Randal Rauser's Blog, page 172

Joe Biden talking about loss with Stephen Colbert

I was among an apparent minority disappointed by the debut of Colbert’s The Late Show. Apparently I’m still grieving the loss of the right wing pundit of The Colbert Report. But seeing the real Colbert does have its upsides, and chief among them is his deeply moving interaction with Joe Biden on suffering and faith.

The Skeptic Community and Irrational Doubt: A second response to Justin Schieber

I devoted my previous article “Atheist tweets on faith: A response to Justin Schieber” to providing a critique of the following tweet:

It’s now time for part 2.

While it might seem disproportionate to devote two articles to a single tweet, the reality is that this tweet summarizes some deep and persistent problems with the way the self-described “skeptic” community thinks about epistemological issues like faith, reason, and doubt.

In the first article I focused on the concept of “faith”. Now in part 2 we will turn to the topic of doubt. My thesis can be summarized in an equally terse tweet:

“For many, ‘doubt’ is a pride in one’s refusal to update epistemically.”

In other words, as surely as one can exercise faith in an irrational way that is recalcitrant to disconfirming evidence, so one can exercise doubt in an irrational way that is recalcitrant to disconfirming evidence.

And this brings us to a fundamental problem with the way the self-described “skeptic” community thinks about reason. Their chosen self-identity as people who are “skeptical,” i.e. people who doubt, aligns good reasoning with the withholding of assent or belief.

Alas, this reflects a common misunderstanding about the nature of virtue in which each virtue is paired up with a single vice. For example, folks assume that cowardice is the vice and courage is the virtue. Or stinginess is the vice and generosity is the virtue. Or, in the present case, belief/faith is the vice and doubt is the virtue.

In each case, the supposition is wrong. Virtues are not paired with single vices. (At least, the present examples are not.) Rather, as Aristotle recognized, they provide a golden mean between two vices.

If courage is the virtue, then cowardice is one vice and recklessness is another. If generosity is the virtue, then stinginess is one vice and extravagance is the other. And if irrational belief/faith is one vice, then irrational doubt is the other.

Think, for example, of the pathologically jealous husband who refuses to believe his wife’s insistence that she has never cheated on him, despite the complete lack of evidence that would justify his doubt. This husband’s doubt is not a paragon of rationality. Rather, it is baldly irrational: withholding assent to the truth of a proposition is as much a proper subject for rational appraisal as granting assent to the truth of a proposition. And the rational person is the one who finds that golden mean by exercising belief/faith when the evidence warrants, and exercising doubt when the evidence warrants.

And so the point of my tweet: a person can exercise an irrational recalcitrance toward evidence (i.e. a refusal to “update epistemically”) by withholding belief as surely as by assenting to a belief.

Finally, please note that belief and doubt are, in fact, two sides of the same coin. The husband who doubts his wife’s testimony to her fidelity believes the evidence doesn’t support her fidelity. Doubt and belief are not two completely distinct categories. Rather, to believe one thing is to doubt (i.e. not believe) another.

Unfortunately, the tendency to identify rationality with doubt is liable to blind one to the need to appraise rationally both their own doubts and the corollary beliefs to those doubts. And in my view, that lack remains an ongoing, persistent problem within the self-described skeptic community.

Atheist tweets on faith: A response to Justin Schieber

The other day I came across this tweet from Justin Schieber in my twitter feed:

First off, let me say that this is a good tweet: pithy and provocative, so much so that it’s apparently worth two blog posts.

That’s right, two!

So let’s get started.

And let’s make that start on a positive note by observing that it is indeed likely true that some folks (perhaps “many”), invoke the term ‘faith’ as a justification for their “refusal to update epistemically”. In other words, some people may justify an irrational recalcitrance to address disconfirming evidence to their beliefs by labelling that irrational recalcitrance “faith”.

But I have problems with the tweet as well. Consider another possible tweet:

“For many poor people, ‘welfare’ is an excuse not to work.”

Um, yeah, that may be true. Some poor people (perhaps “many”) may treat welfare as an excuse not to work. But if that’s all we say about the matter, then I’m guessing we most definitely have not said enough.

The same applies in the present case. So let’s reflect a bit further on the issues raised by Justin’s tweet.

* * *

First, the target of Justin’s tweet appears to be religious faith (hence, hashtag “RealAtheology”). But there is really no reason to restrict the point in this way. After all, the most secular atheist in the world may likewise “refuse to update epistemically” by failing to address disconfirming evidence to his/her beliefs. Alas, it is always easier to identify problems in an out-group (and for Justin as an secular atheist, those who are religiously committed are the outgroup), than it is to identify the same problems in one’s in-group.

Now you might be inclined to reply, “But the secular atheist wouldn’t refer to their “refusal to update epistemically” as faith. Maybe not, but maybe so. Consider Sandy the secular atheist who has just sent a sizable sum of money overseas to her “boyfriend” that she has never met before. Sandy’s friends have an intervention and provide the evidence that she’s the victim of a scam. “‘Steve’ isn’t real!” they insist. “A con artist is preying on you!” “No!” Sandy snaps back. “I have faith in Steve! I trust him. He loves me!” And so, despite all the evidence, Sandy refuses to update epistemically. All this despite the fact that she’s a secular atheist!

Let’s also note that the issue here is not actually “faith”. Rather, it’s bad faith, that is, faith that is errantly placed. After all, we can all imagine scenarios where a person has faith even when the chips are down and their faith is shown to have been well placed. You always trust the weather forecasts on channel six. They’ve forecast a sunny afternoon tomorrow, and so you plan your yard sale accordingly. You wake up in the morning to dark heavy clouds, and your spouse asks you if you should abort. “No,” you say, “I have faith in channel six.” A half hour later the clouds break up and the sun breaks through. Your faith was well placed. The problems arise when channel six has a terrible track record and it’s pouring rain at 11 am and you still insist it will clear by noon. That’s bad faith.

So rather than target faith (or “religious” faith”) Justin would do far better to target bad faith, like that exhibited by Sandy as she maintains her delusion that Steve, the man she’s never met before who is presently draining her bank account, really loves her.

Finally, keep in mind that whether Sandy justifies her continued commitment to Steve despite the evidence by calling it faith is really beside the point. The problem is the behavior, not what you call it. Thus, whether Sandy said she has faith in Steve, or whether she said she trusts Steve, or whether she said she believes in Steve is not the issue. The point is her persistence in believing something that is not supported by the evidence available to her. And you don’t need to be religious or invoke the term “faith” to exercise bad faith.

Running for a Good Cause

On September 19th I’m going to be participating in a 10 km run as part of a fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity here in Edmonton. To this point I’ve written a couple thousand articles on my blog and posted more than 80 podcasts, and I’ve never asked anybody to give me a dime. But I do ask that you consider supporting important charitable causes like Habitat for Humanity.

If you’d like to sponsor me by making a donation to this worthy cause, please click here.

Talking Atheism on The Trinities Podcast

Human value revisited: Could divine attachment contribute to human value?

In “Human value and the atonement: A Reply to Andy Bannister” I provided a critique of Bannister’s claim that human value is “determined by what God was willing to pay for you in the life of Jesus Christ, his Son.” I noted that my fifth and final objection was decisive:

“Bannister’s theory seems to have things backwards. We are not valuable because Christ died for us. Rather, Christ died for us because we are valuable. This value consists not in what we do but rather in the kind of beings we are: in the biblical language, we are bearers of the divine image and likeness.”

In short, we are valuable because God made us valuable in the beginning, not because God the Son died for us.

The Case for Value in Bonded Attachment

But is that the end of the story? Not necessarily. While I believe Bannister’s account of value is unsuited to sustain all the weight placed upon it, it might have some load-bearing potential. Could the atonement contribute to human value even if it does not exhaust it? That is an idea worth exploring.

Let’s consider a possibility: personal attachment and identification.

Think for a moment of Linus and his beloved blanket. Many blankets were manufactured which are identical to that owned by Linus. Nonetheless, if Snoopy were to go rabid one day and shred Linus’ blanket, he would not be consoled by an identical new blanket, and this for one simple reason: Linus has not become emotionally attached to that new blanket. For Linus, his shared history with his original blanket gives it a value above and beyond the bundle of properties exemplified by it.

Note, the claim is not that the blanket’s value is constituted wholly by Linus’ attachment. After all, that attachment would never have formed in the first place had the blanket possessed different properties like a prickly texture and a vomit-like odor. So while Linus’ personal history of attachment does not exhaust the value of his blanket, neither does the set of properties (e.g. the blue color and fuzzy texture) exemplified by the blanket. Instead, the blanket’s value is ultimately constituted both by the kind of thing it is and Linus’ attachment to it.

Could it be that the relationship of the human species to God is an analogue to Linus and his blanket? In the analogy, just as the blanket has value both in virtue of its inherent properties and Linus’ bonded attachment to it, so human value consists both in virtue of the unique and inherent properties of the human species (i.e. the image of God) and by God’s bonded attachment to that species.

In terms of reflecting on the value that results from this bonded attachment, it would be important to recognize that the agent who has this bonded attachment with the human species is the maximally perfect creator and sustainer of all. It would seem reasonable to view the value of the human species as being constituted in part by this divine bonded attachment.

Three levels of bonded attachment

I would suggest that we could think of this bonded attachment in three levels.

The first level is found in the simple fact that God loves you. It is interesting to note that when people struggle with their own value (e.g. in a fit of clinical depression), we naturally seek to reassure them of their value by pointing out that they are loved by others. Picture, for example, the man prepared to jump off a bridge to his doom. As the police officer talks him down, he emphasizes the people who love this man and would miss him: “What will your children do without you? And your wife? She loves you!”

In my view, the fact that a person is loved is not simply an indicator that they are of value. The dyadic relationship of love that we share with others is also constitutive of value. The police officer is not simply reminding the man of his own inherent value. Rather, he is also pointing out the additional value of his life and person in virtue of the relationships of love he shares with others.

Similarly, the fact that we are loved by God adds a degree of value to the human species above and beyond the value that is sourced in our natures as human. Of course, I believe God loves his creatures in every possible world in which creatures exist. But the lesson to draw is simply that in every world in which creatures exist, God’s love for them is in part constitutive of their value.

Second, in terms of God’s concrete demonstration of that bonded attachment, before we speak of the atonement, we should speak of incarnation. In Christian theology, God has so bonded with the human species that God the Son has voluntarily identified with this species by becoming forever incarnate as a human being. In other words, the Trinity consists of three divine persons, the second of which has voluntarily assumed a human nature. In Avatar Sully so identified with the Na’vi people that he became one of them. But Sully was just a human being. Imagine the significance of the creator and sustainer of all so identifying with a species that he becomes one of them.

Third, the act of atonement by which the incarnate God seeks to restore the human species (and indeed the entire creation) provides the final demonstration of this bonded attachment. It may be that God’s nature is such that in any possible world (i.e. any maximal possible state of affairs) in which there is a fall, he would love that fallen creation and act to redeem it. But in the actual world God acted to redeem that entire creation through incarnate and atoning identification with the particular species Homo sapiens.

In conclusion, it is reasonable to conclude that this personal history of bonded attachment between God and the human species is partially constitutive of the value of that species, even if it does not exhaust it. In the introduction to my book What on Earth Do We Know About Heaven I give the example of the Velveteen Rabbit, the famous story of a beloved toy becoming real through the love of a child:

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

Human value and the atonement: A Reply to Andy Bannister

I’ve just been listening to (and enjoying) the August 29th edition of Unbelievable which features a dialogue between Christian theist Andy Bannister and atheist Michael Ruse on the meaning of life. There is a lot to dig into here: both Bannister and Ruse are intelligent and engaging speakers who show charity to the other side. In other words, they represent Unbelievable at its best. Given that there is much here to discuss, I may devote a subsequent article (or two?) to further discussion. But at this point, I wanted to respond to Bannister’s interesting account of human value.

What’s interesting is that Bannister ties human value to the atonement. He begins by saying that for Christians, the value of human beings is “infinite”. How so? Because (if I understand Bannister correctly), value is determined by the marketplace. That is, value is contingent upon the willingness of an agent to pay a price. This is where the atonement becomes important: God was willing to pay an infinite price — the death of his Son — for human beings. This is how Bannister puts it,

“your value is determined by what God was willing to pay for you in the life of Jesus Christ, his Son.”

Now just to make sure you get the fuller picture, I’ve included a 1 1/2 minute clip which culminates in this payment-value schema. After you listen to the clip you can take in my comments below.

http://randalrauser.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Infinite-Value.mp3

 

I thought this was a really interesting argument. However, I do see several problems with it which I will enumerate now.

To begin with, it would seem to commit one to an atonement theory that construes atonement as some kind of literal economic exchange, perhaps one like Anselm’s satisfaction theory. But many Christians — myself included — are critics of atonement as a literal value-exchange (rather than a metaphorical one) such that sin and/or righteousness can be literally imputed from one party to another. (I have often written about the problems with such theories. For example, see here.) And the prospects of such theories do not seem bright. This in turn calls into question the underlying logic for Bannister’s theory.

Second, since on Bannister’s theory human value is determined by Christ’s atoning death, it would seem to follow that if a particular theory of redemption (i.e. limited atonement) is correct (and many Christians do accept a particular theory that restricts atonement to the elect), then it follows that those humans for whom Christ did not die are without value. And this seems very counterintuitive. (I do not accept a theory of particular redemption. But it seems to me that particular redemption is at least possibly true, and this possibility fits poorly with Bannister’s theory of human value.)

Third, Bannister’s view seems to reduce human value to divine will, and this also seems very implausible. Consider: in world 1 Christ dies for Jones and in world 2 Christ does not die for Jones. On Bannister’s account, Jones could have identical properties in both worlds except that in world 1 he is imputed with infinite value, whereas in world 2 he completely lacks any value. This too seems very implausible.

Fourth, if human beings are imputed with the “infinite” value of Christ (that is, his divine) value, then it seems to follow that in virtue of Christ’s atoning death, human beings are as valuable as God. Not only is that wholly implausible but theologically speaking it is also deeply problematic.

Fifth, and for me this is the kicker, Bannister’s theory seems to have things backwards. We are not valuable because Christ died for us. Rather, Christ died for us because we are valuable. This value consists not in what we do but rather in the kind of beings we are: in the biblical language, we are bearers of the divine image and likeness. In other words, our value is rooted not in soteriology but rather in creation.

In conclusion, I haven’t read Bannister’s book (but from what I’ve heard, it sounds like a great read). So I am not directing these comments at the book which will presumably reflect Bannister’s most careful formulations of his views. Instead, I am simply offering a rejoinder to his brief but provocative (and thought-provoking) treatment of the topic of human value while on Unbelievable.

The Berenstain Conspiracy and beyond…

If you stare long enough at that first “a” you will eventually discern the faintest outline of the original “e”. Trust me, it’s there.

Like many other people, I grew up reading The Berenstein Bears. Or so I thought. However, it turns out that the series (and the bear family’s surname) is spelled Berenstain.

Sounds suspicious to me. How do you explain a persistent, collective group memory that Berenstain is really Berenstein?

The son of the authors insists that his surname (and that of the bears, and their book series) was always spelled Berenstain.

Of course, he would say that if he’s in on the conspiracy.

One popular theory, dating back to 2012, proposes that this is evidence of a parallel universe in which the Berenstain doppleganger is Berenstein.

Sounds a little implausible to me.

I prefer a more down-to-earth conspiracy.

And that brings me to the Comma Johanneum, a short clause appearing in 1 John 5:7-8 which provides the most powerful and succinct summary statement of the Trinity in the New Testament. Here it is in the KJV:

7. For there are three that bear record in heaven,

the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost:

and these three are one .

8. And there are three that bear witness in earth,

the spirit, and the water, and the blood:

and these three agree in one.

Beginning with Erasmus in the 16th century, scholars have been challenging the integrity of this text, not least because it is not to be found in the earliest manuscripts. And so a consensus emerged that this longer and robustly Trinitarian text was an interpolation. As a result, contemporary Bibles have a significantly shorter (and not obviously Trinitarian) rendering in keeping with the earliest manuscripts, as in the NIV:

“For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.”

But the Comma Johanneum has always had its defenders. So how do they explain the lack of early textual support? One theory, dating at least to the early 17th century, attributes the lack of support in the earliest manuscripts to an Arian conspiracy. In short, non-Trinitarians malevolently removed the Trinitarian texts from the historical record in a bid to promote their theological perspective.

That may sound rather implausible, I must admit. But perhaps something like this happened with our present case. Could it be that some shadowy and very powerful interest (e.g. an “Eastern Syndicate”) has amended the record by changing all references to “Berenstein” in books, film, and elsewhere, to “Berenstain”? And the only remaining evidence to the contrary is our collective memory of “Berenstein”?

This morning I asked my thirteen year old how the name is spelled. She responded by spelling out “B-E-R-E-N-S-T-E-I-N”. When I pointed out her “error” she replied:

“It’s spelled with an ‘a’? That’s so weird!”

Indeed, it is “weird”.

Then after about a minute she added:

“But I remember it being spelled with an ‘e’.”

Indeed, so do the rest of us.

And after another minute:

“‘Berenstain’ doesn’t seem right!”

You’re right. It doesn’t.

So now we know that the change must have occurred within the last decade or so. The question is why? What is that shadowy Eastern Syndicate up to?

Whatever it is, it ain’t good.

By the way, my daughter just “discovered” that Charlie Brown cartoonist Charles Shulz doesn’t have a “t” in his last name, despite the fact that we both remember it being there.

This may go deeper than we thought…

Are Christians being hypocrites about marriage?

In “Christians standing against gay marriage need to be consistent on divorce” I pointed out the tension with Christians impugning gay marriage as unbiblical whilst ignoring Jesus’ teaching on divorce and remarriage. To put this problem in perspective, I want to start by saying something further about the problem of divorce.

In his book The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience, p. 18, Ron Sider points out how serious the problem of divorce is within the evangelical community. Indeed, he suggests that divorce rates may be higher among evangelicals than in the general population. Here’s the passage:

Divorce is bad enough, but as I noted in the aforementioned article, in Matthew 19:9 (cf. Matt. 5:32) Jesus teaches that divorce for any reason other than marital infidelity which is followed by remarriage results in a union which is adulterous.

I understand why Christians would rather talk about gay marriage than the ethical black hole of Christians who are divorced and remarried. But if one purports to uphold the Bible as an ethical guide in matters of marriage, one must apply the standards consistently.

I have heard one way that Christians have attempted to deal with the problem. They concede that remarriage in cases other than marital infidelity results in an adulterous union. However, they add, the moral ascription of adultery applies to the event of the divorced man and/or woman marrying rather than to the resulting state of affairs of that man and woman being married. In other words, the moment was adulterous, but the resulting marriage is not.

Presumably the point of this tortured argument is to shift the spotlight back off divorced and remarried Christians and onto gays. But the reasoning is completely spurious. If the original marital event was illegitimate then the resulting state of affairs does not constitute a legitimate marriage. And in that case, the resulting union involves two individuals in an ongoing state of adultery which is not different ethically from a married man and a married woman having an ongoing and unrepentant affair.

The scenario is also no different from a man who is already married who then marries again without divorcing his first wife. In retrospect, it makes no sense to say that the second marriage was illegitimate but the resulting state of affairs of being married is somehow legitimate. On the contrary, the event of the second marriage was an illegitimate farce and so, it turns out, is the resulting relationship between the bigamist husband and his second wife.

In like manner, Jesus considers the event of becoming married to result in an ongoing reality which persists even if one receives a certificate of divorce from a civil magistrate. In that case, the person who divorces and remarries is no different than a bigamist because mere humans have no right to dissolve that relationship that God has joined together. As a result, a remarriage after a divorce is ethically no different than bigamy (or adultery).

This means that according to the clear teaching of Jesus in Matthew 19:9 (and 5:32), people who divorce for any reason other than adultery and then remarry are adulterers and bigamists. And given the high rates of divorce among evangelicals, it follows that there are literally hundreds of thousands of Christians in ongoing unrepentant states of adultery.

Don’t skip over that fact. Mull over it. Let it sink in. Hundreds of thousands of Christians are in ongoing unrepentant states of adultery and all the while the church communities in their midst are saying nothing.

They’re saying nothing on divorced and remarried Christians, but they sure are saying a lot about gay marriage.

So here’s the fact of the matter. Christians who want to speak with some moral authority on the topic of gay marriage really ought to start by applying to themselves and their immediate belief communities the very biblical standards that they attempt to enforce on others. This isn’t rocket science. It’s ethical consistency 101.

Oh yeah, and I can anticipate some people retorting at this point something like this: “If you have to be perfect before you can offer a moral indictment then nobody can condemn anything because nobody is perfect.” But I didn’t say you’ve got to be perfect. I just suggested that blatant hypocrisy undermines moral witness. And it seems to me that the current widespread Christian focus on gay marriage at the very same time that this same Christian community ignores Jesus’ clear teaching on divorce is blatant hypocrisy.

Christians standing against gay marriage need to be consistent on divorce

You’ve probably heard by now about the county clerk in Kentucky who has been refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, insisting that her action is placed “under God’s authority”. (If, perchance, you haven’t heard about it, this New York Times article will get you up to speed.)

At first blush, a person might think that the issue of same sex marriage receives more attention than it deserves, particularly from Christian conservatives. But there is no doubt that this issue is like that seemingly innocuous stray thread hanging off a knit sweater which, should it be tugged upon, could unravel the entire garment. The topic of same sex marriage is, in fact, a watershed issue that ties into a range of seemingly disparate topics from religious freedom to civil rights to biblical authority and interpretation to church/state relations.

How you choose to think about Kim Davis’s actions will determine the kind of analogy you think fitting. If this is a civil rights issue for those seeking a union, then her appeal to God’s authority rings as hollow here as it did fifty years ago when Davis’s predecessor might well have refused a license to a mixed race couple.

On the other hand, if you believe same sex marriage violates a just divine command, then you might view Davis’s stance as a courageous act of non-resistance which stands shoulder to shoulder not with the propagators of Jim Crow, but rather with the very protestors that sought to subvert it.

As deep as the divide is between these two diametrically opposed positions, one thing is clear: credibility depends on consistency. For the nay side, this involves, among other things, consistency on what the Bible teaches (or appears to teach) on matters such as marriage.

Here’s what I mean. Kim Davis refused to issue a marriage license to homosexuals because she believed their union to be illegitimate based on divine law.

However, in Matthew 19 Jesus explicitly says that divorce for any reason other than the sexual immorality of one’s partner which is followed by remarriage is an adulterous act:

“8 Jesus replied, ‘Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.'”

So one must ask: if Davis only issues marriage licenses to married couples that she believes receive divine sanction, then according to Matthew 19:8-9 she ought not issue licenses to couples that include at least one partner divorced for a reason other than adultery of the spouse.

One must wonder then whether Davis has ever issued a license to people she knew were previously divorced. Did she know the circumstances of that divorce?

More fundamentally, did it ever even occur to her to question the past marital history of those to whom she issues licenses? If not, that would seem to be a flagrant disregard on her part. If those marital unions are indeed adulterous violations of divine law, then it would seem she as a county clerk is obliged to ensure she is not herself violating divine law by issuing licenses to illegitimate unions, heterosexual no less than homosexual.

This brings me to an issue I’ve raised at several points in the past. So long as Christians apply to others different standards from those which they apply to themselves and their immediate belief community, they will not have a credible moral voice in the public square.

Oh yeah, and as for that clerk Kim Davis, she’s been married four times. (To be fair, that’s three divorces before she says she became a Christian. But that doesn’t change Jesus’ above-mentioned indictment.)