Happy Martin Luther King Jr Day!

Full text of the speech here.

UPDATE: Matt Kelley offers some excellent reflections on another of King's speeches, which is perhaps even more relevant than the above. Do click through and read it (HT James McGrath's reader).

How Does God Speak?

In a recent post, Michael Halcomb expressed his skepticism about claims to have heard a personal message from God:

The thing is, people can rarely ever prove that God spoke, it's like, well, you just have to take their word for it.... But then, I really think that there are legitimate instances where God speaks to people. So, I guess I'm wondering, are there any bloggers out there to whom God has spoken or speaks? If so, how does it happen and how do you know?

I responded there:

God's voice has always seemed to me less like a source of information and more like a rather forceful and focused form of conscience, persistently (sometimes even uncomfortably) pointing toward or away from certain specific decisions. It's not always been there (in fact, ignoring it is a pretty sure way to make it disappear!), but when I have experienced it, it's unmistakable.

And Michael responded:

I'm still wondering just how. Your notion of a "source of information" is interesting but still, how did you hear it? Did you "feel" more than "hear"? What?

My answer grew a bit too long for the comment thread, so I’ll post it here:

The first thing I should say is that I think God’s primary means of communication are scripture and the church, but I don’t think those are the only ways he speaks, and unless I am completely nuts, I think I have occasionally heard his voice in other ways. In my own experience, those latter cases always seemed a mix of thoughts, feelings and "coincidence," like everything in my life was pointed towards a particular choice, and usually one that I did want to make (thus, almost every time it has happened I fought God on it for a long while). At such times I always found that, if I obeyed, things turned out for the best but, if I disobeyed, they very much did not. I’ve given a number of examples in other posts, so here I'll give just one more (omitting a few personal details):

When I was a sophomore in college, for several months I strongly felt that I needed to end a certain relationship, but I had no desire to do so. There wasn't anything immoral about the relationship, but every time I prayed--heck—even when I didn’t, this persistent thought/feeling kept intruding. But I kept pushing it back, giving excuses, arguing with God that it would hurt the other person too much. This went on for months, until finally I got so fed up that one night I went out to the "Back 40" of our campus and prayed/yelled (I don't normally pray out loud, let alone at a shout!) that I didn't understand, I didn't think I could do it, and how could I even know it was God I was hearing and not just my own twisted mind? There was no voice from heaven (if that ever happens, I've not experienced it), just that persistent feeling. So finally I said: "I give up, if this is really you, God, if you really want me to do this, you're gonna have to do something drastic. Hit me over the head with a 2x4!"

I know, I know, that's not how you're supposed to talk to God (I'm rather embarrassed to admit that I did at all, but then again, it'd be nice to have that kind of passion again). Well anyway, I stood there for a few minutes, half expecting some crazed student to jump out of the woods and hit me upside the head, but nothing happened. So I sighed and turned around to walk back to campus, and immediately (I kid you not) I smacked my forehead on a big block of wood.

In all the time I was standing there, I had entirely forgotten where I was. Our campus had a raised set of railroad tracks that ran through the back 40, which the path crossed through a low walking tunnel. I happened to be standing just outside the opening of that tunnel, a bit closer than I realized, I suppose. So when I turned around I slammed my head right into the center brace holding up the roof. I think it was actually a 4x8, but I got the message, and a bad headache. ;)

But I didn't listen. After all that, I went back to my dorm intent to break it off, but I didn't follow through. In fact, I stopped arguing with God about it at all. I knew what he wanted, but I wasn’t willing to do it. So I just ignored him until finally the feeling disappeared. As it turned out, the decision (or indecision!) led to one of the most difficult years of my life. Worse, after so blatantly ignoring God, I never again felt that tug in the same way I once did.

I realize it all sounds a bit unbelievable, but there were many times in my life when similar things happened. Moreover, what convinces me that it was not just my subconscious playing tricks on me is that, when God’s voice was there, it was always unmistakably persistent and very specific--something particular I needed to do or stop doing, not a replacement for conscience, free will or critical thinking--but when it was gone, I couldn't manufacture it no matter how much I wanted to.

Ultimately, then, I do think God occasionally speaks in a more personal way, and it should never be taken lightly when he does, but I'm not convinced this is something we should be seeking as Christians (and I remain deeply skeptical of people who claim God gave them a message for someone else). There are much more important things to our relationship with God, and more important means of ascertaining God’s will, which (I think) should always be sought in the community of faith and in consultation with scripture. To center your life on seeking some private manifestation of God’s voice will seriously distort things. After all, Christianity is not supposed to be about us at all, but about loving God and neighbor. So in the end, if you want to know God’s will for your life, don’t hide in your prayer closet; start with Micah 6:8. For if you were to truly live this out, you could hardly go wrong:

He has told you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you, but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?

Self-Interest and Sacrifice on Stargate Atlantis

I think it's fairly well-known around here that I'm a fan of science fiction, and I'm not terribly picky about it. I'll watch just about anything that's not terrible, and even then I'm liable to enjoy the unintentional humor. As such, I've long watched the Stargate franchise, even though it's as often mindless as profound. But this week's episode was a notable exception (ok, obligatory Spoiler Warning):

For those who haven't watched the series, Stargate Atlantis centers on a team of soldiers and scientists who have travelled to the Pegasus galaxy (via a portal created millenia ago... long story) to look for the lost city of Atlantis (even longer story). Upon arrival there, they discover that the galaxy is in fact full of humans (longer story still) who are enslaved by a race of evil people-eating aliens called the Wraith (don't ask). Oh, and everyone speaks English! So anyway... our noble heroes take it upon themselves to try to free said galaxy from said wicked villains, leading to all sorts of entertaining but impossible adventures.

Now--if you've finished rolling your eyes--in this week's episode the team is visiting a planet, offering medical services, and being all good-neighborly. Suddenly a large group of Wraith arrive and demand that the locals turn over some refugees, threatening that if they refuse the entire town will be destroyed (apparently, there's only one town on this planet?). Predictably, the town is divided over this little moral dilemma. Some claim that to give in would make them no better than the Wraith; others insist that it's better to sacrifice a few--outsiders no less--than to let everyone be killed, including the refugees.

At this point the heroes offer a way out: They will help evacuate the town and relocate everyone to another planet. Noble folks that they are, they even offer to risk their own lives to fight off the Wraith to enable this escape. But of course, this only presents yet another dilemma: The townspeople must now decide whether to give up their own livelihoods to save the lives of others, essentially to become refugees in order to save refugees.

Put like that, it's easy see what the noble thing to do is, but what is noble and what actually happens is rarely the same thing. After all, our own world is full of dying people whom we could help if only we'd be willing to reduce our own standard of living and give. We needn't even join them in poverty; you can save a life for just a dollar a day. But they're all strangers, and we don't have to look them in the face as we choose our comfort over their lives. In theory, we're willing to help, but it takes effort and sacrifice, and too often self-interest wins out, whether our own or someone else's.

And so it was on the show. Though the town agreed with the plan to flee in theory, before anyone acted to help a few men took it upon themselves to form a brute squad and turn over a few of the refugees. Though they are arrested, by then there are too many Wraith for the original escape plan to work. So what happens next? Some heroic deeds to save the day and clean up this messy moral dilemma without sacrifice? Hardly. The mayor sneaks into the prison and tells them where the remaining refugees are hiding. He then lets them go and, predictably, they lead the Wraith right to the place. When they get inside, however, they find it empty and rigged with explosives. So the villains are killed. Our "heroes" are able to fight off the remaining Wraith and evacuate the town before more can arrive. The credits roll. Another victory for the "good guys."

And isn't that exactly how it goes in the real world as well? We in the West would like to help but, as nations if not as individuals, we let others make the sacrifice for us (or force them into it). Despite all our good intentions, most of the time we can't or won't prevent others from doing the dirty work for us while we live in relative comfort and sleep soundly at night. Sometimes we may throw the worst offenders in jail, but just as often we let our leaders quietly pat them on the hand and send them on their way--to kill or be killed. For either way, a sacrifice always has to be made, and if we are not willing to make it ourselves, there's usually someone else to make it for us. Some young soldiers perhaps? Or a child we'll never meet? Or maybe some "criminal" we can all villainize and execute in our place? Or does that only happen on TV?

How I Became a Christian Part III

Commenting on the last segment of my story, Hugh questioned why God would waste his time focusing on such “paltry” matters as a high schooler’s social life. I must admit that on the face of it, it does seem preposterous, like a king worrying about the petty concerns of a beggar. But that is precisely why Christians insist on God’s goodness and love because, preposterous as it may be, he does seem to take an interest even in such trivialities. If God is infinite as Christians claim, then he is in no way hampered by the time constraints that force us to limit our involvements, but that doesn’t change the loving and compassionate nature of the matter.

That said, if I am anything like typical, I suspect social matters are the most important to most teenagers. I know for a fact that my teen-aged self would have been more willing to be killed for my beliefs than to be thought uncool, and I don't think I was alone. For that matter, I'm not sure how much things have changed: how many of us wouldn't more readily accept a grand sacrifice than the small and daily sacrifices which are in fact far more important? Perhaps that is precisely why God does focus on such small matters in our lives, for he recognizes that fixing the world is not so much a matter of solving the “big” problems, but of changing us, making us into the kind of people who live selflessly in community and love. After all, history has constantly revealed the terror and violence that attend all attempts to enforce morality, even for society's own good. True justice can only be established on a person-by-person basis, through the free choices of individuals, and my own long experience with God confirms, for me at least, that this is how God does in fact choose to work.

Nevertheless, not every aspect of God’s role in my life can be reduced to such small matters. I could name many examples of God’s work at significant points in my life, but as this story is already growing long I’ll skip to the most important: The next fall, during my Junior year of high school, my dad was informed that his company needed him to move to a different office in Denver (several states away). As you might expect, I had no desire to leave my friends (and church) just a year and a half before finishing high school, especially considering how much I was enjoying my life there. In deference to my concerns (and likely his own as well), my dad went looking for options and found job opportunities at two start-up companies, one of which would have allowed us to stay where we were, and the other which would require moving, but only across the state. All three jobs (including the original) were roughly comparable in pay and responsibilities, and I was adamant that he take the one that didn’t require moving.

It wasn’t long, however, before that now familiar nudge began telling me something quite different. Though I had no additional information to suggest that it would be better to move, and outwardly I continued to insist that we ought to stay where we were, deep down I couldn’t shake the feeling that we actually needed to take the job across the state. I can’t tell you how I knew, but I knew, and I hated the idea. For weeks I held to my line that my dad should take the job nearby, knowing full well that this was a lie, until finally, with just three weeks to spare, I admitted the truth. I suspect that my parents were already planning on taking the job anyway (though they have never admitted this), but in respect of my wishes they had not done anything to pursue it. So when we moved, just three weeks later, the delay forced us to live in a rental house until we had time to buy one. It also meant much more abrupt goodbyes for all of us than it would have, had I not stalled for all those weeks.

Yet once again, when I did obey, I found that God knew what he was doing far better than I did. My dad was much happier with his new job. I ended up at a far better school than I had been at previously. My parents marriage, which had been in a very poor state, improved dramatically, as did my own with my brothers. We also found a new church that I not only liked as much as the previous, but that reinvigorated my parents’ own faith, which had (particularly for my dad) long since grown cold. And to top it all off, I met my future wife on the second day I was there.

In time, however, I discovered that the most important thing about the move was what it saved our family from. Within a year of our moving away, we learned the start-up for which my dad would have worked had we stayed had gone bankrupt. Worse, the group of friends my middle brother had been hanging out with before we moved had since taken a dark turn towards drug addiction and my brother, up to that point always the rebel of the family, would almost certainly have joined them had we stayed. On that score, it was probably my brother who most benefited from the move, for later that year one of his previous friends shot another and then killed himself, at a party that he may very well have attended had we stayed.

Nor was this the first time that our family had such a near-miss with tragedy. When I was in middle school, my dad’s company had once before tried to move us to Denver, and we actually visited and looked at houses in the Littleton area. That time, my dad took a different job nearby (though eventually the old company wooed him back), which postponed the move until, as I said, my Junior year. But my life might have been very different if he hadn’t. For it was only a few years later that the Columbine massacre occurred in the very school in Littleton that I would have attended.

I remember reading the newspaper the day of after the attack and being so angry at God that he would allow such a terrible thing to occur. It was only much later that I realized how close my own family had come to being there. Sometimes, I can now see, we are so eager to blame God for “failing to act” when people use their God-given free will to do terrible things, that we fail to consider the possibility that he has acted to limit the damage as much as he could without violating our freedom. As it turned out, when I got to college I discovered that one of my roommates had been there at Columbine, and was himself spared when the bomb under his table (miraculously?) failed to detonate. Perhaps God was there, even at Columbine, after all. In any case, I can now say with confidence that he has saved my family from far worse fates than the petty concerns of a self-conscious teenager.

Continued in Part IV

Inclusivism and Injustice

On my last post, commenter majorsteve asked some questions about the fairness of the Bible's claims that Jesus is the only source of salvation:

Ken you have written before on the topic of "why I am a Christian". I had a fleeting glimpse of how that topic is related to my leaning away from exclusivism.

If I were to write about why I am a Christian, the discourse would most certainly emanate from the fact that I was born into a Christian household in the U.S., specifically, in northeast Texas, therefore the chance of me turning out to be Jewish or Muslim or Hindu was virtually nil. At the same time, if I had been born into a Muslim home in Saudi Arabia the chances of me being Christian would also be virtually zero. The chance of me converting to Islam is similarly slim as is the chance of a Muslim in another part of the world converting to Christianity. Although every religion has its apostates, does God really expect significant numbers of those who've endured decades of cultural and societal indoctrination to hear The Word and then suddenly see the light? If so, why?

Also, is it possible to get into heaven and NOT believe in exclusivism? If not, then what is the entire list of things I must believe in order to get into heaven? Is there such a list?

These are all good questions, and I didn’t want them to go unnoticed. I don't think he's alone in asking them either, given that a recent poll found that 70% of Americans, including 57% of Evangelical Christians, now believe that "many religions can lead to eternal life" (HT: Exploring Our Matrix). I certainly can’t claim to have final answers to these questions, but I wanted to make a few points, building on what I have said previously:

One the one hand, I don't think God is as much concerned with our particular beliefs as he is with our trust in him, with our love for God and neighbor (see, for instance, Matthew 22:37-40). Though John 14:6 is widely claimed as the proof that the Bible sees belief in Jesus (in this life) as the only means of salvation, this is not the whole story. After all, this verse only says that we must come to God through Jesus, it doesn't spell out what that means, and the answers the rest of the Bible gives seem rather less exclusively focused on belief in Jesus. Saving faith is not about passing some kind of theological multiple choice test.

For instance, when Hebrews 11 lists the Bible's heroes of the faith, not one of them had ever heard of Jesus. These Old Testament saints trusted God as far as they knew him, and that was apparently enough. That being the case, I hardly think that mere mental assent to exclusivism (or any other doctrine per se) is a requirement for salvation, even if God is an exclusivist (of which I am not convinced). More to the point, note that in Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus says that those accepted at the final judgment are not the ones who claimed the proper title or belief in this life, but those who fed the hungry, welcomed the homeless, cared for the sick and visited the imprisoned. Similarly, James 1:27 claims: "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

On the other hand, the Bible is clear that we do need genuine faith to be accepted by God, and while I can't rule out that those who follow other religions might find a similar faith, neither can I assume that they will. Certainly not all religion (not even all so-called Christian religion) points people to that kind of faith and love, and it's up to us to spread that news. Is it unfair that some go through life in cultures that never tell them of God? Perhaps, but that's an inevitable corollary of human freedom: our choices always affect those around us, and that includes helping to create the societies our children are born into (on that point, see here, one of my very first posts). As so often, C.S. Lewis sums this up well, in Mere Christianity (also quoted here):

Is it not frightfully unfair that this new life should be confined to people who have heard of Christ and been able to believe in Him? But the truth is God has not told us what His arrangements about the other people are. We do know that no man can be saved except through Christ; we do not know that only those who know Him can be saved by Him. But in the meantime, if you are worried about the people outside, the most unreasonable thing you can do is remain outside yourself. Christians are Christ's body, the organism through which He works. Every addition to that body enables Him to do more. If you want to help those outside you must add your little cell to the body of Christ who alone can help them. Cutting off a man's fingers would be an odd way of getting him to do more. (pg. 64)

Inclusivism and the Atonement

I’m still eagerly awaiting the next round in James’ and Michael’s conversation, but my post from yesterday raised some questions about God’s judgment and what it takes to be saved from it, which I have so far only briefly addressed. I mentioned that I am an “inclusivist,” in the sense that I believe it is possible for God to save non-Christians, but I am not a “universalist” in the sense that I still think that at least some people (perhaps a great many) will not be saved. It seems worthwhile to explain and defend each of those claims, so this post will deal with my acceptance of inclusivism. The next one (which I may post tomorrow) A later post will focus on my denial of universalism.

I think the New Testament is clear that “salvation is found in no one else” but Jesus. It is only because God himself took on human form, died and rose again, that humanity has any ultimate hope. Explaining how I reconcile that with inclusivism will require discussing the nature of the atonement, but I don’t want to get bogged down with complicated theories right now. Thankfully, there is a relatively easy way to remember the big three (moral influence, substitution, and Christus victor): Prophet, Priest and King.

This is a very old distinction, but I owe the reference to my former professor, Hans Boersma, whose outstanding book on the atonement is a must read: As Prophet, Jesus’ life, death and resurrection reveal what it is to be truly human; their example teaches us how to love and sacrifice and hope. As Priest, Jesus’ life, death and resurrection have, in some sense, allowed him to bear our sins in our place, and so cleanse us from them. As King, Jesus’ life, death and resurrection have actively defeated evil, not just on a personal level, but on a cosmic one. Though debates rage over the precise nature and interrelation of these elements, I believe that all three are essential to the significance of Jesus’ incarnation.

So I do not in any way deny that Jesus is the only means of salvation, but neither am I convinced that God’s justice requires that a person must have heard or embraced this truth before death. And yet, as my previous post indicates, I think we should nevertheless live as though this were a requirement. How can I say this? The answer goes right back to my understanding of the nature of the atonement: If Jesus really is the victorious King who defeated evil once and for all, then that effects everyone, not just those who hear about it. By the same token, if Jesus really is “our great High Priest,” his death was sufficient to cover all sins, even those of people who never hear of him. To give an illustration: A prisoner released from the gulags might not understand the political changes that made his freedom possible, but he is free nonetheless. Yet at the same time, a foolish man may refuse freedom and remain in his cell, or accepting this freedom but refusing to change (i.e. accepting Jesus’ victory, but not his cleansing) he might quickly find himself re-imprisoned.

That’s where the third aspect of the atonement comes in: Jesus didn’t just rescue and cleanse us; he also showed us how to live. His example is not tangential to salvation, but essential to it. It is only as we follow his road of sacrifice and service that we can share in its goal – resurrection. Since Jesus has already won the victory and borne the cost, this doesn’t imply that we can earn our salvation, yet neither is it enough to simply “believe the right things.” This truth cuts both ways: it means both that a person is only truly a Christian if they are a follower of Christ, yet it also means that the road of self-sacrifice and service is the road to Christ, and can lead to him even if the person following it doesn’t know the destination.

But that is a hard road, and the chance that someone will choose to follow it without the hope that Jesus offers is tenuous, at best. Therefore, it is possible to follow Jesus without knowing it, and thus it is possible to be saved without hearing his name. But we can by no means assume that the average person will do so, any more than we could stand by and do nothing as a flaming meteor plunges towards our neighbor’s home. Perhaps they won’t listen to our cries (“What? You want me to go outside? But American Idol is on!”), or perhaps they might recognize the danger themselves and be wise enough to flee it; but if we’re not willing to risk ourselves to warn them, we’re not following Jesus either.

UPDATE: This post is part of a continuing conversation.

The Image of God

The main reason I reposted yesterday's piece on naturalism and morality was so that I could post its follow-up. Though it builds on the previous one in various ways, this remains one of my all time favorite posts:

I hope I have not been disingenuous. It occurs to me that I have not yet mentioned that the core of the argument I made in my last post (though not its form) is drawn from C.S. Lewis, particularly his books The Abolition of Man, Mere Christianity, and Miracles. I did not hide this intentionally, but since this is my own synthesis, the source simply slipped my mind. That said, I was reading Mere Christianity again this weekend, and one particular line caught me off guard. On page 24 Lewis writes: “If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe – no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in that house.” Lewis goes on to make the argument I have been making (that it is the “inside” knowledge we have from the moral law that points to such a controlling power), but that is not what caught my attention.

When I read that line, my first reaction was skeptical. I thought: “Well, sure, the architect couldn’t be a wall, but couldn't he hang his picture on one so that we would all know it was he who built the house? Couldn’t God have hung his portrait somewhere in the universe (somewhere obvious) so that we couldn’t miss him?” Perhaps, I thought, God could have painted his picture across the stars, or written his name across the moon, or something.

Sure, if God’s name really were written across the moon (in what language would it be?), we would probably just conclude that our own alphabet had its origin in that very writing and then dismiss it as a chance occurrence. More problematic would be God’s “portrait” in the stars; for what would God look like, a nice old man? But, obviously, God is not an elderly man; he is not a man at all; he is not even physical but Spirit (if you accept John 4:24). So any such physical likeness would be impossible and misleading. Still, I thought, he could have done something.

And then it hit me like a ton of bricks: God did hang his picture in the universe; indeed, he hung it in the most obvious place of all, on us. We have been debating whether Naturalism is capable of grounding our moral awareness (I also made the same point with regard to rationality in my comments here), and I have concluded that it is not. Our moral awareness that certain things are unequivocally right and wrong points to something beyond the laws of nature; for by it we judge those laws (more specifically, we judge the different ways that the laws of nature interact in the actions of individual human beings). Our moral compass tells us that ultimate reality is in some sense fully good in a way that physical nature itself is not. Therefore, it is we ourselves, and our awareness of the moral law, that is the primary evidence of a something above and behind nature – the primary evidence of God.

We are the picture God hung in the universe to prove that it was he who built it. Put another way, we are the image of God. But that is a startling conclusion, because neither Lewis nor I had even considered Genesis 1 when making this argument. And yet by this entirely different route, one I am sure that the author of Genesis never considered (Naturalists weren’t exactly his primary concern!), we have found ourselves led back to the very same conclusion that he made: that in humanity, male and female, God created something “in his own image” (Genesis 1:27). Our moral and rational awareness are the finishing touches on God’s master project – the universe – and the portrait of himself that God hung to mark it as his own.

Tom Clark and the others at the Center for Naturalism maintain that the acceptance of Naturalism would be good for society because it would remind us that we are not self-made and thus increase our compassion for those less fortunate than ourselves [I address Richard Dawkins' similar claim here]. But this is backwards – if Naturalism is true, our moral awareness is an illusion, and we have no more reason to feel obligated to help those whom nature has not favored than to dispose of them in favor of natural selection. Our moral awareness would be an illusion that does not represent anything real and thus could be ignored at will. But once we realize that we are the image of God, we see that this argument I’ve been making is really not negative at all: an awareness of our true nature is the real basis for the compassionate ethic that both Tom Clark and I desire.

If we are created in the image of God, then obviously we are not “self-made”; but more than that, each and every one of us, no matter what mistakes we have made, possesses an irrevocable dignity. Just as a great piece of art retains its value even as it cracks and fades, so human beings retain their value even if nature has not been kind to them – they are still a beautiful creation of the master craftsman. But unlike Naturalism, which cannot give any real basis to such a sentiment (since we are all accidents), this creational view is realistic: it does not shrug its shoulders at evil behavior but recognizes that there is a real standard of good and evil that is binding on all of us. But it also recognizes that the dividing line is not between “good” and “evil” people but runs straight through each and every one of us.

All of us (even the worst) retain a moral awareness, even if dimmed by misuse, and none of us fully lives it out. In Biblical language: all of us are created in the image of God, and all of us have sinned and fallen short of that glory (Romans 3:23). Thus, we are all in the same position, and none of us, no matter how good we may appear relative to other humans, has any grounds for arrogance or selfishness. Everything we have is a gift, and those who have more are not any more deserving of it than those who have less. Indeed: “from he who is given much, much will be expected” (Luke 12:48).

The true antidote to a judgmental and vindictive attitude is not Naturalism but the Judeo-Christian claim that we are created in the image of God.

The Logical Fallacies of Materialist Morality

This was first posted in April 2005, the Internet Archive retains a copy here, including some important discussion in the comments. This is by no means my favorite post (I include it mainly for the sake of its follow-up), but it does make some important points about Christianity, Naturalism, and the possibility of objective morality:

I’ve got nothing but respect for Tom Clark’s willingness to engage in open debate on the merits of Naturalism in forums like this, which are so obviously hostile to his viewpoint, but his position is simply untenable. In his response to Denyse O’Leary’s brief criticism of the Center for Naturalism, Clark attempts to defend Naturalism’s (or Materialism’s) ability to preserve a full-blooded morality apart from “controversial and unverifiable metaphysical facts about the nature of human action,” apparently not noticing that Naturalism itself fits into that category just as easily as any form of theism. In support, he points to two articles from the aforementioned Center (“Materialism and Morality: The Problem with Pinker” and “The Moral Levitation of David Brooks”) and an external article by Joshua Greene and Jonathan Cohen [Sorry! the article is no longer available – such is the transitory nature of the internet!].

All three articles make approximately the same point, though the first and especially the third in far greater detail than the second. The point he seems to be trying to draw from them is summarized nicely at the end of “The Moral Levitation”: “if we can demonstrate that moral responsibility survives determinism, and moreover requires it, then perhaps the fear-based objections to a naturalistic understanding of ourselves can be overcome” (emphasis original). In other words, his argument is:

1. Materialism implies hard determinism,
2. Hard determinism is consistent with (or even required for) moral responsibility,
3. Therefore, Materialism is consistent with moral responsibility.

Put in this way, it is not hard to see that this argument violates a basic rule of logic known as "Affirming the Consequent." Consider a similar example [note: I regret this example and would prefer to remove it, but the point I draw from it is valid and important to what follows, so I'll retain it.]:

1. Tom Clark is a human being,
2. Humanity is consistent with (or even required for) femininity,
3. Therefore, Tom Clark is a woman.

Both arguments fail for exactly the same reason: just as Tom can be a human being without being a woman, so Materialism can imply hard determinism without being consistent with moral responsibility. Why? Because there is more to being Tom Clark than there is to being human, and there is more to Materialism than just hard determinism. Moreover, hard determinism, even if true, does not require Materialism, for it is also consistent with Supernaturalism (just ask any Calvinist!). Thus, even if it is true that hard determinism is consistent with, or even required by, moral responsibility, it still would not follow that Materialism is consistent with moral responsibility. (And obviously it would do nothing at all to prove whether or not Materialism is actually true; though, to be fair, this is not what Clark is trying to prove at the moment!)

In reality, this entire argument is a red herring. The real argument has nothing to do with free will and determinism but with the possibility of a binding Moral Law, yet neither Clark nor the articles he links even attempt to justify how Naturalism can provide such a thing. They only attempt to show that, given a moral law, hard determinism (unfairly equated with Materialism) does not prevent us from holding those who break it responsible. Yet if Naturalism is true, then it needs to do more than just maintain a morality that has been handed down to it by the traditional religions it has debunked; it needs to provide its own morality without appealing to any supernatural authority.

Clark does not attempt to do this, but the articles he links do imply Naturalism’s only possible response: In “Materialism and Morality” we read: “Our basic, neurally-embodied desires and preferences, bequeathed us by nature and fine-tuned by culture, constitute us as moral creatures; they determine what we hold to be right and wrong” (emphasis original). In other words, our understanding of right and wrong (our “moral compass”) is, like everything else, a product of our environmental and social conditioning, inherited through our genes and society (for a similar conclusion, see the end of Greene and Cohen’s article [again, sorry!]). And truly, no other answer is available to the Naturalist, for Naturalism denies a priori that anything beyond those proximate causes exists---Nature is all there is.

But it should come as no surprise that this description of the origin of morality is identical with his description of what causes immoral behavior: “The killing of a child, for instance, would be no less bad or wrong in a world in which actions were the natural falling out of various circumstances rather than the result of free will.” So, the killer’s actions are “wrong” despite the fact that they are the natural result of his circumstances, and our moral outrage is “right” despite the fact that it is the natural result of our circumstances! But if naturalism is true, then such distinctions are entirely meaningless, for the very definition of Naturalism is that “Nothing about us escapes being included in the physical universe, or escapes being shaped by the various processes---physical, biological, psychological, and social---that science describes,” and if nothing escapes that influence, then all judgments of right and wrong are equally dependent upon our environment and therefore indistinguishable.

Why should my belief that killing a child is “wrong” have any more authority than the killer’s belief that it is acceptable? Unless there is some standard---something above both of us to tell us what we should value (whether we actually do or not)---then we are at an impasse. I can say: “more people agree with me than with you, and if you don’t stop, we will force you to,” but I can’t say: “I’m right and you’re wrong, and therefore I am justified in forcing you to stop.” No human can be justified that their view of right and wrong is itself right or wrong, unless there is something above all humans against which those judgments can be compared. If Naturalism is true, no such thing exists, for nothing exists beyond nature.

The point is simple---either there is a standard of right and wrong that stands above nature and therefore has the right to judge between the different ways that nature is (e.g., the different ways that we are), or there is not. If there is not, as Naturalism unabashedly declares, then all morality is relative; if there is, then Naturalism is false. That is why Naturalism is “inconsistent with morality” (a better way to put it would be “incapable of providing a standard of morality”), and the debate over free will and determinism is a separate issue altogether.

Points to Ponder - The Problem of Pain

Different ages excelled in different virtues. If, then, you are ever tempted to think that we modern Western Europeans cannot really be so very bad because we are, comparatively speaking, humane - if, in other words, you think God might be content with us on that ground - ask yourself whether you think God ought to have been content with the cruelty of cruel ages because they excelled in courage or chastity. From considering how the cruelty of our ancestors looks to us, you may get some inkling how our softness, worldliness, and timidity would have looked to them, and hence how both must look to God.

C.S. Lewis The Problem of Pain, pg. 58 (Harper Collins)

Points to Ponder – The Brothers Karamazov

I am sorry to say, this is true of me more often than I would like to admit:

The more I love humanity in general the less I love man in particular. In my dreams, I often make plans for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually face crucifixion if it were suddenly necessary. Yet I am incapable of living in the same room with anyone for two days together. I know from experience. As soon as anyone is near me, his personality disturbs me and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he’s too long over his dinner, another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I hate men individually the more I love humanity.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Hell is Other People

G.K. Chesterton (whom, as my masthead suggests, I’m liable to quote rather often) once claimed that Original Sin is “the only part of Christian theology that can really be proved.” Criticizing the modern tendency to reject this doctrine, he argues:

The strongest saints and the strongest skeptics alike took positive evil as the starting-point of their argument. If it be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious philosopher can only draw one of two deductions. He must either deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny the present union between God and man, as all Christians do. The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat. (Orthodoxy, p. 19)

How anyone can look at our world and claim that the average human is “basically good” is beyond me, but however indisputable, the universality of human evil remains an exceptionally difficult doctrine. If God is just, how can it be that he punishes us for the sins of our forebears? So what if our ancestors sinned, why should that affect us?

And yet, could it really have been otherwise? Theoretically, perhaps, God could have created a world of isolated individuals each with no power to harm another, but such would have been more like a cosmic prison than a good creation. As soon as God choose to create a world of freedom and society, he accepted the risk that we would use that freedom to destroy that society, and one another.

This leads to an alternate understanding of the concept of Original Sin. Such is not an arbitrary punishment God imposed on us because of our ancestors’ rebellion, as though he were spitefully getting back at our parents by cursing us. Not at all.

The doctrine of Original Sin instead recognizes the obvious truth that our actions as individuals always impact the society in which we live, the society in which our children are born. Our children are “born into sin,” not because God creates them sinful, but precisely because they are born into a community of sinful people – selfish people, prideful people, prejudiced people, people like you and me.

And that is why the fall of our ancient forebears was such a disaster, for it established a culture of sin which affects all aspects of human society. Such was the cost of the gift of freedom, such is the dark side of community.

Dawkins' Fawlty Logic

As I begin this new blog, it seems appropriate to highlight a few of the best posts I've written for Signs of the Times. On that note, here is one of my favorites, Dawkins' Fawlty Logic:

Every year, Edge magazine asks numerous people of interest a single question (HT: Telic Thoughts). This year's question: "What is your dangerous idea?" Richard Dawkins' answer: Determinism.

Not very unique, I know, but his explanation is noteworthy. According to him, "science" has dismantled the illusion of free will by reducing us to the blind interactions of our physical particles.

The result? A fantastic British comedy, apparently:

Basil Fawlty, British television's hotelier from hell created by the immortal John Cleese, was at the end of his tether when his car broke down and wouldn't start. He gave it fair warning, counted to three, gave it one more chance, and then acted. "Right! I warned you. You've had this coming to you!" He got out of the car, seized a tree branch and set about thrashing the car within an inch of its life. Of course we laugh at his irrationality. Instead of beating the car, we would investigate the problem. Is the carburettor flooded? Are the sparking plugs or distributor points damp? Has it simply run out of gas? Why do we not react in the same way to a defective man: a murderer, say, or a rapist? Why don't we laugh at a judge who punishes a criminal, just as heartily as we laugh at Basil Fawlty?

[D]oesn't a truly scientific, mechanistic view of the nervous system make nonsense of the very idea of responsibility, whether diminished or not? Any crime, however heinous, is in principle to be blamed on antecedent conditions acting through the accused's physiology, heredity and environment. Don't judicial hearings to decide questions of blame or diminished responsibility make as little sense for a faulty man as for a Fawlty car?

Dawkins’ is right about one thing: this truly is a dangerous idea. But he is quite mistaken about where that danger lies. He only sees in it an end to retributive justice, but much more is at stake than that.

Consider: Basil becomes so angry at his car precisely because it was not doing what it was supposed to. Yet cars can only be "faulty" because they are built for a purpose. A rock cannot be faulty; it can only be itself, for it was not made for any purpose. But according to Dawkins, people are more like rocks than cars. Their design is only apparent, not real, and they have no more purpose than a rock does (nor are they any more capable of determining their own behavior than a rock is).

But in that case, we have not only thrown out moral responsibility, we have also thrown out morality itself. We have not just destroyed the justification for punishing crime, we have also destroyed justification itself. All actions would then be just as right as all others (and just as wrong, since these words lose all meaning), and it is no longer possible to call anything faulty.

Ironically, while such a view wouldn’t prevent anyone from punishing a criminal for their "sins" (any more than it stops Basil from beating his car), it would prevent anyone from rehabilitating the criminal. For you can’t rehabilitate a man unless you have some idea of what man is supposed to be, and this is precisely what Dawkins has declared to be impossible for the science-savy to accept.

If we carried this Fawlty logic to its end, Basil would not only be irrational for beating his car, he would be irrational even to think there was a problem with it. No wonder Dawkins finds it unlikely that even he "shall ever reach that level of enlightenment."