Are evangelical Christians less interested in religious liberty than Catholics?

From First Things.

Excerpt:

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has responded vigorously to the restrictive and unworkable “conscience regulations” being imposed on health care providers by the Obama Administration’s Health and Human Services (HHS) Department. The Catholic Archdiocese for Military Service has said “no” to allowing priests in the Armed Forces perform homosexual “weddings,” now that the historic prohibition on homosexuals in the military has been lifted. And most recently, eighteen Catholic colleges and universities banded together and, through the Alliance Defense Fund, submitted comments to HHS citing a violation of religious freedom regarding the interim final rules on preventative services.

We applaud the efforts of America’s Catholic leadership in defense of religious liberty. But we do so with a certain measure of consternation. As Evangelical Protestants, we wonder: Why is organized Evangelicalism so silent?

Where is the National Association of Evangelicals?

Where is the (Evangelical) Council for Christian Colleges and Universities?

Where are the editorials and feature articles in Evangelical publications?

At a time when our religious liberty is being eroded by an Administration that insists on forcing its anti-Christian policies on American public life, why are so many of our leaders shuffling their feet and staring at the ground?

[...]Every Christian school in the nation that offers insurance to its employees or students will be affected by the 2010 health care law—as schools like the University of Dallas, Franciscan University of Steubenville, and Ave Maria University immediately recognized. While Evangelicalism does not have specific teachings on contraception in the way that the Catholic Church does, no Christian organization in the United States should be comfortable with the requirement that insurance must cover abortions. Since that is the intention of the Obama administration, why are Evangelical Protestant colleges and universities, and Evangelical leaders generally, not speaking out? Why are they not joining with Catholic leaders and institutions in opposition to these anti-religious liberty measures?

I try to talk about these issues on my blog, but I agree that evangelicals are disengaged. Evangelicals are the most conservative voters, but we have to do more than vote Republican. We have to think about these issues between elections. We have to vote in primaries. We have to knock on doors. We have to write blog posts and editorials. We have to get advanced degrees. We have to get involved in the debate. It’s not enough to have the right opinion, we have to be convincing.

Filed under: Commentary, Catholic, Conscience, Evangelical, Evangelicalism, Freedom of Religion, Protestant, Religious Liberty

Michael Licona responds to Al Mohler on Matthew 27

Mike Licona's new book on Jesus' resurrection: buy it!

Here’s Michael Licona’s response to Al Mohler’s disapproval of his historical analysis of Matthew 27.

Full text:

Because I am leaving the country today and must attend to last minute preparations, brevity is required. I am grateful to Dr. Mohler for his kind remarks pertaining to both me and my book, which has recently raised quite a bit of controversy in certain evangelical circles. Although I disagree with much of what he has asserted pertaining to my treatment of the raised saints in Matthew 27:52-53, one should not doubt my respect for him and gratitude for the contributions he has made for the cause of Christ and to the Southern Baptist Convention.

An accurate interpretation of a particular biblical text is assisted by an accurate understanding of the cultural milieu in which it was written. It is unfortunate that this does not appear to be a practice of my detractors Drs. Mohler and Geisler. Their judgment that an incompatibility exists between the doctrine of biblical inerrancy and interpreting Matthew’s raised saints at Jesus’ -death as apocalyptic symbols—or even to consider this interpretation as a viable way of understanding what Matthew was communicating (which is my present position)—without engaging in a thorough and sophisticated discussion of the milieu in which Matthew wrote is quite premature.

Dr. Mohler asks, “What could one possibly find in the Greco-Roman literature that would either validate or invalidate the status of this report as historical fact?” This is the wrong question. For it presupposes that Matthew intends the report of the raised saints to be understood as a historical event. So, the first question one should ask is how Matthew intended for his readers to understand this text. If he intended for us to regard the raised saints as apocalyptic symbols, then Drs. Mohler and Geisler are mistaken when regarding them as “historical fact.” It is only IF one can determine after an exhaustive study that Matthew intended for us to regard the raised saints as an event that occurred in space-time that Dr. Mohler could legitimately claim that the Greco-Roman literature offers nothing to assist us toward a correct interpretation of the text. Instead, Drs. Mohler and Geisler have pre-determined what the text means. But it is Scripture that is inerrant. Thus, we must be careful not to canonize our interpretation of Scripture so that we come to believe that it, too, is inerrant.

Article XX of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics states,

“We affirm that since God is the author of all truth, all truths, biblical and extrabiblical, are consistent and cohere, and that the Bible speaks truth when it touches on matters pertaining to nature, history, or anything else.WE FURTHER AFFIRM THAT IN SOME CASES EXTRABIBLICAL DATA HAVE VALUE FOR CLARIFYING WHAT SCRIPTURE TEACHES, AND FOR PROMPTING CORRECTION OF FAULTY INTERPRETATIONS [emphasis mine]. We deny that extrabiblical views ever disprove the teaching of Scripture or hold priority over it.”

Thus, the Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics asserts that extrabiblical data can assist us in clarifying what Matthew is teaching and correct faulty interpretations.

We find a similar statement in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy:

“We affirm that canonical Scripture should always be interpreted on the basis that it is infallible and inerrant. However, in determining what the God-taught writer is asserting in each passage, we must pay the most careful attention to its claims and character as a human production. In inspiration, GOD UTILIZED THE CULTURE AND CONVENTIONS OF HIS PENMAN’S MILIEU, A MILIEU THAT GOD CONTROLS IN HIS SOVERIGN PROVIDENCE; IT IS MISINTERPRETATION TO IMAGINE OTHERWISE [emphasis mine].

“So history must be treated as history, poetry as poetry, hyperbole and metaphor as hyperbole and metaphor, generalization and approximation as what they are, and so forth. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN LITERARY CONVENTIONS IN BIBLE TIMES AND IN OURS MUST ALSO BE OBSERVED” [emphasis mine].

Thus, the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy asserts that an inattention to the culture and literary conventions in Bible times could lead to a misinterpretation of the biblical text.

Examples in the extrabiblical literature of phenomena similar to the raised saints in Matthew 27 may provide insights pertaining to how Matthew intended for us to interpret his raised saints. When we study the literary conventions in Bible times, we identify specific language in the Greco-Roman (Virgil, Dio Cassius, Plutarch), Jewish (Josephus) and biblical (Matthew 24, Acts 2) literature that may be employed to accent an event believed to have cosmic or even divine significance. Thus, when I noticed what might be similar language in Matthew 27:52-53, the interpretive possibility I proposed in my book emerged. Couldn’t the same be said 2,000 years from now pertaining to a proper interpretation of a text in which it was asserted that “the events of 9/11 were earth-shaking” while others may wrongly interpret the statement “Hell will freeze over before Ahmadinejad converts to Christianity” as a prophecy of two events rather than as a statement of enormous improbability?

The charge that I have “dehistoricized” the text is also problematic, since it likewise presupposes that Matthew intended the raised saints to be understood as historical. But what if he intended for them to be understood as apocalyptic symbols? It would then be misguided to “historicize” them. This would be little different than regarding as historical the seven-headed great red dragon in Revelation 12:3-4 whose tail sweeps up a third of the stars and casts them to earth. I regard this description as entirely symbolic and that to regard it as a real space monster would be to “historicize” the text.

The text in Matthew 27:52-53 has puzzled many New Testament scholars for years and will continue to do so. I remain puzzled but continue to seek a better understanding of what Matthew intended to communicate here. The calls of Drs. Geisler and Mohler for me to retract my opinion that it is possible Matthew intended for his readers to understand the raised saints in Matthew 27:52-53 as apocalyptic symbols is not helpful. Instead, such premature calls stifle scholarship and authentic quests for truth. I will be happy to retract my opinion once I am convinced that Matthew’s authorial intent was to communicate that the raised saints are to be understood as an event that occurred in space-time. So far, I have found the arguments offered by Drs. Geisler and Mohler to be unpersuasive and misguided.

I am grateful to the Southeastern Theological Review for their invitation to participate in a roundtable discussion on the meaning of this text and whether the solution I proposed in my recent book is compatible with the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. It is their desire to publish that discussion within the next 60 days. I will reserve my defense and further criticisms for that discussion and want to express my gratitude to the many who have sent words of support and to those who have written in my defense on the web. It is sad—and perhaps telling—that they have been ignored by Drs. Mohler and Geisler, since some of their arguments are quite good.

Below, I outline some problems I have with Al Mohler attacking anyone about anything.

Opinions not confirmed by evidence

There are degrees of understanding topics based on what sort of learning you have done to understand them. Reading about how to replace an engine is one thing, but replacing an engine is a completely different level of knowledge. Michael Licona has actually had to read a lot of history that he disagrees with, and to write papers that were peer-reviewed, and to defend his views with opposing scholars in formal academic debates. Al Mohler hasn’t done nearly as much of that, especially the debating. And that tells me something about Al Mohler. You see, the danger with not having to prepare for debates with your opponents is that you don’t really know whether what you say you believe is actually true. Everything sounds good to a person before they are cross-examined.

For example, take the existence of God. Al Mohler believes in a Creator, but he is a young-Earth creationist. Young-Earth creationism is completely unsupported by scientific evidence, although evidence could emerge to support it in the future. However, the cosmology that most scientists support today, the Big Bang cosmology, supports the existence of God as Creator, because it requires that a non-material agent outside of time brings space, matter, energy and time into being out of nothing. Now, Mohler can write column after column assuming that God exists – we all agree on that – but he will never know that God exists from cosmology, because he doesn’t believe that cosmology provides us with reliable evidence. He couldn’t make an argument for his view that God created the universe out of nothing using science. So he has a belief in a Creator, but not knowledge.

On the other hand, Christian scholars make a case for God’s existence based on mainstream cosmology that confounds atheists in public debates. I submit that people who understand mainstream cosmology and use it in debates have gone beyond mere opinion about God’s existence and into knowledge of God’s existence, based on scientific evidence from experiments. Mohler is in the opinion stage – he doesn’t know that God created the universe, based on scientific evidence. And similarly with history. When involved in disputers with historians who have studied and debated, he is at a disadvantage. He may have beliefs, but those beliefs might be in conflict with the evidence. It doesn’t bother him that he is in conflict with the evidence, but it shows us that it is at least possible that he makes claims without knowing whether they are true or not.

Preaching to the choir instead of persuading opponents

When you take a look at Al Mohler’s writings, it seems to me that he just compares his views to other people who disagree with him, and then he shuns the other people, and urges people who have the same preferences as he does to shun them, too. He doesn’t make factual arguments against the people with whom he disagrees. Let’s see some specific posts.

In this column, Mohler argues that a church should sanction an atheist pastor. We agree on that. Atheists should not be pastors. But does Al Mohler know how to argue against atheists? His response to the atheist pastor problem is to urge churches to expel him by force. He doesn’t urge them to get better at debating with atheists, and he doesn’t suggest that they try to persuade the atheist. He doesn’t mention any arguments to defend theism, or to defeat atheism. He has an opinion, and when he finds someone with a different view, he just shuns that person and urges others to shun them as well. He doesn’t seem to know how to use evidence one way or the other to decide what is true.

In this column, he disagrees with abortion. We agree on that. But again, in this column, he doesn’t try to make a case against abortion, or to urge his readers to learn how to make a case against abortion. He just shuns the bad abortionists without arguing against the pro-abortion view. He has nothing to say to persuade those who disagree with him. He just shuns them, and urges people who have the same preferences as he does to shun them too.

In another column, he disagrees with same-sex marriage. We agree on that. But he doesn’t discuss why same-sex marriage is wrong. He just expects that everyone reading will agree with his opinions. He just wants to say that it’s not OUR thing, it’s THEIR thing, and then shun it. He doesn’t talk about the purpose of marriage, or the needs of children for mothers and fathers, or the demographic crisis, or the dangers of the gay lifestyle, or anything. He just stays at the surface level of mere disagreement without reasons.

And in this column, he surveys the opinions of theistic evolutionists. Again, I agree with him on that. But he presents no positive, evidence-based case evolution is false, or that there was a literal Adam and Eve. He doesn’t talk about mitochondrial Eve or Y-chromosome Adam, or intelligent design, or fossils or any evidence at all. He talks about how theistic evolution is troubling, without giving any scientific arguments against it.

I call his writing style “fundamentalist hand-wringing”. I AM a fundamentalist, but I don’t whine and wring my hands and complain that things are changing and urge retreat and shunning of other views. His columns are always addressed to Christians, urging us to shun the other, and providing us with no reasons or evidence to buttress our own views as being true, or providing us with neutral arguments and evidence to show our opponents why their views are false.

In case you are wondering what my posts look like compared to his, here is a post against atheism, a post against abortion, a post against same-sex marriage, and a post against theistic evolution. And I write lots of posts like those ones, filled with new studies, new research, new evidence, debates and arguments – all the time! With evidence like this, you don’t have to shun your opponent – you can take them out to lunch and try to persuade them that you are right. I try to write about issues using evidence that NON-CHRISTIANS would find persuasive. I don’t just wring my hands and say “woe is us! woe is us!”. Even though I agree with Mohler on his conclusions practically across the board, I wish he would try to be more convincing to people who don’t agree with him by using actual evidence. One thing is for sure – he isn’t qualified to make statements about the way the world is, because all he has is opinions without reasons.

His disagreement with Licona is just his opinion

So we’ve seen that Mohler basically does the same thing over and over. He expresses an opinion. He has not studied anything in detail. He doesn’t do debates with other scholars. He just wants to disagree with others and then shun them – without explaining why he is right or why they are wrong.

Here are some words that Mohler uses to describe Licona’s argument:

• shocking
• disastrous
• greatest concern
• deeply troubling
• very troubling
• disappointing in the extreme

That’s it. That’s his entire argument against Licona. He has nothing persuasive to say, except “Oh noes! Oh noes!” like some sort of low-self-esteem spook worried about becoming irrelevant. If Mohler wants people to take him seriously, then maybe he should do some research of his own and publish a rebuttal to Licona, instead of using scare quotes and smear tactics (the Robert Gundry story he trots out). A threat is not an argument. A smear is not a refutation.

And by the way, I have very conservative views on things like God creating the animals directly, non-material souls, a literal, eternal Hell with active tormenting and real flames, and a literal Adam and Eve, and so on. I’m sure Licona does, too. Conservatism is not the issue. The issue is what the author of Matthew meant to convey in that passage. If what Matthew intended to convey is apocalyptic imagery, then that is the literal, conservative interpretation.

Finally, consider a different scenario. Gary Habermas is at least as conservative as Al Mohler, but I do think that if HE disagreed with Licona then that would be worth listening to – and they could even have a debate about whether Matthew was using the styles of the authors of his time, which allow for this apocalyptic imagery. Because that would be a debate about historical concerns, not opinions.

Learn more about Dr. Licona

Here is Dr. Licona’s web site. I have an autographed copy of Mike’s new book, and I bought another one for reading. I highly, highly recommend this book, but for students who have read an introductory book on the resurrection first. Here is the best introductory book on the resurrection of Jesus, authored by Michael Licona and Gary Habermas. Both books I would say are essential for anyone who claims to be a mature Christian. These are required reading.

If you would like to hear Michael in a debate with skeptical scholar Bart Ehrman, click here for the playlist. This is their 2nd debate, and Michael pwns Bart.

Filed under: Commentary, Apocalyptic Imagery, Biblical Inerrancy, Christianity, Earthquake, Evangelicalism, Genre, Gospel of Matthew, History, Imagery, Josephus, Literal History, Matthew, Michael Licona, Resurrection of the Saints

Michael Licona on the resurrection of the saints in Matthew 27

Mike Licona's new book on Jesus' resurrection: buy it!

Michael Licona, in his awesome must-read book on the resurrection, argues that the earthquake and resurrection of the saints story is probably not historical, but is instead apocalyptic imagery. Norman Geisler, another Christian apologist, disagreed with this view publicly, claiming that it compromises inerrancy. Must we accept that the earthquake and resurrection of the saints is real history in order to be inerrantists?

I got permission from Michael to post this Facebook note verbatim.

Full text:

Norman Geisler has taken issue with a portion of my recent book, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach, in which I proposed that the story of the raised saints in Matthew 27:52-53 should probably be interpreted as apocalyptic imagery rather than literal history. In response, Dr. Geisler has offered strong criticisms in two Open Letters to me on the Internet. Until now I have been unable to comment because I have multiple writing deadlines, two September debates in South Africa for which to prepare, and, consequently, no time to be drawn into what would probably turn into an endless debate. I shared these first two reasons with Dr. Geisler in an email several weeks ago. Yet he insisted that I “give careful and immediate attention” to the matter. I simply could not do this and fulfill the pressing obligations of my ministry, which is my higher priority before the Lord.

Dr. Geisler questions whether I still hold to biblical inerrancy. I want to be clear that I continue to affirm this evangelical distinctive. My conclusion in reference to the raised saints in Matthew 27 was based upon my analysis of the genre of the text. This was not an attempt to wiggle out from under the burden of an inerrant text; it was an attempt to respect the text by seeking to learn what Matthew was trying to communicate. This is responsible hermeneutical practice. Any reasonable doctrine of biblical inerrancy must respect authorial intent rather than predetermine it.

When writing a sizable book, there will always be portions in which one could have articulated a matter more appropriately. And those portions, I suppose, will often be located outside the primary thesis of the book, such as the one on which Dr. Geisler has chosen to focus. When writing my book, I always regarded the entirety of Matthew 27 as historical narrative containing apocalyptic allusions. I selected the term “poetic” in order to allude to similar phenomena in the Greco-Roman literature in general and Virgil in particular. However, since Matthew is a Jew writing to Jews, “apocalyptic” may be the most appropriate technical term, while “special effects” communicates the gist on a popular level.

Further research over the last year in the Greco-Roman literature has led me to reexamine the position I took in my book. Although additional research certainly remains, at present I am just as inclined to understand the narrative of the raised saints in Matthew 27 as a report of a factual (i.e., literal) event as I am to view it as an apocalyptic symbol. It may also be a report of a real event described partially in apocalyptic terms. I will be pleased to revise the relevant section in a future edition of my book.

Michael R. Licona, Ph.D.

August 31, 2011

And then there is this addendum to the letter:

We the undersigned are aware of the above stated position by Dr. Michael Licona, including his present position pertaining to the report of the raised saints in Matthew 27: He proposes that the report may refer to a literal/historical event, a real event partially described in apocalyptic terms, or an apocalyptic symbol. Though most of us do not hold Licona’s proposal, we are in firm agreement that it is compatible with biblical inerrancy, despite objections to the contrary. We are encouraged to see the confluence of biblical scholars, historians, and philosophers in this question.

It has come to my attention that this matter may become a political/theological hot potato. The scholars on the list have stood with me. It was not my intent to amass a huge list. It was my intent to demonstrate that a significant number of the most highly respected evangelical scholars, all of whom are members of ETS, see no incompatibility between the position I took in my book and the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. The list has served its purpose. I have no desire to be the cause of pressure brought on those who have stood with me or on their academic institutions. Therefore, I have decided to remove the list of names for the present time at least. In no case, did an institution demand that their professors withdraw their names.

A number of scholars have suggested that this discussion is better played out in the theatre of an academic forum. I could not agree more! Southeastern Theological Review (STR) has offered to host a ‘virtual’ roundtable discussion involving several significant scholars commenting on my book. A main subject of this roundtable will be the raising of the dead saints in Matthew 27:52-53. This roundtable discussion(s) will be posted on the STR web site and will precede a full journal devoted to my book in the Summer 2012 edition of STR.

[UPDATE: Originally, Dr. Licona had included a list of incredibly conservative evangelical scholars but then asked for the names to be withdrawn, and replaced with the two paragraphs above.]

My take

I think that Matthew is using apocalyptic imagery in Matthew 27. I also think that if the event was historical, then it would have been recorded by Josephus or other historians. And I hold to inerrancy.

Dr. Licona is hardly a squish on doctrine, so I don’t think it was nice for Dr. Geisler to attack him in public like that. Bringing additional facts to a debate is permissible, but attacking someone like Dr. Licona over inerrancy is personal. Frankly if I had to choose who is making a bigger impact for Christ at this time, I would choose Dr. Licona. I haven’t read anything by Dr. Geisler in about a decade, nor has he been in any debates recently that I am aware of. I would not recommend his work either.

Learn more about Dr. Licona

Here is Dr. Licona’s web site. I have an autographed copy of Mike’s new book, and I bought another one for reading. I highly, highly recommend this book, but for students who have read an introductory book on the resurrection first. Here is the best introductory book on the resurrection of Jesus, authored by Michael Licona and Gary Habermas. Both books I would say are essential for anyone who claims to be a mature Christian. These are required reading.

If you would like to hear Michael in a debate with skeptical scholar Bart Ehrman, click here for the playlist. This is their 2nd debate, and Michael pwns Bart.

Filed under: Commentary, Apocalyptic Imagery, Biblical Inerrancy, Christianity, Earthquake, Evangelicalism, Genre, Gospel of Matthew, History, Imagery, Josephus, Literal History, Matthew, Michael Licona, Resurrection of the Saints

What my relationship with God is like

I regularly take my non-Christian co-workers and friends out for lunch to check on how their worldviews are coming along, and last week a comment I made at the table seemed to really get one friend’s attention. (The last time I got his attention like this, I had said that the example of Jesus’ life is instructive for us because it shows that it is OK to suffer for doing the right thing, and that it is not God’s job to save you in this life. Life isn’t about happiness. It’s about suffering for your allegiance to God). I can always tell when I hit a nerve because the person repeats what I said back to me.

So anyway, this time I said “When it comes to God, there are only two kinds of people. The first kind wants a real relationship with the real God who is there, even if this involves self-denial, self-sacrifice, and suffering. The second kind doesn’t want a relationship with God – they want to be happy in this life and invent new standards of meaning and morality based on their personal preferences that justifies their selfishness.” The context was that I was talking about how I was changing my mother’s approach to religious questions.

So, here’s how a relationship with God might develop, based partly on my experiences:

1. You start off as a non-Christian with no interest in God.
2. You attend to your regular life first by studying, working, eating, sleeping, etc.. Eventually, your situation is secure and comfortable enough that you begin to ask yourself the big questions in life. Does God exist? Is morality real? What is the purpose if life?
3. You take some of your free recreation time and try to investigate these questions. This would involve studying world religions, science and history to determine which religion best satisfies the laws of logic and the facts in the external world.
4. You decide God exists because of the cosmological and moral arguments, and you decide that Jesus is authoritative because of the historical case for the resurrection of Jesus.
5. You realize you are in full rebellion against God and cannot hope to change this rebellion short of being “born again”, which would involve getting forgiveness and undergoing a radical re-prioritization of your life goals. You accept the sacrifice of Christ on the cross as payment for your sins.
6. You scour the New Testament and theology books to find out more about what the character of God is really like, and you test everything you discover against the Bible, church history and the works of solid Christian scholars.
7. You read about characters in the Bible like Caleb, Daniel, Joshua, Paul. You say to yourself “other people aren’t always happy when you stick up for God” and “God doesn’t always make everything work out for you in this life, when you obey him”.
8. You start to get a feel for what God is like. There is no talking to God or hearing from God, or emotional highs during worship. You learn more by reading more about him and talk to people who are stronger Christians. You learn what he likes, what he doesn’t like. You begin to appreciate that God is different from you. You realize that God is trying to change you, which scares you a little. You say yes to God more and more, just because he is so interested in you, and because he is so intent on trying to change you. For some reason, his demands don’t seem to be too objectionable, and there is always forgiveness when you fail.
9. You find that it is easier and easier to stick to moral rules in the New Testament, because of the sympathy you have for God. You are less and less interested in trying to achieve happiness in the here and now. Things you used to like doing don’t seem to be as interesting as things that you do as part of your relationship with God. You find that opportunities to do things relevant to your relationship with God become more frequent.
10. You talk to non-Christians about God and realize that no one else is interested in whether God exists, or what he is like. You have less and less sympathy for other people and their selfish desire to be happy. You feel less and less pressure to change what you believe to make these other people comfortable – after all, they lost every argument with you since they have no arguments or evidence. You  wonder why other people don’t investigate these things rigorously, instead of just trying to be happy all the time. They are busy doing other things.
11. Sometimes, the worldly success of non-Christians makes you feel inadequate. They have more time for getting ahead because they don’t take any time out for a relationship with God. But you stick with God anyway, and try to encourage these non-Christians to devote more time and effort to developing their worldview more carefully. You keep trying to love these other people, and tell them the truth with reasons and evidence, but the more they rebel against God, the more you find the doctrine of Hell is acceptable to you.
12. You start making a long-term plan about something you want to achieve for God, e.g. – you plan to get two Ph.Ds in Physics and Philosophy from Stanford and Oxford, learn to debate like William Lane Craig, and defeat Richard Dawkins in a public debate, thus dealing atheism a blow from which it will never recover. (My actual plan is described here) This plan isn’t just dull stuff like following the ten commandments and other moral rules. This is different. This is you planning out something completely new. Your plan is consistent with Bible, but it goes beyond the rules. It’s not a private plan. It’s not meant to make you feel happy. It’s a public plan. It’s designed to be effective.
13. You love your plan. You smile, laugh and whistle a lot everywhere you go because you are so excited about your plan. People think you are very happy, but you actually feel sad, lonely and worried about being silenced or persecuted by the secular left. The plan is a lot of work, and you could do a much better job of pursuing happiness if you just dropped the whole thing. But you don’t.
14. Your entire family and most of your friends, including other Christians, don’t recognize or value your plan. The Church opposes you at every turn, thinking that Christianity is about ignoring apologetics and theology, and making non-Christians feel happy about their rebellion against God. You notice that not everyone approves of your priorities, but you keep going with your plan anyway.
15. You test to see if God is interested in supporting your plan by taking some small steps and watching to see if you are successful. You are successful, but progress is very slow.
16. You give up more and more of your happiness and selfishness as you work steadily on your plan. You face opposition from non-Christians who attack you in the academy and the workplace. You face opposition from fake Christians who vote for laws and policies that rob you of your wealth and your rights, including the rights of free speech and religious liberty. Everyone who knows you well likes you, but they don’t really seriously seek after God. People who don’t know know you well sometimes persecute you because they are offended by your disagreement with them.
17. You only achieve a tiny measure of what you set out to do before dying.
18. On the day of Judgment, you get a resurrection body and eternal life with your best Friend. The appearance of your resurrection body reflects the plan that you chose, and everyone in Heaven recognizes you at last. You meet all the people who helped you. And you meet all the people who you helped. It turns out that you had an impact far beyond what you had thought when you were alive.
19. Every sacrifice that you made on Earth that seemed so terrible to bear is repaid by God many time over in ways you could never imagine.
20. Finally, for the first time in your life, you are truly happy.

Does this sound like you? If it does, then we’re on the same battlefield. Put your back to mine and let’s stand together.

But the Consul’s brow was sad, and the Consul’s speech was low,
And darkly looked he at the wall, and darkly at the foe.
“Their van will be upon us before the bridge goes down;
And if they once might win the bridge, what hope to save the town?”

Then out spoke brave Horatius, the Captain of the Gate:
“To every man upon this earth, death cometh soon or late;
And how can man die better than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods,

And for the tender mother who dandled him to rest,
And for the wife who nurses his baby at her breast,
And for the holy maidens who feed the eternal flame,
To save them from false Sextus, that wrought the deed of shame?

Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, with all the speed ye may!
I, with two more to help me, will hold the foe in play.
In yon strait path, a thousand may well be stopped by three:
Now, who will stand on either hand and keep the bridge with me?

Here are some lectures that helped me to form my views about the Christian life. My testimony is here.

Filed under: Mentoring, Apologetics, Bible, Christ, Christian, Christian Life, Christian Living, Christianity, Discipleship, Evangelicalism, Evangelism, Evil, Following Jesus, Goal, God, Hell, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Judgment Day, Meaning, Meaning in Life, Moral Duties, Moral Values, Morality, Plan, Purpose, Relationship, Relationship with God, Suffering, Theology

Is the concept of moral obligation intelligible on atheistic materialism?

Commenter ECM sent me this post from Uncommon Descent about the is-ought fallacy, and the difficulties that atheists have grounding morality on worldview in which only material things exist. The post is written by Barry Arrington. He is summarizes an argument based on some of the comments from an earlier post.

Barry introduces two assumptions:

(1) That atheistic naturalism is true.

(2) One can’t infer an “ought” from an “is.” Richard Dawkins and many other atheists should grant both of these assumptions.

Given our second assumption, there is nothing in the natural world from which we can infer an “ought.” And given our first assumption, there is nothing that exists over and above the natural world; the natural world is all that there is. It follows logically that, for any action you care to pick, there’s nothing in the natural world from which we can infer that one ought to refrain from performing that action.

This makes sense to me. If only matter exists, and the whole universe is an accident, then where would an atheist get this idea that the current arrangement of matter ought to be any other way? Matter just is. This concept of “ought to be” is totally alien to an atheistic worldview where everything is matter, because moral obligations are non-material.

The article goes on: (I added the number 3)

Add a further uncontroversial assumption: (3) an action is permissible if and only if it’s not the case that one ought to refrain from performing that action. This is just the standard inferential scheme for formal deontic logic.

Basically, he is saying that an action is permissible so long as there is no moral obligation against that action. Can you see what’s coming? (I added the number 4)

We’ve conformed to standard principles and inference rules of logic and we’ve started out with assumptions that atheists have conceded. And yet we reach the absurd conclusion: (4) therefore, for any action you care to pick, it’s permissible to perform that action.

And let’s be clear about why this is bad for atheists:

If you’d like, you can take this as the meat behind the slogan “if atheism is true, all things are permitted.” For example if atheism is true, every action Hitler performed was permissible. Many atheists don’t like this consequence of their worldview. But they cannot escape it and insist that they are being logical at the same time.

Let me just add one more point. How are we supposed to be morally obligated to perform any action if we are pure matter? Meat machines don’t have free will. We would just be strings of dominoes falling forward, with no choice whether to fall or not. And even if we could somehow choose, our choices have no ultimate moral significance.

So, what does morality mean to atheists, then?

A while back, I listed some quotes about morality on atheism, taken from atheists who have actually thought through the consequences of atheism for rational moral behavior.

Here is a quotation from Richard Dawkins:

In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, or any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference… DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.

Of course, atheists can sense the objective moral standard that God has built into every person. But their materialist worldview undercuts the meaningfulness of moral values, moral duties and moral accountability. And people just don’t act morally once morality has become irrational for them. Acting morally is hard.

What ends up happening to atheists is that they only do the right thing for pleasure, or to avoid social punishments. Once the pre-supposition of materialism has destroyed the rationality of morality, it becomes impossible for atheists to answer the question “Why be moral?”. Any atheist who continues to act morally is living inconsistently with their own worldview – and that is not sustainable in the long run.

Atheistic assumptions wear down the awareness of the moral law that atheists started out with, so that they begin to advocate for obviously immoral things, like the suppression of freedom of inquiry. Eventually, the guilt becomes so strong that they exchange authentic moral values like chastity and sobriety for cheap narcissistic fads like recycling and yoga.

The case of William Wilberforce

Consider this article from the Wall Street Journal about the abolitionist William Wilberforce.

In fact, William Wilberforce was driven by a version of Christianity that today would be derided as “fundamentalist.”

…William Wilberforce himself, as a student at Cambridge University in the 1770s and as a young member of Parliament soon after, had no more than a nominal sense of faith. Then, in 1785, he began reading evangelical treatises and underwent what he called “the Great Change,” almost dropping out of politics to study for the ministry until friends persuaded him that he could do more good where he was.

And he did a great deal of good…[h]is relentless campaign eventually led Parliament to ban the slave trade, in 1807, and to pass a law shortly after his death in 1833, making the entire institution of slavery illegal. But it is impossible to understand Wilberforce’s long antislavery campaign without seeing it as part of a larger Christian impulse. The man who prodded Parliament so famously also wrote theological tracts, sponsored missionary and charitable works, and fought for what he called the “reformation of manners,” a campaign against vice.

Even during the 18th century, evangelicals were derided as over-emotional “enthusiasts” by their Enlightenment-influenced contemporaries. By the time of Wilberforce’s “great change,” liberal 18th-century theologians had sought to make Christianity more “reasonable,” de-emphasizing sin, salvation and Christ’s divinity in favor of ethics, morality and a rather distant, deistic God. Relatedly, large numbers of ordinary English people, especially among the working classes, had begun drifting away from the tepid Christianity that seemed to prevail. Evangelicalism sought to counter such trends and to reinvigorate Christian belief.

…Perhaps the leading evangelical force of the day was the Methodism of John Wesley: It focused on preaching, the close study of the Bible, communal hymn-singing and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Central to the Methodist project was the notion that good works and charity were essential components of the Christian life. Methodism spawned a vast network of churches and ramified into the evangelical branches of Anglicanism. Nearly all the social-reform movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries–from temperance and soup kitchens to slum settlement houses and prison reform–owe something to Methodism and its related evangelical strains. The campaign against slavery was the most momentous of such reforms and, over time, the most successful.It is thus fitting that John Wesley happened to write his last letter–sent in February 1791, days before his death–to William Wilberforce. Wesley urged Wilberforce to devote himself unstintingly to his antislavery campaign, a “glorious enterprise” that opposed “that execrable villainy which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature.” Wesley also urged him to “go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it.”

Wesley had begun preaching against slavery 20 years before and in 1774 published an abolitionist tract, “Thoughts on Slavery.” Wilberforce came into contact with the burgeoning antislavery movement in 1787, when he met Thomas Clarkson, an evangelical Anglican who had devoted his life to the abolitionist cause. Two years later, Wilberforce gave his first speech against the slave trade in Parliament.

…This idea of slaving as sin is key. As sociologist Rodney Stark noted in “For the Glory of God” (2003), the abolition of slavery in the West during the 19th century was a uniquely Christian endeavor. When chattel slavery, long absent from Europe, reappeared in imperial form in the 16th and 17th centuries–mostly in response to the need for cheap labor in the New World–the first calls to end the practice came from pious Christians, notably the Quakers. Evangelicals, not least Methodists, quickly joined the cause, and a movement was born.

William Wilberforce believed that slaves were made in the image of God – that they were embodied souls who could be resurrected to eternal life. Wilberforce believed that the purpose of human life is to freely seek God, and to be reconciled with God through Christ. He wanted all men and women to have the opportunity to investigate and respond to God’s self-revelation to them.

Further study

You can read more about Wilberforce’s beliefs here and his public activities here. And you can still see modern-day abolitionists, like Scott Klusendorf, acting out their Christian faith. Only today they’re called pro-lifers.

A good paper by Bill Craig on the problem of rationally grounding prescriptive morality is here.

Filed under: Polemics, Abolition, Abolitionist, Anti-Slavery, Atheism, Authentic Christianity, Christianity, Ethics, Evangelical, Evangelicalism, Free Exercise, Free Expression, Fundamentalism, God, John Wesley, Jonathan Wesley, Liberty, Materialism, Methodism, Morality, Protestant, Public Christianity, Religious Liberty, Richard Dawkins, Slavery, William Wilberforce