entropy of the universe was probably larger yesterday than today — because all the underlying dynamics are completely symmetric with respect to time.” That is, if entropy is ultimately based on the underlying laws of the universe, and those laws are the same going forward and backward, then entropy is just as likely to increase going backward in time. But no one believes that entropy actually works that way. Scrambled eggs always come after whole eggs, never the other way around.'

E.S. California

7/29/2016 09:18:38 am

What I'm getting at is that if you want to take "perpetual motion machines are impossible" as axiomatic, as we are all used to doing, you must remember that this axiom may disappear along with the notion of the forward arrow of time, as implied here by Sean Carroll. In the article, Dr. Carroll goes on to explain why his view isn't really problematic, but in explaining this I believe he shows that "no perpetual motion machines" becomes questionable when you question "tensed" reality, i.e. the forward arrow of time.

E.S. California

7/28/2016 08:29:23 am

"Why can't one claim that the universe is uncaused?"

Of course you can claim this! But I don't think it's quite coherent to also claim that "nothing supernatural ever happens" when you make this claim. Put differently, it's incorrect to claim that deism is impossible when you also claim that the entire universe is uncaused.

Is it natural for something to be uncaused? If not, then whatever an uncaused thing is, it is not different from something supernatural.

I suppose that you could go on to dig at the word "invisible" which I've been using as a description for God... how can something exist that is invisible? I would probably rebut this with a few examples of invisible things that really do exist, like the rules of logic and numbers.

OK, numbers exist even when they're not written down, but how can an invisible person exist? Well, the human mind is invisible, too, wouldn't you say? Does it go away if you remove the right half of a person's brain? What about the left half? The front? The back?

Maybe you think the human mind doesn't exist (i.e. that free will is an illusion). I don't think that this is a strongly-supported "thought" out there, though some people do hold to it. And I don't think it's a powerful rebuttal to "the human mind is an example of an invisible being" unless you "flesh-out" the argument somewhat. And like solipsism, I think that "there is no mind" has some prima facie weaknesses that I would be glad to ridicule here.

E.S. California

7/28/2016 04:03:02 pm

Just read a review of your book on Skeptic Ink... it looks like you are making an argument related to free will. But you use the word "libertarian" as a qualifier for the kind of free will that pretty much doesn't exist, and whose non-existence precludes any deity from existing who purportedly possesses that free will. It doesn't sound like you don't think consciousness exists, so libertarian free will must be something different from consciousness, right?

E.S. California

7/28/2016 09:45:36 am

Just realized that I may be coming off as antagonistic and defensive, when I had not meant to do that. If you are happy with the tone of this discourse, please let me know... there are some people who just don't like the arguing part and others who enjoy it like a tennis match.

Franz Kiekeben

7/29/2016 10:50:09 am

“Just realized that I may be coming off as antagonistic and defensive, when I had not meant to do that.”

You must not participate in a lot of internet discussions... I've kept up this debate in part because you've been so reasonable and polite! I do worry, however, that the debate has become way too open-ended and is now leading in too many directions. So I'm going to try to narrow it down by making no more than a brief comment to some of the new things you brought up. However, if you feel any of these new issues are important to pursue further, let me know.

Regarding faith, you are reading things into my answer that I did not intend.

You originally said:

“I recently read an atheist who did not deny that his confidence in human intelligence to answer today's unresolved questions through scientific means is in fact faith... Would you balk at this use of the word, faith?”

To which I replied: “Yes, I would. People often use “faith” as a synonym for “confidence”, but that's different from the kind of faith involved in religion (other than in such things as having faith that God – because he's all-powerful, all-wise, etc. - will get you through some hardship, etc).”

My point here was simply to distinguish two meanings of “faith”: confidence in something is one thing (and is based on the evidence we have so far in that something). Believing on faith is a very different thing (and is based on nothing rational – it's just wishful thinking). I think faith in science's ability is really confidence.

“In this analogy, here we are in a courtroom, judging whether to convict based on the evidences given. There isn't enough evidence to force the decision one way or the other, but we need to decide none the less. Are the things that were presented as being unseen real? On this indictment, if you are going to convict rather than acquit, that's faith.”

I hope that if you find yourself in such a situation you won't do such a thing! Convictions have to be based on evidence beyond a reasonable doubt – one is presumed innocent until “proven” guilty because it is worse to convict an innocent person than to let a guilty one go free. To convict without having a basis for doing so – i.e., on faith – is to commit a terrible injustice.

“I don't see a meaningful difference between overlooking the 5% false positive rate, as scientists do, and overlooking the possibility that the universe is the only natural object that is uncaused in order to place your chips on "God is real".”

That's quite a stretch. In a science (e.g., medicine) where, for practical reasons, one has to be satisfied with results that are only 95% accurate, one admits that one only has that much confidence (in fact, the confidence level one should have that a positive result is really positive is usually far below 95% in such a test; but let's not get into that complication). The point is that such a test does not in any way give us any more justification for acceptance of its results than what statistically follows from the result. This means that one should NOT claim to have definitely found truth (that is, have “faith” that the result is true) based on such a test.

“This is a thought that has been addressed by William Lane Craig.”

First, thanks, but no need to quote Craig on such things as the cosmological argument to me. I'm quite familiar with what he says, and answer his arguments in The Truth about God (which I assume you will never read).

But continuing with Craig (re: God's foreknowledge):

“The argument is just modally fallacious, and if X were not to happen, then God would not have foreknown it. He would foreknow something else.”

Craig is right that the mere fact of God's foreknowledge does not present a problem for free will. But in the quote you provided he fails to address the real problem, which is God's infallibility. I have a paper on this (“Is God's knowledge compatible with free will?”) in my philosophy page. http://www.franzkiekeben.com/foreknowledge.html

“Block theory of time not related to thermodynamics?”

Not in any way I can see, and the quotes from Carroll you provided aren't about that. Carroll's point concerns the laws of physics being time-symmetric, not time being “static”. The main reason for thinking this about time has to do with relativity. I also have a (very brief) paper that touches on this in my philosophy page, titled “Relativistic determinism”: http://www.franzkiekeben.com/relativistic.html

Franz Kiekeben

7/29/2016 11:00:54 am

“Is it natural for something to be uncaused? If not, then whatever an uncaused thing is, it is not different from something supernatural.”

Not sure why you would say that. First, there may very well be uncaused things – that's what just about every physicist believes, in fact. More importantly, to say that something is due to the supernatural is not to say it is uncaused, but rather that it has a cause that lies outside the realm of the natural (whatever that means). Isn't it?

“Well, the human mind is invisible, too, wouldn't you say?”

No. The mind is what the brain does. (And I'm not sure why you brought up this whole issue of invisibility, as I never said anything about that. So this will be one of the things I'll pass over.)

“Maybe you think the human mind doesn't exist (i.e. that free will is an illusion).”

Hold on: you're conflating two things. I do say free will (in the libertarian sense) does not exist (again, this is something you can find arguments for in The Truth about God), but I certainly don't deny that minds exist.

E.S. California

8/2/2016 01:08:46 pm

On God's foreknowledge, you say that Craig 'fails to address the real problem, which is God's infallibility.' And you draw our attention to the blog post elsewhere, which makes this claim:

"If God infallibly knows that you are going to do x, you have no choice but to do x. It isn't merely that you in fact do x; it's that that is the only thing you can do!"

In my opinion, Craig's structure addresses this pretty well by simply asserting that God's knowledge of the future is chronologically prior to the future, but that the event in the future is logically prior to God's knowledge. Whether you think this is possible or not, I think it's coherent and that it's not inconsistent with the revelation about God that we possess which was written down prophetically by the authors of the Bible.

God's transcendence of chronological time is not ad-hoc, either, because being logically prior without being chronologically prior (or logically prior outside the realm of time) is a necessary feature of any cause for the universe, which Big Bang cosmology has shown to not only be originated materially at the beginning, but in fact to contain time itself as a property which also began at the same "logical moment".

If "knowing truly today" takes on a strange definition (for God only) as a result of this in order to preserve free will, I think that "knowing truly today" is the weaker concept and provides the wiggle room for God's infallible foreknowledge of our future free choices among real alternatives.

E.S. California link

8/2/2016 02:26:22 pm

Sensing a disturbance in the force... I have the feeling that Dr. Craig's position on free will is a lot more refined and specific than I'm representing here. This is not something that I am willing to defend, other than that "somebody smarter than me can explain it coherently... that's good enough." Comma, "somebody who explicitly agrees with me on other things I espouse can respond to technical quibbles about free will, so I'm going to allow the smarter person to respond."

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/middle-knowledge

E.S. California

8/2/2016 02:56:11 pm

Ah, it's all coming together. Dr. Craig's position is built on the idea of "middle knowledge", a theory of how God can know future contingents.

Thus Dr. Craig thinks it's possible for God to "use His middle knowledge to so providentially order the world that anyone who rejects God’s general revelation in nature and conscience and never hears the Gospel would not have believed in the Gospel even if he had heard it ..."

(Reasonable Faith . org: see Scholarly Articles: Christian Particularism; Popular Articles: Christianity and Other Faiths: “How Can Christ Be the Only Way to God?”).

Dr. Craig continues: "People who never hear the Gospel will be judged on the basis of their response to God’s general revelation, and those who fail to respond to it and are damned cannot complain that if only they had heard the Gospel they would have responded to it and been saved."

Regarding "libertarian free will," Dr. Craig says this, apparently carving out a third option from the two positions you stated.

"I’m a libertarian who thinks that causal determinism is incompatible with freedom. That doesn’t imply that I hold to the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP), which states that a free agent has in a set of circumstances the ability to choose A or not-A. I’m persuaded that so long as an agent’s choice is not causally determined, it doesn’t matter if he can actually make a choice contrary to how he does choose."

Franz Kiekeben

7/29/2016 02:06:31 pm

"It doesn't sound like you don't think consciousness exists, so libertarian free will must be something different from consciousness, right?"

Saw the above only after replying to your previous comments. "Libertarian" fw is the kind of metaphysical freedom that most people seem to believe in: If there is such a thing, then we are free to choose from among different possible courses of action. For example, let's say that at time t, you do A. If you have libertarian fw, then you could have done B instead. (Thus, libertarian fw is incompatible with determinism.) But of course one can lack such freedom and still have conscious experiences - I don't see any connection, to be honest.

E.S. California

8/1/2016 08:48:16 am

Why do you use "libertarian" as a modifier for free will? I don't see the need for it: is there some other kind of free will that you think we do have, or perhaps that we know less about?

Franz Kiekeben

8/2/2016 12:19:59 pm

There are essentially two ways of understanding free will:

1) The incompatibilist or libertarian view holds that FW is incompatible with determinism (i.e., it requires the future to be "open"). If there is such a thing as libertarian FW, then you can choose from among more than one course of action, and for anything that you have freely done, you could actually have done otherwise.

2) The compatibilist view holds that FW is compatible with determinism, and that it therefore means (roughly) the ability to act in accordance with one's desires. One's desires may be determined, so that one could not have actually done otherwise, but one is nevertheless still free.

E.S. California

8/1/2016 08:44:19 am

Let me make some statements and you can tell me if they're modern / scientific or not.

1) "You observed some ___. We did too: This is where the ___ came from."

2) "You observed ____. We did too. Trust us: these kinds of things just appear sometimes--- they are not caused by anything, and they can neither be stopped nor reproduced."

Number 1) sounds like the flies in the meat that Louis Pasteur was able to explain through science. Before his time, the common explanation was along the lines of 2). A normal person would tag-on the following: "God made it that way, I suppose."

The physicist who affirms that the universe is uncaused is applying 2) to cosmology. He has bound and gagged Frau Science, has stolen her wig and glasses, and hidden her in the walk-in fridge, while manning the deli counter himself and talking in fake German-accent falsetto hoping the customers won't notice the difference.

If as a scientist you deny causation for the universe, you really should update your resume as a mechanic or office administrator, not least because anybody who comes along with any plausible cause is officially doing better than you. Or at least, use your status as an academic to get a discounted supercomputer for your mom's basement that you can use to play World of Warcraft later.

"There is no cause" has no meaningful difference from "We can't know." And this is my point: "We can't know" and "God did it" are epistemologically equal. The "We can't know" people are pots calling kettles black if they think the "God caused it" people are irrational: "We can't know" is exactly what irrationality is.

OK OK, you're probably going to say that it's not "we can't know" but actually, "we can't know YET." But who is "we"? "We the human race"? I was just talking about "we the humans of 2016"! People need to make metaphysical decisions in their lives, and that word "yet" is a powerful opiate against answering hard philosophical questions. But it is an opiate: you should know better than to believe that we'll ever know. I do. How would you feel if a bunch of junior-high kids made a bunch of decisions based on some thought you wrote down, knowing that the opposite was true, and then they all had some negative outcome in their lives because of it?

E.S. California

8/1/2016 10:13:26 am

...not that it's not OK to say that "we don't know", and "we're trying to find out." That's fine! I would even appreciate "That's not really a scientific question, being unprovable / untestable / bigger than laboratories / unfalsifiable / speculative / etc." from time to time.

But "we don't know YET", or "there is no cause"... both of these affirm impossibilities: proving a negative (there can be no explanation) or predicting the future (humans / intelligent actors will know before they go extinct). No fact is available to defend these positions.

E.S.California

8/1/2016 09:12:00 am

If you deny that free will exists, in the sense that you really could have chosen to do otherwise, then are you also denying that we have moral obligations? Are you saying that anybody who feels like they did something wrong themselves, or that somebody else did something wrong to them, should mostly work to train their mind not to blame but to have a Buddha-like resilience and remember that nobody had a choice anyway? Or perhaps that yes, put him in jail, but only because that's a necessary part of the bee-colony-like society that evolution has given us?

If there is no free will, then why pay special attention to achievers? After all, Da Vinci, Steve Jobs, and Abraham Lincoln had no choice but to do what they did: it's not like you or I can do that.

But this is where I wish you would reflect, a little: if there is no free will, then what's the point of ideas, other than to gain power over those you influence? After all, the person who listens to your idea and changes their mind, it's not like they had a choice, and it's not like there's any merit in your influencing them. The only thing would be to satisfy the parts of your own will, vestigial, that have desires through the use of others as objects. This doesn't remind me of the good kinds of government or leadership in human history! Tell me where I'm misunderstanding your position!

Franz Kiekeben

8/2/2016 12:25:23 pm

"If you deny that free will exists, in the sense that you really could have chosen to do otherwise, then are you also denying that we have moral obligations?"

No. I believe the compatiblist version of free will (see my previews comment) is sufficient for moral responsibility. I don't like calling it "free will" because I think it causes confusion, since I think most people believe in libertarian FW, but other than that I'm in agreement with the basic notion of compatibilism.

E.S.California

8/1/2016 09:41:30 am

"More importantly, to say that something is due to the supernatural is not to say it is uncaused, but rather that it has a cause that lies outside the realm of the natural (whatever that means)."

Yes! But I didn't think it was so hard to define the bounds of "natural". Is this really a problematic statement? Everybody knows that the Golden Gate Bridge isn't natural: people put it there. Likewise the Google server farm in North Carolina, Twinkies, Jackalopes, the Chevy Aztek, and Michael Jackson's (RIP) nose.

But in another sense, all those things are within nature with the caveat that they are the result of human ingenuity. So a cause outside the realm of the natural, in the cosmological sense, clearly is something that requires intervention by an actor who is superior to the natural laws. This is very well defined!

I think the confusion in this sentence is with the affirmation implied in the word "has"--- you can only say this if you think such a thing might be possible. But as we've seen here before, it's not a stretch for the average person to rationally apply a non-zero probability to this possibility. "Prove to me that the proportion of possible scenarios is zero which include a creator deity." "***"!

Because you are willing to dabble in theology and quote the Bible, I feel like you aren't acting in good faith when you say that the supernatural is poorly defined. At least, I think that a charitable atheist-who-knows-about-the-Bible would put forth what they would consider to be a fair definition of the word and go off of that instead of demanding definitions at every step. That's what I've been trying to do!

E.S. California

8/1/2016 10:16:00 am

It reminds me of when my wife gripes during a game of Scrabble, before the half-way mark or so, that all I'm doing is adding single letters here and there instead of working into the space. Now I'm not obligated to go into the space, being a free actor, but it's honestly less fun for her if I don't do it, so I consider it a learned matter of sportsmanship to do that now, if I want her to play with me again after this game.

Franz Kiekeben

8/2/2016 12:34:42 pm

"Everybody knows that the Golden Gate Bridge isn't natural..."

I think it's natural: humans and their activities are as much a part of nature as anything else. Why is the Grand Hoover Dam unnatural but a beaver dam natural?

At any rate, the Golden Gate Bridge is certainly not supernatural (though Michael Jackson's nose...)

"Because you are willing to dabble in theology and quote the Bible, I feel like you aren't acting in good faith when you say that the supernatural is poorly defined."

My aside that you're responding to here (when I said, of the supernatural, "whatever that means") wasn't meant to suggest that one cannot discuss the idea as you're doing here. I myself use the term all the time as you're doing. But there's a deeper problem here, and that's all I meant to imply by that aside: The problem is that it is unclear where one is supposed to draw the line between natural and supernatural. If tomorrow we found clear evidence of the existence of a deity that created the universe, and evidence of how this being went about doing so, then why wouldn't we just expand our concept of "natural" to include this new information?

E.S. California

8/2/2016 12:45:43 pm

What you're expressing is a repetition of the axiom that "nothing supernatural ever happens." If you hold this statement to be axiomatic, then anything that is real is also not-supernatural. This is why we might just simply expand the concept of "natural", as in fact is proposed seriously (as I have heard) regarding alien seeding of life on Earth. Would the aliens be natural? Of course!

What I'm saying is that even with definitions of words, you cannot countenance something not-natural, and therefore are exposing your flank to anything that is real but is not natural.

As an aside (how many asides can we follow in a row?), in your common-language paragraph above the standard for "knowing" that God exists was "clear evidence," not 100% certainty, not convincing proof... whatever "clear evidence" means, I suppose I would grant that toward natural theology as expressed by Dr. Craig and also (in explicitly religious terms) John Piper, quoted elsewhere on this page.

E.S. California

8/1/2016 10:32:15 am

Lotta directions here. Choose any of the following:

1) Dawkins' scientific hypothesis for existence of God, necessarily null, provides no explanation against a theology in which God may choose not to reveal himself.

2) The scientific-sounding axiom of "nothing supernatural ever exists or happens" is contradicted by the universe's origin, for which there is no explanation.

3) The accusation of irrationality directed at deists by materialists is hypocritical: uncaused things aren't different from supernatural things.

4) To say that if science can't "see" something it therefore doesn't exist, denies current knowledge about the limitation against understanding the human mind.

5) The human mind is an example of the kind of thing that God is: an invisible agent.

Let me know if this is getting tiresome... cheers!

E.S. California

8/1/2016 10:41:53 am

I said before that my pastor has advised us all not to believe something without some kind of evidence. Please allow me to explain what I would call evidence in my own life:

1) People in my life have done generous things for me, over and over again, and explained that it's because of God that they did it (i.e. that I deserved much less than I got).

2) Jesus proved himself to be a prophet in at least this way, that in about A.D. 35 he predicted the destruction of Jerusalem which came about in A.D. 70.

3) The Bible provides non-contradictory, plausible, satisfying and elegant answers to my questions of "where did I come from?" "What is the meaning of life?" and "What happens after I die?"

E.S. California

8/1/2016 12:47:54 pm

To be clear: I think that these points justify my self-identification as a rational person even as I express my faith in God.

E.S. California

8/1/2016 12:20:27 pm

Returning to one of your counter-points from before:

Do I believe that there really are fallen angels? And don't I think that they KNOW that God exists?

It sounds like you're repeating back to me a part of the book of James, chapter 2, verses 14 - 26. It's worth repeating the whole segment here. (NAS translation)

14 What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can [n]that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, [o]be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? 17 Even so faith, if it has no works, is [p]dead, being by itself.

18 But someone [q]may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” 19 You believe that [r]God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. 20 But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? 22 You see that faith was working with his works, and [s]as a result of the works, faith was [t]perfected; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God. 24 You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

E.S. California

8/1/2016 12:30:31 pm

You may see this passage as a little astonishing, in relation to the "salvation by grace alone" doctrine of Christianity. It shouldn't be, though, because James was still talking about faith. He says, "faith without works is useless"... but not, "faith is useless--- what you need is works."

And again, this is from Galatians 2:15-21 (NAS), written by Paul:

15 “We are Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles; 16 nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of [n]the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of [o]the Law; since by the works of [p]the Law no [q]flesh will be justified. 17 But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be! 18 For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor. 19 For through [r]the Law I died to [s]the Law, so that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and [t]the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through [u]the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”

"Christ died needlessly" is intended as a radical ad absurdum argument... just don't go there.

My point here is that I don't think you use the word "believe" the way it's used by Christians. It happens in action, as in the example of Rahab, not merely intellectually, as in the example of the demons. And when it's defined this way, it's more like applying medicine with a 5% false-positive rate and less like restating from heart my favorite logical axiom, the commutative property. Thus the 100% standard is a complete straw man: nobody uses 100% for any decision in life, including this one. "Knowing" is not necessary in that sense any more than it is sufficient.

E.S. California

8/1/2016 12:37:10 pm

As for "knowing" not being necessary, remember this story from Mark 9:14-29 (NAS):

14 When they came back to the disciples, they saw a large crowd around them, and some scribes arguing with them. 15 Immediately, when the entire crowd saw Him, they were amazed and began running up to greet Him. 16 And He asked them, “What are you discussing with them?” 17 And one of the crowd answered Him, “Teacher, I brought You my son, possessed with a spirit which makes him mute; 18 and [k]whenever it seizes him, it [l]slams him to the ground and he foams at the mouth, and grinds his teeth and [m]stiffens out. I told Your disciples to cast it out, and they could not do it.” 19 And He *answered them and *said, “O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him to Me!” 20 They brought [n]the boy to Him. When he saw Him, immediately the spirit threw him into a convulsion, and falling to the ground, he began rolling around and foaming at the mouth. 21 And He asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. 22 It has often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!” 23 And Jesus said to him, “‘If You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes.” 24 Immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, “I do believe; help my unbelief.” 25 When Jesus saw that a crowd was [o]rapidly gathering, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You deaf and mute spirit, I [p]command you, come out of him and do not enter him [q]again.” 26 After crying out and throwing him into terrible convulsions, it came out; and the boy became so much like a corpse that most of them said, “He is dead!” 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him; and he got up. 28 When He came into the house, His disciples began questioning Him privately, “Why could we not drive it out?” 29 And He said to them, “This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.”

If "Knowing" was really necessary, Jesus would have walked away when the man said, "If you can". This clearly demonstrates otherwise.

E.S. California

8/1/2016 12:45:04 pm

Again, Jesus cares about our intellect and one of his disciples was in the "I'll believe it when I see it camp"... Thomas. So Jesus appeared to him and asked him to touch the wounds from the crucifixion.

John 20:24-29

24 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called [d]Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples were saying to him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”

26 [e]After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus *came, the doors having been [f]shut, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then He *said to Thomas, “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.” 28 Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus *said to him, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”

When Jesus says "blessed are they who did not see and yet believed," he's talking about everybody else than the eyewitnesses (and guys like Paul, who received visions). These people, including folks today, are already being addressed in the first epistle of Peter:

I Peter 1:8 (NAS) "...and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and [f]full of glory, 9 obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of [g]your souls."

E.S. California

8/1/2016 12:57:42 pm

Often, I admit that Bible references are inadmissible as evidence for any given point in a philosophical argument. But these references are in service of my point that "Dawkins' scientific hypothesis for existence of God, necessarily null, provides no explanation against a theology in which God may choose not to reveal himself."

"Sure, if there was such a theology..." but it seems to me that this is indeed a property of the theology held by Christian doctrine, and not my mistake.

"Shouldn't God at least let us all know that He exists--- since it wouldn't entail compulsion anyway?" I don't think this is a very strong argument. I'll state it in general terms: "I think X is a good quality, one that God should have." "God shown by Y doesn't have X quality." Therefore, God doesn't exist, and neither does anything purportedly communicated to me from God.

E.S. California

8/2/2016 07:00:01 am

'Physicists believe in uncaused things...' Are you referring to Bell's Theorem, which states that "No physical theory of local hidden variables can ever reproduce all of the predictions of quantum mechanics"?

If you assume that there can be no nonlocal hidden variables, then you might induce that the experimental outcomes are uncaused. But that's a big assumption! I wouldn't say that our friends in the field of physics have suspended the rules of logic in service of the assertion that "there can be no non-local theories of hidden variables."

Off the top of my head, I would suppose that gravitational waves are a non-trivial candidate for one source of non-local hidden variables. This is enough for me to protect causation as a can't-get-rid-of feature of nature...

E.S. California

8/2/2016 09:31:47 am

"Natural Theology" is the subject of a section in John Piper's recent book, "A Peculiar Glory", which he has made freely downloadable from his site www.desiringgod.org. From pages 201-203:

What Do I Know from the Natural World?
What Paul teaches in Romans 1:18–23 is profoundly relevant to how we know the truth of the Scriptures. Let me take you with me on the path that I have walked in my own experience of the world and the word.

When I come to Romans 1, I am confronted with the stunning truths that what can be known about God is plain to John Piper, and that God has manifested himself to John Piper (v. 19); and that John Piper has clearly perceived, by the workings of his mind and by the things that are made, the power and deity of God (v. 20); and that therefore, at the root of his being, John Piper knows God (v. 21) but has failed to glorify God and thank him in anything like the measure God deserves.

Confronted with these staggering truths about myself, I have tried to honestly take stock of what I know of God from the natural world. Here is my best effort to discern the knowledge of God in my own mind and heart that is an immediate effect of my consciousness in the world as a human being.

I do not mean I would have seen all this without the special grace of new birth and the transformation of the mind that comes by the Holy Spirit. But neither do I mean that I see these things because the Bible tells me they are there—which would, of course, settle the matter. The things I see involve reasoning about what I have seen, not just sheer observation. I do not know how much of these things I would see without the enabling grace of the Spirit. My point is that these things are really there to see in nature, not just in the Bible. And I suspect that our Creator
will find fault with the world for not seeing even more than this.

• God exists. This is the most basic meaning of the world, and it is known to all.
• God is the single originator of all spiritual and material reality that is not God, for two absolute originators of all things is a contradiction.
• God is totally self-sufficient with no dependence on anything outside himself to be all that he is, for that is implied in being the Creator of absolutely everything.
• God is without beginning or ending or progress from worse to better, and therefore absolute and perfect, for God cannot be improved by what is absolutely dependent on him for its being and excellence.
• God is the one on whom I am dependent moment by moment for all things, none of which I deserve, and who is therefore beneficent. This follows from God’s absoluteness as the Creator and sustainer of all things, together with the countless riches around me, and my own guilty conscience, which comes from my failing to live up to my own innate standards.
• God is personal and confronts me as the person who gave me a personhood that is not merely physical. For the existence of my own personhood and my innate sense of its moral significance
can only be explained by a personal God.
• God accounts for the intelligent design manifest in the macro (galaxies) and micro (molecules and cells) universe—a fact as manifest as the automobile testifying to the existence of man.
• God knows all. For he made and sustains all.
• God deserves to be reverenced and admired and thanked and looked to for guidance and help. This follows from my innate sense of moral judgment in view of everything seen so far.
• God sees me as guilty for failing to give him the glory and thanks he deserves, and he thus gives ultimate explanation to the universal, bad conscience in the world. This follows from the perfect
personal dimension in God and the defective moral dimension in me, which my conscience reveals with unwavering constancy.
• God might save me from my guilt but would need to do it in a way that overcomes my evil impulse to resist him and would have to make a way for his glory to be sustained, while not punishing
me for treason. For it is manifested that I have belittled his glory, and I cannot pay a debt as large as I owe, since I have offended infinite goodness.

Again, the point here is not that anyone sees all this without the special help of God’s Spirit. The point is: it is really there to see, and we are responsible to see it.

E.S. California

8/2/2016 09:26:07 am

'If the idea is that one must love God/accept his offer of salvation in order to be saved, then it only makes sense for God to make sure everyone at least knows he exists."

This is the sentence that I think takes the form, "I think X is a good quality for God to have. But according to Y source of information, it seems that God isn't X. Therefore God doesn't exist." The last clause is a total non-sequitur: it should have been "therefore I think God isn't as good as he could be." From this point, a new case could be made that "I don't like God" or "My ideas about goodness are superior to God's" or "Y source of information must be mistaken" or maybe "Z way to interpret Y source of information is superior to the way I saw it before..." ...and I suppose that eventually this could lead around to "I don't think God exists." But I think it's a long way there.

"One cannot accept his offer unless one is first convinced there is an offer in the first place." Now this seems a reasonable sentence, but I think you meant to imply that being convinced of an offer requires knowing that God exists... I think this is a hurdle too high, especially since "knowing" may come to mean, "being 100% certain" which applies to absolutely nothing a person thinks. If this weren't the case (that 100% is too much), then why would we even countenance solipsism and "there is no mind"? These ideas have a grain of truth somewhere, enough to generate a 1/1,000,000 possibility of being true--- enough to earn a seat among coherent ideas that are rejected on their merits instead of being thrown out for incoherence. So much to say that a 100% standard for knowledge is unrealistic.

The man in Mark 9 who says to Jesus, "If you can... help us!" was not condemned for not being convinced about Jesus' power, but Jesus acknowledged the man's need in spite of the doubt... and in this case, Jesus was willing to prove his power by helping. Now this doesn't mean that Jesus will always prove his power when we ask (that would be testing God... see above) but it means that Jesus cares about our intellect, as in Deuteronomy 18:22 in which the public is provided a litmus test for any prophet who comes up and claims to speak the words of God.

In order to be convinced that there is an offer, an ordinary rational person today could call on any of the many normal ways of knowing: just by reading credulously the Bible or listening to an evangelist; by observing the lives of people who claim to have received God's help themselves; through 'natural theology' (more below; by inspecting one's own conscience, feeling guilty, and perhaps feeling that there must be something better than the law of cause and effect when it comes to the realm of morality. None of these ways of knowing produces 100% certainty, but I don't think that the sum of them is actually 0%---- a greater-than-zero proportion sells lottery tickets, so why not this too?

E.S. California

8/2/2016 10:24:51 am

Typos corrected:

through 'natural theology' (more above, see quotation by John Piper); by inspecting one's own conscience, feeling guilty, and perhaps feeling that there must be something better than the law of cause and effect when it comes to the realm of morality.

Franz Kiekeben

8/3/2016 10:43:58 am

I'm familiar with the middle knowledge argument (it does not solve the problem).

But anyway, thanks for the Craig quote ("I’m a libertarian who thinks that causal determinism is incompatible with freedom. That doesn’t imply that I hold to the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP), which states that a free agent has in a set of circumstances the ability to choose A or not-A. I’m persuaded that so long as an agent’s choice is not causally determined, it doesn’t matter if he can actually make a choice contrary to how he does choose.")

I find this very surprising! Craig appears to be concerned exclusively with causal determinism - as if that's the only kind he regards as incompatible with fw - but then argues for a kind of fw that (even though he calls it libertarian) is compatible with NON-causal determinism. As long as your choice isn't causally determined, it can be deterministic in the sense that there was no other possibility actually available.

But in that case there is no foreknowledge problem whatsoever! God's foreknowledge is only problematic for libertarian fw as I defined it (and as usually understood).

Thus, Craig's response to the foreknowledge argument really should be that God's foreknowledge does not cause anyone to act the way they do (which everyone should admit) - so no causal determinism is involved - but freedom doesn't necessitate that one be able to choose from more than one possible course of action - so the fact that God's knowledge means there is only way things can actually turn out doesn't rule out freedom. There: Problem solved! (So long as you are satisfied with his concept of freedom.)

Franz Kiekeben

8/3/2016 10:59:27 am

It would be interesting to know whether Craig understands God's own freedom the same way. If you find anything on that, let me know.

E.S. California link

8/3/2016 11:58:06 am

Looks like this was addressed on reasonablefaith.org Q&A #320, "Free Will". http://www.reasonablefaith.org/Free-Will

I'm afraid to summarize... I'll let the experts speak for themselves!

Franz Kiekeben

8/4/2016 12:18:10 pm

"Looks like this was addressed on reasonablefaith.org Q&A #320"

Thanks for the info! I'll check it out.

THE WILLIAM LANE CRAIG / KEVIN SCHARP DEBATE

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