The Greatest Apologetic For The Christian Faith

The greatest apologetic for the Christian faith is Christianity itself. It is the gospel. It is that God would redeem the rebellious souls of men by loving them first and loving them sacrificially. We hear this story and just know that it’s too good to be false.

In a word, the gospel is “compelling.” We hear the gospel and we think:

YES! If there is a God, Christianity must be true. It’s exactly what we should expect from a perfectly loving, wise and just being. And, if there is a god and Christianity isn’t true, God should be embarrassed that He didn’t think of such a solution for reconciling the world to Himself first.

Christianity is so good that, given there’s a god, it can’t be false.

I challenge you to find or even make-up a more compelling story. I certainly know of none.

Minimal Calvinism

If you find Calvinism (in its contemporary and popular form) distasteful, there is a better alternative than Arminianism. Here, I propose the core, necessary tenet of a minimal Calvinism. You can fill in the rest of the theological details for yourself.

Minimal Calvinism: Some but not all matters are up to God. Matters regarding who will enjoy the gift of salvation are solely up to God.

With this, we can recognize that God’s sovereignty does not require Him to determine all matters. Is God not free to allow whatever He likes? And, it leaves room for creatures who possess the sort of freedom necessary to make sense of moral responsibility. However, at the end of the day, it upholds the view that a man’s salvation is not up to him, as all the alternatives are forms of Arminianism.

What God Didn’t Know

Hebrews 4:15 consoles us regarding our high priest. It teaches us that Christ is acquainted with the knowledge of what it is like to be tempted. Seemingly such knowledge results from his experiences as a human. But, if so, then there was something that the non-incarnate God didn’t know, ostensibly.

How does this affect our understanding of God’s omniscience.

A More Satisfying Solution To The Dilemma Of Christ’s Temptation

Here is the dilemma which arises out of Hebrews 5:15 and James 1:13-14. Between these two passages we have, on one hand, a God-man that was tempted in all things and because of said temptation can, now, sympathize with our weakness and, on the other hand, a God-man that should not be able to be tempted at all, given his divinity. How do we reconcile these two passages, not just in a way that provides logical room for Christ’s temptation without a cost to his divinity, but also a way that does not make his temptation trivial?

We can easily make mere logical room for his temptation by distinguishing between internal and external temptation. That is, we can distinguish between one person tempting another (or enticing another) to sin without that person actually sinning (external temptation) and a person being tempted in virtue of their own constitution (internal temptation). For example, imagine a man trying to tempt a blind man to sin by dragging him into a strip club. Here, we have one man (externally) tempting another to sin but the conditions will not be sufficient to truly (internally) tempt the blind man. The blind man is impervious to such temptation. And, if we say that this is merely how Christ was tempted, we can show both how Christ could be (externally) tempted in all things yet without sin and, yet, how Christ could be impervious to (internal) temptation.

This solves the logical dilemma. But, at what cost? That is, what consolation does mere external temptation give us? For, it does seem that the author of Hebrews wishes to console us with such knowledge of Christ’s temptation. And, does such a solution console you? Thus, it seems that to resolve this dilemma in a satisfying way, we need more than a logical fix. We must preserve the consolation of Christ’s temptation.

Accordingly, I offer the following: Christ was tempted both internally and externally, yet without sin. That is, not only was Christ externally enticed to sin, but he also knows what it is like to be enticed to sin. He doesn’t just know, propositionally, that we are tempted to sin in many ways (he knew this before he took on flesh), he knows, by acquaintance, what it is like to experience the enticements of sin.

So, how do we explain this while preserving the biblical evidence, especially the evidence from James? I offer the following way. James tells us that one is tempted when one is carried away and enticed by one’s own lust. Here, James is giving us the sufficient conditions for the sense of temptation that he has in mind. That is, in James mind, whenever one is carried away and enticed by their own lust, that state of affairs will be deserving of the name “temptation.” But, surely such a state of affairs is not necessary to be tempted, is it? For example, we would be speaking correctly if we said that one car’s slamming into another head-on at 60 mph was worthy of the name “a car crash.” But, wouldn’t we also be speaking correctly if we attributed that same title to a fender-bender in a parking lot? It seems so. And, if so, then couldn’t it be that James simply has a more robust idea of temptation in mind than the author of Hebrews? Might there be some state prior to being carried away and enticed by one’s own lust (the sufficient conditions for James’s sense of temptation) that is still worthy of the name “temptation.” It seems that there is. And, I imagine that all of us are acquainted with such a state. Think of all those times in which you overcame temptation. Think of all those times that you found, at some level, a thing desirable or potentially pleasing but you did not yield to such temptation. At those times, you were tempted both internally and externally but you were not carried away and enticed by your own lust. You might have been enticed, in some sense, but you were not carried away. You were steadfast in your convictions and moral fortitude. I offer that this, or at least something in the ballpark of this, must have been true of Christ, if the author of Hebrews really meant to console us.

So, in short, there is is an array of states of affairs that qualify as “being tempted internally.” Christ experienced something in this array that made what the author of Hebrews had to say correct and Christ did not experience anything in this array that made what James had to say incorrect.

It’s a semantic solution. And, as is all semantic solutions, it is only moderately satisfying. But, any solution that can save both our theology and the biblical text from contradiction while, at the same time, preserving the consoling force of Christ’s temptation is better than no solution at all.

Pascal’s Wager, Strengthened

To the degree that you hedge your bets on there being eternal consequences for your earthly actions, i.e., to the degree you are fearless of God or to the degree that you do not live AS IF there is a God, you are a fool.

The reasoning behind this point is simple: the stakes are too high, the potential gains are too low and the odds, when evaluated wisely, whatever they are, are not good enough to make even the smallest bet on atheism wise.

This small point is highly significant. It alone has the potential of dividing ever single action*, for all peoples, regardless of their beliefs, into two categories: those actions which are ultimately wise and those actions which are ultimately foolish*. And, from here, if we begin our evaluation of which actions are and are not reasonable by first determining which actions are and are not ultimately foolish (as whatever is wise is always reasonable), we expediently both call into question every action not influenced by a fear of God and justify, as reasonable, every action motivated by a fear of God, which would constitute both an offensive and defensive point for theism.

“The fear of God is the beginning of understanding.”

*Two interpretive points:

1) The sorts of actions that I am talking about are voluntary/volitional.

2) My “ultimately” qualification of wise and foolish actions has to do with these actions’ relative natures. Various actions may be wise in one context and foolish in another. Thus, in regards to what constitutes a wise action, one context can ‘trump’ another. Accordingly, what is ‘ultimately wise’ is sufficient to trump every other relevant thing.

The Logical Fallacy Of Conflating Distinct Possible Worlds

In a recent conversation about the answer to ‘Who made God?’, I argued, from the impossibility of an actual infinite number of past change-events, that, given God, He was either eternal or had a beginning (popping into existence, apart from a creator, out of nothing at some finite number of change-events ago).

I’ve given my initial, hasty conclusion some more thought and I think that I was commuting a logical fallacy, given my ontology. Here’s why:

I think that I am guilty of a new sort of logical fallacy (as far as I know): conflating distinct possible worlds. One commits this fallacy when one identifies more than one distinct possible world as one world. It is probably best to think of this fallacy as being part of the problem of impossible worlds.

I think that I committed this fallacy when I butted the empty world (the possibility of nothing) up against a populated world. The empty world is possible (based upon conceivability) when you deny the ontological presence of certain entities, in my case, absolute time and (logically) necessary beings.

So, when I argued (previously) that there is a world that starts with nothing and then, at some point (when, possibly?), gets something, I was focusing, not on one world but two distinct worlds that can never meet.

The empty world is possible but logically inaccessible from every possible world; it stands alone as the logical consequence of there being no (logically) necessary beings. Accordingly, there are no possible worlds that start or end empty.

This is interesting. And, it has the logical consequence of making any first entity or first entities in a world eternal entities, entities without a beginning. So, necessarily, if there was nothing before God, God is eternal. And, based upon what I said previously, arguing for the necessity of a first event, necessarily, something in our world is eternally old.

The Arminian’s Vicious Infinite Regress

Thank you, Jordan Fishel, for your engagement on “The Moral Argument Against Arminianism From Soteriological Luck.”  Jordan’s objections on the content of that post helped me to understand my previous argument better and to come up with this new formulation.

Here we go.

There is a common sort of objection that I get to my argument against Arminianism from soteriological luck. And, it goes something like this:

Though logically contingent, a free person’s choices are not a matter of luck.  Deliberate, free choices are paradigms of control and purpose, things which are just the opposite of luck.  And, if one’s salvation depends upon such paradigms of non-luck and everyone, at one time or other, finds themselves in a favorable context to warrant a positive, controlled and deliberate response to God’s grace, then we can see that one’s salvation is not a matter of luck.

I get this.  I do.  Its a good response…at one level.  But, the problem of soteriological luck is found at a higher level.  And, if we want to understand the Arminian’s problem of soteriological unluck, we must go to and focus on this higher level (or higher levels if necessary). To help illustrate the problem, let’s focus, for a moment, on the Calvinist’s response to soteriological luck.

On the Calvinistic picture of salvation, one’s salvation is not up to them. It’s up to God. And, on this picture, God chose some but He could have chosen others. (For simplicity’s sake, let’s just assume that God doesn’t choose all.) Thus, not only is one’s salvation outside of their control, but also the facts surrounding one’s salvation could have been otherwise. Those who get saved are lucky enough to find that the actual world is a world where God desires to save them. For, there are other possible worlds, worlds where God desires to save others, that very well could have been actual.

Now, the Arminian, seeing that one’s salvation, on Calvinism, is beyond a person’s control, is likely to admit that a person’s salvation is a matter of luck…from that person’s perspective. But, what will they say about a person’s salvation from God’s perspective? Consistency will demand that they say that God’s election is not a matter of luck. For, God’s election is a free and deliberate choice, just the opposite of luck. But, then, how will the Arminian explain the contingency of God’s elect? And, this is where the Arminian’s vicious infinite regress begins to show its head. (They may want to say that this is the Calvinist’s problem. But, as we will see, the Calvinist’s problem is the Arminian’s problem.)

On Calvinism, which facts are suited to explain why God contingently chooses the people that He does in fact choose in the actual world? Though admittedly a crude explanation, let’s suppose that, in the actual world, God just finds Himself with a desire, D1, to and only to save the persons that He in fact does. Now, with this answer in hand, we can ask why does God have D1, as opposed to, say, D2, a different desire which would likely compel Him to save others? This is a good question. However, unless we grant that God can just have a desire like D1 without initially having to have a desire for D1, call it “D1*”, we will find ourselves in a vicious infinite regress, where God must have an initial desire for any desire you pick. And, such regresses are problematic because the conditions that must be satisfied for some event to occur, according to these regresses, could never get started. For example, imagine a board game that’s rules were such that “before you can get a token, you have to borrow a token from the player to your left.” Unless someone to your left just starts off with an unborrowed token to lend, this board game would be, essentially, tokenless.

Now, how is the Arminian subject to such a regress? Here is how. Just as the Calvinist must explain the contingency of God’s elect, the Arminian must explain the contingency of those who respond unfavorably to God’s grace, because there are a great many possible worlds where such folks do respond favorably. And, it seems that the only reasonable explanation for such contingent possibilities is that, in those worlds, those folks are just, at bottom, lucky enough to find themselves with the right internal states, states which will likely be prompted and nurtured by favorable and contingent external contexts, that compel (not necessarily determine) their favorable response to God’s grace. In other words, even on Arminianism, the likelihood of a person’s salvation will depend upon things that, at bottom, are not up to them.

Here, as I have said before, the Arminian has a couple of options:

(1) Abandon Arminianism

(2) Accept universalism

(3) Adopt a doctrine of trans-world depravity (the sort I mention above)

Or

(4) Continue to ignore these higher levels of inquiry where their position’s flaws are demonstrable.

The Evolutionary & Physicalist Argument Against Naturalism From Consciousness

Here is a more formal presentation of an argument that I have been working on. Thank you, Keith Noback, for your engagement on an even less formal version.

Here goes:

1) It seems as if some things are up to me. For example, when I am deliberating over whether to, say, raise my hand or not, it seems as if I am in control over whether I actually endeavor to raise my hand. It does not seem to me as if such endeavorings are determined. Admittedly, such seemings do not entail the falsity of determinism, like seemings of pain entail the occurrence of pain. And, this means that if one were to infer the falsity of determinism solely on the basis of such seemings they would be going beyond their evidence and could very well be wrong. But, that doesn’t matter, here. All that matters for the success of this argument are the presence of such seemings; their veracity can be presently be ignored.

2) The naturalist worldview rests on the foundation of two seemingly indispensable pillars: Darwinian evolution (or something near enough) and physicalism. In brief, the theory of Darwinian evolution is suppose to be able to tell us why biological life is the way that it is and the physicalist theory is suppose to be able to tell us why everything is the way that it is. Without the support of both of these pillars, the naturalist worldview is hardly a worldview at all.

3) Now, according to physicalism, everything must be explainable from the bottom-up. In other words, theoretically, once you’ve explained all of the physics for some event, there will be no remainder. Therefore, since our seemings are not identical to any physical states, whatever our seemings are, they must result from some underlying physical states and be epiphenomenal or causally inert. So, according to physicalism, there is no top-down causation where agents really choose anything. And, any seemings to the contrary isn’t to be trusted.

4) However, the epiphenomenal view of consciousness that physicalism demands is at odds with the theory of Darwinian evolution. The source of this conflict becomes apparent as soon as we ask the following question: what evolutionary advantage could a causally inert consciousness possibly provide a creature? Obviously, none whatsoever. And, since we know, given what we know about computers and robotics, that information acquisition and processing does not require consciousness, the only way out that the Darwinian thesis leaves the naturalist is this: the greatest biological phenomenon that the world will likely ever know showed up fortuitously and, in its inertness, was never kicked out for being evolutionarily disadvantageous.

5) Therefore, simply by considering the most obvious thing in the world, first-person experience, we can see that the dual pillars of naturalism are in the horns of a dilemma with the only escape being an epically incredible appeal to fortune. Ardent naturalist will have the stomach for such fortune. The rest will have a good reason to reject naturalism. Credulity is not limitless for everyone.

Darwin, Determinism & Consciousness

What evolutionary advantage does consciousness provide a creature given determinism, a determinism where every seemingly undetermined choice is just the necessitated causal by-product of some underlying physical state?

I get that information acquisition/processing is advantageous for survival and reproduction. But, we know, given what we know about computers and robotics, that consciousness is not required in such acquisitions/processing.

So, given Darwinian evolution in a non-theistic world, whence consciousness? I can’t make any sense of it. Does anyone have a just-so story with which to defend Darwin?

A Lesson in Godly Speculation: Part 1

The value of one’s knowing that God cannot lie is relative to one’s knowledge of what God has said. But, more specifically, it is relative to our knowledge of what God has actually committed Himself to based upon what He has said. And, knowing this can be rather elusive, especially if, as The Placebic View hypothesizes, God is more than content with our forming false theological beliefs based upon what He has said.

Consider the following passage from the Book of Jonah:

Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. When the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth and sat on the ashes. He issued a proclamation and it said, “In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water. But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth; and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish.” When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it. (Jonah 3:4-10 NASB)

So, here is what we have:

Jonah’s message: “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”

King of Nineveh’s response: He tells everyone to repent with prayer and fasting for “WHO KNOWS, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish.”

God’s response: “God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.”

Here, by the King of Nineveh, we have a paradigm case of speculating to the glory of God. The king could have reasoned as follows:

1) God has declared our destruction in 40 days.
2) God cannot lie.
3) Therefore, in 40 days we will be destroyed. So, let everyone eat, drink and be merry for 39 days from tomorrow we die.

But, he didn’t. Did he? Rather, he speculated, i.e., reasoned about what he doesn’t know based upon what he does, probably like the following:

1) God has made a declaration of judgment against us.
2) God cannot lie.
3) Therefore, this judgment is true.

But wait! What does it mean for a judgment to be true? As king, I make judgments all the time. In fact, I clearly remember that, just yesterday, the pesky knave stole the queen’s tarts and I said, “Knave! For your crime, your judgment is 40 lashes.”

Of course, when he produced the stolen tarts, I had clemency and left him off the hook with just a good thump to the head. Did I make myself a liar by doing so? No! To have lied, I would have had to proclaim a judgment when, in fact, no judgment had been made. And, I am not even sure that that is possible for me.

But, if my clemency wasn’t a result of my having had lied, them what was it a result of? My sovereignty as king and judge over this land, that’s what! And, if I, lord of this land, am free to rescind any judgment that I like, how much more The Lord of Heaven and Earth?! Thus, if God is at least as sovereign as I am, there must be room for clemency in His judgment. And, who knows, maybe in view of our repentance, just maybe, though we are not promised mercy, God will grant it. For, even I know that mercy triumphs over judgment.

Godly speculation looks for reasons for hope when, at the surface, there appears to be none.