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It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown reaches 50! Some reflections

Believe it or not, this is the fiftieth anniversary of the 1966 original release of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. And that, I think, is worth an article.

The special aired every autumn on CBS until 2001 when the rights went to ABC.  So for me, the program is inexorably connected to CBS, and in particular to the CBS special presentation logo which prefaced every Charlie Brown special:

I’ve always loved both It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) for several reasons.

To begin with, I love their minimalist animation and vibrant colors. One of my favorite scenes in Great Pumpkin is the very first as Lucy and Linus emerge from their house while the sun hangs red and low in the sky, illuminating the scene in the warm, pink hues of a late autumn afternoon. The scene is lonely and melancholy and brilliantly conveys the transition of seasons as Lucy and Linus are framed between the house and the gnarled and slightly ominous apple tree.

Lucy and Linus emerge into the autumnal beauty of the world of Peanuts.

Second, I love the music. Charlie Brown is inextricably linked with the illimitable musical scores of the Vince Guaraldi Trio. A few years ago I heard an interview with Jerry Granelli who played with the trio for the recording of the original soundtrack for A Charlie Brown Christmas (my favorite Christmas album of all time, by the way). A mere 24 years old at the time, Granelli could not imagine that an afternoon’s recording session would be career defining. When you consider the musical score of the typical Flintstones or Looney Tune of the time, it is quite extraordinary that avant-garde jazz music would be featured as the musical score for a Peanuts animated special. But the results were sheer genius.

Sometimes lightning does hit twice, and this is one of those cases. That which worked for A Charlie Brown Christmas was repeated with It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Melancholy and forlorn but without the cliched boos and cackles and whistling wind of your typical Halloween score. My favorite part of the score in Great Pumpkin are the lonely strains that haunt the dark spaces as Snoopy steals across a war torn France of his canine imagination. Brilliant.

Snoopy navigating the sad beauty of wartime rural France.

Finally, one must recognize the incisive and humorous dialogue and life situations that characterize both these specials. In Great Pumpkin the existential struggles of Charlie Brown return at regular intervals from the moment Lucy tricks him once again into trying to kick the football to his poorly designed ghost costume (with way too many eyes) to the bag full of rocks he receives for his efforts trick or treating. Life never seems to go the way Charlie had hoped.

But the real loser in this special is not Charlie Brown, it’s Linus. He gives up much for his belief in the Great Pumpkin: trick or treating, a Halloween party, the respect of his friends, and even his warm bed.

And it is with Linus and his devout belief in the Great Pumpkin that things get interesting from a religious and philosophical perspective. Early in the show Linus explains to Charlie Brown that the Great Pumpkin rises from a pumpkin patch every Halloween and flies around giving toys to all the children. Exasperated, Charlie replies, “You must be crazy. When are you going to stop believing in something that isn’t true?”

Linus snaps back with the perfect rejoinder: “When you stop believing in that fella with the red suit and white beard who goes ‘Ho ho ho!'”

Touché!

Charlie concludes: “We’re obviously separated by denominational differences!”

Well yes, there’s that. But from the perspective of epistemology and religion there is more to be said. In his famous 1983 paper “Reason and Belief in God,” (which you can read here) Alvin Plantinga provides his first substantive exploration of the idea that belief in God might be considered properly basic, and so rational apart from supporting evidence. But if that is the case, why not belief in something else which is plainly crazy? Plantinga famously puts the objector’s protest in the terms of the Great Pumpkin Objection. If belief in God is rational, why not Linus’ belief in the Great Pumpkin?

Well yes, why not? Interestingly, Linus never tells us where he gets this belief from. Was it arrived at through the testimony of someone else? Did he just wake up one day with a firm conviction that there is such a benevolent gourd? Without more information it is difficult to form any definitive judgment on the rationality of his belief.

But one thing would seem to be clear. The Great Pumpkin never shows up. And that would seem to provide a defeater to his belief, one which would undermine its justification.

Linus facing the wrath of Sally, and his own impending demoralization, when the Great Pumpkin doesn’t show.

Or maybe not. Linus never guaranteed that the Pumpkin would rise from his patch. That was a qualified hope based on the sincerity of his own belief and that of the pumpkin patch itself. (Though Linus never explains how a pumpkin patch can be sincere.) When the other kids show up after the Halloween party to poke fun at Linus, his belief wavers just enough to call into question his own sincerity and faith. And that, in turn, is enough to explain why the Great Pumpkin is a no show for yet another year. Linus, it could be argued, was just not faithful enough.

No doubt critics of religion will insist a parallel between Linus’ failed beliefs and those of the religiously devout in matters such as unanswered prayer.

Regardless, now that it’s been fifty years, I wonder if the Great Pumpkin ever showed up. If, as I suspect, it did not, I wonder if Linus still believes? Does he still seek a sincere pumpkin patch? Does he still seek to gird his own faith? Does he still shiver alone in the darkness under his trusty blanket until Lucy fetches him shortly before dawn?

And is Charlie Brown still getting a bag of rocks?

You can watch this timeless holiday classic online here:

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Jesus vs. the Volcano: How Christians disagree on atonement and why it matters

In “The depth of current atonement debates in a tweet” I noted one of the deepest divisions in current Christian debates on the atonement. Some Christians (advocates of penal substitution) believe that Jesus’ atoning death satisfies the wrath of the Father against sin, and thus that Jesus’ death provides the culmination and completion of the temple sacrificial system.

Other Christians counter that this entire picture reveals a primitive and pagan conception of deity as requiring blood satisfaction. According to these dissenters, Christ died not to satisfy God’s wrath but rather to expose as false the very notion of God needing to satisfy his wrath, either by visiting that wrath on the guilty party or on an innocent party to whom that wrath has been transferred.

The difference can be illustrated with the standard story of the South Pacific islanders who believe an innocent virgin must be tossed into the mouth of the volcano to satisfy the Volcano God so that he will not erupt and thereby smite the people for their sins.

The advocate of penal substitution offers a view of divine wrath and justice which is in continuity with the framework of divine/human relations that is assumed by the South Pacific islanders. To be sure, the advocate of penal substitution does not commend the act, but he does share the logic: God is wrathful against sin and that wrath can be satisfied by an appropriate substitutionary sacrifice.

By contrast, the detractor of penal substitution denounces the actions of the South Pacific islanders just as he denounces the sacrifices in the temple. The latter needlessly claimed the lives of countless animals; the former needlessly claimed the life of an innocent virgin. Far from serving as the culmination of this system of divine/human relations, the cross instead reveals it to be based on an errant sense of divine justice and mercy.

If one of these two views were a tiny fringe in the church, you might be able to dismiss it. Unfortunately, these two diametrically opposed views of atonement are both well established and widely held in the church. This raises a rather glaring problem. In John 16:13, Jesus says: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.” To be sure, a passage like this provides no guarantee that the church will come to agreement on all things. But mightn’t we expect that it would come to agreement on something as central as the meaning and significance of the very Gospel itself?

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Watching Borrowed Time

This brand new Pixar short is a poignant, heart-wrenching exploration of pain, loss, guilt, grief, regret, meaning, and a few other things, all in an austere and dramatic desert landscape and in under seven minutes! It’s available now for a limited time on Vimeo.

(But be warned, this is not for younger children.)

You’re welcome!

 

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The depth of current atonement debates in a tweet

Jesus died for our sins. On that much Christians agree. But ask what it means to say he died for our sins, and deep fissures of disagreement quickly emerge. If you ever want a capsule summary of how deeply entrenched the current debate is, you need look no further than this tweet from Brian Zahnd:

According to Zahnd, the temple sacrificial system was a mistake, a “projection of primitive religion”. In fact, God repudiates blood sacrifice, and the atonement illustrates that fact.

Needless to say, this view is diametrically opposed to the view familiar to most evangelicals (and much of the wider Christian tradition), according to which the temple sacrificial system was providential and anticipatory of the once for all sacrifice of Jesus.

So that’s the disagreement: does the atonement constitute the rejection of the temple sacrificial system … or its fulfillment?

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How evangelical kids can get their faith shaken on the first day of university

Let’s consider the first morning at university for one hypothetical 18 year old raised in a typical evangelical church subculture. His name is David.

Getting ready for university

David’s Christian leaders were seeking to grow his faith strong. And so, as he grew up in the church he was taught a deep suspicion of many views contrary to his evangelical Christian convictions. For example, he was taught that the Neo-Darwinian theory of biological evolution is wrong. But not simply that it is wrong: he was taught that it is a lie, that it is a theory on its last legs which is sustained by little more than the anti-Christian animus of those who propagate it. He still remembers the sober words of his youth pastor: “Don’t let the evolutionist make a monkey out of you.”

David was also warned about atheism. Atheists, he was taught, are godless people who hate God and repress a deep anger toward him. They don’t want to live in accord with God’s law and that’s why they reject belief in him. So they are merely fools, as it says in Psalm 14:1.

With that background, David faces his first morning as a new student at a large public university, a school with more first year students than people living in his home town. When he arrives David encounters a bewildering number of cultures and languages, to say nothing of the staggering number of life philosophies on other. The Christian subculture in which he was raised is now inundated by a tsunami of alternative perspectives he hardly knew existed. And these are not mere abstractions on the page of a Christian worldview textbook. These are beliefs and practices held by real flesh and blood people that he meets everywhere he goes, from the dorm to the SUB to the classroom.

Biology 101

David arrives early at his first class: Biology 101. Having been warned for years of the absurdity of evolution, he is gritting his teeth, seeking merely to endure the class in the hope of becoming a medical doctor someday.

Immediately David is surprised by Dr. Smith. She seems friendly and very intelligent and she conveys a deep love for the natural world as she projects various images of nature on the PowerPoint screen. With surprise, David realizes that she also coauthored their textbook, a formidable five hundred page tome full of diagrams and pictures and charts. As she talks, Dr. Smith provides an overview of the syllabus, noting how they will study the properties of life, the differences between plants and animals, the flow of genetic information, and … here it comes … how life evolved on earth. Dr. Smith ends the class with a humorous story of her time doing postgraduate research on the dental evolution of shark teeth.

As class ends and David gathers his books, he experiences a degree of relief. Dr. Smith doesn’t seem nearly as hostile toward Christianity as he had expected. But that first class has also planted a seed of doubt. Is Dr. Smith trying to make a monkey out of him? Is evolution really just a lie, an absurdity sustained only by the anti-Christian animus of its defenders? Could a reasonable person interpret the origin of life in that manner? And if not, how does he explain Dr. Smith?

Philosophy 103

Still, David doesn’t have time to process those questions now. He needs to get to his next class, Philosophy 103. If David was nervous about Biology 101, he is outright fearful of this next class. His youth pastor had warned him that the philosophy teacher, Dr. Braun, is an atheist. For David that has conjured up images reminiscent of the movie he saw with his youth group a few years ago: God’s not Dead. In that movie the teacher, Dr. Radisson, challenged the students to defend the existence of God. If that happens here, David is not sure how he will respond.

Apprehensively, he takes a seat in the back as Dr. Braun saunters into the classroom sporting a black turtleneck, a pony tail, and a pair of Freudian spectacles hanging off his nose. “Definitely a philosopher,” David chuckles to himself.  Dr. Braun takes a piece of chalk and writes on the blackboard: “Why are you here?” He then turns to the class with a disarming smile. “Well?” he asks, “Why are you here? To get a grade, some course credit? And what’s that for? So you can get a degree?” His eyes scan the room, thoughtfully. “And why do you need a degree? So you can get a job, right? But what do you need a job for? Let me guess, to support a family. So your kids can grow up, and go to university, and get a degree, so they can raise a family, so …”

Dr. Braun pauses dramatically. “But what justifies the whole circle? That is the question, isn’t it? It’s a question famously asked by the great philosopher Socrates. And it sets us on another course, the pursuit of wisdom. That is philosophy, the love of wisdom.”*

Over the next hour Dr. Braun describes many of the great problems of philosophy: why are we here? Is there meaning in life? How can we know anything? What is the good? And is there a God? In each case, he briefly summarizes the various views that different thinkers had taken, all in pursuit of that overarching goal, the search for wisdom. David is entranced by the lecture and before he knows it, the class is over. As he walks out, he is both intrigued and confused. Dr. Braun seems to be many things, but a fool is not one of them.

A sober conclusion…

That’s David’s first morning. Now think of four years of experiences similar to those, experiences that erode the simple and austere categories that David had acquired while being raised within his Christian subculture. From that perspective, it should hardly be surprising that many young Christians like David find their faith under serious assault in university.

*This example is inspired by Paul Kreeft, The Best Things in Life, 17-20.

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Stephen Law’s Evil God Challenge. In Under Four Minutes. With Animation. And my response.

Respected atheist philosopher Stephen Law may be best known for his Evil God Challenge. I would explain it to you but Stephen just produced this excellent animated video (starring a reasonable facsimile of the man himself) which unpacks the argument in under four minutes:

While the evil God argument is one of the most intriguing recent developments in the philosophy of religion, I remain unpersuaded by it (even when it is animated … though the animation is great). To explain why, I’ll provide a quick (under four minute) rebuttal.

My rebuttal consists of an analogy between (1) theism (2) evil God belief (3) atheism and (i) moral objectivism (ii) moral subjectivism (iii) moral non-cognitivism.

Let’s begin with moral objectivism. This is the view that successful moral utterances express moral truths and those truths obtain independently of human opinions. Thus, the moral objectivist believes that moral propositions like “Courage is good” or “Rape is evil” are objectively true, that their truth obtains independent of human beliefs about them.

Next, we have moral non-cognitivism. This is the view that successful moral utterances do not express moral truths at all. Rather, they express emotions which motivate us to action. On this view moral propositions like “Courage is good” or “Rape is evil” lack a truth value.

Keen to undermine the moral objectivist’s justification for accepting the objective facticity of successful moral utterances, the moral non-cognitivist argues as follows: all the publicly available evidence which the moral objectivist appeals to in order to justify belief in moral objectivism could equally be applied to justify moral subjectivism, the view that successful moral utterances express moral truths which do not obtain independently of human opinions.

Given that the evidence underdetermines moral objectivism/subjectivism, the moral non-cognitivist charges that the proper response is to reject the facticity of moral discourse altogether. Moral discourse doesn’t express objective or subjective facts; rather, it expresses non-cognitive cheers and boos.

This argument for moral non-cognitivism by way of moral subjectivism parallels Law’s argument for atheism by way of evil God belief. Just as moral objectivism/subjectivism cancel each other out, leaving non-cognitivism in their wake, so God/evil God cancel each other out, leaving atheism in their wake.

So how should the moral objectivist reply? To begin with, she can note that the underdetermination obtains not merely between objectivism and subjectivism, but between objectivism, subjectivism, and non-cognitivism. Thus, if the underdetermination of evidence to belief is sufficient to undermine the first two positions, it should undermine the third as well. In other words, if the argument works at all, it only works to support skepticism or agnosticism, not moral non-cognitivism.

As it goes with morality so it goes with metaphysics: metaphysical underdetermination does not merely obtain between theism and evil God belief, but between theism, evil God belief, and atheism. Thus, if the argument works at all, it only works to support skepticism or agnosticism, not atheism.

So should we be skeptics or agnostics? Is that the proper response? I don’t think so. When the moral objectivist looks out at the world, she seems to perceive objective good and evil. Others may insist that she does not. But why think that the existence of disagreement is sufficient to undermine her conviction? Granted, it may give her pause. But if, after reflection, it still seems to her that she is perceiving objective moral facts, then she is surely justified in believing this.

Likewise, the theist may find that disagreement with atheists (I’ve never met an evil God adherent) may give her pause. But if, after reflection, it still seems to the theist that she is perceiving God, then she surely is justified in believing this.

(For a somewhat different approach to the evil God debate see my forthcoming book with Justin Schieber, An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar.)

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Calvinism and the Problem of Evil: A Review

David E. Alexander and Daniel M. Johnson, eds. Calvinism and the Problem of Evil. (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2016).

Calvinism represents one of the richest and most formidable intellectual traditions in Christianity, one that has enjoyed a popular renaissance in North America in the last several years. Given these facts, you might expect that Calvinism would attract significant (sympathetic) attention among Christian philosophers. But the reality, as David Alexander and Daniel Johnson observe, is quite the opposite: “Calvinism simply is not a live option for most Christian philosophers.” (1)

Why is this? The problem for many traces back to Calvinism’s commitment to theological determinism and the problem of evil. If God determines all events, doesn’t that render God the author of sin? And if God determines the actions of all agents, how does Calvinism explain the origin of the first sin? Finally, there is the general problem of evil. While libertarians have access to the free will defense, theological determinists do not appear to have that option given that God could have determined human agents always to act rightly (5-16). In all these cases critics assume that Calvinism encounters insurmountable difficulties that are not faced by alternative accounts of providence and election (e.g. Arminianism, Open theism).

At this point I am reminded of a famous quote from G.K. Chesterton: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” In like manner, one might say that Calvinism has not been tried and found wanting. Rather, it has been found difficult; and left untried. But look more closely and you will find that these difficulties can be addressed. And when they are you will be able to avail yourselves of the rich philosophical and biblical resources of the Reformed tradition.

That’s where Alexander and Johnson’s new edited volume, Calvinism and the Problem of Evil, comes in. They wisely perceive that reintroducing the intellectual virtues of Calvinism to the guild of Christian philosophers might best proceed with a thorough treatment of the stumbling block of evil. The book kicks off with a helpful introduction from Alexander and Johnson followed by an initial essay from Johnson which provides an excellent overview of the topic. From that point there are an additional eleven essays courtesy of a first-rate cast of Calvinist philosophers including Paul Helm, Alexander Pruss, Greg Welty, and James Anderson.

While I would love to devote some attention to each essay, this is not practical. So I will instead restrict my critical engagement to the essays by Greg Welty and Matthew Hart.

The Molinist fled across the desert, and Welty’s gunslinger followed

In his essay “Molinist Gunslingers: God and the Authorship of Sin,” Welty takes on the core objection that in the world of Calvinistic determinism God is morally culpable as the author of sin. Welty offers two points by way of reply. The first is an appeal to mystery. Following Paul Helm he notes that key Reformed confessions “leave it a mystery why (for instance) if God ordains everything that comes to pass, and if human sin comes to pass, God is not responsible or culpable for those sins.” (59)

In the main part of his essay Welty focuses on a tu quoque argument in which he charges that if Calvinistic determinism implicates God in evil actions, then Molinism (the primary alternative to Calvinism) does so as well: “Molinism makes God the author of sin (in the objectionable sense) if Calvinism does.” (60)

If Welty is going to defend this claim, he must address the common assumption that Molinism avoids implicating God in evil because God only acts in accord with his knowledge of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom. Molinists insist that God is not determining the agent to act and thus the creature is responsible for his/her own actions. By contrast, says the Molinist, on Calvinism God determines the creature’s action and so is implicated in it.

Welty challenges this alleged contrast and to make his point he appeals to a meticulously developed firearm analogy. The first step in the analogy is to describe the “ordinary gun” case in which a man pulls a gun on another person and shoots them. Note the dimensions of the case: the gunman acts to bring about a particular effect, but his actions themselves are not sufficient for the effect since he relies on contingent laws of nature, and his knowledge of those laws which guide his action. The gunman does not determine what the laws of nature are but he is nonetheless responsible for the crime (60-3).

In the second scenario Welty envisions a gunman firing a Bullet Bill gun. (Bullet Bill is a sentient bullet with a wicked grin in Nintendo video games and he chases after Mario when fired rather like a heat-seeking missile.) In the first scenario (i.e. that of the ordinary gun) the gunman knows what the trajectory of the bullet would be in various situations based on the laws of nature. And in the second scenario the gunman knows the trajectory Bullet Bill will take in various situations based on his knowledge of the counterfactuals of creaturely (bullet) freedom: that is, he knows that if the gun is fired in situation A that Bullet Bill will kill Mario but if it is fired in situation B then Bullet Bill will kill Luigi.

This brings us to the punchline: Welty argues that the gunman is culpable for knocking off Mario regardless of whether he uses the ordinary gun or the Bullet Bill gun. By analogy, if God is culpable at all then he is culpable whether he determines creaturely action (the ordinary bullet: Calvinism) or if he knows counterfactuals of creaturely freedom (the Bullet Bill: Molinism).

This is a very clever argument which Welty executes (if you’ll excuse the pun) both with rigor and Nintendo references. And if it is successful it certainly forces the Molinist’s hand: either bite the bullet (if you’ll excuse another pun) and accept that the Molinist has no advantage over the Calvinist, or retreat to Open theism.

The ongoing spectacle meets the incredulous stare

Let’s now turn to the second sample essay. In “Calvinism and the Problem of Hell,” Matthew Hart takes on one of the most difficult of philosophical objections to Calvinism. To be sure, the traditional doctrine of hell as the eternal conscious torment of the reprobate is a difficult doctrine for anybody. But many non-Calvinists believe it is at least defensible if one believes God is committed to respecting the libertarian freedom of his creatures. In that case, God’s hands are effectively tied as he is forced to yield to the implacable human will. As C.S. Lewis famously observed, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.'”

Calvinists do not accept libertarian free will and so they cannot appeal to this free will defense of eternal conscious torment. On the Calvinist view God could have predestined all creatures to heaven, but instead he subjected a subset to the decree of reprobation. Why?

In addressing this problem, Hart aims to identify a range of intrinsically valuable goods that God could plausibly acquire only through the damnation of some, goods including a greater knowledge of God and his glory and the blessed place of the elect in his economy. Hart then goes on to list (and explain) several plausible candidates for goods which could only be acquired through the damnation of some including gratitude (for one’s election) through appreciation of the likelihood of the alternative (reprobation of the others), a greater appreciation of one’s dependence upon God, a greater appreciation of God’s prerogative in salvation, and a greater appreciation of God’s power (257-62).

From Tertullian to Thomas Aquinas to Jonathan Edwards, many theologians have argued historically that the damnation of the reprobate serves to increase the knowledge the elect have of God and the delight they take in him and their own salvation. Hart is to be credited for providing a robust and meticulous exploration of the possible goods that could arise from this scenario, and for doing it with a steely constitution.

That said, the essay raises some important questions. For example, Hart provides only passing attention to the conditions under which the elect’s knowledge of the reprobate (and thus of God’s greater glory) is acquired. At one point he seems to suggest that the knowledge might be acquired through literal sense perceptual faculties: “Perhaps God reprobates in order to give people in heaven an ongoing spectacle of God’s retributive justice being enacted in punishment….” (256) Think bleachers lining the Lake of Fire, perhaps.

Once you start contemplating the possibility of folks rejoicing at the “ongoing spectacle” of the reprobate writhing in agony, it should be clear just how implausible and off-putting Hart’s argument will appeal to many critics. As I read Hart’s essay I was reminded of how philosopher David Lewis famously observed that many philosophers responded to his counterintuitive theory of possible worlds with little more than an “incredulous stare”. I suspect Hart’s essay will invite its own share of incredulous stares from critics who are simply unable to consider the possibility that the damnation of some might enhance the joy of others.

I hope readers don’t stop there, however. While Hart’s thesis is a hard pill to swallow, he does argue his case with precision and ingenuity. My own concern with that argument goes beyond an incredulous stare. Hart’s case depends on the prospect that there are several goods which God cannot acquire other than through the reprobation of some creatures. However, most (all?) of these alleged goods appear to me to depend on contingent psychological facts about the human person which could have been otherwise.

For example, Hart’s analysis draws tacitly at several points upon the contrast effect, a psychological trait in which perception is enhanced or intensified by way of contrast. For example, food tastes better after a fast, or that warm spring day seems even warmer after a long, cold winter. In a similar way, the delight of the elect in their own salvation and God’s mercy is intensified as they witness his wrath visited upon the damned.

The problem is that the contrast effect and other aspects of human perceptual psychology appear to be contingent facts such that God could have designed human beings in such a way that a rich and informative perceptual grasp of the world would not require such ongoing contrasts. After all, divine psychology certainly doesn’t require perception of evil to perceive the good more fully. So it remains utterly opaque to me why we should think that the sanctified human mind would require such contrasts. And if God could secure in his creatures superior knowledge of himself and our future estate without drawing on the corollary suffering required by the eternal reprobation of some, then why wouldn’t he?

Drawing Conclusions

While I greatly enjoyed Calvinism and the Problem of Evil I do have a couple criticisms. The first, relatively minor point, is that the book lacks an index, and when you have a collection of twelve essays with countless interlocutors, topics, and concepts, an index strikes me as essential.

The more serious point is that the essays all remained staunchly within a very traditional conception of historic Calvinism. But as I read the book I was left wondering about how the unexplored territory beyond those relatively narrow boundaries might offer solutions to the problems addressed.

For example, while the origin of sin is one of the main topics of concern in the book, the entire discussion assumes a historical Adam. This left me wondering how Calvinists might treat the problem if they understood the fall within the framework of a non-historical Adam as proposed by scholars like Peter Enns and Denis Lamoureux.

The same kinds of questions arise when it comes to hell. While Hart’s spirited defense of eternal conscious torment is impressive, a Calvinist could also argue that God ultimate reconciles all creatures through Christ (indeed, Karl Barth famously skated close to just this position). Thus, I was left wondering what a rigorous defense of Calvinistic universalism might look like.

To sum up, Alexander and Johnson have gathered a first-rate collection of essays which deserves close study for all those interested in Calvinism, Christian philosophy, and/or the problem of evil. I anticipate that Calvinism and the Problem of Evil will do much to revitalize interest in Calvinism among Christian philosophers.

Thanks to Wipf and Stock for a review copy of this book.

If you benefited from this review, please consider upvoting it at Amazon.com.

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The Fight over the Fetus: Abortion, Ethics, and Politics

Today Norman Geisler apparently defended his continued support for Donald Trump by claiming that Hillary Clinton is worse than Adolf Hitler. The reason? Her support for abortion.

I first learned about this from Hemant Mehta’s blog and so I’m going to quote the relevant passage from his article “Christian Theologian: I Still Support Donald Trump Because Hillary Clinton is Worse Than Hitler“:

… there is less chance that Hillary will change her views and become a pro-life supporter than that Trump will become pro-abortion after he is elected. So, if you want to save unborn lives, your odds are much better with Trump.

…

… we have aborted nearly 60 million unborn human beings under Roe v. Wade since 1973 — a decision that Hillary ardently supports. Reportedly, Hitler only killed about 12 million people. So when Hillary supporters point to Trump’s flaws, do we not have a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black!

While I am prolife (meaning: I believe non-therapeutic abortion should be illegal), I do not think that the elective abortion of a first trimester pregnancy is the simple moral equivalent of a child being sent to the gas chambers. (I’m staying with the first-trimester so as to focus on the least controversial claim.) I’m also astounded that I have to make that point in response to somebody like Geisler who has been teaching Christian ethics since before I was alive. Consequently, it is quite improper to suppose that Clinton’s support for the legal status of elective abortion should be sufficient to warrant comparing her to Hitler.

Having said that, I was taken aback when I read the first of Mehta’s responses to Geisler. He writes:

1) There’s a big difference, which Geisler ignores, between “killing” 60 million cells that haven’t become people yet and purging the world of several million living, breathing human beings. (emphasis added)

To begin with, I am willing to grant Mehta’s point that unborn human beings (or at least some of them) are not yet persons. The concept of a person is philosophically contentious and there are many different views as to what is required to be a person (e.g. consciousness? self-awareness? second-order desires? language? etc.). And many if not most theories of personhood would not apply to an unborn fetus. Nonetheless, the unborn human being is just that: a human being. If it seems awkward to call a blastocyst a human being, perhaps you can concede at least this much: (i) the blastocyst is a human organism, and (2) the fetus at later stages of development is a human being.

One thing certainly is clear: the unborn fetus is not a single “cell”. And Mehta’s description of fetuses as individual cells, like euphemistic references to “uterine contents”, is part of a long history of pro-choice advocates dehumanizing (whether intentionally or not) the fetus whose life is at stake in abortion.

If you ever needed a capsule summary of the polarization of political and ethical discourse in the public square it is this. One person treats the elective abortion of a fetus as the moral equivalent of sending a child to the gas chambers while another person treats it as the mere termination of a “cell”. Is it any surprise it is nearly impossible to make any progress?

Having said all that, let me make two final points. First, I am broadly sympathetic to Mehta’s critique of Geisler, so while I was troubled by this dehumanizing reference to fetuses as cells, it does not undermine the general value of his analysis.

Second, comparing Mehta to Geisler is very much an apples and oranges comparison. Mehta is a bright and socially savvy atheistic blogger who writes for a popular audience, but he isn’t an academic, he doesn’t teach ethics, and he is fifty years Geisler’s junior. By contrast, Geisler is, as I already observed, a respected evangelical Christian leader who has been teaching Christian ethics since before I was born (and way before Mehta was born). So the fact that his analysis of abortion and the political process is this crude and reductionistic is deeply depressing.

Twenty years ago Mark Noll lamented the scandal of the evangelical mind. With commentary like that of Geisler, that scandal would appear to remain very much alive.

The post The Fight over the Fetus: Abortion, Ethics, and Politics appeared first on Randal Rauser.

Wayne Grudem retracts his Trump endorsement … but why’d he give it in the first place?

Yesterday evangelical theologian Wayne Grudem retracted his endorsement of Donald Trump. In his “de-endorsement” Grudem candidly admits that he really hadn’t researched the depths of Trumpean depravity:

“Some may criticize me for not discovering this material earlier, and I think they are right. I did not take the time to investigate earlier allegations in detail, and I now wish I had done so. If I had read or heard some of these materials earlier, I would not have written as positively as I did about Donald Trump.”

I give Grudem high marks for admitting this mistake. It takes courage and character to admit when you messed up royally, especially in such a public fashion.

But that doesn’t mean it is time to move on. How is it that a leading Christian theologian and ethicist like Grudem could demonstrate such an utter lack of wisdom and discernment? To begin with, he says he failed to “investigate earlier allegations in detail….” Why is that? It’s not like he would need to scroll through microfiche at the local library. All it would take is a quick google search.

Perhaps even more troubling is the fact that one hardly needed to bother researching allegations to recognize Trump is not deserving of a Christian’s vote. His behavior in the public square for months was a parade of truly beastly acts of misogyny, racism, and demagoguery.

Like many who have abandoned Trump in the last couple days, Grudem appealed to the shocking 2005 video with frat-boy sidekick Billy Bush:

“His vulgar comments in 2005 about his sexual aggression and assaults against women were morally evil and revealed pride in conduct that violates God’s command, “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14). I have now read transcripts of some of his obscene interviews with Howard Stern, and they turned my stomach. His conduct was hateful in God’s eyes and I urge him to repent and call out to God for forgiveness, and to seek forgiveness from those he harmed. God intends that men honor and respect women, not abuse them as sexual objects.”

I agree that Trump’s behavior here is hateful. But what about his demonization of immigrants and Muslims? What about his appalling denial of climate change science? What about his shady business relationship with foreign governments? How about his gaming the system to exploit loopholes in tax law and bankruptcy? (If a person on welfare games the system Trump and his GOP supporters would denounce them as a leech. But apparently it is okay if a rich person does the same thing.)

The list of Trump’s sins goes on and on. By focusing on “adultery” as the issue, Grudem demonstrates the glaringly narrow moral vision that is typical of mainstream evangelicalism. (It is interesting that Grudem makes no mention of Trump’s role in various Playboy softcore porn films. Usually pornography is included on the shortlist of evangelicals ethical/social concerns.)

To sum up, while I welcome Grudem’s de-endorsement, it raises deeper concerns with Grudem and that of the evangelical tradition he represents.

The post Wayne Grudem retracts his Trump endorsement … but why’d he give it in the first place? appeared first on Randal Rauser.

The First Review for An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar

The first review for my forthcoming co-authored book with Justin Schieber, An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar, was just published in Publisher’s Weekly. You can read it here. Here are a couple choice excerpts:

“Through one long conversation presented in transcript form—complete with digressions and calls for clarification—the duo avoids the simplistic attacks or hasty reasoning found in many polemical works.”

“Though at times the philosophical talk gets thick, Rouser [sic] and Schieber are generally adept at unpacking concepts for nonexpert readers. They never reach consensus, but their model of listening to and respectfully challenging each other provides a refreshing, hospitable break from heavy-handed demonization and overly simplified apologetics.”

Just follow the arrow to order your own copy!