Randal Rauser's Blog, page 135

Everyday Miracle, or A Divine Sign in Douala

In chapter 17 of God or Godless I argued that “God best explains the miracles in people’s lives.” My focus in the chapter was not on the concept of “miracle” as a violation in natural law or an event with no secondary cause or a gap in natural explanation. Rather, it was on the biblical concept of miracle as a sign of God’s presence and action in the world. The concept of a sign is fully consistent with alternative (including non-divine and wholly natural) explanations such as chance. But the question is this: what is the best explanation for the individual who undergoes the experience?

Let’s say, for example, that a person is a theist to begin with. Can events occur in that person’s life which, all things considered, serve as signs of God’s presence and action in the world? Certainly they can. In the above-mentioned chapter I provide a particular example drawn from the life of my friend, Bible scholar Kent Sparks. Below I relay another example, drawn from the life of Bill Muller, an elder statesman within the North American Baptist Conference.

* * *

Bill Muller and Randal Rauser, December 2015

It was May, 1988. The semester had just ended and the choir from North American Baptist College was looking forward to an exciting three weeks touring Cameroon, a country nestled on the steaming tropical coast of West Africa.

The team was led by Dr. Bill Muller, a professor of the college for the previous twenty-four years. They had just arrived at Douala International Airport, exhausted after an arduous journey from Edmonton en route through Toronto and London.

After two solid days of flying and lingering in airports, Bill wanted nothing more than to reach their lodgings so the choir could prepare for their busy schedule in the weeks ahead.

But the anticipation of rest would have to be put on hold. Before they would be going anywhere Bill would have to get through customs. He looked up at the ragged line forming at one end of the terminal and took a breath. Navigating customs in western nations could be stressful enough, but in a developing nation like Cameroon it was a different affair entirely. While a customs inspection could go smoothly, more often it was a tense encounter in which the traveler was subjected to the agent’s whims. Would the agents decide to confiscate items? Charge duties? Refuse entry? The process was inherently unpredictable, and Bill was not looking forward to it.

While customs in Douala was unnerving under the best of circumstances, on this day Bill sensed his vulnerability all the more. As he entered the customs line toting a massive suitcase, he was feeling a bit like a deer in a forest full of wolves. This luggage was sure to garner the attention of the agents, crammed as it was with items requested by local missionaries: fluorescent light bulbs, anti-histamines, shoes, copier machine parts and ink refills. A zealous agent could choose to charge all sorts of arbitrary import duties for these items. And who could know what they might decide to confiscate. Since there was not much he could do but wait and hope for the best, Bill offered a simple prayer for safe and quick passage through customs.

Under the circumstances it was no surprise when, moments later, Bill found himself being directed by a female customs officer into a side room for inspection. Following her clipped request to open his luggage, Bill obligingly unzipped the cover and watched the official scan the contents. On the best case scenario the agent would draw up a quick list of duties to be paid, and send the traveler on his way. But instead she looked at Bill intently and made a request that he had not anticipated: “Receipts,” she said as she waved her hand over the open suitcase. “I need to see receipts for all these things.”

In a moment Bill felt his heart tumble into his stomach. He didn’t have receipts to demonstrate the cost of all these items. In a stomach-churning moment he realized his precarious position. Without receipts he was at the mercy of the customs agent who was free to charge whatever duties she deemed appropriate. As Bill explained his dilemma, the agent’s expression darkened. Then she crisply told him to wait as she spun on her heels and strode off, presumably to notify a senior administrator. And there Bill stood under the buzzing fluorescent lights, shoulders slumped, wondering how he would get the desperately needed items into the country without paying a crippling amount of duty. Again he offered up a quick prayer and waited.

As Bill stood there, he hardly noticed a young male agent walking by the inspection room. But for some reason the young agent noticed him. Suddenly he walked over to Bill and asked amiably, “Is there a problem?” It seemed a strange question. Of course there was a problem. Why else would Bill be left standing in a dingy customs inspection room with an open suitcase?

Bill nodded, and explained that the agent had left to fetch a supervisor. As he spoke, the young man’s eyes scanned the items in the suitcase. Then his attention shifted to Bill with a curiosity perhaps prompted by the unusual contents of the luggage. “Who are all these things for?” he asked. Bill explained that the eclectic collection had been requested by several Baptist missionaries who were working in Cameroon.

With that the man’s visage brightened. “Oh, have you been to Cameroon before?” Bill nodded and then went on to explain that he had been in the country for an extended trip the previous year during which he had visited over forty different towns. “Really?” the man exclaimed. “What sort of towns did you visit?” Immediately a dozen different names popped into Bill’s mind, but for no particular reason he blurted out: “I visited Fonfuka.”

“Fonfuka?” the man exclaimed with clear surprise. “And where did you stay when you were in Fonfuka?”

“I stayed with a man named Pa Simon.” Bill replied.

The officer’s eyes widened. “Oh? What kind of house did Pa Simon live in?”

“It was a nice home,” Bill recalled. “His children had built him the house for his retirement.”

Bill was puzzled, for the officer’s apparent amazement seemed out of proportion to the mundane information Bill was sharing. “And was Pa Simon married?” he asked.

What was the point of this line of questioning? Was the agent just curious or did he have another motive? More ominously, was he trying to lay some sort of trap? Bill had no idea, but he figured the wisest course would be to answer the questions honestly without trying to figure out where they might be leading. So he nodded obligingly. “Yes,” he said, “Pa Simon was married. I remember that his wife was suffering with boils on her shins at the time.”

With that the officer rolled back on his heels and looked at Bill stunned. Then he spoke. “That was my mother,” he said in a whisper. With that startling revelation his face took on a warm countenance and he placed a hand on Bill’s shoulder. “God bless you, my brother. Close your suitcase. You may go.”

Bill stood there for a moment, stunned. What had just happened? While still dumbfounded he closed the zipper, still anxious that the agent might change his mind. But when he glanced back he could see the agent, smiling and giving him a friendly wave. And that was it: he was through customs.

Bill was amazed. Cameroon was not a small country. At the time that he visited in 1988 it had a population of fourteen million people while the capital of Douala had more than one million. What were the chances that this particular agent would walk by at the precise moment of Bill’s inspection? And what prompted him to stop and inquire about Bill’s case? And why had he asked which towns Bill visited? And why, of the dozens of towns Bill had traveled to, did he mention Fonfuka?

Even as all those questions popped into his mind, Bill mused that he really knew the answers. As the students gathered around him and they moved out of the airport terminal and into the humid tropical air, he quietly offered up a heartfelt prayer of thanks.

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Two Atheists (both friendly), One Theist, and a Discussion of Religion and Violence

Today the highly esteemed Friendly Atheist (Hemant Mehta) posted an announcement of the publication of An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar complete with an except in which Justin Schieber and I discuss the relationship between religion and violence. Check it out:

An Atheist and a Christian Discuss Whether Religion Leads to Violence

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An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar is Shipping!

First you develop the idea. Then you write up the proposal including a sample of perhaps thirty or forty pages of text. Next, you spend weeks or months shopping that proposal until you land a contract.

At that point, you batten down the hatches and begin the long and intensive process of writing, all under the brooding glare of the contract deadline.

Finally, at long last, you finish the manuscript and you send it off. Then comes the copy editing, incessant scanning text and footnotes for errors of grammar, spelling, and fact. Several afternoons are spent carefully compiling an index and bibliography. You send everything off, relieved.

Except that now you need to work with the publisher to write and vet advertising copy and press sheets and draw up lists of contacts for possible endorsements and review copies.

All this labor is carried out with a new deadline, that fabled day on which the book is available to the world.

And now, at long last, that day has arrived. An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar is now shipping.

Farewell, thou child of my right hand and joy.

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An Atheist, a Christian, a Bar, and Mike D’s Concluding Thoughts

Mike D at The A-Unicornist has completed his rather extensive and multi-part review of An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar. He concludes:

“Both authors did a fine job in this book, and I do not think a clear winner emerges. Schieber did not approach several arguments as I would have, but I always found his arguments thought-provoking. And while it should come as no surprise that I was largely unpersuaded by Rauser’s arguments, he nonetheless forced me to think through my own positions in ways I had not considered, and I gained a greater insight into the nuances of his own positions. This book is light-hearted (beware of abundant dad-humor), yet the discussion is vigorous and touches well on several topics that could themselves quite easily fill entire volumes and/or many hours of discussion.”

You can read more here.

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An Interview on Atheist/Christian Dialogue

Atheist, secular celebrant, and blogger Galen Broaddus has just posted an interview with Justin Schieber and myself discussing dialogue and An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar.

You can check it out here.

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An Atheist and a Christian Dialogue Review of An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar

Now this is a clever idea for a book review. Dan Wilkinson at Unfundamentalist Christians just published a review for An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar. But he did so in a dialogue format with his friend, atheist Nick Bradford. Both gentlemen read the book and then they talked about it. They even got their pets (a Christian cat and an atheistic dog) in on the conversation. Nice!

Dan and Nick both make some interesting points so be sure to read the review. But I want to deal with one minor point here. Nick asserts that “the title is a bit deceptive: I didn’t see a defense of Christianity. What’s the point of an atheist and Christian walking into a bar if the Christian part is never really dealt with?”

That’s certainly a fair point. In the book we debate classical theism, but not Christianity per se.

My rejoinder is threefold. First, we didn’t choose the title, the publisher did. (That’s typical: most publishers choose the titles of the books they publish.) Second, while the title An Atheist and a Theist Walk into a Bar may capture the focus of the book more effectively, it definitely lacks the panache of An Atheist and a Christian. Third, subtitles typically serve the purpose of informing the reader as to the content of the book and I think our subtitle does that. We do talk about God, the Universe, and Everything. Just so long as we’re clear that the Trinity, atonement, and resurrection are not included in “Everything”.

Notes on the David Wood-Michael Shermer Debate

This week “Unbelievable” was preempted for an annual fundraising drive. In place of the regular show Justin Brierley posted a recent debate between Christian apologist David Wood and skeptic Michael Shermer. I’m only about half way through the debate at this point, having listened to opening statements and rebuttals. But I can say that this is one of the worst debates I’ve ever heard.

Don’t blame David Wood. He’s a good speaker with a quick wit. And best of all, he doesn’t simply raid the standard apologist’s toolbox of cosmological and teleological arguments. Instead, he presents his own argument that theism is better attested than any scientific hypothesis. And even if I remain unpersuaded (more on that anon), I give him high marks for making the effort.

Wood distinguishes between “ordinary scientific hypotheses” and what he says is “the Scientific Hypothesis.” Ordinary scientific hypotheses are tentative claims about the world which are confirmed or disconfirmed as evidence comes in. They are, in short, the stuff of science in the day to day. However, Wood claims that all these ordinary hypotheses

“ultimately derive from the Scientific Hypothesis …. The Scientific Hypothesis is the hypothesis on which science as we know it rests. There are three key elements of the Scientific Hypothesis. One, the universe can be understood; two, we can understand it; and three, it’s good for us to understand it.”

The basic idea is that only theism can ground the rational assumption that the universe can be understood, that we can understand it, and that it is good for us to understand it. Since, so Wood claims, these three commitments are necessary to ground every ordinary hypothesis, it follows that every ordinary hypothesis rests on the truth of the Scientific Hypothesis.

The picture Wood draws suggests an epistemological foundationalism in which every ordinary hypothesis depends for its justification on the Scientific Hypothesis much as a rationalist might claim every rational argument depends ultimately on Aristotle’s laws of thought.

As a result, Wood claims that the Scientific Hypothesis is the most well attested of all scientific hypotheses since every other hypothesis depends on it.

That conclusion brings us to the first big problem with Wood’s argument: it’s guilty of a rather glaring equivocation. The so-called Scientific Hypothesis is quite obviously not a scientific hypothesis at all. Rather, it is a set of metaphysical and epistemological presuppositions on which scientific inquiry is allegedly based.

I assume Wood equivocated intentionally for rhetorical purposes, because I don’t believe for a minute that his understanding of science is so poor that he would think the Scientific Hypothesis is, in fact, a scientific hypothesis. But that’s really unfortunate for two reasons. First, this rhetorical choice is liable to generate a significant amount of confusion in those elements of his audience that cannot parse the difference between science and the philosophical presuppositions on which science rests. Second this rhetorical choice is liable to alienate those members of the audience who can tell the difference and thus who can recognize the equivocation for what it is. In other words, it seems to me this is a lose-lose scenario.

Wood defends his argument by quoting a range of long dead Christian scientists like Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton. The fact that these individuals all believed theism provided the necessary foundation for science is historically important, but it really doesn’t support the conclusion, at least not without considering the state of play today. The same goes in other matters: you don’t settle contemporary debates in the philosophy of mind or the philosophy of economics only by quoting the opinions of thinkers from the 16th-19th centuries. So neither is this a legitimate method when it comes to the philosophy of science.

So what is the state of play in contemporary philosophy of science? That’s tough to say since there is a great deal of plurality. However, one thing is clear: the kind of foundationalism that Wood presents is definitely in the minority. By contrast, the main approaches to the epistemic justification of scientific inquiry tend to be pragmatic and non-foundationalist. And by not even acknowledging the current state of debate (let alone rebutting the main alternative accounts), Wood has hardly begun to make his case. (For a brief introduction to an alternative approach see this Wikipedia article on Neurath’s boat/bootstrapping.)

Lucky for Wood that Shermer doesn’t ever get around to launching a serious critique of the Scientific Hypothesis argument. Instead, Shermer dismissively suggests that the theistic commitments of scientists of the past is of no more consequence than the contingent fact (assuming it is a fact) that these scientists were also all dog owners. But this is just plain silly: dog ownership is obviously irrelevant to the conduct of scientific inquiry, but theism, by the testimony and reasoning of these very scientists, is not. Shermer would have been far better at least to acknowledge the logic behind Wood’s argument and then attempt a rebuttal. By refusing even to engage the argument, he fails to offer a rebuttal to it.

Anyway, while I have some substantive criticisms of Wood’s argument, none of them is fatal. With some retooling I think his argument could be significantly strengthened. He would just need to refashion it as a philosophical (rather than scientific) argument and to show that non-foundationalist alternative epistemological accounts do not adequately ground the scientific inquiry. If he can do that, he’s off to the races.

So what about Shermer’s argument?

Wait, did I say “Shermer’s argument”? Sorry, I meant Shermer’s hot mess, aka Shermer’s cobbled together porridge of half-baked internet atheist memes. Really, that’s all it was. In his opening statement he actually reproduced trite village atheist memes like “I just believe in one less god than you” and “God sacrificed himself to himself to save us from himself.”

Look pal, if that’s the best you can do then do everybody a favor and just stay home.

Even as I say that I feel compelled to acknowledge Shermer as a very bright fellow and a great writer: I’ve enjoyed several of his books. So let this be a lesson for us all of what can happen when you have contempt for the views of your opponent. When that happens, when you can’t even invest the time to consider your interlocutor’s beliefs and arguments with rigor and charity, then you’re likely to end up in a morass of memes and caricatures. And that just wastes everybody’s time.

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The Trailer for The Shack

How’s this for ironic? Unbeknownst to me, the first official trailer for The Shack was released on December 1st, the same day I posted an article announcing the forthcoming movie. While the production values look promising, it still feels very much like a “Christian” movie … especially once the song begins.

Perhaps this is an apropos moment to provide a link for my 2014 article “Finding Jesus at the movies, but not in the Jesus movies.”

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Life is a Highway: Dreams of the Free Thinker

I’m not a fan of the practice whereby secularists and atheists refer to themselves as “free thinkers”. The common refrain from self-described free thinkers is that they are unencumbered by dogma and can simply follow the light of reason. “You’ve locked yourself up in your Christian beliefs!” they retort. “Set aside all your beliefs and follow the evidence where it leads!” In short, the free thinker envisions herself on the open road, free to go whither she will.

That kind of rhetoric reminds me of a key moment in Bill Clinton’s masterful speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention when he made the following observation:

“One of the greatest chairmen the Democratic Party ever had, Bob Strauss, used to say that every politician wants every voter to believe he was born in a log cabin he built himself. But, as Strauss then admitted, it ain’t so.”

Clinton’s right, of course. It ain’t so. And any politician who wants to tell his (or her) story in this way is doing nothing more than deluding him/herself into a naïve and discredited narrative of rugged Enlightenment individualism. We are the products of the time and place in which we are raised: our parents, our friends, our formal education, our surrounding community, all these factors and more contribute to making us who we are and forming how we think.

Needless to say, the thought that rejecting religious communal formulation from this complex nexus of personal formation will result in individuals who are “free” to think with unique penetrating rational insight, wisdom, and historical perspective, is nothing short of delusional.

This is not to deny that religious belief communities can, at times, propagate belief in an indoctrinational manner. Of course they can. But secular belief communities can do so as well. The true free thinker is the individual who realizes they are never truly “free” in the manner of the popular Enlightenment imagination.

“Sapere aude!” Kant famously said. “Dare to use your own reason!” Indeed, do so. Just recognized your reason was and continues to be formed by your environment in countless ways. In short, you weren’t born in a log cabin you built yourself.

And as for life on the open road, just remember you didn’t build the highway on which you ride.

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Big news on An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar

First, I’m happy to report that at Amazon.com An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar is now no. 1 in new releases for religion and philosophy. Let’s keep it there!

Second, today An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar was listed as one of the top ten December new releases in non-fiction at Bustle.com.

Finally, here is the most impressive achievement which I reported in a tweet below:

Great news! My mom just chose "An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar" as best new book of 2016!!!

— Randal Rauser (@RandalRauser) December 2, 2016

 

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