A Critique of BonJour's A Priori Justification of Induction

In this paper I respond to epistemologist Laurence BonJour's a priori justification of induction. There should be enough info for those unfamiliar with both the problem of induction and BonJour's particular response to understand the interchange of ideas that is going on. Some familiarity with philosophical concepts is required, however, so go here if you need some terminology explained: http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/index.htm

On a side-note, BonJour teaches at the University of Washington, which is where I attend school.

Here is the paper, it's about 6 1/2 pages long: http://students.washington.edu/mainwt/BonJourPaper.htm

A Semi-Full Critique of Feinberg

In one of the posts below is a short-hand critique of Joel Feinberg's article "The Nature and Value of Rights" from the Patrick Hayden text on the Philosophy of Human Rights. In the link provided here, I develop the critique into a 12-page paper. Basically I say that there is no way to make sense of Nowheresville and have it be a useful thought experiment, therefore we should pitch it. While I think that I make a good point or two, overall I wouldn't rate the paper that highly. Part of the problem is that I had to apply the critique to an actual case example, so it made moving from the purely conceptual realm to the real world a bit choppy. I certainly did not have the space to give a step-by-step argument for how I would transition from the conceptual to the actual, and I think the paper suffers for that reason. Plus I had to drop what I thought was a pretty good critique in order to make the paper a reasonable length, so that was too bad. Nonetheless, it is not without its merit and potential to generate comments.

http://students.washington.edu/mainwt/A%20Critique%20of%20Feinberg.htm

The Kalam Argument and First Cause Coherence

At my school there is a monthly undergraduate philosophy journal that is published by students specifically for the purpose of allowing their fellow undergrads to develop and write philosophical works. In this journal, there was an article questioning the coherence of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. Rather than detailing all of the critiques of the argument that were offered (as I am trying to be very brief with this particular blog posting), I wish to address one claim in particular.

The person writing the article (whose name I will not mention because it is not relevant) said that if there is such a thing as a first cause to the Universe, and it itself is uncaused, then this goes against all of our previous conceptions of what cause and effect entail, and for that reason the claim of an uncaused first cause incoherent. That is, how can this “first cause” create the Universe without being caused to do so? If this is the case, then our first cause somehow acts without being caused to act (which makes no sense), or we must concede , on the other hand, that the Universe is the result of an infinite number of causes.

Of course, I address this idea in the article I wrote (see below) on the Kalam Cosmological Argument, but here I want to address more directly the notion that an uncaused Cause could produce the Universe (something itself which is the first cause in the string of causes which constitutes our Universe), and how this idea is neither incoherent nor mysterious.

I will first say that the idea is not mysterious because I propose that the first cause of the Universe is a personal being. From what we know of entities that are personal, they seem to have this notion we call free will, Libertarian Freedom, or the power of agent causation (these three being the same thing). Human beings are typically considered to have free will, as most people would stipulate that such is necessary if we are to be morally responsible beings - which most people will maintain that we are. Hence, human beings are persons, and persons by nature are said to have free will. Specific formulations of what it means for a being to have free will, or the power of agent causation, are a bit tricky. We could say, roughly, that if a being is free with respect to choosing to do "X", then no antecedent conditions are necessary for them to make the decision to do "X," or, to not do "X." In other words, they are not determined to act a particular way because of the antecedent conditions in which they exist (be they internal, or external conditions, such as our states of mind or the atmospheric pressure).

I gave the above explanation for informative purposes only, because a precise formula of what it means for a being to have free will is not necessary to the defense that I wish to make. The point that I will be arguing for is that the idea of an Uncaused cause acting without being caused to act is not an incoherent idea, if such a cause exists. I will not henceforth be arguing that such a cause exists, nor that it is reasonable to believe something can exist which has no cause for its existence, but only that if such an Uncaused cause exists then there is not an insurmountable conceptual difficulty in understanding how it might act without being acted upon.

What I want to suggest , then, are the similarities between human beings and this first cause, given that human beings are personal, and that the first cause (on my view) is personal. If we can be said to have a grasp of what it is for human beings to have free will without a definition of what such a concept would entail, then I think that we can understand what it would be for a being which is personal (but not a human) to have free will. That is, the degree to which human free will is mysterious is also the degree to which the free will of a personal cause of the Universe is mysterious, considering that both have this ability in virtue of being persons. And, it does not seem all that mysterious to say that human beings have free will. Now, if we do not consider the idea of human free will to be so completely mysterious and incoherent such as to suggest that humans do not have free will, then there is no reason to think that the free will of an uncaused, personal being who created the Universe is, by contrast, so mysterious as to be incomprehensible. So, ruling out the idea that a cause of the Universe could have free will cannot be done on the basis of the fact that it is incoherent and therefore untrue.

Next, we would say that if this uncaused Cause has free will, then it can act to create the Universe simply in virtue of having a free will. That is, nothing causes it to act, it simply has the ability to act uncaused – as this is what we mean by agent causation.

Hence, a simple response to this problem is just to say that the cause of the Universe is personal, and therefore it does not require a cause to act. However, if someone still wishes to maintain that this notion is incoherent, I have given them the grounds for doing so. What they need to do is show that human free will is incoherent and mysterious, therefore the free will of a first cause suffers the same difficulty. The problem with this response, however, is that it then denies that humans beings have free will. Now, the natural reaction of most people is to object at this point and maintain that human beings have free will, typically citing the moral implications of denying such a view. I, however, will not even go that far, and can grant for the sake of argument that human beings do not have free will. I think that the result, however, will be less than thrilling for the person who still wishes to maintain the incoherence of the first cause.

So, to recap quickly, we have said (hypothetically) that human beings do not have free will because such a concept is too mysterious and incoherent to be true. Fine, I can grant that. The difficulty, however, is in then seeing what force this argument has against the coherence of the Kalam Argument. That is, if we human beings are not free with respect to our will so that all of our thoughts and decisions are caused, then how can we claim that because something is incoherent, therefore it is untrue? Our very notion of coherence is the result of causal processes, and so may not be coherent for all we know! Furthermore, if we deny human free will, then we deny our ability to rationally assent to truths that deserve rational assent, such that we might be assenting to the idea that the first cause argument is incoherent when it is actually perfectly coherent! The point is that because all of our decisions about what we will believe are caused, we have no way of knowing if they are rational or not. We might think that they are rational, but this is only because we are caused to think so. And if we think that the first cause argument is incoherent, then it is because we are caused to think this, not because it actually is incoherent.

Hence, what I see following from my response to this objection is one of two conclusions. We either give up the objection by maintaining that human free will is not mysterious, therefore the free will of a personal cause for the Universe is not a mysterious concept either. Or, we maintain that human free will is too incoherent to be true, and then admit that our arriving at this conclusion was not the result of reason, but causal processes, suggesting that the argument itself has no rational force.

The Humean Problem of Induction and Peter F. Strawson

In keeping with my desire to post on this blog more frequently than I actually do, I have decided to link to a paper that I wrote for school on David Hume's problem of induction and Peter F. Strawson's response. I am not all that proud of the paper, as I have written better ones, but it does the job. Here is the link for direct access, and below follows a summary for those unfamiliar with anything I have just mentioned: http://www.freegoodnews.com/logos/humeandstrawson.htm

To put it briefly, the Humean problem of induction is essentially a philosophical observation that Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote about in the 18th century. Hume is famous for being a skeptic, and in this problem he creates for inductive reasoning he is true to that title. Basically what Hume does is ask our reason for thinking that the future will be like the past. In so doing his point is, ultimately, to show that we have no reason for believing that the future will be like the past. The way he accomplishes this task is to examine the potential arguments we could give for such a belief - a deductive one and an inductive one - and to rule both out.

Against a deductive argument that the future will resemble the past, Hume says that such a proposition as "the future will resemble the past" is not entailed by any known propositions that we have, therefore we cannot validily deduce it as true. Hence we must turn to induction to justify this belief, yet here we run into a problem. If we try to argue to the idea that the future will probably resemble the past, what shall we admit as evidence for this being true? One good candidate (and perhaps the only) is past experience. Thus, from past experience we observe a regularity of nature, therefore we can expect that it will continue on into the future. What Hume shows is that this statement, "The past has been regular" does not entail the statement we wish to arrive at, specifically, "The future will be like the past." Hence, we must find some intervening proposition that connects these two, otherwise we cannot reasonably hold the second statement to be true. Hume posits - or rather, other philosophers have taken Hume to posit - that we need something like a principle of the uniformity of nature that we can use as an intermediate premise that will take us from "the past has been regular" to "nature is uniform" and all the way to "therefore, the future will be like the past." The problem is that such a principle is not a necessary truth - i.e. it is possible that it is false - and we cannot justify it through induction - i.e. by observing what the past is like and inferring that the future will be similar.

Thus, we can see that there is a problem. To inductively conclude that the future will be like the past is ciricular because it assumes that the past gives us evidence of what the future will be like without explaining how we can know this. And, as well any attempts to deductively justify a belief in the uniformity of nature will immediately be met with shouts of illegitimacy because none of our justified beliefs entail that the future will be like the past. Hence, if we believe that the future will resemble the past, we seem to do so without having a reason for this belief.

So what can we say in response? You'll just have to read the paper...

Maintaining Appearances

When I first started this blog I was fairly ambivalent as to what its focus/title should be. I could have gone the route of purely philosophical reflection, or I could have focused entirely on apologetics (which, in reality, would simply have been a different kind of purely philosophical reflection with an emphasis on the phil. of religion), or I could have complained about my day/deep personal problems as so many bloggers seem content to do. In fact, this is the most personal blog I have posted so far, and therefore it is time to stop talking about me. Instead I will finally be posting something which actually lives up to the name that the blog has, that is, posts which are related to Christianity as Truth, and not perhaps some of the other popular conceptions which people are now and again given to mischaracterize it as. Towards this end, here is an article I wrote (for Christians) on the Kalam Cosmological Argument for the existence of God, posted at a church website where the moderators were kind enough to tolerate my verbosity (which can be quite staggering when I am not writing papers for academia): http://www.dyingtolive.org/artman/publish/article_46.shtml

In the future, however, I will continue to post as I have done. Since my goal is to learn as much from my classes as possible, I will still reflect upon the things that I read by posting short articles to this blog.

Joel Feinberg's Nature and Value of Human Rights summarized

One of the recent readings in my Philosophy of Human Rights class has been a piece written by Joel Feinberg, formerly at the University of Arizona as he passed away not long ago, entitled "The Nature and Value of Human Rights" (the reader it is from is The Philosophy of Human Rights, edited by Patrick Hayden, published in 2001). In the space provided below I will limit myself to summarizing and articulating Feinberg’s position, as any criticisms I have will be forthcoming and related to a future paper due in the class.

To begin, I will do so where Feinberg begins, and that is with a thought experiment. He begins his article by conceiving of a make-believe world called “Nowheresville.” “Nowheresville [is a] world very much like our own, except that no one, or hardly any one (the qualification is not important), has rights,” (emphasis original, pp. 174 of Hayden text). We are asked to imagine this place is in fact quite morally superfluous, that is, acts of generosity are in abundance and empathy is practically given away at the corner store. Hence, normal social interactions within Nowheresville are at an elevated level of eloquence, courtesy, and chivalry in both public and private discourse.

Beginning here, Feinberg then takes us on a journey of examining what the consequences would be if slight changes were made to the nature of Nowheresville. He first says, “Let us…introduce duties into Nowheresville, but only in the sense of actions that are, or believed to be, morally mandatory, but not in the older sense of actions that are due others and can be claimed by others as their right,” (pp. 176). The distinction is that we now have the kinds of “duties” that are “required” by the law, “under pain of penalty,” but that we do not have the kind of duties to others that entail their rights. By “duties” is meant the idea of something due to someone, and thus paying our dues becomes paying that which we owe others and they can make a claim to. Keep in mind that this does not have to be any kind of monetary debt, but something that naturally arises either from (a) the inherent worth of an individual such that the realization of his needs are someone’s debt, or (b) the establishing of a contract which binds two or more people together as to what each owes the other, given the obtaining of certain circumstances.

Hence, because Nowheresville lacks such duties, when someone else is at fault for hurting us, such as breaking our window by playing baseball in our backyard, we can complain and say that they were wrong and should fix our window, but because we have no right and they no duty, we have no moral justification for making the claim that it is their duty. In fact, the thought does not even cross our mind – according to Feinberg – to make such a claim because the other person has no moral duty to us, therefore they have no responsibility to fix the window – and we certainly have no right to claim that they do. Surely we can state a moral ought, but this does not equal a right or the assertion of a duty – according to Feinberg.

Feinberg then goes on to make other changes to Nowheresville that I will not explore. The important conclusion yielded from his thought experiment – or what he is claiming as important – is that no matter what else Nowheresville has, if it does not have the idea of rights then something “morally important” is missing. So what does Feinberg have to say about the nature of rights that is so morally significant? On this matter his statements are – I believe – somewhat imprecise, mainly because he thinks that a philosophically rigorous definition of rights is impossible, and as such he is likely entirely correct. Thus, his approach is to characterize not necessarily rights themselves, nor duties, nor claims, but instead he gives a statement of the relationship of rights to claims and also morality. First, I should begin by giving a bit more insight into the nature of rights from Feinberg’s perspective with this quote: “Even if there are conceivable circumstances in which one would admit rights diffidently, there is no doubt that their characteristic use and that for which they are distinctively well suited, is to be claimed, demanded, affirmed, and insisted upon…Having rights, of course, makes claiming possible; but it is claiming that gives rights their special moral significance.” This quote comes after he has attempted to sort out the difficulty in distinguishing the difference between a right and a claim, because the existence of one seems to first necessitate the other and the effect is a very circular juggling of terms. As Feinberg sees it, rights and claims cannot exist separately, almost like relational properties (Two examples of relational properties are “taller than” and “shorter than.” If Tree A has the property of being “taller than” Tree B, then we necessarily infer that Tree B is “shorter than” Tree A. Thus one property cannot exist without the other necessarily existing.”). He thinks that to make sense of one you must have the other, like to understand “up” you must have “down,” but he notes that claims and rights are distinct, just like up and down are distinct (though one requires the other).

All this having been said, here is part of Feinberg’s concluding paragraph: “To have a right is to have a claim against someone whose recognition as valid is called for by some set of governing rules or moral principles.” (text, pp. 185). In this sentence we see as close as Feinberg comes to giving a definition of a right, though by shorthand he says that a right is a “valid claim” (c.f. text pp. 182-183).

To summarize one might say that Feinberg has attempted to give an account of the interrelated nature of rights, duties, and their moral justification. A moral imperative directed at someone (e.g. “you ought to fix my window because you broke it”) that does not inherently carry with it a morally justified (meaning, that I can appeal to morality to justify it) duty, is not the assertion of a “right” in Feinberg’s sense. Rather, a duty that is to someone, and which is morally justified, naturally creates a “right” for that person to that which the duty specifies (i.e. mowing the law, paying your taxes, etc.)

As I said earlier, I will not in this piece be criticizing what Feinberg appears to be saying (if my analysis is correct), therefore I will avoid going into what I believe are the problematic areas of his article. Instead I will simply comment that it seems as though a complete theory (or a reasonable one, we might say) of morality and moral justification seem necessary to properly understand when a person has a duty to another, as this understanding is appropriate so that we are not arbitrarily assigning rights and duties. Hence, I believe that much work must be done before Feinberg’s case can be made, and the purpose of this article by itself was not to facilitate this broad of a point.

A critique of Talbott's "Moral Philosopher"

In the Philosophy of Human Rights class that I am taking the professor (William J. Talbott) has recently written a book entitled Which Rights Should Be Universal? Parts of the book are required reading for the class (which he fortunately provides to us free of charge), and as such I decided to buy it in order to have a more comprehensive perspective on my professor’s thoughts. After having read a portion the book, I made an observation which I thought required the sorting out of my own thoughts on the issue, and hence I have chosen to do that here. Since my space is short I will not use any more of it on introductory issues.

In the very beginning of the book Professor Talbott makes an observation regarding the nature of what he calls “moral philosophy” that will later play a crucial role in the “Moral Discovery Paradigm,” the advocacy of which appears to be the theme from chapter two onward. “Moral philosophers” are defined within a particular context that gives succinct designation to their role within Talbott’s moral discovery theory. The context is religious societies or religions, and moral philosophers are essential those people whose moral judgments have not been derived from understanding someone or some text within their respective religions to be infallible. Having said this much, I will now quote a section from the book because it both does the explaining for me and provides the material which I was intending to critique. Here is what Talbott has to say about moral philosophers:

“Suppose we take the defining feature of a religion to be its identification of a moral authority, a person or a text, typically regarded as infallible. On this definition, all of the major religions qualify as religions, but some movements not usually thought of as religions–for example, various twentieth-century Marxist movements–also qualify. In this book, I will use the term religion in the broader sense that includes Marxist movements, because I believe their commonalities are more important than their differences.
At least initially, religions typically admonish their adherents to follow the directives of the relevant moral authority unquestioningly, and not to exercise their own moral judgment. Nonetheless, these religious traditions tend to produce at least some people with a capacity for independent moral judgment. People who exercise this capacity will not regard any other person or text as a source of unquestionable moral truth. They can regard people or texts as sources of moral wisdom, to be seriously considered in deciding what to do. However, the ultimate decision about what to do will always depend on their own moral judgment. I will refer to people who develop and exercise their own moral judgment as moral philosophers.” (Emphases original, Talbott 2005, Pp. 4).

To begin, any conclusions that I draw will depend most significantly upon the correct understanding of what Talbott is here saying, so I will start by elucidating how I have read this quotation and the surrounding material. First, when Talbott says that religious authorities do not encourage their adherents to exercise “their own moral judgment,” this statement seems clear in a very generalized way of understanding it. That is, it is unlikely to be debated as a matter of historical fact that religious authorities have not appreciated nor desired any person who made moral decisions that went against the accepted infallible text or person. However, it is not at all clear that accepting a text or person as infallible automatically makes one incapable of rendering his “own moral judgment.” In the sense in which a religious adherent makes his “own” decisions because it is his mind which has done the cognitive evaluating, then certainly it is a moot point that his judgments are going to be “his own.” They are his because he has made them, and it would seem difficult to read Talbott as saying that decisions which individuals make in a religious community are collective property because of the religion, regardless of the fact that each individual is making the decisions. Instead, we could perhaps propose that it is more likely to read him as saying that members of religious communities do not in fact make judgments when they appeal to infallible sources of moral revelation. This, as well, raises difficulties, as the following judgment will perhaps demonstrate:

P1) The Holy Koran is an infallible source of moral knowledge.
P2) The Holy Koran says that “X” is bad.
C) Therefore “X” is bad.

However limited, naive, or perhaps epistemically unwarranted we might consider the first premise to be, it seems to nonetheless yield a judgment when combined with the second premise and the resulting conclusion. On this view, it is also difficult to read Talbott as saying that members of religions do not make judgments, as this appears to be a case of simple reasoning no less adequate than the following, which is a classic example of logic used in logic classrooms nationwide:

P1) All men are mortal.
P2) Socrates is a man.
C) Therefore Socrates is mortal.

Hence, given the above illustrations, it seems most reasonable to conclude that Talbott is creating a very specific sense in which “moral philosophers” render their “own judgments.” But what, specifically, could he be intending to say?

We seem to find an answer in the next two lines where he says, “Nonetheless, these religious traditions tend to produce at least some people with a capacity for independent moral judgment. People who exercise this capacity will not regard any other person or text as a source of unquestionable moral truth.”

It now appears clear that when Talbott has said that religious do not allow members to make their “own” judgments, a belief on the part of the individual in an infallible authority has been the intervening factor. What is necessary for us to make our own judgments is a lack of such a belief. With this particular belief absent, judgments can be reached which are truly our own. Indeed, this is why a requisite of being a moral philosopher is to not regard any source of moral information as infallible.

Now what remains unclear, and what Talbott has left unexplored, is why belief in an infallible authority makes it impossible for an individual to render his own judgments. I have already shown that in the normal usage of these terms a religious adherent can both make decisions and that they will in fact be his own, i.e. not someone else’s. Furthermore, if we are indeed capable of making judgments while holding beliefs in infallible authorities, then Talbott has not yet justified the need for the particular kind of moral decision makers which he designates – that is, those who do not adhere to any infallible source of moral knowledge. Unless he is presupposing the non-existence of such texts or persons (which would render religious beliefs untrue and therefore inferior), or the superiority of non-belief in them, then there seems little to recommend being a “moral philosopher” over not being one.

Lastly, I am slightly confused as to how one should read these few lines on the following page:

“Since you are reading this book, I assume that you are a moral philosopher, in the sense in which I use the term – that is, you have developed and exercise your own moral judgment. Does this mean you are areligious? No, but it does imply that if you are religious, you are not blindly submissive to a moral authority.” (Talbott, 2005, Pp. 5)

In the first quotation we saw that Talbott defines “religious” belief as that which holds a text or a person to be infallible. We also saw that Talbott defines a moral philosopher as a person who does not hold to such a belief. Hence, it seems reasonable to conclude that to be a moral philosopher one can be a member of a religion, but that they cannot actually believe the claims of their text or authorities. This seems to demonstrate that, of necessity, one must not be religious in the sense that Talbott intends if they are going to be a moral philosopher in the sense which Talbott intends.

Human Rights: A Tentative Thesis

Starting Wednesday the 28th of September I will begin taking a class at the University of Washington (along with other classes) which is entitled the Philosophy of Human Rights. This is an introductory class that will involve reading a reader (a "reader" is a book which contains various essays, articles and portions of longer works such as treatises on given subtopics that comprise a larger topic, such as Human Rights, Ethics, or Epistemology) The Philosophy of Human Rights edited by Patrick Hayden. This book seems to be fairly decent as a text, although some of the snippets of Locke and Hobbes are a bit too short.

The text, however, is not what I am here to talk about. Instead I would like to put forth a few thoughts concerning the issue of human rights and perhaps a tentative thesis on where my thoughts currently are. Throughout the duration of the course I hope to summarize various portions of the text here for purposes of reflection and organization of my thoughts, though they will certainly be primitive.

To begin, I would like to start with my tentative statement that it appears as though human beings do not actually have rights. One of the primary reasons I hold this belief is that I have yet to find a place in the Bible where human rights are emphasized or even acknowledged. Given that I consider the Bible to be inspired (in some way) and as such a truthful historical account of the interaction between God and humanity, I take that it is an authoritative source on providing accurate information of how humans can relate to God. In this relationship it appears as though human beings are told very little in the Bible of what they deserve and are instead called to belief in God, obedience to whatever system they have received from Him (whether it be the Mosaic law, or circumcision, or a growth a development of our relationship with God through Christ and with other people), and to recognize or moral responsibilities. It is hard to justify a reading of the importance of human rights in the Bible when God chose to let the Israelites be subject to Egyptian captivity and slavery for 400 years.

This having been said, I am still open to the idea that human rights exist, at least in some form. In fact, it is precisely here where I would begin my inquiry into human rights; that is, by asking the questions: What is a “right” and why should I think that human beings have them? I do not necessarily see any problem in answering these questions by saying that human rights do not actually exist but they are a useful fiction, yet if we are to do this then I think it is important for us to at least acknowledge this to be the case. In other words, if it is not true that human rights exist, yet we are going to say they do anyway, then it would be critical for us to be honest about this so as to not delude ourselves about the true nature of human beings in relationship to each other and their environment.

Besides the (seeming) lack of important placed on human rights in the Bible, another reason I have difficulty in believing that they exist is that I have never heard or read an adequate answer to either of the two questions posed above with a justification for why the answer is true (but perhaps I will as a result of the class I am taking). Hence someone might respond to them by saying something like, “Humans have rights because they have inherent value,” and I would then ask why our having value means that we have rights. I might give the counterexample of saying that pleasure has inherent value, but that it would be difficult to assign a right to a rather immaterial or “abstract” concept such as pleasure. It could potentially have inherent value because pleasure can be pursued for no other reason than the sake of pleasure (in other words, its value is derived from itself and not other things, thus making it inherent), and this would demonstrate that it does not follow from something having inherent value that it necessarily has rights. This is only one example, as I read more theories on human rights I will be able to contribute more thoughts on the difficulty with conceptual analysis and human rights (with defining the terms used in theories of human rights). It is also possible that pleasure does not have inherent value and my counterexample does not work, but it was mainly intended to illustrate a difficulty in defining human rights rather than to be a philosophically rigorous statement.

Another difficulty I have (and this is related to the objection above) is with the way in which Americans seem to be discovering new rights on a rather frequent basis. 2000 years ago it was not likely considered a right for women to have abortions, for all people to vote, for citizens to have healthcare, or for people to live on the streets of a city if they do not desire to have any house of their own. Today many different groups are either contending that these rights do exist, or that they do not. My problem with these contentions is the idea that we are suddenly discovering these “rights” to exist, yet I have to ask where they have been all this time and how we are now able to know that they are there. If someone wants to claim that the right to an abortion has always existed but that we have not recognized until very recently, I would like to know under which rock it was hiding when we found it, and why – if it did in fact exist – we did not see it earlier. Many people treat rights as though they are the legitimate discovery of the extension of the inherent value of human beings (i.e. the fact that I am a male human being - non-criminal - over the age of 18 and an American citizen gives me a right to vote), yet I do not see how so many rights that range over so many issues can be rationally justified by either empirical or a priori support.

All this having been said, I will still attempt to remain open to any sound ideas and arguments around the issue of human rights.

Reflections on Learning Greek

About a year ago I embarked upon a study of Koine Greek – the language that the New Testament was written in – which has brought me full circle to where I am not only learning Greek, but also am teaching it. A friend of mine was gracious enough to teach me the language (he having had a formal education in it, whereas mine would be on my own and through no school system), and we went through William D. Mounce’s The Basics of Biblical Greek at the rate of around 1.5 chapters per week, finishing the book in about nine months. Now that I have completed my first year and am ready to start second year, I have found myself a few students wishing to learn Koine so that I am now in the position of passing on information as my friend once was (and still is, actually).
Two weeks ago these fledgling Greek learners and I sat down to our first lesson and went over our motivations for learning the language. I thought that it would be important for them to have a solid and memorable foundation upon which their edification could be built so that it does not crumble under the strain of hours of Greek study. Towards this end I prepared a short list of reasons that I had come up with in the space of about an hour, and then I shared it with them. The conversation went well and I am very optimistic about the potential I see for an opportunity to bring alone fellow Christians and help them mature in the faith. What follows below is an elaboration upon my preliminary reflections in an attempt to solidify my own intentions in learning Koine Greek.
Before continuing on, however, I would like to place a special emphasis on the fact that I am not trying to say that Greek should be mandatory for all Christians nor even that it always necessary or helpful. I can imagine that it is possible for some particular individual to be unfortunately in the situation where learning Greek would hinder them so greatly that it could be to their disadvantage, and certainly I would not want them to pursue self-degradation. Nonetheless, here I will attempt to put forth a list of positive reasons for why a person who has the opportunity and time to learn Greek would see sufficient reason to do so (not necessarily strongly desiring to, but seeing good reason to).

1) Greek is a new way to study the Bible.
If studying the N.T. is a good thing, then Greek gives us another way to read it. But more to the point, it in fact gives us a more accurate way to read it. It is the closest thing to being there in the first century and dialoguing with the N.T. writers that we have. I often find that reading the N.T. in Spanish can help me to see a familiar passage in a new light (I have had roughly two years of college Spanish, and have been speaking it for three years). Imagine how much more insightful it would be to read the N.T. in the actual language of the writers and to bypass the need for a translation. It truly opens up the goldmine of metaphors, wordplays, and etymological history that are lost in translation.

2) Greek is for teaching Scripture.
Given that the significance of a certain passage of Scripture is dependent entirely upon the correct interpretation of the original text, then familiarity with the original is certainly a better way to interpret then familiarity with a translation. I will not in any way even suggest that Greek be mandatory for all Christians, but I would certainly come close to saying that it should be mandatory for all teachers of Scripture who have access to it.


3) There are so many good Greek resources out there.
In a country where we have the opportunity to research and learn so much about the Bible, why would we hold ourselves back from doing so? Again, I am not here suggesting that Greek is for everyone. Obviously some peopled do not have time for it, and others can serve God as He desires without a knowledge of Greek. However, the virtual universality of resources for learning Biblical Greek (William D. Mounce’s book The Basics of Biblical Greek can be found at my local library) certainly makes it a practical option for anyone interested in furthering their understanding of the New Testament. This is a very rare opportunity.

4) To fill our minds with instructive, useful, and vitally relevant information.
In the culture we live in, it is far too easy for one to fill their mind with volumes of meaningless and pointless information absorbed from sources like television, magazines, and other people (Christians, non-Christians, friends, etc., basically anyone). Why not take the time to fill our minds with something that is inherently good to know? Why not saturate ourselves with knowledge and information that we can dwell on, rather than have to fight against? We need positive support and teaching of the correct application of our mental faculties. Constantly combating the negative messages which we receive every day can take its toll on our strength and commitment to God. Reading Greek and discovering the various insights (and interesting wordplays) which are lost in translation can be a source of renewal and edification for the studious believer.

5) It is a step towards a greater commitment to God for those who can do it.
If our goal as Christians is not to remain immature in our love of God, then we must be instructed in all wisdom and admonishment, and a more critical look at the text of the N.T. is a step towards a greater desire to know what God has communicated to His people through His apostles and prophets. I could go on about this point, but I think that it would hinder the essence of what I am trying to say. Basically all I mean to state with this particular observation is that Greek is almost a certain way for a believer to take that next step toward a greater commitment to God through a commitment to knowing His Scriptures.

6) It is a gateway to another world of discussion with Christian believers.
If we remain at a basic and fundamental understanding of Christianity and its truth claims, then how do we expect to build each other up and stimulate personal development? A person can only sit and listen to a message so many times before it becomes monotonous and without impact on their life, so reiterating a surface-level understanding of the Bible to yourself again and again fails to gauge the depth of what is contained within it, and the power it has to change a person's life. In order that we become Christians who are brought-to-the-end (teleoi, translated as “perfect” in the N.T.) for which Christ labors in us, it would be extremely beneficial for us to form a community of thoughtful and well-balanced individuals. This seems a much better formula for discovering the truth of God’s revelation than reading the Bible purely as a devotional document and expecting God to open our minds to profound truth with a bypass of our mental faculties in an intense emotional experience.

With all that I have said above, I would like to reiterate that I am not attempting to imply that everyone should be learning Greek, or even that the majority of Christians should (maybe I would prefer it that way, but God knows better than I and certainly His plans could be different). Instead what I am trying to do is set forth my own motivations for learning Greek or how I have chosen to look at it, and in the process provide the individual reader with some questions to ask himself about his desire/lack of a desire to learn Greek. In the end I am in no position to judge who should and who should not be learning Greek. So what I then ultimately recommend is prayer over the issue if you are pondering this or any other significant investment of your time towards God’s kingdom. I don’t know exactly what you should pray, but I always start with being as honest as I can, and then follow with the appropriate kind of imploring or petition to God. If you really believe that He is good, and really do believe that He cares about you, then I see no reason not to trust that He will provide a way for you to find a place of belonging in His will – wherever that may be. Ultimately I would say that this is the more critical step towards deciding whether or not Greek is for you than evaluating any of the reasons I have given above.

Objective Value: Towards a Theory

Today I will offer a brief synopsis of an argument advanced by Stuart C. Hackett in William Lane Craig’s reader on Philosophy of Religion. His argument can be found on pages 149-154 and it is entitled “The Value Dimension of The Cosmos: A Moral Argument.” Then I will expand upon it and offer my own insights, for better or worse.

The essential thesis of Hackett’s argument can be stated as follows: “…Persons, merely as such and just on account of their personhood, possess intrinsic value or worth. What this means is that persons are not to be construed as merely means or instruments of further ends, but rather as ends in themselves,” (pp. 149). By “ends” he means the goal of doing something. Looked at another way, doing something for a person – i.e. your friend, spouse, parent, etc. – has worth in virtue of the fact that it is being done for them, and no further appeal or justification is necessary to explain why the deed has worth. So you would not need to say, “I am doing this for my mother, which has value because doing so for her will make the economy grow, which is an inherently good thing to do.” Instead, a person (one’s mother, in this example) has inherent worth; therefore they are the reason for why things are done, not the means for achieving further ends.

Now, Hackett goes on to make an interesting observation as an extrapolation of this contention, “…In aiming at significant goals, a person implicitly accepts his own intrinsic worth and that of other persons as the rational basis of the worth of his choice, so that those goals themselves are judged appropriate, in the final analysis, because they are extrinsic means for actualizing the intrinsic worth of persons,” (pp. 150). Hackett later goes on to attempt to ground the worth of persons in the existence of a being of ultimate value – or God.

In this first portion of the article, the main point that Hackett attempts to communicate is that persons have intrinsic worth – as I have stated. He states that this is a rather unsurprising assertion in the commonsensical framework of everyday life, but that nonetheless there are those that would challenge it. Towards defending this supposition, he offers the above statements amongst a paragraph or two elaborating the idea that human beings involved in making choices presupposes the idea of either (a) a basis for intrinsic worth existing somewhere or (b) that, if such a basis does not exist, then choice making becomes absurd. I will now offer an elaboration on what I understand him to be saying and a potential defense of this position in the face of claims to the contrary.

In the ordinary event of making a decision it is not uncommon for the average person to engage in the simple process of what I will call value reductionism. The term “reductionism” I am borrowing from the more familiar sense of reductionism in which one attempts to reduce one thing to another, such as reducing the mind to the brain, or reducing morality to evolutionary processes and survival. In the sense that I wish to use it, a person engages in value reductionism when they go through a list of reasons or motivations for making a particular decision. An example of this would be the typical college student whose decision to attend a University is justified according to a reduction of the value of his decision to an ultimate ground of worth:

I will to college.
Why?
Because I want an education.
Why?
Because I want a decent job.
Why?
To support myself and my family.
Why do that?
Because my family is worth the effort and I do not want to burden others by forcing them to support me.
Why?
I do not need a reason to justify these as ends because they have intrinsic worth.

Now, the brief exercise that I have just run through is probably not the normal experience for a college student, because they usually have a myriad of reasons for attending school and few of them are thought out in such a linear fashion. Nonetheless, the point of making such a list is to demonstrate that the reaching of a final end of intrinsic worth – that is, basically a stopping point – makes the idea of choice much more coherent than if one does not suppose that such a stopping point exists. In other words, if there were no point at which one could stop the perpetual “Why?” by simply answering “Because it has inherent worth,” then the list of reasons for doing anything would continue on ad infinitum (to infinity, without end). On this hypothesis, no one actually knows why they do anything, which means that making a decision based upon emotion or impulse is all that one is left with. Furthermore, the idea that certain decisions are “better” than others becomes an incoherent concept, because no decision is directed towards grounds of inherent worth or less worth. And, finally, if someone says that a list of infinite reasons for doing something is what justifies making a decision, then two conclusions follow: (1) any decision to do anything is justified and (2) the person has actually contradicted themselves, because to assume an infinite list to be a justification for making a decision is to assume it has intrinsic value, which is precisely what the existence of the list is supposed to deny.

Given all of this, Hackett does not do so well in arguing that persons are the items which we should label as having intrinsic worth. He does say that persons act towards ends, which must presuppose themselves or someone else to have intrinsic worth, but there are numerous people that would either balk at this notion all together, or otherwise claim that it is difficult to support considering that most people do not structure their thinking along such lines. This observation would lead them to claim that people do not really know why they do most things, therefore one is question begging to say that people act as they do because persons have intrinsic worth. While these points can be acknowledged, it is difficult to outright deny Hackett’s point that, “…Any other proposed candidates for the status of intrinsic worth…turn out to be patently ridiculous on analysis – the pursuit for example, of power, wealth, knowledge, pleasure, or even health – all these ends are so obviously instrumental means to the well-being of persons as selves that any supposition that they are themselves intrinsically valuable becomes virtually ludicrous…” (pp. 150).

So Hackett’s argument and my own extrapolations can be summarized as follows, along with a final comment. Persons in virtue of their personhood have inherent worth. What I mean by “worth” is that something is either (a) an end in and of itself or (b) a means to an end. Persons have intrinsic worth because no reason needs to be given for why someone should do something beneficial to a person. That persons act towards anything as either an intrinsic end or an instrumental end implies that intrinsic ends exist because if they did not then decision making would be incoherent, which it does not seem to be. The fact that some people do not recognize the intrinsic worth of persons is not an argument against this being true, and that one cannot offer an argument for why persons themselves have intrinsic worth does not render the claim indemonstrable. It is possible that the value of persons must not be argued for but rather perceived, just as one could not argue a colorblind person into believing in the color blue without trusting the testimony of others. Furthermore, to argue that persons have intrinsic worth is to presuppose the worth of argumentation and logic, which would need just as reasonable a justification before one should believe in it. And, obviously this justification could not be based in logic because then one would be using logic to prove the value of logic, which is circular reasoning. Therefore it is possible that the worth of persons is inarguable without being, in any sense of the word, less real.

The Impractical Value of The Bible

I must start off this piece by first acknowledging that there is much practical value to the Bible. It might seem rather odd that the opening content of an article would go contrary to its title, but since the title of this particular blog does not imply that its opposite is untrue – that is, that it is untrue that the Bible has practical value – I thought it would be important to point this out. Indeed, by virtue of the fact that the Bible is true and provides reliable information about the only way to God makes it very practical. However, the Bible is certainly not an instruction booklet for life (for Christians), and the history of its composition certain bespeaks of this truth when one considers that it is a collection of scrolls, histories, books of legislation, poetry, wisdom literature, tracts, letters, and prophetic revelations written over the course of a few thousand years (1500 to be more precise). To lump all of these various types of writing together under a single heading such as “The Bible” and to read it as a “book” certainly would not be the most accurate way to understand the nature and purpose of the Bible.

Having said this much, the reader should know that it is a necessary introduction to a rather controversial point which I am about to make. And instead of taking awhile to reach the substance of this blog, I will state it as tersely as possible right now.

For one reason or another many Christians that I interact with have a strange approach to studying the Bible. They seem to search each section of Scripture and look for the “practical” value in everything they read. I find them scouring through every book of the Bible as if it were an instruction pamphlet on how to deal with a particular challenge in this life. Furthermore, every time I want to stop and take things slowly, to perhaps ponder over a verse and consider various interpretations and what impact they would have on the overall authorial meaning, people are reluctant and they immediately prefer “practicality.” “If it isn’t practical, then what is the point in knowing it?” they say. Rarely am I ever afforded the opportunity to discuss with someone the broader theological or philosophical implications of a particular passage of Scripture.

While reflecting upon this attitude I came to a certain realization – and perhaps the credit is not due to myself because I had never thought of this idea before – of precisely why this is a naive and incorrect approach to reading the Bible. The question basically came to my mind like this: Why does everything that we learn about the Bible have to be “practical” and “applicable”? Why do I have to be able to read a portion of Scripture and extract a set of guidelines or rules for life? Why cannot one simply be content with learning a truth about our world, or about the historical figures in the Bible text, or the historical situations in which the Bible was written, instead of having to see how it relates to their life?

Here is my main observation: so much information that people consume readily is very impractical, inapplicable junk. They play video games, absorb pop culture, watch fashion trends, read magazines, watch movies, watch sports, and then talk about it with their friends despite the fact that all of this information has no practical value. I can’t create a “guide” for life by watching Star Wars, or playing Grand Theft Auto 3, or listening to classical music, or talking about the Raiders, etc., on and on the list goes! So why in the world would anyone be resistant to learning non-practical information about the Bible? It simply makes no sense.

What makes the situation worse is that information regarding the Bible has value regardless of its practicality, yet people will flee from a challenging investigation of the Biblical text. It is as if Christianity either has to be practical or it is not worth knowing, and this is simply wrong. If people begin to examine the other areas of their life they will realize how much useless information they absorb that is also very impractical, and hopefully they will see that filling their minds with “impractical” knowledge regarding God, theology, and Christian truth is much more important. Ultimately, I believe, it will also be more practical in the end because it will allow them to understand their beliefs better, to communicate them to others in a coherent way, and to have a sincere dedication to something that they have taken the time to investigate.

All this having been said, there is of course this possible objection: “But having information about the pop culture will allow me to talk to other people, which might give me a chance to share the Gospel. If I don’t know anything about other people’s interests then how can I relate to them?”

To this I respond by saying that it is in no way a bad thing to be knowledgeable enough about the popular culture so that one is able to talk to others. However, the observation that I make is a situation which Christians can have in-depth discussions of popular culture while maintaining just barely enough knowledge of the Bible to attend church and not be overwhelmed by a few Bible references. The truth of the matter seems to be that the situation ought to be reversed: Christians ought to know just enough of the popular culture to not be ignorant, but should be filled with information about the Bible that is beyond what they think they “need” to know. Since most of us are already filled with information about various subjects which we in no way “need” to know, why not replace our time spent absorbing such things with time spent reading four and five commentaries on a single book of the N.T.? I understand that this requires much work and might not be very “practical,” but neither is any of that other information, and this seems to be more important.

So the observations which I have made this far could be constructed as a tentative argument that it is better for Christians to be filled with impractical knowledge of the Bible, theology, philosophy, apologetics, history, etc., than just about anything else. It is not merely a defense of practicing such study habits, however, because I see it more like a call to action on the part of Christians who lack a rich knowledge of Scripture. If our lives must be spent absorbing some kind of information, then why not let this be what our minds dwell on? And why not push ourselves to be exerting our mentally faculties in an area of our lives which has vast treasuries of knowledge that concern truth?

I simply do not understand the attitude which is constantly forcing the Bible to be “practical.”

The Euthyphro Question

In just about any introductory philosophy class one is bound to encounter what is known as the "Euthyphro" question. The aptly titled quandary - or, it is at least assumed to be a quandary by some - comes from a short Platonic dialogue (meaning written by the Greek philosopher Plato) by the same name in which Socrates inquires of his interlocuting guest - Euthyphro, from Greek meaning "right thinking" or "Mr. Straight Thinking" according to Aryeh Kosman - a perplexing question. Euthyphro claims that a pious act is one that is loved by the gods, to which Socrates responds with the question: But is an act pious because it is god-loved, or is it god-loved because it is pious? In other words, are pious acts made pious by the gods, or do the gods merely observe actions which are pious and then label them as such?

Now, some people have attempted to bring this question over into a theistic setting and claim that this same objection can apply to belief in a single God (forgetting the historical context of a Greek culture - Athens - which believed in a pantheon of gods many, many gods). As this pertains to the problem of evil - my current study - I will offer a brief account of this objection and then a brief response. Precisely what the objection is supposed to be can become complex to explain, but it is mostly an attempted refutation of Divine Command Theory - that morality is a set of commands from God. While I do not necessarily advocate DCT, I think that it must be devalued based upon legitimate objections and not this one in particular from the Euthyphro dialogue which I believe to fall short of accomplishing its goal.

So here is the Euthyphro question applied to theism: Are right acts right because God commands them, or does God command them because they are right? I will assume that the distinction between these two concepts is clear enough that I do not need to explore the nature of actions and passions.

My brief response to the Euthyphro question is that it is quite possibly an incoherent charge to level at theism. To begin, if God has existed from eternity (as is the theistic hypothesis), then certain moral facts have also - in a semi-Platonic sense - existed from eternity with Him; allow me to give an example. If we suppose that God is all that exists, that He has not yet created anything, then let us ask a question: If God were to create a Universe exactly like ours, and then command His creatures to torture innocent babies for fun, would this be wrong on God's part? I think that if we can assume it to be true that torturing babies for fun is wrong, then we can say that it is true that in a Universe like ours then torturing babies is wrong as a means of logical consequence (even for God). This is tantamount to saying that in a Universe like ours atoms are smaller than molecules. It is simply the way that things must work given the structure of existence. Hence, because certain observations we have made like these would be true as hypothetical statements even if our Universe did not exist, then it is possible that true statements about moral dilemmas exist as necessary and contingent truths which are dependent upon God to actualize certain Universes in order for the moral dilemmas to exist. So it would be true to say that if God created a Universe exactly like ours then it would be wrong for a person to torture innocent babies in that Universe, even though that Universe does not exist. The non-existence of that Universe, however, does not negate the truth of the hypothetical statement. This is equivalent to saying that in every possible Universe bachelors are unmarried males, because it is inconceivable that there is a possible Universe in which bachelors are married. Now, we have seen that it is possible for true statements about morality to exist without the actual instantiations of the moral situations themselves being realized.

The next thing to do is argue that the nature of morality - that is, why it would be hypothetically wrong to torture babies in a Universe exactly like ours - depends upon God. That is, in order to defend the claim that morality is both dependent upon God and not His arbitrary commandment, one needs to first demonstrate that morality is not arbitrary - it has perhaps become necessarily true as I have stated it - and then that things are still moral or immoral because of how they relate to God. This argument follows logically - I think - from the claim that it is possible for necessarily true statements about morality to exist. That is, if there are such things as necessarily true statements about morality then what else could we appeal to except God for explaining why they are necessarily true? If nothing else exists except God, then how can they be dependent upon anything else?

In any event, there are still problems with what I have written here which I will not explore, but I think the fact that on the hypothesis of theism that moral truths potentially exist eternally with God is at least one response to the Euthyphro question.

The Problem of Evil

This will be an introductory piece on the Problem of Evil as it is formulated to undermine the theistic belief in a God with these three characteristics: Omnipotence (all-powerful), Omniscience (all-knowing), Omni-benevolence (or morally perfect). This is sometimes called the Three-O, Tri-Omni, or O3 God. I am not mainly looking to expound the POE, its various formulations, and the contributions that have been made to it both historically and recently. Instead, I plan to use a brief introduction of the main ideas involved in the POE as a springboard for the putting forth of my own considerations.

The essential formulation of the POE can go something like this:

P1) God exists and has all three omni characteristics stated above.
P2) Evil exists.
P3) Something is wrong here.

To some degree all of those who are familiar with the claims of theism must also be familiar with the challenge that the existence of evil presents to those who believe theism to be an epistemically warranted belief (rational). If God truly is good, and truly is all-powerful, then why has he created a Universe in which suffering exists? This is the basic question, and the way that one then takes this objection and puts it into an argument can have many forms. Before a small book written by Alvin Plantinga (professor of philosophy at Notre Dame University) in the 1970s called God, Freedom, and Evil, many people apparently thought that they could demonstrate the existence of God to be logically incompatible with the existence of evil (understanding that by God I mean O3 Theism, and by evil I mean suffering of any kind as well as moral evil). They sought to show that the existence of God was logically impossible if evil also existed. Since Platinga’s significant contribution to discussions over the POE with this book, almost all philosophers have rejected the idea of logically disproving God’s existence. Instead they have focused on the probabilistic argument from evil, one which attempts to show that God’s existence is at least improbable given that evil exists. Again, most of these accounts have not been successful, if by success one means rationally persuasive. On the other hand, there is a certain emotional tug which probabilistic arguments from evil seem to exert upon the reader, especially when combined with particularly poignant examples of suffering or moral evil. They appeal to our understanding of what goodness is and what capability is, and make us consider whether or not we are still rational to believe that God exists.

Thus far I have not necessarily been attempting to elucidate many of the main areas of disagreement which surround the POE, such as formulations of probability theorem, what it means for something to be logically impossible, and the distinction between a theodicy and a defense. Instead I have been meaning to keep this piece still very much at the conceptual level because this is precisely where many of my own thoughts lie on the problem of evil. For right now the reader only needs to know the basic ideas which atheists and agonistics claim are inconsistent, that is, that a certain God exists and that he would allow evil to exist. In the future I will be posting to this blog my own thoughts as they are developed. I will be asking and exploring a question similar to this one: Are human beings epistemically warranted in claiming that God must have a reason for permitting evil to exist? What kinds of evil must he have a reason for, moral evil or suffering? What ramifications does drawing a distinction between these two kinds of “evil” have for the theist who wishes to offer a defense for God’s existence? Must God have a morally sufficient reason for permitting suffering, or for permitting moral evil?

These and more questions are those which will be explored in the near future. Stay tuned.

The Silence of God

A random thought for today – the silence of God.

Warning: This is a random thought, which typically is going to mean that I have not developed the concepts and claims stated below as thoroughly enough to put forth a compelling argument. Nonetheless, it was an idea I had which I would like to explore briefly and that someone else may build upon to use for himself.

I have been engaged in a study of the Problem of Evil in the last few weeks. I have been reading various essays and books from both sides of the issue, as is necessary if one is going to be a well-rounded and, to put it plainly, responsible Christian apologist. So far my favorite paper on the issue has been Paul Draper’s formulation using Bayesian probability theory to show that pain and suffering are less surprising on the hypothesis that God does not exist than on the hypothesis that He does exist. I, of course, disagree with his hypothesis, but nonetheless find it at least as compelling as the counterarguments of the theists I have read.

In the future I will be posting some of my own thoughts on this topic, but right now I am reading C.S. Lewis’ book The Problem of Pain and a point he makes struck me as being particularly interesting though unrelated (for the most part) to the POE. Between pages 27-29 Lewis explores the notion of what conditions are necessary in order for beings that are self-conscious to exist. He essentially elucidates a claim that I have heard elsewhere, which is that in order for knowledge to be possible a duality must exist of a knower and a knowee. That is, if a self-conscious and personal being is to have knowledge then it must exist and be the thing that knows, and then something else must exist and be the thing that is known. This is an important precondition of knowledge and a problem fortunately solved by the Christian formulation of the Trinity wherein God exists in eternity as a unity of three persons.

But these are side-notes to introduce the observation which I wish to make – that is they are a context to put it in. Lewis makes what I think is a very interesting observation in noting that if two human minds were to exist without some kind of separate ontological instantiation of each mind by itself, then it would be impossible for the two minds to tell each other apart. To put this in non-technical language, if two human minds somehow existed in a sort-of disembodied state in which the thoughts of both minds were immediately present to each other, then one mind could not distinguish between its own thoughts and those of its neighbor. Thus they would both be unaware of the other mind’s existence.

Now, as regards God and our interacting with Him, a similar situation might occur when we wish for God to speak to us more directly. This is why I have titled this short piece as the silence of God, because it seems to be a problem for Christians – very much including myself – that sometimes we wish God would speak directly to us and yet He doesn’t. Well, if Lewis’ speculations concerning the nature of two disembodied minds are correct, then if God speaks to us directly into our thoughts – as seems to be the case considering that few of us have heard Him speak audibly – then it is very difficult for us to distinguish God’s words from our own thoughts. Indeed, this is precisely what Lewis says when he observes that, “You may reply, as a Christian, that God (and Satan) do, in fact, affect my consciousness in this direct way without signs of ‘externality.’ Yes: and the result is that most people remain ignorant of the existence of both,” (27). Again, Lewis is talking about direct communication of God to us through our thoughts, and he says that we in fact confuse God’s thoughts with our own, and Satan’s thoughts with our own (which I think is about the only way to make sense of demon possession in the Bible, although that is another topic).

So I tentatively put forth a hypothesis that God does speak directly to us less than we might desire, though not because He does not have want to be present in our lives, but because He uses other human beings to speak to us, in order to teach us regarding Him, His will, our own lives, etc. as the issues are essentially unlimited. A reason He might do this is because if He were simply to tell us what to do then we would confuse His words with our own thoughts and be acting upon what we believed to be our own ideas that we had assented to when in fact they were God’s. Thus there would actually be no choice for God necessary, because He would be bombarding us with thoughts and thus controlling – or very nearly controlling – our behavior.

To state more clearly the point that I am making, allow me to invent a practical example whereby the unfolding of this process might be seen to take place. Say that you were praying to God for a job. In searching the newspapers, internet, and talking with friends, a few potential job offers come your way. At this point you could go with whichever job you had been offered, but you were unsure of which one it was that God desired for you to have. So you consult family and friends over the possibilities and eventually arrive a decision which, insofar as you are able to discern, is where God wants you. Absolute certainty you may not have, but you are about as sure as you can be under the circumstances.

In the situation described above, God could have put into your mind a thought along the lines of, “I am going to choose job X because of Y.” Now, if you had acted on this thought, where would the deliberation and assent to God’s will have been necessary on your part? What actual choice for God would have been necessary? Through the use of other people in your life God can speak just as clearly to you without having to directly interfere with your mental processes to make you do His will. In praying to Him, He may not speak audibly or put the thoughts directly into your head as you might wish, because this would be much easier, but again that would eliminate the need for you to actually choose the particular direction He wishes for you to go. Indeed, it might call into question whether or not Christians can be said to have free will. And since God does not seem to interfere with our free will except on a very rare occasion, then His lack of direct communication is perhaps not so unexpected.

Now, with all that I have said I believe that many problems arise. Nonetheless, I think it is still a possible interpretation of God’s seeming silence during our times of seeking His will, and I hope that it might be useful to someone out there.

Luke Ch. 8 vs. 16 - What the?

I have been reading in the Gospel of Luke recently, mainly in the interest of further familiarizing myself with the Biblical text rather than undertaking an comprehensive study of each book. Nonetheless I cannot help but want to understand everything that is happening, and sometimes this leaves me contemplating a perplexing verse for long periods of time. This happened today as I came across verse sixteen in chapter eight of Luke. The context is that Jesus has just explained a parable to his disciples which had been told to a fair amount of people in a crowd, some being confused apparently (this I infer from Christ’s quotation of Scripture, which you will need to read in order to understand the reference) but what Jesus said. After explaining the parable to his disciples, he seems to add a sort of explanatory note – or perhaps, a cautionary one – onto his elucidation of the parable in order that the disciples understand that he has no come to confuse people, or to create an secret-knowledge religion, but to reveal something. The NET Bible (www.netbible.org) has this translation for verses 16-18:

“8:16 ‘No one lights a lamp and then covers it with a jar or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a lampstand so that those who come in can see the light. 8:17 For nothing is hidden that will not be revealed, and nothing concealed that will not be made known and brought to light. 8:18 So listen carefully, for whoever has will be given more, but whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken from him.’”

Now, I was particularly confused by this last line, because on the surface it seems an odd statement, one of many in the N.T. On the assumption that these three verses are in fact clarifying the nature of how/why Christ is telling parables, however, then I might have a possibly correct interpretation. I might also be totally wrong, so you will have to judge.

The first question I asked myself is, “Why would God want to give to those that already have, and take from those that don’t have?” It is natural to ask such a question, I think, given what I believe to be true about God and that this verse seems to be referring to Him as the agent of giving and taking – although it is possible that I have misinterpreted that as well. But after asking myself this, another question came to me, “But what is he [Jesus] talking about? What is this thing that will be taken away from those that do not have, and given to those that already do have?” After pondering this for awhile, I reached the conclusion that Christ is most likely talking about revealed truth from God both about Himself, and about what He has done and is doing (i.e. truth regarding the Resurrection, the nature of Christian living, the outworking of ministry, and other items related to living as if we believed our religion to be true). To me this seems the best way to make sense of something which will be given to those that already have it, and taken from those that do not.

Hence I understand this verse as such: If people who already have a true knowledge of God (a personal knowledge, not a theological knowledge, an understanding which shows them how to relate to God through their lives) are active with it and receive it appropriately, then God will reveal more of Himself to them. If they do not receive knowledge of God in the appropriate way, that is they receive the knowledge and then alter it in their minds and believe the product of this alteration because it suits their desires, then God will withdraw Himself from the lives of these people. Thus, even though they think that they have knowledge of God and they continue to grow in a false “knowledge,” they are in fact becoming further distanced from Him and the truth is taken from them.

Now, one obvious difficulty with this interpretation is that I believe God is always active in trying to reach out to people – that is, in speaking to them however it is that He does so through the Holy Spirit – and I do not like the idea that God is actually speaking to people less because of how they respond to Him. However, this desire that I have for God to be acting in a certain way is not really grounded in any kind of Scripture, so if my interpretation of this verse is correct then I must either alter this other belief, or perhaps try to harmonize it with this set of verses.

Colossians Ch.1 vs. 6 - Preach The Gospel, Not Yourself

Warning: This small exegesis contains some references to Greek which those unfamiliar with the language will not understand. The conclusions I will draw, however, will be explained without any knowledge of Greek necessary.

Here is the text of Colossians verse six according to the NASB and a link:

"...which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth..."
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians%201:6;&version=49;

Here is the same text for those NIV folk out there:

"...that has come to you. All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its truth..."
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians%201:6;&version=31;

It is interesting to observe how the NIV augments “God’s grace” with “in all its truth,” which I assume is due to the augmenting force of epignosis preceding it.

I was translating Colossians and came upon this passage which has a few interesting words in it. The first is karpophoroumenon, parsed as a masculine accusative singular, present middle participle from karpophreo, and the second is auxanomenon, which is a masculine accusative singular, present passive participle from auxano (both of these are parsed according to Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of 1889, pages 326 and 84, respectively).

The first word is translated by the NASB as “constantly bearing fruit.” This is perhaps a better translation than the NIV because it conveys the aspect of the present participle, which is a continuous action. The second word is translated “increasing,” though it is also a present tense participle and as such is subject to – theoretically – the same nuance of a continuous action, and thus could be translated “continually increasing.” In any event, this is an aside to my main point but nonetheless worthy of being pointed out.

The main observation that I wish to make depends upon whether or not Thayer’s Lexicon is accurately telling me that karpophoroumenon is a middle participle. Since I rely upon this volume to give me accurate translations, and I have not heard that it is in any way unreliable, and that this interpretation is corroborated by Blueletterbible.org (http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgibin/c.pl?book=Col&chapter=1&verse=6&version=kjv
), I will assume it accurate. It is also important that auxanomenon be passive.

So I am almost at my observation. The significance of the middle voice in Koine Greek is stated by William D. Mounce (in his widely-used grammar) as, “The classical definition of the middle voice is that the action of a verb in the middle voice in some way affects the subject,” (emphasis original, The Basics of Biblical Greek, Second Edition, Zondervan 2003, Pp. 230). Hence Thayer’s suggests a translation of the middle voice for karpophoreo as “To bear fruit of one’s self,” (326). It also suggests the translation of the passive auxanomenon as “to grow, increase, become greater,” (84).

Thus, here is my observation. If the significance of the verbs in the statement can be taken a generally representative of Paul’s attitude concerning the growth and effectiveness of the Gospel (which would require more space than I have), then I yield these conclusions: 1) Based upon the middle voice and accusative case of the participle for the word translated as “constantly bearing fruit,” we can understand that the Gospel “bears fruit of itself,” as Thayer’s suggests. It is not that preachers or pastors, or cute stories, or nice-sounding lists of rules or “principles to live by” are the truths that change our lives. Rather, it is accepting the Gospel as true that will naturally yield to changes in the individual. (c.f. http://www.churchstaffresources.com/ to see the opposite of what Paul seems to be saying, I especially like the “More Movie-Based Illustrations for Preaching and Teaching…” But I suppose that when you have not the tools to disagree with the culture you might as well absorb it entirely into the church). God of course works out in the individual’s life how this process is to take place regarding particular sets of behavior, but only He can show us how this is to be done because we are each very different (c.f. Phillippians Ch. 2 vs. 12-13).

The second conclusion I draw is based upon the passive participle translated as “growing” in verse six, or perhaps “continually growing” if this conveys continuous action better for you. If this can be taken as generally indicative of Paul’s attitude regarding the growth and effectiveness of the Gospel, then 2) We do not cause the Gospel message to be spread, we do not grow God’s Kingdom, only God does. Of course if the Gospel is receiving the action of “being grown” while the agent is not named, then one could stipulate human beings as being the cause of growth. But given that the Gospel “bears fruit of itself,” I am inclined to think of the truths of the Gospel as being more dependent upon God and what He has done than on what we are doing, thus I submit that He is a better explanation for the growth of the Gospel.

Now, all that having been said, what is a particular application of this material? Given that I can only speak for myself, I will do just that and say that my understanding would be that the church’s responsibility is to educate people regarding Christian beliefs and behavior, and then work through other means of exhortation towards fulfilling these duties. From much of the preaching I hear, the focus is motivation rather than education. The truth of the Gospel is focused on much less than it should be, and I understand the power of “If A is true then I should not do B” to be much harder to ignore than the power of a good anecdote. In any event, this is only a brief exegesis and the verse should be read in context by anyone wishing to explore my observations. If anything appears to contradict what I have said, or if simply the language that Paul uses cannot be taken to convey so much content, then junk my conclusions. After all, language is rarely subject to the kind of scrutinizing analysis that Biblical exegetes apply to the Greek N.T., therefore I would take care not to overemphasize.

An Introductory Note

Given the potentially controversial title of my blog, I thought it important to elucidate a few points about my theology and beliefs. After this particular introductory post I will be cataloguing the latest random points I have to make about the latest random item of study that I have undertaken, although usually they are more close to carefully-chosen items of study than random ones, though they may seem random to others. So here in a nutshell is just a sampling of my beliefs:

1) I am loosely orthodox. But mostly pragmatically speaking. As to the nature and attributes of God which are communicated to us through Scripture, the natural world, and other people, I am sketchy as to whether my understanding of any of these concepts is so full as to grasp them in an infinite sense – which God would of course possess.
2) I believe that the claims of Christianity can and should be demonstrated through logical, inferential, and intuitional means (though, of course any argument actually involves all three of these). So I am not afraid to (a) defend my beliefs as true, (b) demonstrate that other beliefs which contradict my own are untrue by virtue of mine being true and (c) believe that the normal rules of epistemic warrant for a belief apply to Christianity. When I say “my beliefs” in this context I am referring to the traditional claims of Christianity, such as the physical resurrection of Christ, the existence of God, the possibility of miracles, the non-physical aspect of our existence, etc.
3) I am toying with the notion that Christians who are unwilling to develop their intellectual capacity in order to both, (1) defend the truth of our worldview and (2) be able to communicate it more clearly to others, are not fully responsible representatives of Christ. Many people claim that the philosophical skills necessary to defend Christianity are simply not a talent or ability they possess, but I have yet to hear a single person deny the importance of building relationships. In fact, I hear it so frequently that many times preachers make Christianity sound like a big social club. Since I, myself, could be just as easily inclined to say that building relationships with people is a skill that I lack, yet I do not do so for it is my responsibility to reach others through relationships, I do not accept the line of, “All that stuff just isn’t for me,” as an excuse.