Justin Taylor's Blog, page 143

John Wilson Interviews Novelist and Essayist Bret Lott

John Wilson, editor of Books & Culture, interviews Bret Lott, whose new book is Letters and Life: On Being a Writer, On Being a Christian:

Thinking through Euthyphro’s (and the Atheist’s) Dilemma

In Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro, Socrates and Euthyphro discuss the nature of piety and morality:

Socrates: And what do you say of piety, Euthyphro? Is not piety, according to your definition, loved by all the gods?

Euthyphro: Certainly.

Socrates: Because it is pious or holy, or for some other reason?

Euthyphro: No, that is the reason.

Socrates: It is loved because it is holy, not holy because it is loved?

This is called the “Euthyphro dilemma.” Socrates seems to have to have trapped Euthyphro into choosing between two unattractive horns: is something good because the gods willed it, or did the gods will it because it is good? Are the gods higher than goodness, making goodness arbitrary and capricious? Or is goodness above the gods, making them submissive to it?

Bertrand Russell famously summarized the problem as applied to contemporary theists, in his “Why I Am Not a Christian“:

If you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong, you are then in this situation: Is that difference due to God’s fiat or is it not?

If it is due to God’s fiat, then for God Himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good.

If you are going to say . . . that God is good, you must then say that right and wrong have some meaning which is independent of God’s fiat, because God’s fiats are good and not good independently of the mere fact that he made them.

If you are going to say that, you will then have to say that it is not only through God that right and wrong came into being, but that they are in their essence logically anterior to God.

The so-called dilemma has been answered numerous times.

For example, in his response, John Frame writes:

God’s Word and God’s goodness are equally ultimate aspects of his character. . . [C]ontrary to Euthyphro, neither Word nor goodness comes before the other; the two are correlative. There is nothing in God’s nature which His Word does not express; and there is nothing in His Word which lacks truth. So: God’s goodness determines God’s revelation, and God’s revelation determines His goodness.

Greg Koukl puts it like this:

The Christian rejects the first option, that morality is an arbitrary function of God’s power.

And he rejects the second option, that God is responsible to a higher law. There is no Law over God.

The third option is that an objective standard exists (this avoids the first horn of the dilemma). However, the standard is not external to God, but internal (avoiding the second horn). Morality is grounded in the immutable character of God, who is perfectly good. His commands are not whims, but rooted in His holiness.

I agree with these responses. But the Christian apologist shouldn’t stop there. He should also challenge the skeptic’s own account of goodness. (I have a vague recollection of hearing an apologist make this point before—Ravi Zacharias?—but have been unable to locate a source). For example, we could take Russell’s wording and substitute ourselves in place of God:

If you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong, you are then in this situation: Is that difference due to your fiat or is it not?

If it is due to your fiat, then for you yourself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that you are good.

If you are going to say . . . that you are good, you must then say that right and wrong have some meaning which is independent of your fiat, because your fiats are good and not good independently of the mere fact that you made them.

If you are going to say that, you will then have to say that it is not only through you that right and wrong came into being, but that they are in their essence logically anterior to yourself.

Put simply, we can ask the skeptic who doubts the divine command understanding of ethics: is something good because you (or your community) willed it, or did you (or your community) will it because it is good? If the former, then goodness is arbitrary; if the latter, then goodness is objective, independent, external, and something to which we must submit.

Wayne Grudem on a Theology of Vocation and Work

Wayne Grudem—whose Business to the Glory of God: The Bible’s Teaching on the Moral Goodness of Business is currently on sale for $2.99 as an eBook, and whose co-authored volume, The Poverty of Nations: A Sustainable Solution, is now published—gives a talk at Biola offering an overview of the biblical teaching on work and vocation:

Saturation, Suppression, and the Power of Political Correctness

Stella Morabito has an interesting piece at Public Discourse on how political correctness works.

First, she defines saturation:

Saturation is the practice of repeating a deception relentlessly and injecting it into every corner of public life so that it becomes accepted as truth. Saturation usually requires the control of most communications outlets.

She then looks at the flip side, suppression:

We know it as the practice of quashing ideas that compete with the PC message, usually through speech codes, shout-downs, or smears. The process of suppression creates the conditions essential to the survival of the PC message. If we think of PC as bacteria, suppression is like the dark room and the culture required for the bacteria’s growth and replication.

It works like this:

No matter how implausible an idea may seem, it can gain acceptance in the minds of the citizens as the forces of PC relentlessly hype the idea in the public square.

Simultaneously, the voices that might challenge and analyze the idea must be suppressed—accusations of bigotry and hatred often do the trick—so that the PC idea has a chance to incubate and then affect public opinion.

The twin processes of saturation and suppression, if diligently applied, can produce the illusion of a huge public opinion shift, or a “cascade.”

She then references the work of economist Timur Kuran to show the cascading effects:

Kuran defines preference falsification as “the act of misrepresenting one’s wants under perceived social pressures.” This results in “the regulation of others’ perceptions,” and has an extremely powerful ripple effect that influences both the shape of public opinion and the political process.

In 1999, Kuran teamed up with Cass Sunstein, who served as President Obama’s regulatory czar from 2009 to 2012, to publish a Stanford Law Review article on a related concept known as the “availability cascade.” They define it as “a self-reinforcing process of collective belief formation whereby an expressed perception triggers reactions that make that perception seem increasingly plausible through its rising availability in public discourse.”

The availability cascade has two complementary mechanisms: “information cascades,” in which uninformed people base their own beliefs on the apparent beliefs of others; and “reputational cascades,” in which earning social approval or avoiding social disapproval affects how personal opinions are expressed or withheld. Availability cascades are fragile, but they can potentially cause huge and unpredicted swings in public opinion and policy.

You can read the whole thing here.

It is interesting to note that Justice Scalia identified the suppression-factor at play in how the majority opinion in the DOMA case caricatured opposition to so-called same-sex marriage:

The Court . . . accuses the Congress that enacted this law and the President who signed it of something much worse than, for example, having acted in excess of enumerated federal powers—or even having drawn distinctions that prove to be irrational. Those legal errors may be made in good faith, errors though they are. But the majority says that the supporters of this Act acted with malice—with the “purpose” . . . “to disparage and to injure” same-sex couples. It says that the motivation for DOMA was to “demean,” . . .  to “impose inequality,” . . . to “impose . . . a stigma,” . . .  to deny people “equal dignity,” . . . to brand gay people as “unworthy,” . . . and to “humiliat[e]” their children, . . .

I am sure these accusations are quite untrue. To be sure (as the majority points out), the legislation is called the Defense of Marriage Act. But to defend traditional marriage is not to condemn, demean, or humiliate those who would prefer other arrangements, any more than to defend the Constitution of the United States is to condemn, demean, or humiliate other constitutions. To hurl such accusations so casually demeans this institution.

In the majority’s judgment, any resistance to its holding is beyond the pale of reasoned disagreement. To question its high-handed invalidation of a presumptively valid statute is to act (the majority is sure) with the purpose to “disparage,” “injure,” “degrade,” “demean,” and “humiliate” our fellow human beings, our fellow citizens, who are homosexual. All that, simply for supporting an Act that did no more than codify an aspect of marriage that had been unquestioned in our society for most of its existence—indeed, had been unquestioned in virtually all societies for virtually all of human history. It is one thing for a society to elect change; it is another for a court of law to impose change by adjudging those who oppose it hostes humani generis, enemies of the human race.

 

Shelby Foote on the Serendipity of Research

Shelby Foote:

I’ve never had anything resembling a secretary or a research assistant. I don’t want those. Each time I type, it gives me another shot at it, another look at it. As for research, I can’t begin to tell you the things I discovered while I was looking for something else. A research assistant couldn’t have done that. Not being a trained historian, I had botherations that led to good things. For instance, I didn’t take careful notes while reading. Then I’d get to something and I’d say, By golly, there’s something John Rawlins said at that time that’s real important. Where did I see it? Then I would remember that it was in a book with a red cover, close to the middle of the book, on the right-hand side and one third from the top of the page. So I’d spend an hour combing through all my red-bound books. I’d find it eventually, but I’d also find a great many other things in the course of the search.

You can read the whole 1997 interview here, including some helpful thoughts on the writing of narrative history and why he wishes historians were better writers.

Should We Connect the Trinity and Gender?

Christianity Today recently interviewed Larry Crabb about this new book, Fully Alive: A Biblical Vision of Gender That Frees Men and Women to Live Beyond Stereotypes. Crabb draws on the dynamic between Father and Son within the immanent Trinity to get at the distinctives of masculinity and femininity. CT then published a response from Trinitarian scholar Fred Sanders, a complementarian who argues for the decoupling of Trinitarianism from gender discussions. (You can read a fuller discussion from Sanders here, or watch this dialogue with Kevin Giles.)

Denny Burk’s response to both Crabb and Sanders matched my own, so I thought it’d be worth reprinting his introduction:

I am in hearty agreement with Fred Sanders’ critique of Larry Crabb’s new book on gender. The connections that Crabb makes between Trinitarian doctrine and gender roles seem to be entirely speculative and not founded in what the scriptures actually say. In short, Crabb’s paradigm is unmoored from the Bible, and Sanders has shown the flawed basis of Crabb’s thesis.

Having said that, there’s one detail in Sanders’ critique that I would take exception with. I’m reluctant to mention it because I’m a big fan of Sanders. He’s one of the bright lights of evangelical theology and has produced some remarkable work on the Trinity. If you haven’t read his 2010 book on The Trinity, you need to. He’s one of the good guys, and I’m glad he’s on the team making the case for classic Trinitarianism.

So what’s the disagreement? It’s these lines from Sanders’ critique:

I wish [Crabb] didn’t connect gender to the relationship between the Father and the Son. The main reason is that Scripture itself does not explicitly link gender to Trinity, or the masculine-feminine dynamic to the Father-Son dynamic.

Sanders not only rejects Crabb’s argument, but he also rejects as unbiblical any attempt at connecting Trinity to gender relations. This I think goes too far. Nevertheless, I seem to be hearing such statements a lot lately—not just from Sanders. I’m hearing it from both sides of the evangelical gender debate. On the complementarian side, Michael Bird/Robert Shillaker have warned that the analogy between gender and Trinity breaks down and is often pressed merely to advance a theological agenda. On the egalitarian side, John Stackhouse has argued that the analogy is “a bad theological move to attempt—by anyone, on any side of this issue.”

I understand the reasons why people are wary of theologizing about gender via the Trinity. First, such theologizing can quickly become speculative and disconnected from Scripture (as in Crabb’s book). Second, there is the danger of forcing the Trinity onto the procrustean bed of one’s views on the gender debate. In both cases, this central doctrine of the faith becomes the handmaiden of a second tier theological issue. I am completely sympathetic to that concern. The gender debate is so pitched that the tail can get to wagging the dog really quickly.

Nevertheless, such abuses should not diminish the fact that the analogy between gender roles and Trinity derives not from mere speculation, but from the Bible.

You can read the whole thing here. (Hint: It’s about 1 Cor. 11:3.)

For a multi-author look at this question, see the forthcoming book from Crossway, edited by Bruce Ware and John Starke, One God in Three Persons: Unity of Essence, Distinctions of Persons, Implications for Life.

A Letter from C.S. Lewis on Christian Piety and Homosexuality

Mark Shea reprints an interesting letter from C. S. Lewis to Sheldon Vanauken, who had written for counsel on how to counsel students with questions about Christianity and homosexuality (reprinted in A Severe Mercy [reprint: HarperOne, 2009, pp. 146-148]). [Note, I have spelled-out Lewis's abbreviations and retained his original emphasis.] The letter is dated 14 May 1954.

First, to map out the boundaries within which all discussion must go on, I take it for certain that the physical satisfaction of homosexual desires is sin. This leaves the homosexual no worse off than any normal person who is, for whatever reason, prevented from marrying.

Second, our speculations on the cause of the abnormality are not what matters and we must be content with ignorance. The disciples were not told why (in terms of efficient cause) the man was born blind (John 9:1-3): only the final cause, that the works of God should be made manifest in him. This suggests that in homosexuality, as in every other tribulation, those works can be made manifest: i.e. that every disability conceals a vocation, if only we can find it, which will ‘turn the necessity to glorious gain.’ Of course, the first step must be to accept any privations which, if so disabled, we can’t lawfully get. The homosexual has to accept sexual abstinence just as the poor man has to forego otherwise lawful pleasures because he would be unjust to his wife and children if he took them. That is merely a negative condition.

What should the positive life of the homosexual be? I wish I had a letter which a pious male homo., now dead, once wrote to me—but of course it was the sort of letter one takes care to destroy. He believed that his necessity could be turned to spiritual gain: that there were certain kinds of sympathy and understanding, a certain social role which mere men and mere women could not give. But it is all horribly vague and long ago. Perhaps any homo. who humbly accepts his cross and puts himself under Divine guidance will, however, be shown the way. I am sure that any attempt to evade it (e.g. by mock or quasi-marriage with a member of one’s own sex even if this does not lead to any carnal act) is the wrong way. Jealousy (this another homosexual admitted to me) is far more rampant and deadly among them than among us. And I don’t think little concessions like wearing the clothes of the other sex in private is the right line, either. It is the duties, burdens, the characteristic virtues of the other sex, I suspect, which the patient must try to cultivate. I have mentioned humility because male homosexuals (I don’t know about women) are rather apt, the moment they find you don’t treat them with horror and contempt, to rush to the opposite pole and start implying that they are somehow superior to the normal type.

I wish I could be more definite. All I have really said is that, like all other tribulations, it must be offered to God and His guidance how to use it must be sought. 

Both Feet Firmly Planted in Midair

Francis Schaeffer once described moral relativists as those “who have both feet firmly planted in mid-air.” (See Koukl and Beckwith’s helpful book built on that title.)

An even more vivid illustration is that of Cornelius Van Til who sought to describe the impossibility of unbelieving reasoning if their worldview is employed consistently:

Suppose we think of a man made of water in an infinitely extended and bottomless ocean of water.

Desiring to get out of water, he makes a ladder of water.

He sets this ladder upon the water and against the water and then attempts to climb out of the water.

So hopeless and senseless a picture must be drawn of the natural man’s methodology based as it is upon the assumption that time or chance is ultimate. On his assumption his own rationality is a product of chance. On his assumption even the laws of logic which he employs are products of chance. The rationality and purpose that he may be searching for are still bound to be products of chance.

—Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith (P&R, 1972), p. 102. (The link is to the newer edition edited by K. Scott Oliphint, but the page number is from the original edition.)

For a similar argument from C.S. Lewis, see Victor Reppert’s C.S. Lewis’s Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason (IVP, 2003).

How to Think Like an Editor: A Conversation with John Wilson

Doug Wilson talks with one-of-a-kind Books & Culture founder and editor John Wilson:

HT: @wesleyhill

A Gameplan for Combating Worry

David Powlison:

Do you want to hear a good description of what happens with anxiety? “A man who has no control over his spirit is like a city broken into and without walls.” That’s Proverbs 25:28. How do you get a grip when barbarians are rioting in the streets of your mind? Terrorist attackers, a gang of criminals, suicide bombers, cities invaded, fires everywhere, a lion in the street, chaos. Your mind loses its grip. Fear and anxiety have taken over. Nothing’s safe or certain.

Anxiety is a universal human experience, and you need to approach it with a plan. Notice this is not a formula. When Andy Reid coaches the Philadelphia Eagles, he doesn’t know a single thing that’s going to happen after the opening whistle. He doesn’t even know who’s going to kick off until they flip a coin. But he’s not unprepared. He goes in with a game plan, a basic orientation to the game ahead. I want to give you six things as a game plan for when you start to worry and obsess.

First, name the pressures.

You always worry about something. What things tend to hook you? What do you tend to worry about? What “good reasons” do you have for anxiety? The very act of naming it is often very helpful. In the experience of anxiety, it seems like a million things. You’re juggling plates, round and round and round and round. But really, you’re juggling only six plates—or maybe obsessing on just one. It helps you to name the one thing or the six that keep recycling. Anxieties feel endless and infinite—but they’re finite and specific.

Second, identify how you express anxiety. Spot the signs. How does anxiety show up in your life?

For some people it’s feelings of panic clutching their throat, or just a vague unease. What a huge step forward when you stand back and say, “Aha, a red light on the dashboard!” Rather than just indulging your worries, you can name them. For some people it’s repetitive, obsessive thoughts: “Oh, now that’s the fourth time I’ve repeated that scenario in my mind.” For some people the sign is anger. They get irritated, but when they work back, they realize, “I was fearful and worried about something.” For other people, worry shows up in their bodies (e.g., a tension headache) or in the cheap remedies that sin manufactures to make us feel better (e.g., gobbling ice cream, or an overpowering desire for a stiff drink). Spot the signs. How can those things become cues to you? “I’m losing it, I’m forgetting God, my flashlight is going dim.”

Third, ask yourself, Why am I anxious?

Worry always has its inner logic. Anxious people are “you of little faith.” If I’ve forgotten God, who or what has edged Him out of my mind and started to rule in His place? Identify the hijacker. Anxious people have fallen into one of the subsets of “every form of greed.” What do I want, need, crave, expect, demand, lust after? Or, since we fear losing the things we crave getting, what do I fear either losing or never getting? Identify the specific lust of the flesh. Anxious people “eagerly seek” the gifts more than the Giver. They bank treasure in the wrong place. What is preoccupying me, so that I pursue it with all my heart? Identify the object of your affections.

Fourth, what better reason does Jesus give you not to worry? What were those promises we just talked about? Go back and pick one to take to heart.

I listed seven for you, seven things Jesus guarantees about how God runs His universe. We highlighted the sixth, “Your father is God,” because it was the best of those better reasons. But they’re all good reasons. That’s why Jesus mentions every one. We’re pretty uncomplicated people. It’s tough to remember seven things at once, so pick one. For me, over the last month, the most helpful one has been, “If God feeds the crows, won’t He provide for you?” It makes me laugh even to think about it, and anxiety can’t coexist with hearty laughter! Those Crow Boys intercepted a lot of temptations to anxiety; they did me good. Grab one promise and work with it.

Fifth, go to your Father. Talk to Him.

It’s not as though your Father doesn’t care about the things you worry about: your friends, your health, your money, your children, and so forth. Your Father knows what you need. You can go to Him with the things that concern you. Cast your cares on Him, because He cares for you. You’ll have to leave your worries with Him. They are always outside of your control! How will your kids turn out? Will you get Alzheimer’s? What will happen with the economy? Will you ever get married? Will there be an anthrax attack? Will your dad come to know the Lord? Will you have money for next month’s bills? You have good reasons to be concerned about such things, but you have better reasons to take them to Someone who loves you. Like that toddler whose mom trailed her, even the deep end of life is safe.

Finally, give. Do and say something constructive. Care for someone else. Give to meet human need.

In the darkest hole, when the world is most confused, when there are barbarians in the streets, when life’s the toughest, there’s always the right thing to do. There’s always some way to give yourself away. The problem might seem overwhelming. You could worry, worry, worry, worry. But what you’re called to do is small, just a little itty-bitty thing. There’s always something to give yourself to, and some way to give. Jesus said more about this in Matthew 6, the parallel passage to ours: “Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day thereof.” Give yourself to today’s trouble. Be about the business of today. Leave tomorrow’s uncertainties to your Father.