God's Sovereignty and Obama

On the night of Obama's re-election and the following day, many conservative Christian friends of mine seemed to take solace in God's sovereignty. There is a right and wrong way to do this.

If you take comfort in knowing that no events brought about by human choice can do anything to deter the All Holy and Good God from accomplishing His plan for creation and humanity, then you are right to be comforted.

If, however, you believe that because God is sovereign He will not allow democracies to bring ruin upon themselves by adopting a corrupt and morally bankrupt ideology and appointing leaders committed to it, or that He won't allow our nation to fall, or He won't allow our children to suffer because of our choices, then your comfort is sadly misplaced and naive. See: history.

God is sovereign and empires -- even 'Christian' ones -- fall. God is sovereign and His children suffer in this life. God is sovereign and humans freely choose misery for themselves. If you acknowledge all this and still take comfort and solace in God's sovereignty, and are prepared to rejoice even in the midst of these conditions, then Amen my brother.

Journey to Orthodoxy (part 2)

While I didn't mention it in my last post, I hope it is clear that the first stage in my journey to Orthodoxy was initiated due to a level of discontent with the tradition I grew up in. Here are some specific examples of  what seemed to be absent, under-emphasized, or over-emphasized in the non-denominational, evangelical tradition, given the general convictions regarding ecclesiology and pneumatology I had begun to arrive at.

• Lack of authority and consequential divisions in the church 
• Low sacramentology and view of creation
• Low ecclesiology
• Low view of tradition
• Inadequate recognition of the implications of the Incarnation
• A strain of Gnosticism in the church
• A strain of 'moralistic therapeutic deism' in the church (with Christ's name pegged on)

There are probably other things, and if it's requested of me, I would elaborate on any of these (in the comments or elsewhere), but I'd rather not belabor the point of the catalyst to explore other denominations and traditions, and instead transition into that exploration itself, which will in turn illuminate some of these matters.

Given my general dissatisfaction with non-denominational evangelicalism, my inherited, inchoate Romophobia, and my admiration of the Reformers, I initially believed that some form of Lutheranism or the Reformed tradition would best address these issues for me. Around this time I also stumbled upon the work of David Bentley Hart -- specifically his writings for First Things magazine, a predominantly Catholic publication -- an Eastern Orthodox theologian who I found to be utterly brilliant. While I quickly read everything of Hart's I could find, not much of his material was on the subject of Orthodoxy as such, but his Orthodox sensibility while addressing particular topics exposed me to aspects of that tradition. Which put another option on the table for me to explore, though I didn't seriously consider it an option at first because of its remote and 'exotic'-seeming nature, which was so far afield of my own experience.

My investigation of Lutheranism and the Reformed tradition never went very deep, I should confess. I read a lot of Luther and some Calvin, as well as theologians from later centuries within those traditions, and I felt I had a fairly firm grasp on the main features of their thought and the traditions. But when it came to actually investigating the churches in existence today, the plethora of strains of Lutheranism and Reformed churches was a bit dizzying -- where do I start? I could quickly discard the liberal strains of Lutheranism, of course, but where to go after that? It was a bit overwhelming, and so I sort of stalled out in my exploration (to my discredit).

While the issue of 'church unity' essentially never even came up when I was growing up in the church, even when I became aware of it, it didn't interest me much. 'Church unity' is guaranteed because there's a mystical, invisible Church which consists of all those who belong to Christ. Why fret about it? It can't be thwarted, ultimately, after all. But eventually this very process, and the proliferation of divisions in the Protestant church it brought to my attention, did cause some consternation for me, especially in light of Christ's high priestly prayer in John 17.

This brought to the forefront the idea of a 'pre-denominational' church, which essentially both the Catholic and Orthodox claim to be, and seem to be the only ones who could possibly make such a claim. I was already somewhat familiar with the bare basics of the history of the Church, and so with the character of the Early Church, also in a very limited way. I knew that the Great Schism occurred in 1054. But if there was a pre-denominational Church, which was it? How did schism come about, exactly? Being familiar with much of the anti-Catholic polemic of the Reformation, as well as with having my own objections to the Catholic Church today, my first inclination was to suspect that Orthodoxy might uniquely, legitimately make this claim to being the original church. This suspicion was somewhat bolstered by my admiration for the Orthodox thought of David Bentley Hart. In my next post we will (finally) begin to look at Orthodoxy itself and see what drew me to it, as well as shine light back on what bothered me about my own tradition, but which I couldn't see except in the light of Orthodoxy.

-------------------------------

P.S. It should be noted that this process I'm describing is more clean and simplified than it actually was, as there were many subtle factors, events, and ideas that contributed to me heading in this direction. I'm streamlining and simplifying to some degree to make the story manageable and coherent.

Pop-Pantheist Blasphemy

One of the more prevalent modern blasphemies is that of a sort of pantheism or pandeism which holds that all religions partially and imperfectly apprehend the one true God. In the last few days I heard or overheard versions of this blasphemy at work and from Saul Williams on Twitter. Not long ago, I was in an argument with Immortal Technique on Twitter where he was ineptly defending the position (while not even really understanding that it was his position). And in the case of Saul Williams and Immortal Technique, they had legions of followers expressing general agreement with the stance.

Not many people necessarily consciously self-identify in this way, as those who hold to the position often believe that they have transcended the particularity of confession, doctrine, and -- certainly -- labels. Usually it's a disingenuous posture adopted by agnostics or nominal believers who want to affirm there is a space 'beyond' religion, where all religions are legitimate in their own general way, but where none of their specific confessional details or doctrinal content need be affirmed or denied. But this is obviously impossible: if God is a bland spiritual essence or power, beyond the particularities of religious confession, who is apprehended just as accurately by a Christian as he is by a Hindu, then this god is incompatible with the particular God of historical Christianity (for example), and the specifics of any religion must be denied in favor of this pantheist god who is the "true God".

Or, if God is somehow the immanent all-embracing 'One' of pantheism which all religions vaguely apprehend, then the holocaust, slavery, rape, intolerance, hatred et. al. all become necessary elements of "God's" being -- in fact become part of God him/itself. Once again making this god crucially incompatible with the gods of the Abrahamic religions, and many others besides.

While the incentive to adopt this stance is understandable -- desiring to overcome differences, to promote understanding, peace, and unity across religious divides, to see God as indiscriminately all-embracing etc. -- it is immediately self-defeating. Far from eliminating exclusivist religious claims, it merely introduces another exclusivist claim into the fray i.e. "none of your gods, as you understand them, is the true God, but in your errors of specific confession and practice you vaguely gesture in the true God's direction." Rather than subsuming all religions under the banner of the one true pantheist God, you introduce a new god who is just as in conflict with the historical faiths as any of the gods of those faiths is at odds with one another.

Perhaps this is the reason few people self-identify as pantheists of this sort. On close inspection, the position becomes untenable, evil, or pointless. But many people say and believe things without close inspection.

In the desire to affirm the legitimacy of all religions, you necessarily undermine and oppose them all. The God I believe in is not the god of Islam, Hinduism, Mormonism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism or Pop-Pantheism. This is not the resolution to the 'problem' of religious exclusivity that some naively believe it to be, rather it's proof of the inescapable, inherently exclusive nature of confessions of faith. 

Argument by Fiat -- Yet More on Faith and Peter Boghossian

In his aggressive public campaign against "faith", Peter Boghossian is back with another lecture on the topic titled Faith: Pretending to Know Things You Don't Know. For most people, I suggest reading the title of the lecture and allowing your feelings about it to determine whether it could be valuable for you to engage. If that is what you believe faith to be, then you may want to watch the lecture and explore some of the out-workings of this belief, while having your ego gently stroked. If you don't believe that is what faith is -- along with the vast majority of people who have ever used the term -- then there's no sense in watching the lecture because Peter offers no argument for this controversial conclusion, rather he assumes it to be true and declares it to be so by fiat.

Unless, like me, you have a somewhat masochistic streak or other reasons for which you wish to engage communities of un-faith, rest assured that the title tells the whole story and go along with your day. At the risk of losing some readers here, you probably need not even read this post any further, but if you want a more in depth explication of the reasons the presentation is entirely impotent, or if you have an inclination to defend it, then proceed.

I've already hinted at the problem with Peter's thesis, but let me expound more fully: A) That isn't what faith is. B) Peter never demonstrates that people of faith actually don't know what they "pretend to know"; it's a bald assertion. C) To the extent that it is most likely true of some or even many faith claims (due to, for example, the mutual exclusivity of the claims), this does not mean it is necessarily true of faith itself or for specific faiths. This, as in his previous lecture on the topic, commits the fallacy of division. 

In addition to his central definitional thesis, Boghossian also wants to attempt to divorce faith from its assumed alliance to morality. He thinks being a 'person of faith' tends to automatically bring up the association in many people's minds of strong moral character, while Peter thinks being a 'person of faith' is essentially neutral, in terms of morality. This seems to me mostly uncontroversial; most honest people of faith don't claim to be inherently morally superior simply because they have "faith". Christians, for instance, readily admit that sin infects the entire human race, including all Christians, and that they do nothing to merit their salvation from the consequences, reality, and dominion of sin but recieve salvation as an unmerited gift. But if Peter wants to divorce non-specific 'faith' (that is, faith-as-process, rather than faith-in-X) from the cultural linkage to morality, no thinking person of faith would be troubled by the agenda (since we have faith-in-X, not faith-in-faith-as-process).

Peter goes on in his lecture to address 5 common assertions people of faith make, such as "My faith is true for me", and substitutes his definition for "faith", for the word "faith", to yield "My pretending to know what I don't know is true for me". He seems to think this a potent move, but why? "My faith is true for me" is already silly in itself. Substituting the words of your silly definition compounds the silliness, to be sure, but it tells us nothing about the nature of faith. It only tells us that A) people of faith sometimes say dumb things and B) that you are baking your conclusion into your premises, producing a circular argument (if any).

Peter goes on to address people who, when attempting to defend the use of "faith", use the term when they really mean "hope". The difficulty here is what seems to be a prescriptivist naivety that believes words to be ontological entities with hard, fast, immobile meanings and vivid, necessary demarcations. But there's no hard distinction between "faith" and "hope"; faith isn't synonymous with hope, but hope is (usually) an element of what constitutes faith, at least for the Christian (and I assume many faiths). Faith makes knowledge claims, but that's not all it does. And you can't change this fact by fiat; if you think faith and hope should have some hard, impenetrable boundary between them, you must make the argument, and he doesn't attempt to. With that said, I'm sure people he engages with sometimes improperly invoke "faith" when they should invoke "hope", or vice versa, but so what? This also tells us nothing about the nature of faith. 

But perhaps, since he is presenting to a crowd of presumably like-minded individuals (the gathering is hosted by some sort of 'humanist' group), he wouldn't object to my characterization of him offering no arguments here. After all, in no uncertain terms, he makes it clear that the primary objective for the talk is, essentially, wholly propagandistic. That is, operating on the presumption that faith is necessarily void of content or value, what are productive rhetorical ways to create cultural and linguistic shifts that would serve to best spread this idea. If this is the case, there's nothing inherently wrong with holding meetings for PR purposes, but the lack of any underlying foundation for the ideas you're looking to propagate remains a glaring problem. 

Since these presentations couldn't possibly do anything to persuade a genuine, intelligent person of faith to abandon their faith, you might wonder why I bother responding to them. It's a good question and, frankly, there probably are much better uses of my time. But there are also those people who are not yet believers, as well as people (whether Christian already or not) who may not be diligent enough in their thinking to parse this stuff out, who may come in contact with the arguments and find the superficial rhetorical force of them to be persuasive. Of course, I'm under no delusion that my blog has enough readership to act as any hugely significant counterweight to this effect, but there still is some value in making sure such things don't go unresponded to.  

Peter recently accused me of never having anything nice to say about him, and he was completely right in his charge (I since attempted to rectify it by offering him a sincere compliment). To offer some further redress:  one good recommendation Peter had in his lecture is that we attempt to separate beliefs we find noxious from the people who hold them, and to, accordingly, respect people even as we attack their ideas. And that we ought to treat them how we want them to treat us. I do try to separate ideas from people, (or sin from sinner) and I harbor no personal ill will against Peter, I only take issue with his ideas. Per his recommendation, but more importantly per my Maker's command. 

'The Devil & Pierre Gernet' by David Bentley Hart - Review

I believe C.S. Lewis once defended his turn to fiction by noting that fiction is a much more compelling and subversive means by which to affect and influence an audience's thinking, as opposed to overt theological reflection. David Bentley Hart seems to be taking a similar tack.

As an avid fan of Hart's non-fiction work, I was extremely curious how his foray into fiction would turn out. Based on some of his imaginative and creative essays at First Things, along with the ingenuity as a wordsmith that is on display in his theological writing and other works, I was expecting great things and wasn't disappointed.

The titular novella is the piece in this volume that is the most quintessentially Hartian, I would say. Employing heavy chunks of dialogue -- as he does through much of this collection, but especially here -- Hart cleverly places concepts, intentions and values in the mouth of his devil which he finds to be in some manner distasteful or false, but which can nonetheless be defended eloquently and rationally. Hart's prose is often opulent, but it was particularly florid and decadent in this piece, serving to accentuate the fantastic conceit of having a devil as long-time friend, as well as all the trappings of high culture. Along with Hart's devil, the character of Pierre Gernet is also highly memorable because of the vivid portrayal of his pure soul, his poetry, his tragic end and the supernatural significance of the events surrounding it.

The House of Apollo is another fascinating tale that features Julian the Apostate as a central character. The piece depicts Julian's impotent attempts to restore the pagan gods of antiquity to their former glory, after "the Galileans" and their God had already driven them out and displaced them. True to form, Hart (as a classicist) doesn't go for any derisive, cheap apologetic shots but candidly (and fantastically) portrays a world in which the old gods were in their twilight.

In A Voice from The Emerald World Hart is at his most human and profound, exploring the dynamics of a family coping with grief. The emotional center of the piece is a touching, haunting relationship between a father and his son who has behavioral and social abnormalities. Together they regularly retreat to their fabulous bamboo garden which is their Emerald World. As a father of a child who has behaviors which are on the "autism spectrum", this story resonated in a very intimate way. At first, the occurrence of a seemingly abstract, egg-headed theological argument seems out of place in the narrative (though it's quite entertaining), but by the time the story reaches its conclusion, the theological implications of the earlier argument are decidedly immediate and real and not at all abstract.

Like Inception -- the 2010 film by Christopher Nolan -- the central conceptual conceit of Hart's next story The Ivory Gate (which he wrote in 1985) is a multi-tiered oneiric (one of dozens of words I learned while reading this volume) dreamscape, which the main character describes from memory. Unlike Nolan's film, Hart's conceit isn't primarily employed as an action set piece, but as a multi-layered emotional and experiential world which depicts the way in which our dreams aren't necessarily solely pale reflections of our waking life, but that the influence can run in the other direction as well. The way in which our dreams can coax us out of, or into, new understandings and depths, and the way that, since our reality is fundamentally anthropogenic, dreams are, in a sense, just as 'real' as anything else. None of those observations sound particularly original, at least as rendered by me, but the particulars of the story are what make it enjoyable and intriguing.

Finally, The Other is a short and oblique look at intense longing.

There is always a temptation to seek out some common thread or theme in a short story collection, and Hart reveals in an introductory apologia what it is for us: "I had originally intended to make the subtitle of this volume Elaborately Artificial Stories, since I have chosen five stories which are willfully extravagant in form and content, rather than any of the drier, more 'realistic' stories I have also written." There you have it. Though I would add that one other common thread is, of course, the voice of the author. Sometimes breaking through in quite overt ways, usually from the voice of characters, many ideas and subjects of Hart's other works make appearances. One character proclaims a familiar disdain for (or perhaps pity of) materialists; there is at least one mention of the basilica and its effects, which featured prominently in a recent essay on religion in America by Hart; he has previously written an essay on Julian the Apostate; the denunciation of the pitiless, calloused theology of certain forms of Christianity, which he has renounced elsewhere etc. Within the context of these stories, though, all of his ideas seem fresh and are given a new texture, depth and life, which lends credence to his claim that God is no more likely (and, indeed, perhaps less likely) to be encountered in theology than in poetry and fiction.

Plantinga on Fundamentalism

I'm reading Warranted Christian Belief by Alvin Plantinga and I just came across this hilarious, wonderful passage that echoes perfectly what I've been saying about the malleability and (usually) the meaninglessness of charges of "fundamentalist!" in supposedly academic discourse. I was delighted to find a corroborating opinion from someone of some credibility and stature. Enjoy.

I fully realize that the dreaded f-word will be trotted out to stigmatize [my model of Christian epistemology]. Before responding, however, we must first look into the use of this term 'fundamentalist'. On the most common contemporary academic use of the term, it is a term of abuse or disapprobation, rather like 'son of a bitch', more exactly 'sonovabitch', or perhaps still more exactly (at least according to those authorities who look to the Old West as normative on matters of pronunciation) 'sumbitch'. When the term is used in this way, no definition of it is ordinarily given. (If you called someone a sumbitch, would you feel obliged first to define the term?) Still, there is a bit more to the meaning of 'fundamentalist' (in this widely current use): it isn't simply a term of abuse. In addition to its emotive force, it does have some cognitive content, and ordinarily denotes relatively conservative theological views. That makes it more like 'stupid sumbitch' (or maybe 'fascist sumbitch'?) than 'sumbitch' simpliciter. It isn't exactly like that term either, however, because its cognitive content can expand and contract on demand; its content seems to depend on who is using it. In the mouths of certain liberal theologians, for example, it tends to denote any who accept traditional Christianity, including Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and Barth; in the mouths of devout secularists like Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett, it tends to denote anyone who believes there is such a person as God. The explanation is that the term has a certain indexical element: its cognitive content is given by the phrase 'considerably to the right, theologically speaking, of me and my enlightened friends.' The full meaning of the term, therefore (in this use), can be given by something like 'stupid sumbitch whose theological opinions are considerably to the right of mine'.

It is therefore hard to take seriously the charge that the views I'm suggesting are fundamentalist; more exactly, it is hard to take it seriously as a charge. The alleged charge means only that these views are rather more conservative than those of the objector, together with the expression of a certain distaste for the views or those who hold them. But how is that an objection to anything, and why should it warrant the contempt and contumely that goes with the term?

More on Peter Boghossian and Faith

My previous post on Peter Boghossian's talk titled Jesus, The Easter Bunny and Other Delusions was written on the basis of an interview he did, and on a description of the talk that he gave. His talk has since been made available online, and I've watched the whole thing. After watching it, I think my criticism from the initial post holds up just fine, and represents the most central problem with his thesis. But the details of his presentation brought up a few other issues.

To briefly reiterate my chief problem with the thesis of the talk that "Faith is an unreliable process". The point that I made is that the thesis is irrelevantly true. A person of faith can easily concede the point that "faith" in general, as a process, is not reliable. After all, a Christian does not believe that faith in Buddha, or Allah, or Krishna will do anything for you; indeed a Christian would hold that faith in such things is guaranteed to lead you astray, and so would concede that "faith" in general is not reliable.  People of faith don't have faith-in-faith, they have faith in specific gods. Boghossian's argument proceeds in such a way that assumes if he can demonstrate the unreliability of faith in general, as a process, that this should cause a person of faith to abandon their faith, but this expectation commits the fallacy of division; it can be true that faith in general is an unreliable process and that a faith properly-oriented, faith in the One True God, is entirely reliable. This lone objection is pretty much fatal for Professor Boghossian's entire project.

Boghossian's main examples to demonstrate the unreliability of faith, such as faith healing and transubstantiation, are really extra-biblical tenets that are not -- and never were -- central elements of the Christian faith. And so nothing at all hinges upon their standing or falling, and if and when they do 'fall', that fact mitigates against the reliability of faith in the Christian God not at all.

 Another problem with his thesis is that, in a somewhat subtle manner, it assumes a priori that various faiths are wrong. That is to say, if it were true that there is no supernatural reality, or that faith is unreliable at apprehending supernatural reality, then the conclusion that faith (or specific faiths) are dispensable is obvious enough, but no argument has been made. If, however, some faith is substantially correct in all of its claims about transcendent reality, then not only would that particular faith be reliable, but it would be reliable at determining the most important facts about reality, facts which are much more substantial than the truths that modern science reveals about immanent, empirical reality. The fact that this can't be demonstrated to be the case is, of course, unproblematic for people of faith. That's entailed by the definition of faith and the nature of the things it aims to apprehend.

Speaking of the definition of faith, Boghossian largely defines himself a victory by using this definition of faith: "Belief without evidence". If this is how you're defining the term then, again, it's not difficult to get to a place where faith is unreliable. The problem is that you've produced a tautological argument that doesn't say anything. When faith is defined as unreliable, it is in fact unreliable. Of course, Christian faith (for one example) explicitly invokes evidence in its definition of "faith" (Hebrews 11:1), and would reject this concept of "faith", which is only another reason that speaking about "faith" in general terms produces such vacuous results.

And, even outside of the Christian concept of faith, on secular grounds, faith is most often invoked, not as something that goes contrary to evidence, or completely without reference to it, but in line with it. For example, if you have faith that your brother will make it to an appointment with you on time, you base this faith on the fact that your brother has been consistently reliable in the past. You can't be certain that he will prove reliable again, as that remains to be seen, and so you ground your faith in him in the evidence that is available and pertinent. With this much more sensible, realistic understanding of faith in view -- rather than Boghossian's silly definition -- again, his project crumbles.

Also, pointing out that faith is not well-suited to answering narrow questions about immanent, material reality is of about as much consequence as pointing out that biology is ill-suited to answering questions on astronomy. Using Boghossian's methodology of argument, one could argue quite forcefully that biology fails horribly at answering 9 out of 10 different types of questions, it just happens to excel at answering biological questions. Biology is, therefore, an unreliable process. Q.E.D.

At one point in the presentation Boghossian makes the claim that all conversations on the topic of someone's faith inevitably results in the person moving the goal posts, and shifting their claim from "my faith is true" to "my faith is beneficial". Perhaps he was being hyperbolic but he claims that "This is the inevitable trajectory of every single conversation, period." Every single conversation, period? I've had dozens of such conversations, and I can't recall a single one even drifting slightly in this direction, and I could produce the testimony of my interlocutors to confirm that the conversations never go in this direction. And I doubt that I'm the lone exception to this rule.

In closing, let me draw attention to one piece of the presentation that I found somewhat helpful. At one juncture, professor Boghossian encourages his audience to criticize ideas and not people. As a pragmatic concern, if you're trying to convince people of something, attacking them will never be very fruitful. This struck me as a secular version of "hate the sin, love the sinner", which made me chuckle a bit to realize.

God's Love

'Love' is widely misapprehended because of a cultural tendency to associate it with saccharine sentimentality. Christians understand that God is love in the sense of 'agape' (or a combination of 'eros' and 'agape', depending on who you ask), but if the cultural understanding of love is something else entirely -- which ours is -- then it's important to clarify what it is we mean when we say things like "God is Love." If people think we are saying that God is what our culture understands love to be, they will think that we're saying something very far from what we actually mean.

The cultural understanding of love wouldn't include any space for things like "judgment". And within the social sphere, between and among fallen human beings, this makes sense to some extent. But from the perspective of a perfect Creator God who is far above His creatures in every way, space for righteous judgment as an aspect of love opens up fully, and is in fact logically necessary. The lyricism in the following track by Evangel expresses what God's Love is while being careful to contrast it to our culture's understanding of love. 

God is Love, we don't need proof of it / We see the truth of it in the crucifix / But He's not just the God who's got Love for the lost / But the God who said this world was judged through the cross / Believe it / God was Love, even when He sent His Angel of Death to kill the firstborn of Egypt / Not Casanova / But Love that needs the Lamb's blood for passin' over / The Wrath of Jehovah / With all that in mind / Know God is Love which suffers long and is kind / 'Til we fall into line / While His anger is buildin' / Patiently awaitin' His children / To become the world's strangers and pilgrims

Of course, some people make the opposite mistake and overemphasize His judgment at the expense of His patience, kindness, etc. The first verse of this song ensures it won't make that mistake, giving numerous examples of God's incomprehensible grace. But in our culture, I would argue that the concept of judgment and wrath being facets of perfect Love is almost completely foreign, and so is the much more common misunderstanding in need of correction. 

A Discriminating God

In his debate with William Lane Craig, Sam Harris lodged the forceful objection against Christianity (and Islam) that, according to its doctrines (as he misunderstands them), millions of people will go to hell for being born into the wrong culture at the wrong time. What he means is that those born into, for example, predominantly Hindu or Islamic cultures will be less likely to ever come to accept the truth and forgiveness offered by Christ's redemptive and salvific work on the cross and in His resurrection, than someone who was born into a predominantly Christian culture.

While this is, in a sense, true, it's an incomplete picture of the situation and it is represented with a particular narrow rhetoric that doesn't do justice to reality. Once a few things are clarified, the poverty of this particular representation of the situation becomes clear.

First of all, simply being born into a Christian culture will curry you no favor with the Christian God. Many people who are raised Christian, and even many who consider themselves Christian, in the vaguest sense, are not actually Christian. Then there are many who are born into Christian cultures but reject Christianity. And -- something I sometimes forget about myself but was reminded of when I re-read The Screwtape Letters recently -- even a true Christian can sometimes fall away from the faith (not that that happened in Screwtape, but the simple fact that Screwtape's "subject" was a Christian reminded me).

Secondly, given the global spread of Christianity, there are many people in all cultures who are now Christian. Not to mention that what were once the "right" places for being born Christian, such as France, are increasingly becoming (or have become) places where you're much more likely to be raised secular and godless than many villages in Africa where you are now more likely to be born and raised Christian. So the picture is much more ambiguous and muddled than merely being born into the "right" or "wrong" culture.

Thirdly -- though perhaps this should have been my first point -- according to Christian beliefs, all people are guilty of sin, the wages of which are death. If someone goes to hell it wasn't because of which culture they were born into, but because they sinned against God, and because they rejected -- not didn't hear, but rejected -- the gracious rescue by Christ from sin and death.

Now, as to the supposed injustice of it being easier for those born into a Christian culture to come to knowledge of, and commitment to, Jesus Christ, this is probably true. Christ came to rescue all humanity and open the way to God for all people, yes, but he did this knowing that many people (and cultures) would reject him. If that seems "unfair" to our modern (and perverse) cultural lenses, who ever claimed fairness (in our modern sense) to be a divine attribute? We claim that God is just, and justice for the guilty means death. Death means separation from God and hell. That is what everyone deserves. God would have been perfectly just to leave us in our death. Anything humanity is given that is greater than death and hell for all is an act of Grace. Something no one deserves, but which you may either accept or reject.

The fact that God seems to make the conditions for following him "easier" for certain peoples isn't exactly inconsistent with his character as revealed in the Bible or as understood by Christian doctrine. The God of the Old Testament was the God of Israel, His chosen people, to the exclusion of the other peoples of the world. God also annihilated human life on the whole planet except for Noah and his family. While we may find this act more palatable because Noah was a relatively righteous man in a wicked world, he was still a sinner whom God could have also justly eliminated. But God had mercy on him. The situation is no different from today, only it isn't a "relative goodness" or a "smaller wickedness" that Christians possess, as Noah did, but a perfect righteousness that is imputed to Christians via Christ's substitutionary work of atonement on the cross. The sins of those who trust in Christ are washed by His blood and they are made new in His resurrection. Not because they were born into the right culture, but because they placed their faith in Him and accepted the only salvation available to the guilty. And this way is open to all the people of Earth.

Whether or not one accepts the truth of this narrative, the question that's pertinent here is whether or not it makes sense to impugn God's character as unjust or unrighteous. If it did, then that would be a legitimate objection to a faith that claims that God is just and righteous. And this was Harris' point; if the God of the Bible is real, then He is "unjust" or (really) "unfair", because the God of the Bible doesn't fit our modern American model of fairness. He had a chosen people, and even when He graciously opened the way for all people to Him, it's still a truth that is easier for some to accept than others. Shouldn't he make it equally easy or difficult, to be fair? And if He claims to be just and righteous but isn't (again, according to our faulty model of what it means to be just and righteous), then He either isn't actually real after all, or He isn't worthy of our allegiance because He's discriminatory (and a discriminatory God is unacceptable to our cultural tastes).

Once the objection is seen for what it is, it carries no weight whatsoever against the truth or consistency of Christian belief, although one could see how it might resonate with the values of our culture. If God were actually "playing favorites", that would be his prerogative and we would have no legitimate complaint against it as we deserve nothing but death. But, viewed in the correct light, there's no reason to conclude that anyone is ever treated unjustly, even granting that people born in certain cultures will more readily accept Christ, and others will more readily reject Him.

Our God is a discriminating God. There are things that delight Him and things He finds abhorrent. He bestows blessings and curses. He has a people. He has a Kingdom. He has standards. We all fall short of those standards and must either accept or reject His Gracious offer of Christ's blood as a means of reconciliation. Being born into the "wrong" culture is no excuse.

Tebow Fever: Caught

I tried to resist, but even I have caught a dose of Tebow fever. Though I've followed baseball, football, tennis, and basketball at various times in my life, in the last 4 or 5 years I haven't followed any sports closely at all, and I was fine with this development. With the NBA lockout this year causing even greater disillusionment, I was prepared to write off all sports forever.

Then in the last few months the name 'Tebow!' (always with an exclamation) kept appearing in my social network feeds, even though I don't follow any sports-specific figures on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook, and only some of these posts were coming from friends who were into sports. I knew who Tim Tebow was, that he was on the Broncos, and was aware of his faith, but I didn't know why he kept appearing in my feeds. After a while I finally googled him to see what the fuss was about and learned that, since becoming the Bronco's QB, they had gone 5-1 (at the time of the googling) with many of the wins being 4th quarter, miraculous comebacks. And that his persistent giving of credit to Jesus Christ for all that he accomplished -- in post-game interviews, during the game, in press conferences, and symbolically by kneeling (or 'Tebowing') after big plays -- was adding to the controversy surrounding him, creating vociferous and adamant supporters and detractors. Not only that, but Tebow's statistics at quarterback during this run have been fairly abysmal and his mastery of the fundamental skills of the position leave much to be desired, adding to the strangeness of the run. In many of the wins he seems to play poorly or mediocre for three quarters and then often brilliantly in the fourth. OK, so this is why he was causing such a stir. Interesting.

So yesterday, at home after church, I happened to see that the Broncos were playing and put the game on. The Broncos were down 10-0 with 5 minutes in the game when Tebow engineered a brilliant comeback, which was (providentially?) assisted by a severe mental blunder by Marion Berry -- the running back for the Bears -- when he ran out of bounds with 1:55 left on the clock, when merely staying in-bounds would have won the game for them. Later, in overtime, Berry looked poised to break free on a run for a possible game-winning touchdown, or at least to get into great position for a game-winning field goal, and instead he fumbled the ball and the Broncos recovered. This was another bizarre play in which, at a most crucial moment, eminent defeat was transformed into victory. Are there greater forces (or, more precisely, The Greatest Force) at work here?

Of course the magic isn't being created by Tebow -- or providence -- alone. In yesterday's game, for instance, the Bronco's kicker nailed monster 59 yard and 51 yard field goals late in the game, the former tying the game with seconds left and the latter being the game-winning field goal in overtime. Tebow put them in position, of course, and also helmed a crucial touchdown drive which put them in reach, but his teammates stepped up as well. After yesterday's miracle victory, the Broncos are now 7-1 with Tebow at the helm and poised to make the playoffs.

Whether God is a Broncos fan remains to be seen. It seems a trivial thing for God to care about, on one hand, but on the other hand, having a national figure so publicly and unabashedly proclaiming the power of Christ whenever he is given the opportunity is no small matter.

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." - Phillipians 4:13

Clearly Tebow believes this, and if he is always humbly pointing to the One who makes his accomplishments -- to say nothing of his, or anyone else's, existence -- possible, it isn't so hard to imagine that God would dignify that all-too-rare act with recognition.

Christocentric Weltanschauung (Don't Worry, I Define It)

 In reading Angus Menuge's excellent essay on the Christocentric 'Weltanschauung' (which is defined as a comprehensive view of reality, or a worldview) of John Warwick Montgomery, in the collection of essays on Montgomery titled Tough-Minded Christianity, I was reminded of a line of argument contained in David Bentley Hart's stellar Beauty of the Infinite.

Menuge describes Montgomery's view as building upon Luther's "bottom up" approach to theology, as contrasted to some theologians' -- like Aquinas's -- "top down" approach. Luther thought it was most productive to begin theology with the life of Christ and work your way 'up' from there, where Aquinas' natural theology uses reason to discern divine attributes and he proceeds to work his way 'down' from there. While both end up in the same place, so to speak, where you start does make a difference and Menuge -- visa vis Montgomery -- goes on to demonstrate why the "bottom up", Christ-first approach is ultimately the more fruitful.

In tracing the development of Montgomery's thought, Menuge quotes Luther's commentary on Galatians:

[Paul] wants to teach us the Christian religion, which does not begin at the very top, as all other religions do, but at the very bottom ... [If] you would think or treat of your salvation, you must stop speculating about the majesty of God; you must forget all thoughts of good works, tradition, philosophy, and even the divine Law. Hasten to the stable and the lap of the mother and apprehend this infant Son of the Virgin. Look at Him being born, nursed, and growing up, walking among men, teaching, dying, returning from the dead, and being exalted above all the heavens.

This quote, and the further development of the idea, brought to mind David Bentley Hart. Hart (as we will see shortly) seems to come to a very similar conclusion to Luther on this point, though by different means. Hart's thought originates in Eastern Orthodox tradition and develops through various epochs of secular and  Christian philosophy (Late Antiquity, Medieval, Modernity, Late-Modernity, Postmodernity), cataloging the ultimate triumph of rhetoric over dialectic and surfaces over essences. The point he arrives at is that Christian thought is, and ever has been, a truth that is best understood as a kind of rhetoric, as contained in the aesthetic, surface plane of reality, rather than in the rational 'ground' or 'foundation' that modernity sought (which is compatible with the postmodern critique of modernity). Namely, that Christian thought begins with -- or at least centers on -- the rhetoric of the form of Christ, with 'form' meaning the totality of Christ's works; the incarnation, his life, his actions, his miracles, his character, his interactions, his words, his death, resurrection and ascension. From there the 'argument' that Christianity puts forth is a further development of that rhetoric, in the form of the Church on Earth, and the Holy Spirit working through it. In The Beauty of the Infinite, Hart's magnum opus, Hart says:

What Christian thought offers the world is not a set of 'rational' arguments that (suppressing certain of their premises) force assent from others by leaving them, like the interlocutors of Socrates, at a loss for words; rather, it stands before the world principally with the story it tells concerning God and creation, the form of Christ, the loveliness of the practice of Christian charity and the rhetorical richness of its idiom. Making its appeal first to the eye and heart, as the only way it may 'command' assent, the church cannot separate truth from rhetoric, or from beauty.

This conclusion seems to mirror that of the Christocentric Weltanshauung of Menuge-Montgomery-Luther, though with a different intellectual pedigree.

None of which is to suggest that Hart, Luther, Montgomery or Menuge reject the value or the just role of reason in evaluating truth claims, only that they all seem to suggest that at the heart of the Christian claim about reality is a story, or a rhetoric, rather than an 'argument'. Other arguments can be marshaled to defend the truth of the story, but the story -- especially the element of the story concerning Christ -- comes first, and there is no argument stronger than the story itself.

On Authority

In our culture, which prizes individual will and liberty above all other virtues, authority has gotten an undeserved bad rap. With skepticism being esteemed so highly, what room left is there for authority? What proper role can it have in our society? If the movement of my will is the good of all goods, then authority can only be a hindrance to my realizing my purpose in life, which is obviously to do what I want to do.

Perhaps our society shows some deference to certain necessary authorities, such as the police, whose existence is necessary to maintain order. Beyond that, however, there is a precipitous drop off in respect for any other kind of authority in our culture.

Of course within the Christian tradition -- and the other monotheistic religions -- authority takes a central role in the formulation of beliefs and the acquisition of knowledge and wisdom. Authority in the form of God, in the form of the Church, in the form of Scripture, in the form of Tradition. The difficult part for Christians is keeping the role of authority up front in their minds, while living in a culture that demeans all authority as necessarily illegitimate. In this sense, and as is very often the case, the Gospel is at odds with our culture's most fundamental values, and if Christians aren't vigilant in the face of this hostility it can erode their own understanding of authority and its just role in their life. Too often our culture's elevation of individual will as the ultimate virtue infiltrates into our own understanding of what is most noble and worthy.

While it's clear that our culture doesn't afford the notion of authority much respect, it should be noted that, at the same time, it can't avoid begrudgingly submitting to its dictates in certain aspects of life. To some extent we all recognize the proper role of parents as authorities over their children. Although even parental authority is constantly under threat and being pushed back in various ways, mostly as the state attempts to replace the parent's role in making education and health related decisions for parents. And while that is an instance of one authority usurping power from another, there are other ways that our culture attempts to reduce the role of parental authority even without the dictates of government. Such as trends in parenting in the West that treat children more as adult peers than as children; in the ways that media and marketing that sexualize and exploit younger and younger children, effectively conferring upon them one aspect of adulthood earlier and earlier; in the shift in education philosophy that emphasizes "critical thought", "learning how to think" and "creativity" over and above the transfer of factual, foundational, fundamental knowledge. All of these cultural trends are transfers of responsibility from external authorities to the ultimate authority, the self.

Authority also plays a prominent role in that wonderful, modern source of knowledge which is science. Despite the fact that it is an independent method for determining various truths about the physical cosmos, without authority the wonderful fruits of science would be impractical and irrelevant to the lives of most. The vast majority of us don't have the means or time to experimentally verify the claims of science. Even professional scientists in particular disciplines don't have the expertise or tools to verify the results of scientists in other disciplines. With this being the case, we have no choice -- for the most part -- but to submit to the authority of the scientific consensus in particular fields, and critically evaluate the best way to integrate these into our worldview.

None of this is meant to denigrade the role of critical thought or skepticism, which are essential for honest inquiry. Only to highlight the equally critical role of authority. A radical rejection of authority as such would be the death of knowledge itself, and yet we are constantly, and gladly, proceeding down this path as a culture.

Osama and Death Celebration

Many of the Christian blogs and posts on social media sites that I've been reading over the last few days have shared a common theme; either one of struggling with the proper response to the news of Osama's death, or simply renouncing the celebration of his death that many Americans are participating in, while citing scriptural reasons for this (Ezekiel 33:11, Ezekiel 18:23, Prov. 24:17 etc.). I'm not sure that I fall into either of these camps.

In my mind, there's a distinction to be made between enemies of yours, as an individual, and how the Bible says you are to treat them -- turning the other cheek when they wrong you (Matt. 5:39), loving them (Matt. 5:44), clothing and feeding them (Rom 12:20, Prov. 25:21), not wishing death upon them etc. -- and how governments should respond to their enemies. The Bible teaches that the governments of Earth are ordained by God and wield the sword as an instrument of God's authority and judgment on Earth (Rom. 13:1). The commandments to us, as individuals, about how to treat our enemies don't apply to enemies of the government in the same fashion.

I didn't consider Osama bin Laden a personal enemy of mine to begin with. Did you? I never met the man nor had I ever met any of his victims. I always only considered him an enemy of my country and an enemy of civilization at large, and as such I saw that it was important to stop him if we could. Not as a matter of vengeance, which the Bible teaches belongs to God alone (Rom. 12:19), but as a matter of justice and as a matter of protecting the citizens of our nation (and others) from this person's murderous reign of terror.

Is it improper, then, to root for my government to wield the sword wisely and carry out justice? Is it only acceptable to do so before they succeed at it? The instant that they succeed, must I then become sorrowful that they did in fact succeed? If I am holding my attitude for the right reasons, if I'm not delighting in my heart at the demise of a human being, then I see no reason I should not celebrate the success of my nation acting as the duly appointed administer of divine justice that it is.

This, admittedly, is a fine line. At what point does my celebration of the achievements of the brave men and women who defend this nation become a matter of unearned personal pride in my heart? Am I really only celebrating the act of justice, the achievements of the heroes, the relief at a threat to civilization being defeated, or do I harbor a personal satisfaction in another human's death? Certainly it's difficult to keep the matters properly separated in our hearts and minds. Because of this I think it's appropriate for Christians to either make quite clear exactly what it is that they are celebrating -- and that it isn't someone's death, but the bravery of the troops, the relief for families, the increased security of the nation, the lives ultimately that will be saved etc. -- or to simply not celebrate at all.

The only reason I felt compelled to address the issue is in response to those who condemn the act of celebrations as necessarily entailing the celebration or delight in the death of a fellow fallen human, which doesn't follow necessarily. There are many things in this news and its implications worth celebrating, the death of a human being just isn't one of them. The death of Hitler entailed that many fewer human beings in Germany would be mercilessly slaughtered because of their ethnic and religious heritage. I would argue that if you don't celebrate this consequence of the death of this particular human being -- though not the death itself -- that this refusal to celebrate would itself be a quite grave sin.

Sam Harris on Mutually Exclusive Religious Claims

In his recent debate with William Lane Craig Sam Harris trotted out one of my favorite arguments against religious belief. Harris pointed out that people of all religions claim to have certain similar types of experiences--moments where they feel they are in some way in the presence of God, moments of awe, moments of exhilaration at their apprehension of the divine. He then argued that since all religions report such experiences, since in some sense all these reports are qualitatively similar, and since all these religions have mutually exclusive truth claims then the claims of religion can not possibly be true.

Well, certainly these religions can't all simultaneously be true, but few believers claims that they are. The vast majority of believers hold that their religion is true and that others are false. Believers can account for other religious 'experiences' easily enough. Either the reports of those experiences are misconstrued by those who experience them as a divine encounter, but they are mistaken (just as Harris would contend), or the Christian, for example, might say that these experiences could indeed be legitimate encounters with God's divine presence in the natural world, though not necessarily an affirmation of the beliefs of the person who has the experience. In either case the existence of those experiences across religions is not difficult for a person of faith to account for.

The mutually exclusive truth claims of religion only precludes all religions from being true simultaneously, but they do nothing to preclude one of them from being true. Moreover, atheism--while not a religion per se--can be included in the fray. If atheism is true then no religion is true. If Christianity is true then no other religion or perspective on God (including atheism) is true. This observation, quite obviously, gets you absolutely no where. With only this information to go by, all we have established is that any religion (or atheism) could be true. Gosh, I think we all owe Sam Harris a debt of gratitude for clarifying that!

The frightening thing is that this vacuous observation of Harris' is probably interpreted by many to be a forceful objection against religious belief in general. And while I have no stock in religious belief in general, I do have stock in Christianity, and if someone writes off religious belief in general then it will be difficult for them to ever get to Christianity specifically. So while this is a silly objection it's still worth refuting.

'The Sunset Limited' - Review

In a move that eschews any pretense of subtlety, the two characters in 'The Sunset Limited'--a film based on the play by Cormac McCarthy--are simply named Black and White. In a postmodern world that increasingly sees all things in shades of grey, McCarthy intends to revert to bold, stark dichotomy. At least as it relates to the big questions of God and the meaning (or meaninglessness) of existence.

Black is an evangelical ex-convict played by Samuel L. Jackson and White is an atheist professor played by Tommy Lee Jones. Black has just rescued white from a suicide attempt; White attempted to jump in front of a speeding train, and Black stopped him. Somehow the two end up back at Black's apartment and a discussion about life and God ensues. The entire film is essentially a single scene in the apartment with the two talking to each other. While that description is guaranteed to keep Generation ADHD away, the film is actually widly entertaining if you enjoy big ideas and discussions about them.

The characters, true to their monikers, espouse worldviews that are in direct opposition. Black is a cheerful, optimistic, and uneducated man who "doesn't know anything that isn't in [the Bible]", while White is a pessimistic, gloomy and highly educated man who has come to realize that life is pointless. It seems fairly obvious that, to some extent, these characters are also ciphers, intended to embody particular worldviews.

Most atheists, I imagine, would object to the atheist being portrayed as suicidal when the vast majority of atheists are not suicidal or utterly nihilistic in their worldview. This objection misses the point as the character of White is not merelyan atheist; he is atheism. He represents the inexorable end of a rejection of God, which must be nihilism, if that rejection is carried to its logical conclusion. If there is no absolute Good, no grounding for existence, then there can be no source of value that isn't ultimately arbitrary and meaningless. The movements of human will, just and unjust, good and evil, are all just movement. Doing 'good' can not be any better than 'bad', any more than a tree swaying to the left in the wind can be 'better' than it swaying to the right.

While the vast majority of atheists don't embrace a thoroughgoing nihilism of this sort, for various psychological reasons, the point being made is about the necessary ethos of atheism as such, not about individual atheists. Most Western atheists, knowingly or unknowingly, attempt to navigate some 'middle way' between the values of Christianity, and pure nihilism--this middle way is often called 'humanism'--but McCarthy seems to reject that such a middle way even exists. Hence the names of the characters. This line of reasoning follows the intellectual tradtion of the likes of Nietszche, Heidegger and Dostoevsky.

McCarthy's writing style is most often compared to William Faulkner, and for good reason--he was clearly influenced by Faulkner--but 'The Sunset Limited' is McCarthy at his most Dostoyevskian. Most of Dostoevsky's writing lends itself to stage; dialogue dominates and the thoughts and words of the characters are primary while elements such as physical descriptions are minimized. Also, a recurring theme in his writings was his own Christianity, and the rising tide of atheism and the nihilism that must follow it. Lastly, Dostoevsky also often used his characters as embodiments of particular ideas. McCarthy has voiced admiration for Dostoevsky in the past, and with 'The Sunset Limited' the influence is at its most pronounced.

While atheists might object to their worldview being portrayed as necessarily leading to an abyss of despair, I think Christians have more legitimate cause to object to this particular depiction of their faith. Black is portrayed as willfully myopic intellectually, relying largely on emotional arguments to make his point. He appeals to 'happiness' as a reason to believe in God, when the Bible pretty clearly says that 'happiness' is far from guaranteed for a follower of Christ (though joy is). When White contrasts the Bible with 'legitimate' history, White doesn't even protest. Black also seems to reject the authority of scripture. I could go on. While all of these tendencies can easily be present in a single believer, it doesn't make for an accurate portrayal of faith in God as such. The end result is that faith is portrayed as a means of having a reason to live and to be happy, without much serious regard for the truth. Which is not what Christianity is.

Reading the characters in extremely broad strokes you get the impression that faith is a kind of blissful ignorance while unbelief is tragic realism. I don't think McCarthy's point is quite as simplistic as that, but to the extent that this idea is present I wholly reject it.

With these reservations in mind, the portrayal of Black as a Christian, rather than as Christianity, is extremely favorable. Black is simply a loving Christian who is interested in honestly meeting White where he is and engaging with him out of concern. He wants to know who he is, what he believes, what brought him to this and how he can help him. On this level Black is an extremely accurate portrayal of the action part of Christianity. If we are to be known by our love, which is to say by our actions, then Black is easily recognizable as a Christian.

The film would have been slightly more interesting to me if both sides had been given better arguments, but as it is they largely engage each other on a visceral level, which is intriguing in its own way. The rapid-fire exchanges by the two actors are akin to a verbal tennis match. Real life discussions are rarely this neat; they never really talk past each other or misunderstand each other's points. There is a true meeting of the minds. This makes for much more exhilirating drama than a hyper-realist take, which would probably feature many awkward pauses, evasions, misunderstandings and changes of subject. Instead Black and White converse as fluidly as if they were the inner voices of a conflicted mind.

McCarthy seems less interested in which perspective is true than exploring the nature and consequences of belief and unbelief. This is a fruitful exploration as investigating the consequences of each can give us insight into the likely truthfullness and inherent value of the competing claims. But the value of Christianity is inextricably linked to its claim to truth. If it's a nice, coherent moral system, but it is untrue, then it's of no ultimate value. Though it makes some sense-- at least in an artistic expression rather than in an book, essay or dissertation--to defer the question of truth. The subject here is the questions, not answers, and how the competing worldviews approach them. Who was Jesus? Is existence meaningless? Can one find meaning in cultural things like democracy, freedom, music and art like White did at one time? Or is that all just so much rubbish on the trash pile of history, all destined to burn? While the truth of these matters is very important, contemplation always precedes understanding and it's the proper role of art to encourage and spark contemplation and reflection. By that standard 'The Sunset Limited' succeeds marvelously.

The Sunset Limited starts playing on HBO On Demand today, February 14th, and continues for the rest of the month.

Neil deGrasse Tyson and The Worst Argument Against Design Ever

I saw a Youtube clip recently of the astrophysicist and atheist Neil deGrasse Tyson arguing against the notion that the efficiency and intricacy of the design in the universe that we observe must be attributable to a divine creator. There are many ways that opponents of the design argument attempt to respond, but this one was new to me. Tyson pointed out that human beings eat, drink and speak all using a single hole in their head. How much more efficient would it be if we had been blessed with two holes, one for gestation and one for communication. Imagine! If only Neil deGrasse Tyson were the creator of the universe, what a wonderful world this would be.

Eating and talking at the same time, without any interruption of the constant inane chatter that fills our lives. Seriously, what a lovely thought! The creator of this universe must have been smoking something when he decided it would be a good idea to make us occasionally stuff our yap-traps with sustenance. Did he not realize that we only have a limited time on this Earth, and that if we waste a great deal of it chewing, swallowing, maybe even thinking in silence, then we'll be unable to fulfill our purpose for this life which certainly must be to maximize our number-of-words-per-lifetime ratio? How shortsighted and foolish of him! No, an omnipotent being couldn't make so obvious and egregious an error, so I'm forced to conclude that no such being exists. My reasoning is exquisite, wouldn't you agree?

I believe that I have surpassed my mockery quota for the day. Suffice it to say that this argument is not only asinine, but is so in such a self-satisfied, unreflective, and arrogant manner as to be quite loathsome. Hopefully my abusive mockery made plain the ways in which the argument is utterly nonsensical, but if not, allow me to elucidate.

Tyson's argument assumes that humans are designed in a suboptimal way because our design prevents us from being able to speak incessantly. Undoubtedly Tyson also believes that the fact that the human body requires 8 hours of sleep a day is an epic tragedy--after all that's one-third of his life that is doomed to wordlessness. I know of very few humans who would admit without shame that they believe that their own words are so precious that they should never meet an occasion where they are forced into silence. Indeed there's many a fine proverb, from both East and West, that speaks of the wisdom and virtue to be found in silence. Listening, meditating, thinking, praying and, yes, eating. Not only is our value as humans not measured in the number of words we are able to utter, but there's some good reason to believe that a human's wisdom is often inversely proportional to the number of words they produce. As much as that pains me--a wordy person--to admit. If we are going to speculate as to the wisdom and efficiency of the creation then, if anything, this observation by Tyson bespeaks a profoundly thoughtful and efficient design plan of the creator. God may in fact have devised the human body in such a way--with a single hole for the dual purposes of gestation and speech--specifically to give the world some respite from the incessant, inane jabber of the likes of Neil deGrasse Tyson. Who, in between meals, still managed to find the time to use his tragically limited number of words to formulate this preposterous argument.

'The Grand Design' Review

When I picked up The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking I was expecting a fairly in-depth look at some specifics about M-theory and how it might be a possible candidate for a 'theory of everything' in physics. I figured that the supposed theological and philosophical implications of this would be tangents which the media had blown out of proportion. I was mistaken. The Grand Design is appropriately--though ironically-- titled and has a very broad scope focusing on 'the big questions', the history of science and the current most complete scientific understandings as they supposedly relate to those questions. All done with a minimal amount of mathematical detail, easily understandable language, and a large number of illustrations and metaphors.

It made for a quick and enjoyable read. As an overview of the history of science it's a wonderful little guide. And I was startled that the entire purpose of the project seemed to be to address the 'big questions'--most prominently the question posed by Leibniz "why does something exist rather than nothing?"-- by tracing the historical responses to those questions, both 'religious' and more modern scientific 'answers', culminating with M-theory. I was startled because serious physicists, including Hawking, tend to shy away from addressing such questions in their work, preferring to let the work and its implications speak for themselves--if indeed there are any implications for 'the big questions'. This made the project much more interesting for me as it makes it of more direct relevance to issues that I'm interested in. Unfortunately the book doesn't really address the philosophical and metaphysical issues that it purports to address at all.

In the second paragraph of the book Hawking proclaims that "philosophy is dead" and that it has been replaced by science. It seems he neglected to have one philosopher--or at least logician--proofread his work, as directly on the heels of that pronouncement he launches into a defense of the philosophical proposition that scientific determinism is true. A philosopher would have been able to inform him that all of his methods and conclusions rest on various philosophical presuppositions. So from the very outset he begins to undermine himself by failing to properly set up the terms of the conversation.

At least twice in the book he contrasts a scientific understanding of the world that has been proven to be true against a specifically Young-Earth creationist proposition that has been proven to be false in a seemingly self-satisfied way, never bothering to differentiate between Young and Old Earth creationism. Revealing himself to be fairly uninformed as to the various positions that are held on the issues at hand. However when it comes to the metaphysical arguments of natural theology--such as the Kalam cosmological argument and the teleological argument--he does seem to have some grasp of the significance of those arguments and addresses them head on, for the most part. In my estimation his lack of comprehension of the relevant philosophical terms--such as 'nothing' and 'being'--prevents him from making a sound rebuttal to those arguments, though he does seem to grasp how the arguments work. Indeed, one entire chapter reads almost like something out of Reasons to Believe's catalog where he extensively lists all of the fine-tuned parameters of the universe. He believes the fine-tuning is essentially due to chance--if quantum fluctuations result in 10^500 universes, one of them will have the fortunate properties of this one and it will appear to be designed and appear to be fine-tuned for life. Despite his alternate explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe, this account of how the universe is fine-tuned is very well laid out and can actually be a useful source to cite. The universe is magnificently, precisely fine-tuned for human life: Stephen Hawking says so himself.

The book concludes abruptly and strangely stating that "Because gravity exists the universe can and will create itself from nothing." Which, even if that statement is true, doesn't even address Leibniz's question of "why is there something rather than nothing?" All it does is describes how one physical state--subatomic empty dimensional space governed by the laws of quantum mechanics--transfers into another state. Or how something goes from being something to being something else. Secularists who are more rigorous logistically and philosophically correctly attempt to dismiss the question as either meaningless or nonsensical. This is actually the proper approach. Either the question can't be answered or the answer is supernatural. Hawking's whole project then, as exciting as it may appear to him, is doomed from the start. And precisely for philosophical reasons, philosophy which he deemed to be irrelevant and useless.

Physics, as an investigation of mechanisms internal to the universe--or if not the universe the 'multiple histories of the universe' as Hawking would have it--is impotent to address the question of the source of being. Fine-tuning without a fine-tuner? The Grand Design without a Grand Designer? If these notions seem incoherent on their face, that's because they are. And though Hawking attempts to explain why such nonsensical notions might actually in fact be the case, he doesn't present any compelling evidence why we should believe that they are. Indeed, M-theory has not been experimentally confirmed, and it's difficult to see how it ever could be. Not to mention that even if it ever was empirically confirmed it would still fail to address the 'big questions' that this book claims to address.

Stephen Hawking and God

I may be responding prematurely here. Stephen Hawking's book is not out yet, so I'm sure the selected excerpts printed in the press don't necessarily do justice to the totality of his argument. However, I'm familiar enough with the most recent discoveries in cosmology and physics, and theories regarding the beginning of the universe to deduce what I think he means, and respond intelligibly to the partly explicit and partly implicit argument that he's making. It's of course possible that the excerpts are taken out of context, or that the book clarifies the argument more. So, with that in mind, my response will be subject to revision.

First I think I should point out that many headlines state something along the lines of "Stephen Hawking says God did not create the universe". It's worth noting that this is not a direct quotation, and that what Hawking actually says is that given the law of gravity, one need not invoke God to explain the existence of the universe. This may be a small distinction but worth mentioning because it does not say that God certainly did not create, or that it is impossible that he created.

So what did he actually say? Direct quotations from the recent press release are:

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist,"

"It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."

"That makes the coincidences of our planetary conditions -- the single Sun, the lucky combination of Earth-Sun distance and solar mass, far less remarkable, and far less compelling evidence that the Earth was carefully designed just to please us human beings,"

The most pertinent one is the first, and I will be focusing on that one. My response will be on two levels. First pointing out that this particular model of the universe that he is referring to is one of numerous models of the universe, and the theoretical multiverse, none of which has been verified empirically. So there is nothing that compels us to accept the conclusions he draws from the model that he is in favor of since that model is not necessarily representative of reality, it is only one of various possibilities. Secondly, even if the model that he supports does in fact turn out to be a true representation of reality, then--even given what he says--God is still not necessarily ruled out. Neither is he made any less necessary.

Note the form that the first statement takes. "Because there is a law such as gravity" - the statement presupposes gravity as a brute fact, as a given, apparently without need for explanation. Why does the universe need an explanation but the law of gravity doesn't? Even if the law of gravity acting on 'nothingness' would inevitably result in the universe (again, which is something that is itself unsubstantiated), this only shifts the question from "where did the universe come from" to "where did the law of gravity come from?" A materialist conception of the universe will invariably run into the problem of an infinite regress until it comes to a true beginning or source beyond which no further inquiry can take place. Saying "because the law of gravity exists, the universe can and will create itself from nothing" is a bit like saying, 100(0)s of years ago when we learned how the Earth was formulated, "because the law of gravity exists, the Earth can and will create itself from nothing." Gravity certainly was instrumental in discovering how the Earth was formed, but it doesn't eliminate the need for further inquiry, but rather immediately poses a variety of other questions that need answering. And the same is true here. The law of gravity is not nothing, but something. This seems to be a very simple categorical or philosophical oversight by Hawking.

The third statement also deserves a brief response, but I'll defer to astrophysicist Hugh Ross who does a very good job of responding to this particular issue in a recent episode of the Science News Flash podcast. But, to paraphrase Ross, Hawking is just mistaken on this point, the evidence does not support what he is claiming.

'Why' Questions Are Inherently Questions About God

When you ask 'why', you are asking 'for what purpose?', 'for what reason?' or 'to what end?' Inherent in any question of 'why' is the assumption that there is a rational intelligence behind whatever system, or set of facts the question is being asked about. For example, if you ask 'why' the sun rises every day, a scientist might (errantly) explain the various physical mechanisms and facts that we know lead to the sun rising. The scientist is really answering the question of 'how', and not 'why'. When you ask why the sun rises, you're asking for what purpose. Even asking the question implies a recognition of a will, and of an intelligence, responsible for making the sun rise. For it makes no sense to ask 'for what purpose' or 'to what end', or 'why' a random, chaotic, un-planned event happened.

If you are a naturalist, that is you believe the natural world is all that exists, then you can only rightly ask 'why' questions about human decisions. Why this person did this, or why did that guy do that. You can't coherently ask 'why' questions about any natural phenomena that occur independent of human will, for the question becomes nonsense. 'Why is the sky blue?', 'Why do earthquakes occur?', 'Why does the mockingbird sing?' Forget about being answered, none of these questions can even be asked by a naturalist. They must either be recognized as incoherent, or the 'why's must be replaced with 'how's.

Therefore it's my contention that the very fact that 'Why' questions preoccupy so much of human inquiry, probably the vast majority of it, is evidence that God exists. If we are solely the product of natural phenomena, then what evolutionary paradigm could our mental preoccupation with the nonsensical question of 'why' possibly serve? As a matter of fact, in evolutionary terms, that very preoccupation would be a quite costly, and dangerous distraction from more pertinent questions such as 'when' 'where' and' how' to secure our next meal, for example.

But if we are the product of a will, and of an intelligence, made in that image, then it follows that we would want to understand the reason behind events occuring. And that the rational being that created us would endow us with rational faculties of our own, and a curiosity to understand not only the what, where, when and how, but also the why.