Healing Miracles - P2

This is a continuation of my partial review of Ken Blue’s book “Authority to Heal.” The basic goal of the book is to address the topic of healing miracles amidst the present-day American culture (both inside and outside the Church) and to make a case that healing ministries (where people pray for the sick and see them healed miraculously) are a legitimate option for Christians to pursue.

In chapters 2-4, Blue addresses three ideas which he believes can create obstacles to healing ministries. I include a summary of each chapter’s subject matter and some of my own thoughts. Sometimes this doesn’t require me to say much because some of the ideas are becoming increasingly obsolete theological views.

Ch. 2) Divine Determinism.
This is the view that God causes everything to happen. In more precise language, God is the ultimate and efficient cause of all events. If a rain drop falls from the sky and lands on a puddle, this is because God has caused it to do so. If I buy a $20 cigar, God has caused me to do so. I think that this view does deny free will, although some might try a more limited form in which God causes everything except what human beings (and other free-willed beings like angels and demons) do.

The problem that this view creates is to see sickness as caused by God, therefore, what’s the use of praying? If God has made someone sick, then he will make the person well if he chooses. It is all under the control and sovereignty of God.

I, personally, am not sure how people come up with these kinds of doctrines. I’m not sure what passages of the Bible they would refer to (perhaps Exodus 7:3 and similar ones about God hardening Pharaoh’s heart?) in support of their view. In any event, few enough people believe in this doctrine that I don’t see any strong need to thoroughly address it.

There is, however, a way to show that Divine Determinism is ultimately irrelevant to our decision-making when it comes to prayer for healing. Consider a hypothetical case in which a hospital patient, call him Fred, is sick. I am trying to decide whether or not to pray for Fred. My thinking goes along these lines:

“I can do one of two things: A) Pray for Fred, or B) Refrain from praying for Fred. If I pray for Fred, then it’s because God has caused me to pray for Fred. Likewise if I do not pray for him. Therefore, what do I do? It seems that no matter what I do, God has caused it. Therefore, the knowledge that God causes everything to happen does not help me to make a decision about what to actually do. I know that God will cause whatever I do, but I do not now know what action God will cause.”

Unfortunately, many people still believe that God causes all things – like the sickness and death of their children – which turn them against him. Therefore, this doctrine is not difficult to refute, but it is important to do so where it is encountered.

Ch. 3) Faith Formula
Blue provides a nice summary:

“‘Faith-formula’ thinking is based on the theory that there is a strict causality between faith and healing. It holds that all divine blessings, such as health and prosperity, are constantly and fully available to all Christians. These benefits, which are supposedly available to every and any child of God, may be instantly appropriated, provided the individual Christian knows enough and believes enough.” (42).

This is another doctrine with mysterious origins. I can’t find a passage in the Bible that would support this kind of theology because it reduces to this fundamental assumption:

A: God will heal any sickness if there is sufficient faith.

This is thin soup and pretty easy to address. God becomes too much of a robot – you believe hard enough and he will heal you. Further, this assumes that God wants to heal all sickness, or, alternatively put, that God does not use sickness to mature and grow us. I personally believe that he can, though I agree with Blue that sickness should not be equated with persecution (see below: http://sesosmenos.blogspot.com/2008/12/to-those-who-reject-healing-miracles.html) The “faith-formula” view says that if a person can believe hard enough, then God will heal them. Even if they remain impenitent, not desiring to learn from God through their suffering – God will heal them instantly if they believe hard enough.

Ch. 4) The Secular Worldview
Blue cites the Secular Worldview as a “theological hindrance” (20) to miracles of healing. I don’t think much needs to be said on this other than to observe that it is obviously true. If you don’t believe in God (or some kind of god), you won’t believe in miracles – simple enough.

What I think is particularly important for Christians in America, however, is to not allow the barrage of non-Christian viewpoints to lull them into implicitly thinking of God as a bored and distant landlord (and then to emulate him in this regard). Some people say that science has proven that miracles cannot happen. This is plainly false, as it is not the job of science to make claims as to what is possible if non-physical things (such as the God of Christianity) exist and influence the physical world. If one accepts methodological naturalism – which is basically the view that science can only talk about natural objects and how they affect each other – then science simply does not address the question of what happens to the natural world when non-natural entities start interacting with it. Science remains neutral. I’ve never been a big fan of methodological naturalism, however, so think that science can include miracles, but that’s a different topic. The main point here is that science, as it generally proceeds, is silent on the possibility of miracles.

To Those Who Reject Healing Miracles

The latest book that I picked up is called “Authority to Heal” and it’s written by Ken Blue. The basic idea behind the book can be captured by the questions on the front cover, which I assume it attempts to answer: “Does God heal today? Why are some healed and some not? Isn’t healing sometimes against God’s will?”

From what I can tell, Blue’s discussion of healing is specific to the idea of a healing ministry where people actively seek to pray for as many people as possible to be healed – mainly through one-on-one interaction. There is an account in the introduction of various healing ministries in which he’s participated, with real live miracles and real live people not knowing how to respond. Further, Blue himself has experienced healing – and has had to change his theology as a result.

The shorthand explanation for why I’m reading the book – because its immaterial to what I want to talk about – is that I am curious about the subject, the evidence for such healing ministries (and thus an assessment of their plausibility), and because I recently have come to know some people that have been a part of healing ministries. As such, I have some good personal reasons for investigating the matter, in addition to the fact that I think healing could be a powerful witness to God’s power for both Christians and non-Christians alike.

What I plan to talk about is the first chapter, which seems to be an attempt to answer the last question above: “Isn’t healing sometimes against God’s will?” I have never encountered anyone who took this view, but apparently Blue (and some people that I know) has encountered Christians who actually reject the idea of being healed because they believe that their sickness or condition is God’s will. Now this apparently is something that is specific to sickness, injury, or similar situations, where people are suffering and believe that God has brought the suffering upon them for the sake of personal growth.

Blue thinks this is a confusion, which he traces back to the days of the early Christian Church (2nd – 4th centuries A.D.) in which suffering from persecution was highly esteemed and gained the sufferer a privileged status. When Constantine become emperor of the Roman Empire in 306 A.D. and required religious tolerance through the Edict of Milan in 313 A.D. When the persecution decreased, Christians began seeking other forms of suffering through which to achieve spiritual growth and, apparently, higher status in their communities as a result. Sickness eventually came to be viewed as a means of achieving maturity, and thus healing was discouraged.

Blue’s point in all of this is that this misunderstanding of the nature of sickness developed into a confusion of sickness and suffering from persecution. Blue maintains that there is a very stark contrast between these two ideas, and it can mainly be seen in the appropriate attitudes towards the two kinds of suffering. If someone suffers as a Christian, he is to count it as a blessing because it is a mark of true discipleship (c.f. 1 Peter 4:12-16 where suffering as a Christian is contrasted with suffering as a wrongdoer).

So if one knows that he is suffering as a Christian, that is a cause for rejoicing. This is not so with sickness. Nothing about suffering from illness implies that one is a sincere follower of Christ – which is obvious when we are reminded that non-Christians suffer from illness as well. But some people apparently do think that sickness is an indication of true discipleship in the same way as suffering related to persecution. This leads to all sorts of problems. People can become arrogant or proud of themselves in their suffering, and they can begin to see sickness itself as a fundamentally good thing rather than an evil that is not a part of God’s Kingdom.

There is one catch in all of this. Often times the results and circumstances of sickness and those of suffering from persecution can be pretty similar. I can imagine a scenario in which one is suffering from persecution, believing it an indication of his discipleship in following Christ, when in fact the two are unrelated. Indeed, Blue mentions precisely this on p.22-23 where he talks about the martyrdom cults of early Christianity wherein high status could be gained by dying at Roman hands for the sake of Christ. Surely it is possible for someone to die a martyr and not be a true follower of Christ – even if they claim to be and sincerely think that they are. Thus, just as suffering from sickness may not be an indication of true discipleship, so I think suffering from persecution can be the same way.

Further, I know that many people have experienced periods of intense growth in their relationship with God through sickness. Thus sickness can be used by God in the life of a true disciple of Christ to increase his or her maturity.

In closing this point, it would be important to summarize the state of the argument. There is no guarantee that suffering from either sickness or persecution is doing related to one’s genuine faith in Christ, while it is possible for God to use both in the lives of believers to mature them. From what can be gathered about sickness and persecution in the Bible, only the latter has a strong association with true discipleship. Therefore, we are best to not make the same assumptions about sickness in relationship to sincere belief in Christ.

Now to the practical. I think that there is a very straightforward approach towards responding to people who don’t want to be healed. If the issue is one of God’s will, then there is a very direct question to be asked here: If you trust that God knows what he is doing in making you sick, would you not trust him all the same if he made you well? Only God can heal you miraculously, and so if it is his will that you be sick, then only by his will can you be made well. In either case, the result would be the will of God. I do not think that it demonstrates a lack of trust in God to seek healing for sickness – in fact it may be the catalyst for far more change that the sickness ever brought about. That this is a possibility – that healing may bring about more good than change – suggests that the humblest and most trusting attitude that we can take towards God is to follow the Biblical model as we best understand it, and to make our pleas in acknowledgement that he is trustworthy no matter the results.

I fear that many may shrink from healing because they don’t believe that God is active to perform miracles and demonstrate his power today. Further, they would rather suffer in their condition than pray to God, and have to trust him no matter the results. Indeed, it may be quite traumatic to desire something so greatly and for God to not respond as we would wish. Our response might be anger, distrust, rebellion, etc., and I can only say that I have a fair amount of my own experience with each of these. However, our God is very big God, he is not insecure and his feeling aren’t easily hurt, and he responds with grace and humility towards his people, therefore he is able to bare the brunt even of our worst attitudes towards him. I worry that being afraid of distrusting God may be the greatest obstacle that many people face in learning to trust him more.

Does God Specially Create Our Desires?

The title says it well enough. I answer this question, but it takes awhile. This post is not very polished, and I didn't mean it to be, because I don't have enough time right now to reflect on and further develop these ideas. But I thought the discourse was worth posting.

Today I was reading prayer project for one of my classes, which is basically a kind of guided-prayer homework assignment. The idea behind today’s particular prayer journal is to gain a greater sense of what God’s purpose for your life might be through reflection on your strengths, desires, influences over the course of your life, passions, etc. On the directions for this prayer project, there is some interesting theology smuggled in, taking the form of an instructive for prayer, and here is a small but relevant excerpt:

We do need to pay attention or our likes, dislikes, joys, etc., as [God] created them and they may point us to His purpose for us.

The idea, then, is that God creates our desires, joys, etc.

I, for one, have two problems with this statement: 1) It is either trivially and therefore not interestingly true, and 2) If the author of the statement is shooting for more than mere triviality, then I do not know how to make sense of it, because all of the options as to how I might interpret it seem to make little sense.

Let’s examine the first of these – that the statement is trivially true. What I mean by this is that I think there is a certain obvious sense in which it is true that God has created our desires. Actually, there really are two, both of them quite trivial. The first is that God is the ultimate cause of all that exists, therefore by indirect causation he has created the desires of each of his followers – and everyone else who exists. The second sense of triviality is that God does give people new desires and new hearts when he redeems them and cleanses them through Christ’s atoning sacrifice. This is fairly obvious from 2 Cor. 5:17 and the “old man/new man” comparison of Ephesians 4. These desires may even be specific to certain ministries that God has called people to – i.e. some people enjoy public speaking because they were called to be Evangelists.

Both of these notions to me seem quite obviously true. The second one is especially obvious because God is seeking to redeem his creation, and to redeem all of it. He doesn’t want people who simply know what they should think, love, hate, do, respect, admire, enjoy, etc., he wants people who actually do think, love hate, admire, enjoy, respect, etc., in the right way. I may know that I should hate stealing, but I might also still continue in it. If I actually came to hate it, then my heart would be changed, and I would have new desires – i.e. desires to not steal in circumstances that before would have produced the opposite desire. Thus, God gives people new desires, and not simply a knowledge of what their desires should be (although I have no idea how he actually does this, it’s a bit mystical, but not too much so.)

If we move beyond triviality into something more substance, then the possibilities expand endlessly into the horizon. However, it is here that a lot confusion could be stirred up. Let’s go with the interpretation of “God creates our desires” that came to my mind immediately as I was reading in order to illustrate the confusion that I’m talking about.

Imagine, then, that God is orchestrating his plan of creation before he has actually created us. Of course this is a bit of an anthropomorphism, but I don’t think that any substantial difficulties are created by describing the process in this way. We know from Ephesians 1:4 that God has “chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world.” Being chosen in Christ means being a part of Christ’s body – the Church. Being a member of the Church (with a big “C” signifying the universal Christian church of all believers everywhere) means having a role to play (c.f. 1 Cor. 12 and Paul’s discussion of Spiritual gifts, and that each is a distinct role, but that all are equally important – or at least I would argue). Therefore, God gave us desire before the foundation of the world according to the roles that he would have us play. In this sense, then, God has created and instilled in us our particular desires.

I have some problems with this view. The first is that it seems to strip away the individuality of the desires – the idea that God gave someone a specific desire because that desire befitted that person in some way. If we picture God dolling out desires before the foundation of the world, then we must also imagine that he is giving them to people who as yet do not have desires. If they had desires, then this would mean that God did not create this desires. Of course we are speaking hypothetically, because the people do not exist yet, but we can construct some fictional dialogue in God’s mind in order to make my point clearer:

God thinking to himself: “Here is John Q. Preacher. As yet Mr. Preacher does not exist, but is merely a person that I plan to create at some point in time. I plan to make Mr. Preacher a preacher, therefore I will give them desires to study, to know the truth, and to communicate it effectively to others. But, surely giving someone desires is not all to their personality – I need to give him tendencies, talents, attitudes, dispositions of behavior, certain physical qualities that will shape him, etc. As of yet, however, I have not given Mr. Preacher any such characteristics. All that can be said about him is that he will be a male. I am working with a blank slate, and could just as easily give these desires to Mary. J. Mercyworker, or James D. Theologian. I could give this personality to Mr. Theologian, or I could give it to Mr. Preacher. But I have already decided to make Mr. Theologian a theologian, so I will make Mr. Preacher a preacher, even though I could have done the opposite.”

This scenario seems to make God’s giving out desires a bit arbitrary. Or at least not in any way strongly related to the person to whom the desires are given. Surely God could give Mr. Preacher his desires because God wants X number of preachers – but this has little to do with Mr. Preacher, his talents, attitudes, behavioral tendencies, etc.

I would submit that a different scenario, which doesn’t picture God as creating our desires from the foundation of the world, is actually more satisfactory and still consistent with the two trivially true affirmations of this notion. On this alternative, we could stipulate that people’s desire, attitudes, tendencies, and their personalities in general are primarily dependent upon their parents – that is, they are inherited. People primarily inherit their desires, and God does not need to specially create them for every person. In this case, it is still possible that God specially creates certain desires or other personality traits in certain individuals for the sake of a specific task (say, certain leadership qualities in David that he would not have possessed if God had not created them), but that would not be the norm.

Thus people receive from their parents certain personality traits, and the rest is shaped through developmental processes. If someone becomes a Christian, then God is able to work with that individual to change his or her heart in the ways described above: So that they learn to put off the old man, put on the new man, and become fully redeemed by loving and hating, doing and enjoying, experiencing and knowing – all appropriately.

Further, God may also give to the person some specific and specially-created desires after he or she becomes a Christian. This would be nothing short of miraculous, even if it took time to develop. Further, the desires that God develops in people would be fitting to the personalities that people had inherited from their parents – that is, the person would already be in place, and God would be creating desires in accordance with how that person is – rather than creating that person around certain desires that God wishes them to have. Thus if I inherit emotive and withdrawing tendencies from my parents, I may become a poet (no offense to any poets) or perhaps some kind of novelist (I can make these comments because I have such tendencies). Those natural desires which may not have been particularly constructive in their unaffected state, due to inheritance, can become tools and blessings for God’s kingdom as he reshapes the heart of the person towards using them, and enjoying them, in the best possible manner.

As I said, this position also allows for the trivial sense of “create” to be true – because it allows that God develops the desires of the hearts of his people. Further, I think it avoids a lot of complicated philosophical speculation not necessarily suited to a Prayer Project.

"Adventures In Missing The Point" Ch.1 and Other Musings

Tony Campolo (http://www.tonycampolo.org/) and Brian McLaren (http://www.brianmclaren.net/) wrote a book together in 2003 called “Adventures in Missing the Point.” This is the first work by Campolo that I have read, but from what I can tell he seems fairly conservative in his Christian views (he believes in a literal, personal, and very active Satan, c.f. p.29). Brian McLaren is a leading representative of the Emerging Church (http://emergingchurch.info), and even more selectively within this camp, he is a member of Emergent Village (http://www.emergentvillage.com/), which as far as I can tell, is simply a group of people attempting to practice Christianity as they understand it (“in a postmodern context”).

But these associations really tell you little about McLaren. I have read only one of his other books, which I think is his best known, called “A Generous Orthodoxy,” in which he says a lot of things that make Evangelical Christians nervous. One example: Brian McLaren is not very clear on some points of his theology, if you ask him if he believes in Hell, he will probably respond with, “Why do you ask the question?” I think that McLaren’s point with not answering these questions directly is to point out that sometimes Evangelicals have their priorities off kilter. They tend to proceed by “checklist” Christianity wherein they ask you some questions and if you give the right answers then you’re “one of us.”

There is a problem that arises, however, and it’s that sometimes certain Christian authors, speakers, and scholars don’t quite grasp what McLaren is doing. This is probably to be expected, because McLaren has an M.A. in English (http://www.brianmclaren.net/archives/about-brian/) and realizes how interactions, scripts, languages, etc., can be used to make a point through much more indirect means than the way that a lot of theological debate is done in seminaries today (i.e. look at the way that Jesus answered questions with questions). Yet, I think it would help McLaren to just come out and actually give a straightforward answer every now and then. So there is room for improvement on both sides.

In any event, I liked the book and think a good presentation of its overall message is “chill out, yo” (if you can imagine a California surfer brushing wavy blonde hair out of his eyes as he says it).

So this other book, “Adventures in Missing The Point,” is apparently about where McLaren and Campolo think that many Christians in the U.S. have missed the point on various subjects. In the intro they claim to be all about seeing their own shortfalls, which is encouraging. And they also plan to proceed by means of a respectful and polite dialogue, without insulting each other, and I believe this could be incredibly instructive to many Christian authors, and even many scholars, who attack and accuse each other, bite and devour, and through doing so gain no nourishment of any kind.

The first chapter to the book is about Salvation (with a capital S indicating being saved from the consequences of sin by Jesus’ atoning sacrifice) – which is a very heralded word in the Christian community. It is written by McLaren, and I think it has many strong points, among which are particularly:

1. That Salvation is more than a point-in-time, moment of conversion (p.26-27 of AMTP). It may indeed include this (or something like it), and this may be a necessary part of Salvation (as Campolo would say), but please people, don’t stop there. Somehow, becoming conformed to the image of Christ is supposed to be thought of as part of one’s Salvation (c.f. Philippians 2:12-13 where Paul, in one of his rarer moment of clarity, says exactly this). Sometimes we use the word “Salvation” to denote “conversion” – or that moment-in-time thing where you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior. But Paul actually uses the word “salvation” (Grk. soteria) here. So whether we used the word “Salvation” to denote conversion, or to talk about both conversion and the subsequent becoming-like-Christ that happens, it seems as though we are supposed to think of them as two aspects of the same thing. I don’t know how exactly, but I think that’s the idea.

1.5 (Because this is really a specifying of point 1): That the something-else of Salvation beyond conversion is about fallen, broken, and corrupted and evil human being becoming God’s true humanity (p.25). This means human beings that have new hearts that love good and hate evil, that put Got first, and that appreciate his creation. There are so many different ways of saying this, actually, and one could go and write some nice poetry about it if they wanted, but that’s the basic idea.

1.7 That part of the reason for this Salvation is so that human beings live with the joy and absence of evil that God originally intended for them (p.20, I think this point can be seen where McLaren gives Paul’s answer to the question about going to heaven, because McLaren thinks that Paul primarily wanted people to experience the joys of salvation). The fact is that evil has destroyed the goodness and joy to be found in God’s created order, and the reason that God intends to set the world to rights is for the benefit of his people (and I would add for his own sake as well, and perhaps throw in some stuff about punishment and justice, but I am mainly focusing McLaren for now).

Two Weak Points:

1. That emphasizing the experiential-benefits of Salvation seems to detract from the responsibility or task-structured nature of Salvation. I think that Paul, in his letters, is very concerned to see his congregations living appropriately (c.f. all of 1 Corinthians, but some nice illustrations can also be found in approx. Phil. 2:1-4, 2:12-15, 4:3-9). Paul seems less concerned about people experiencing a joy that accompanies them following their responsibilities and gaining new hearts (c.f. Ephesians 4:17-32), than he is with these changes actually taking place. Also, I think that Jesus is very insistent that he is the issue – not people or their joy or happiness. It is what people do with Jesus that matters most, not anything else (c.f. Matthew Ch.10 for a lot of material along these lines). It is not that joy is unimportant, or not to be sought after, but I think that an independent notion of “Christian responsibilities” which comes with the very idea of being a “Christian” provides two additional things: 1) a motivation for acting and 2) a moral standard.

2. Not enough said about individual responsibility before God and Salvation from the consequences of sins. I am not accusing McLaren of not believing in these things, only that they are essential to an accurate understanding of Salvation, and that I did not find them in Ch.1. Perhaps, however, I am not the greatest sleuth when it comes to reading McLaren’s views, and it is all there in some rather subtle language. I am open to that possibility.

So I think that McLaren is much better on this issue than many Evangelicals would give him credit for, but that there were a few elements

This Alien Thing, This Stranger in Our Midst

I'm going to try to write briefly about love and what a strange thing it is.

Here is the NIV text of 1 Corinthians 13, the “love” chapter of New Testament:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I think these verses show that love is a very difficult thing, and a very strange thing.

It is obviously difficult to do all that is here: 1) To keep no record of wrongs; 2) To be slow to anger – especially at something unjust that happens to ourselves; 3) To be patient and kind; 4) To not rejoice at evil (especially evil directed at someone who has wronged us and therefore made us angry); 5) To protect, hope, persevere. The most difficult thing, though, is that love never fails in these things. If you act otherwise, then you are not acting in love. This, to me, is the hardest thing about love.

But love is such a strange thing as well. What kind of thing is love that I can give all my possessions to the poor, and surrender my body to the flames, and not have love? Am I not following Jesus by taking up my cross daily (Luke 9:23)? Or if I give all my possessions to the poor, what more could be asked of me (Matthew 19:21)? Such devotion, commitment, and courage – how is it possible without love?

What more is it that love asks? Self-sacrifice is not love. Devotion is not love. Trust in God is not the same as loving God. So what is love?

I can take up the cause of Christ, I can defend Christ, I can evangelize and speak with all wisdom, and yet lack love.

Insofar as I know anything about love – and I only claim to have a vague idea of what it is, and to only practice it on rare occasion – I think one of the chief things it requires is self-honesty and openness to others. How can I love someone if I will not listen to them, and see myself in light of how I affect them?

I may not know what sort of thing love is. But, based on 1 Corinthians 13, I still think I know what love does. I think that it is love which stays an indignant tongue when its words would be just but harmful. I think it is love that seeks to love others in the ways that they feel loved. I think it is love which puts others first, even when they don’t appreciate it. I think it is love that doesn’t require appreciation (even if it would – at the risk of being redundant – be appreciated). I think it is love that keeps anger from hurting others. Love is the heart that breaks for the pain of others. And I think that if I fail in these things, then I fail to love.

(And, for my brethren in the academic community, I think it is love that stops ink from spilling insults on the printed page that wound others in the body of Christ).

So I see now that though I may love someone, I will never act in perfect love. I can never fulfill all these things. Such is God’s domain alone.

In the end, I find that Love is strange, love is hard, love is compelling.

(re)Construction

I find that at times I can be a highly motivated individual. It also happens that at times I am completely exasperated and devoid of the will to accomplish anything. In talking about those moments, hours, days (perhaps even weeks) when my time is occupied with completely unfruitful activities (such as browsing the voluminous clutter and nonsense that the internet is filled with), I do not mean to imply that this happens because I am in need of a break from dealing with the stresses of life. I simply find that some days I lack any determination at all, and I do not necessarily think that this always stems from working too hard and needing some time off.

Instead, what seems to be the case is that I find myself motivated to do things because of an inherent competitiveness and desire to be driven. Note that I have carefully stated the latter in terms of a desire and not its consistent fulfillment, because it is not always the case that I am in sync with my motivations – or that I even possess a set of motivations, for that matter.

The difficulty that I have run into lately is in finding that these tendencies do not fit automatically into the life of an academician. I am not currently an actual academician or professor of any kind, but I am a graduate student, and so basically I am being trained and tested in order to see (for myself) if I can handle such a vocation. That having been said, it seems at this point that I have been relying upon (perhaps not in an entirely cognizant manner) a natural competitive/driven attitude, and a desire to achieve a significant accomplishment, to propel me through the thick forests of academic literature that is the natural dwelling place of the graduate student. It certainly is a jungle out there, as they say.

Now, before moving on, it would be important to take a step back and put these likely nonsensical ramblings into a more coherent context. I think that in my better moments my reasons for going to graduate school were rooted in a mostly genuine desire to contribute as best I am able to the work that God is constantly doing on this planet. I do not think it would be inaccurate to say that God loves his creation enough to be intimately and painfully involved at the points where it is in pain, is hurt, and needs to be healed. What this naturally means for him is that he must deal with human beings who tend to be so occupied with themselves and their lives that they are naturally inclined to turn against God and rarely take the time to force themselves to do whatever is necessary so that their hearts turn towards what is good and become concerned about the things that God is concerned about. I, for my part, am guilty to be counted among such as these.

But in an effort to change, I have given some fairly serious thought to my motivations. I know that in the past I have had times in my life where my motivations were fairly clear and drove me to achieve, but I am not sure now that – give the person I am today – I can live with those same motivations, or even that they were altogether healthy for me at the time. What I have, in fact, decided, is not that I know what my motivations are, but that I have some guidelines about what my motivations should be. I understand that any direction I choose to go with my degree will, hopefully, take me to a place where it will not be appropriate to be motivated simply by competitiveness and a desire to be “the best” at something – or better than other people, which I suppose is what this amounts to for me. Insofar as my understanding goes, the entire body of Christians who are risking to trust their lives to God with the belief that he knows and understands their needs and genuinely cares about them, every person is in this body is called to ministry, and mere competitiveness is not the right motivation to have for doing ministry.

Now, this leaves me (and perhaps others like me) at an odd disjunction. I compete, I like to compete, and I find that I do my best work when what is at stake is clear, and when I know what I have to do to win. Yet, given what I know to be the task of the Christian church, I am not sure how this mindset fits into the lifestyle I have chosen, or how it can be sustained as such. In any event, I think that this competitiveness is something that need not be squashed, but that there needs to be a way to understand it in light of what else I know to be true of the Christian’s calling.

Ephesians 4: 7 But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of the gift of Christ. 4:8 Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he captured captives; he gave gifts to men.” 4:9 Now what is the meaning of “he ascended,” except that he also descended to the lower regions, namely, the earth? 4:10 He, the very one who descended, is also the one who ascended above all the heavens, in order to fill all things. 4:11 It was he who gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, 4:12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, that is, to build up the body of Christ, 4:13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God—a mature person, attaining to the measure of Christ’s full stature. 4:14 So we are no longer to be children, tossed back and forth by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching by the trickery of people who craftily carry out their deceitful schemes. 4:15 But practicing the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Christ, who is the head. 4:16 From him the whole body grows, fitted and held together through every supporting ligament. As each one does its part, the body grows in love.

On Considering the Ravens...

I recently bought Dustin Kensrue’s solo debut album “Please Come Home.” Overall the album is somewhat Bob Dylan-esque and mainly features Kensrue’s gritty vocals alongside an acoustic guitar. The general impression that I get is an intentional rough-around-the-edges style of production, which is fine with me considering Kensrue’s lyrical credentials. It is something of a change, however, for this lead singer of the “Christian” metal band “Thrice.”

In any event, I am not writing a review of the album but I do want to recommend it. Kensrue is a Christian and the promo track “Please Come Home” is based on Jesus’ parable of “The Prodigal Son” (more accurately titled “The Compassionate Father,” found in Luke 15), and there are various not-so-subtle Christian themes woven throughout.

What I want to do instead of a review is reflect on some lyrics from the song “Consider The Ravens,” which I have been thinking about for a little while now. I am not entirely sure what drove me to think about these particular words in the way that I have, nor why the notions that I arrived at have seemed something new to me. But that is what happened. Here, then, are the lyrics:

“Between the river and the ravens I’m fed,

Between oblivion and blazes I’m led,

So Father give me faith, providence and grace.”

This constitutes the half of the chorus that I want to focus on, and it is set against the backdrop of a song that seems to speak in general about the difficulty of following a path for one’s life that seems true to God’s will. The main idea seems to be a struggle with how to bear up under hard times, and what to ask of God during those times. What I like about these lyrics is that I think they can take on a broader dimension of meaning when looked at from that perspective – at least broader than I would normally give them. So here is my own – admittedly questionable – extrapolation on what I would want to mean if I were in the situation that the song depicts.

“So father give me faith…” Please God, give me the faith that James speaks about, the kind that is evidenced by my works. The kind of faith that means more than a conviction or belief, but the faith that means continuing to struggle for the sake of your Kingdom during hard times. I am on this path for your Kingdom, please give me the faith to follow it. I need you to give me this faith God, because I’m sure that I don’t have it of myself.

…providence…” God, I need to know that you are being providential in my life during this time. I need to know that what I have chosen for my life is in accordance with your will, and that if I have somehow failed at this, that you will still give me some providence, that you will still help me to make the best of my time for your Kingdom. I need to know that my time will be worthwhile. I understand that I have salvation and that this is your providence as well, yet I ask – if you are willing – that what I am doing with be worthwhile for the sake of your Kingdom.

“…and grace.” Oh God, I know that I have forgiveness through your son. I know that I have already received more grace than I could ever understand because of what he has done, and because I have trusted in him. But Lord, yet daily will I sin and turn against you – and the same sins I have committed so many times before! I asked you for providence and faith, yet I will fail you in living out both of these as you set them before me. So Father, please, I ask for your grace. I ask for you to give me grace for those times that I fail you, to still allow me to be a useful servant to you. I am going to fail you, and I am going to need your grace during those times.

Anyway, that’s what I was thinking. Take it for what it’s worth.

Michael Martin's Argument from Evil

In the book The Problem of Evil, edited by Micheal L. Peterson (1992), there is an argument presented against the existence of God by philosopher Michael Martin. Here I will present Martin’s argument and a few responses.

Martin begins by saying that he will show how evil can be used as evidence against the existence of God, specifically in response to another philosopher who alleged that such had yet to be accomplished by the various atheistic arguments from evil (Pargetter in Mind, 1976),

The first concern that Martin has is to define the way in which evil conflicts with the existence of God. He says that we might think of evil as providing prima facie evidence of God. The definition of prima facie that he advances involves three variables: H = a given hypothesis, E = evidence, and A = relevant assumptions made. Thus, he says that, “E is prima facie evidence against H if E and H do not entail a contradiction and A and A do not entail a contradiction and E and H and A do entail a contradiction,” (136, emphasis added).

In his argument, then, Martin considers evil to be the evidence E, H to be the proposition “God exists,” and then he explores the relevant considerations that will constitute A, which are the relevant assumptions that one chooses to take into account.

The assumptions that Martin himself makes are given little defense, as he already assumes them to be proven. He states that if we consider the proposition, “The existence of evil in great abundance is not logically necessary and there is no sufficient reason for God to allow evil in great abundance,” (Ibid.) we will see that this is a relevant assumption which conflicts with our evidence and hypothesis (E and H). Therefore, we must consider that evil provides prima facie evidence against the existence of God. This is furthermore reinforced by the fact that the proposition “evil exists in great abundance” (E) does not contradict the proposition “God exists” (H), and that (E) does not contradict the assumption that evil is not logically necessary and that God has no sufficient reason for allowing it (A), yet when all these three are taken together (E, H, and A), a contradiction ensues. Thus the conditions for evil being prima facie evidence against the existence of God are satisfied.

Now the few important assumptions that Martin makes at this point are really the crux of the matter. First, he says that the existence of evil can only be justified if (a) evil is logically necessary or (b) there is some reason God has that justifies him in allowing the existence of evil. Second, he says that neither (a) nor (b) have been supplied by “Apologists” over the many years in which they have been attempting to do so.

Both of these assumptions are precisely the points of contention that theists and atheists have been arguing over for a very long time, so it is difficult to see what Martin accomplishes by putting his argument into this form. This is because all philosophers on either side of the issue (i.e. in favor of, or against, the argument from evil) acknowledge that the POE is, in fact, a problem when certain assumptions are granted, and it is precisely these assumptions that Martin gives himself! Therefore all he seems to actually accomplish is a restatement of the argument when the atheist is granted the premises that he wants. This is not a particularly poignant matter of contention as theists are willing to recognize what follows in this situation, and it is precisely for this reason that they take so strongly to opposing the argument from evil.

Hence on the grounds that Martin assumes rather than demonstrates the critical points of his argument it can be seen to fail. He gives us no reason to think that God is without sufficient reasons for allowing evil to exist in great abundance other than to rely upon his assessment of the results that centuries of argumentation have yielded. I would like to add, however, that even if I were to grant Martin this particular point (which I do not except for the sake of argument), he still can be said to have not made many hidden assumptions explicit, and that when he is challenged on these grounds then further possibilities for consider will need to be argued against before his case can be advanced.

The particular assumption of Martin’s that I have in mind is where he makes a statement along the lines of:
(A) For God to allow evil to exist it must be the case that either (1) evil is logically necessary or (2) God has a sufficient (moral) reason for allowing evil to exist.

Regarding this assumption, he says that possibilities (1) and (2) are exhaustive and that no other options exist that would allow God to permit the existence of evil. For the sake of argument I will grant Martin that (1) and (2) do not obtain (as this is what he grants himself), but it I want to argue that this fact does not entail the entire statement of (A). That is, (A) taken as a whole says that we must either deny God’s existence or evil’s existence, and most people would choose God over evil, at least if they wish to accept (A) and remain rational. In other words, I will disagree with Martin that (1) and (2) constitute the entire list of responses that Apologists can offer as explaining the existence of coexistence of evil and God. This will be done in an attempt to show that even the very biased nature of Martin’s argument does not yield the conclusion that he desires.

In response, then, I will challenge whether or not Martin’s list is exhaustive. To do this, I will propose the following possibility:
(B) There is no way of providing sufficient epistemic warrant for the claims that (3) God must balance evil with good, or (4) the amount evil in the world is not already balanced by good.

What (B) serves to do is provide an alternative that Martin has not considered on his list of possible explanations for the existence of evil given that God also exists. This possibility is that God does not need to have a good that outweighs the evil that exists in the world. (B4) basically renders irrelevant the claim that God must have a sufficient reason for allowing evil to exist by saying that there is no way of providing sufficient epistemic warrant for demonstrating such a claim. Thus, (B3) serves to expand Martin’s list and provide options that he has not considered, and (B4) serves to undermine the claim that the assumptions I gave Martin can be granted at all.

While I have not necessarily argued for either proposition (B3) or (B4), I think that taken together they are sufficient to suggest that even if all that Martin desires is granted him then he still has more work to do before his case can be fully made.

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.