Russell - Why I am Not a Christian

[David]

For background on Bertrand Russell, you can read this entry:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rus...

Russell lived from 1872-1970. He is most famous for his work, co-written with Alfred North Whitehead, Principia Mathematica (1910-1913) which was a landmark in logic. Here is a quote:

Logicism is the view that (some or all of) mathematics can be reduced to (formal) logic. It is often explained as a two-part thesis. First, it consists of the claim that all mathematical truths can be translated into logical truths or, in other words, that the vocabulary of mathematics constitutes a proper subset of the vocabulary of logic. Second, it consists of the claim that all mathematical proofs can be recast as logical proofs or, in other words, that the theorems of mathematics constitute a proper subset of the theorems of logic. As Russell writes, it is the logicist's goal “to show that all pure mathematics follows from purely logical premises and uses only concepts definable in logical terms” (1959, 74).

Russell was also very influential in the development of analytic philosophy. This development then coincided with the rejection of idealism, the popular philosophy at the time.

Russell's other famous work is A History of Western Philosophy, published in 1945.

That all was gleaned by skimming a few things and I am by no means a philosopher, so feel free to read up on such things yourself (or ask Brent!).

Why I am Not a Christian was originally an essay. I must now apologize, for I was not clear on what exactly we are reading. I have a book that includes that essay as the first chapter along with 13 other chapters:

1. Why I am Not a Christian
2. Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilisation
3. Do We Survive Death?
4. Seems, Madam? Nay, it is
5. On Catholic and Protestant Skeptics
6. Life in the Middle Ages
7. The Fate of Thomas Paine
8. Nice People
9. The New Generation
10. Our Sexual Ethics
11. Freedom and the Colleges
12. The Existence of God
13. Can Religion Cure our Troubles
14. Religion and Morals

Hopefully the books everyone purchased has these. If so, we will discuss all of them and I imagine it will take a while

[Brent]

Thanks for the introduction, David. Lets start working through the first chapter and see what we can uncover! Russell's "Why I am not a Christian" was extremely influential on popular culture in Britain, and helped shape the evidentialism and logical positivist mentality among culture, and not just in the academies at that time.

[Rod]

I look forward to spotting how spiritually Blind Russell was. OR better yet: How often he breaks his own rules and standards.

Exciting!

[[deleted user]]

The version David mentions is past its author copyright and is available online as a free epub download. I refrain from posting the link here since I'm not 100% sure if that's considered kosher in this forum and site.

[Genni]

I just started reading so I have not gotten very far. And right away I have a question. Under the First Cause Argument, he objects to the existence of God because if everything must have a cause, then so must God, and He doesn't. But isn't this just operating on a naturalistic assumption? A supernatural being may not need a cause. So the real problem is not an original unmoved mover, but whether or not things supernatural exist?
Later in the paragraph he says, "there is no reason why the world could not have come into being without a cause; nor, on the other hand, is there any reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all." I don't delve into science very often, but I thought, perhaps wrongly, that even scientists who do not believe in God maintain that there was a beginning to the universe, whether a spark or bang or whatever, right? Perhaps science had not come to that point at the date of his writing?

[Rod]

Good stuff Genni.

I assumed Russell would NOT be such a beginner at this type of stuff - I was wrong! Hopefully he has some better material than that.

[Chris Warns]

Hi Genni,

I just read the section under the First Cause Argument. Taking the premise, "Everything that exists has a cause" would lead to an infinite regress of "first" causes and ultimately have no explanatory power. I believe this is logically correct given this premise. However, I don't think this is what the theistic philosopher would argue. The statement of a first cause is much more specific that the one stated above. The statement, "Anything that BEGINS to exist must have an antecedent cause" is far more concrete. Taking this premise, its coherent to say that everything goes back to an eternal (having no beginning, therefore no cause) First Cause. Essentially taking the first premise mentioned there is no first cause. So I think maybe Russell may have gotten his beginnings wrong lol.

[David]

Good comment Genni and good response Chris. I agree with Chris, I think Russell is responding to the wrong argument. The argument would be everything that BEGINS to exist.

Could the universe never have begun to exist? It seems to be a sort of impossibility because if it never began to exist then there is an infinite time in the past but how could we be here at the end of an infinite? Our existence seems to point to some sort of beginning.

Even if there are multiverses or whatever, there still needs to be some sort of beginning, I think.

[David]

Russell packs a lot of points into this essay:

*Definition of a Christian - someone who believes in God and who believes Christ is the best of men, if not divine. Thoughts on this definition?

*First Cause argument - Genni touched on this

*Natural Law argument - if God gave laws from his good pleasure then they are arbitrary but if God there is a reason why God gave laws then there is something above God (the laws)

*Design Argument - the world has so many defects, you really think it is designed?

*Moral Law - somewhat similar to natural law - if moral is due to God's command, then for God there is no right or wrong, it is arbitrary but if there is right and wrong independent of God then God is subject to this

*Remedying Injustice - there must be a God to right all wrongs

*Conclusion - most people believe for emotional, not logical, reasons - because they have been taught and they want a big brother to protect them

*Character of Christ - Russell claims there are many places he would go along with Jesus more then Christians do. That said, there are many defects in Jesus' teaching such as hell and his mistaken prophecy that he would soon return

*Progress - Christians say we'd be wicked without religion but it is actually Christians who are wicked and have slown down progress in humanity

*Fear - religion is ultimately based on fear and real men (and women) will get over it and face the world as it is

Responses?

[Jake]

-Hi Genni, I think at Russell's time there was more of a question about the age of the universe. Modern science is more clear on the matter, although I am sure there are dissenters, and those who posit multi-verses etc.

-Hi Chris, I definitely noticed that too - that he attacks a straw man version of the Cosmological Argument, making it out as if Christians think the universe needs a cause just for the heck of it, and not because it is implicit in the idea of becoming. I think this tendency among atheists is why modern formulations of the Cosmological Argument are more carefully expressed.

I read the essay a few years ago and wrote a note about it at the time. I was able to track it down and post it on my blog, if anyone wants to check it out:

https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...

[Peter]

I just wanted to hitch-hike on Genni's discussion of Russell's First Cause Argument dismissal. In my epub version Russell's key statement (on my reading) was:

for a long time [I] accepted the argument of the First Cause, until one day, at the age of eighteen, I read John Stuart Mill’s Autobiography, and I there found this sentence: “My father taught me that the question ‘Who made me?’ cannot be answered, since it immediately suggests the further question `Who made god?’”

It seems to me this is very simplistic on Russell's part and misses the core problem. One does not have to assume that our universe operates under cause and effect at all. One could assume that everything just happens without cause. If one takes that step, then our world becomes incomprehensible since we depend on cause and effect sequences to make deductions and inferences (if I eat that poison, I will die). Still, one could do it.

One could also take the less drastic position and assume not all effects are caused. The world would be mostly understandable, but still leave room for events that happen without a cause. Russell's problem with that ought to be that now the supernatural becomes possible, and the secularists only (in my view) real argument against the miraculous disappears (i.e. based on rigorous cause and effect without exception, the supernatural can't happen).

If Russell gives up cause and effect, to get around the First Cause argument, then he has also given up any reasonable argument against miracles, the supernatural, and similar phenomena (he should say when confronted the Gospel's feeding of the 5000 -- of course that can happen).

It seems to me, what he must not do, is change arguments later. That is to say, bring uniformity and cause and effect back in to dismiss miracles or extraordinary, "uncaused" events. Having opened up the door to the miraculous, he must not change his mind later on.

[Rod]

I would like to take credit for ALL of Peter's post...

Only I can't. Great thoughts Peter.

[Genni]

Chris Warns wrote: "Hi Genni,

I just read the section under the First Cause Argument. Taking the premise, "Everything that exists has a cause" would lead to an infinite regress of "first" causes and ultimately have n..."

Chris, thank you. I am not overly familiar with the argument so it your explanation make sense. I kept thinking it could not be as simple as he made it out to be.

[Genni]

Peter wrote: "I just wanted to hitch-hike on Genni's discussion of Russell's First Cause Argument dismissal. In my epub version Russell's key statement (on my reading) was:

for a long time [I] accepted the argu..."

Great post, Peter. You completely fleshed out what I was trying to think. :p

[Genni]

David wrote: "Design Argument - the world has so many defects, you really think it is designed?
"

I am curious abot this argument. Again, I am no scientist, but I vaguely remember an article that posted numerous examples of randomness in the universe. I want to say that one of the exampls was the activity of some su-atomic particle (the electron, maybe?), but I cannot be sure. Lol Anyway, does anyone know if Russell has a stronger point here? Are there just as many examples of erratic phenomenon as there are of design?

[Genni]

re: Remedying injustice argument-although a beginner at apologetics, I have never heard this one presented as an ARGUMENT for the existence of God. I have heard it included as part of the whole package of everything that comes with having God, but as an argument for existence? Was Russell running out of ideas?

[Genni]

David wrote: "conclusion - most people believe for emotional, not logical, reasons - because they have been taught and they want a big brother to protect them"

Wouldn't this statement be difficult to prove? Has a poll been done? I can think of just as many examples of being growing up in Christian homes and walking away as I can think of examples of people who did NOT grow up in a Christian home yet now believe.

[Genni]

David wrote: "*Character of Christ - Russell claims there are many places he would go along with Jesus more then Christians do. That said, there are many defects in Jesus' teaching such as hell and his mistaken prophecy that he would soon return
"

Russell should have stuck around for revisionist Christianity? How about the schools of thouht that posit hell is a misinterpretion of scripture and preterism, which explains away the supposedly failed prophecy of his return?

[Genni]

Maybe Russell fleshes out his arguments in some of the other essays in this book? Sorry for the multiple posts.

[Rod]

Oh noooo! Don't go down the liberal "did God Really say..." Train tracks off a cliff. Satan tried that already.

[Genni]

Jake wrote: "-Hi Genni, I think at Russell's time there was more of a question about the age of the universe. Modern science is more clear on the matter, although I am sure there are dissenters, and those who p..."

Ok. Ignore all the questions I just posted. This response to The essay answered just about all of them, I think. I should have read it first! Lol great response. Funny also. :-)

[David]

Genni (in regards to message 15) - I am not sure about the Design Argument, but I found his point about the KKK to be compelling. I can see how someone could say that after millions and millions of years we get things like the KKK, ISIS, Boko Haram or whatever...couldn't the creator have given a better universe? If I am the coach of a team, and the best coach ever (I imagine God is a better coach then John Wooden or Mike K) then after millions of years my team ought to be good, right? If they can't hit free throws, I am a poor coach, right? Or maybe, the fact they can't hit free throws shows they had no coach?

Now, the response would be to point to the many good things in our world today. The question is, does the good provide evidence for God over against the bad?

[David]

Genni (16) - I do not see overcoming injustice as an "argument" in the way apologists tend to go about their craft. But I think, especially in a postmodern world that puts more stock in emotion then maybe someone like Russell would have, it can be very compelling. To me, it is one of the primary reasons I hold to God - I refuse to see the world as a place where injustice and evil may have the last word. It is not a logical argument, it is rather an appeal to a tug deep within me.

Or let me put it this way, if you talk to someone and appeal to this, you are really asking them why that tug, that desire for justice, is there? You look at Holocausts and genocides and rapes and ISIS and ask if such evils have the last word? Or deep down, do you desire justice to be done? In a godless world, why would you have this desire? It is precisely a God who will bring justice that explains that desire.

It may not be the sort of argument Russell wants, but on a practical level, I think it is very compelling to many people. Atheists will call it a blind, irrational hope, but I guess I'd rather have blind irrational hope then hopelessness.

[David]

Genni (18) - I think those things were around in the 1920s, to some degree, but that is a good point. The question is - have Christians changed in an effort to get rid of things skeptics do not like (as in, we listened to Russell and changed) or have we changed because of further study of scripture, history, theology and such changes make Russell's critique out of date (as in, if Russell was here today he'd have less to criticize)?

[Genni]

David wrote: "Genni (in regards to message 15) - I am not sure about the Design Argument, but I found his point about the KKK to be compelling. I can see how someone could say that after millions and millions o..."

Yes. This goes back to the evil thread. I have not come to a place of peace about evil yet and I have no idea how good measures up against evil in the world. Although, I have been wondering about the church as a whole through the centuries and about Jesus's prayer for unity for his believers. In the past couple of years I thought I had seen a unity between denominations and stuff that had not occurred before, especially with a rise in persecution across the world and some of the limitations and attacks on Christianity that we are experiencing in America. But then I come to this board and am sometimes discouraged from that idea.

I am still curious about naturally occuring physical phenomenon and hope someone can weigh in on this.

[Genni]

David wrote: "let me put it this way, if you talk to someone and appeal to this, you are really asking them why that tug, that desire for justice, is there? You look at Holocausts and genocides and rapes and ISIS and ask if such evils have the last word? Or deep down, do you desire justice to be done? In a godless world, why would you have this desire? It is precisely a God who will bring justice that explains that desire.

Is this basically what Ravi Zacharias posits in his morality argument? (If it's "his".)

[Genni]

David wrote: "Genni (18) - I think those things were around in the 1920s, to some degree, but that is a good point. The question is - have Christians changed in an effort to get rid of things skeptics do not li..."

This is something I have definitely wondered about my self. I grew up in a very strict, very religious, fundamentalist home. Am I looking into say, preterism or the errancy of scripture because it explains away something I don't like or something others don't like? I don't know.

[Jake]

David wrote: "I found his point about the KKK to be compelling. I can see how someone could say that after millions and millions o..."

I was thinking about this earlier, and I thought that perhaps this is not the way God views things. From our perspective we tend to see the world's history in a Hegelian sense (not that I understand Hegel). We see it as a build up to - something, and that something better be good so as to make all the labor and pain worth it. But I think God relates to and through the individual, and so his dominion in the world should be measured according to his dominion in an individual person (picture perfect in Jesus, not so picture perfect in us).
We should expect, then, that as an individual grows in the knowledge of God, he will grow in grace. But as far as world-history goes, good times will come and bad times will come, and both will come again... and again. It is not the measure of God's work - it is an external thing, and a concern rooted in a perhaps artificial view of world history as a historical progression toward utopia.
There have been things worse than the KKK in human history, and there will be worse things again.
But sin resides in the heart, not in world history.

[David]

But then I come to this board and am sometimes discouraged from that idea.

I am not following exactly. Are you saying that an argument could be made that if there was a God, or even more precisely, if Jesus truly was God, then the church would be more united? As in:

1. Christians are disunited
2. This disunity is because the Bible is unclear
3. A perfect God could communicate his message
4. Thus, the unclear Bible shows a perfect God does not exist

I think it comes back to free will - I blame humanity for the KKK, not God. I think we can blame humanity for divisions, not God.

[David]

Genni, in regards to your other two comments:

*I am not a big fan of Ravi (go ahead, shoot me) so I don't know.

*Obviously culture is a part of why things change, we are all influenced by it. But that does not mean the changes are not right. I will argue that we are against slavery more because of the Lee surrendering to Grant then because of what the Bible says (they had to fight a war because they could not agree on what the Bible says!). So perhaps cultural tones begin to push us in one direction. But some things have been around a while (nearly every end-times theory) and others are well-grounded in scripture (conditional view of hell).

Or to put it another way, I think Luther was right but living when he did helped him see his rightness and promote it to people ready to hear it.

[David]

Jake, I think I see what you are saying. At the same time, I think the Bible itself provides progressive revelation with the idea that more truth of who God is is being revealed. So, for example, "eye for an eye" was a step above the ancient culture in which the Mosaic Law was revealed, but Jesus moves a step beyond in calling us to turn the other cheek. Or to use slavery, the abolition of slavery in the 1800s was a huge step of progress (though we are still working on actually getting rid of it).

Maybe this gets into different end-times views. If you are a premill. dispen. then of course the world is not getting better.

More then that, the point could be that if God is really sovereign, wouldn't things/people be better? What exactly does God want, if not that?

I think your last statement is a false dichotomy, sin resides in the human heart AND world history. In other words, I think we ought not reduce sin and faith to totally individualistic things. There is sin in the structures of our world and society. I guess, to try to play devil's advocate, couldn't the atheist say - "you Christians go pursue your private morality and issues with sin, we'll actually make the world a better place." Actually, that is kind of how he ended his essay isn't it.

[Genni]

David wrote: "But then I come to this board and am sometimes discouraged from that idea.

I am not following exactly. Are you saying that an argument could be made that if there was a God, or even more precisel..."

Lol! I was trying to say the opposite! In m current frame of mind, the Bible IS unclear on almost everything denominations differ on, and that doesn't really bother me. Right now, it seems to me that each denominatio reflects different aspects of God and sometimes they focus on those aspects to the exclusion of others. Humanity at work

In John 17:23 Jesus prays that believers will be perfected in unity. However, over the centuries, it seems the church has been more divided than anything else. It has persecuted itself (denominations fighting with each other over the centuries, sometimes to the point of death). Even when I was growing up I was warned over and over about the "heresies" of other denominations, ones that spoke in toungues, etc. and I was not to associate with them at the risk of...what? Im still not sure. Anyway, the last ten years or so I have worked with churches of different denominations in different countries and seen them work together and I had thought that perhaps Jesus's prayer was finally being answered. So I was surprised after joining this group to see Christians with different interpretations of the Bible calling each other hypocrites, accusing each other of hating God or not truly being a Christian, etc. It is different from what I have experienced on the field, so to speak. It has been eye-opening. So I have been discouraged from thinking that there is more unity among believers than before.

However, I also realize that those who engage in those kinds of comments may represent a minority? I also realize that in thinking so my focus was kind of narrow.

[Genni]

David wrote: "Genni, in regards to your other two comments:

*I am not a big fan of Ravi (go ahead, shoot me) so I don't know.

*Obviously culture is a part of why things change, we are all influenced by it. Bu..."

Lol. I have never read anything by Ravi so am not offended by anyone's lack of affinity for him. I am just new at apologetics so I am trykng to put the pieces together, remembering who said what, etc. I thought he posited that humanity's desire for a moral code was evidence of a moral law-giver yada yada, but maybe it was not him. Anyways...

i agree with your commetns about cultural context.

[Genni]

David comment: "More then that, the point could be that if God is really sovereign, wouldn't things/people be better? What exactly does God want, if not that?"

I have wondered about this alot, especially after reading Wright's Evil and the Justice of God. If the cross is the answer to evil, then how effective has it been? Has the world gotten progressively better? Is it even possible to gauge? if the world has gotten progressively worse and will continue on that course, then was the cross ineffective? Or maybe as Jake says, it has been effective only individually. I am expecting Russell to address this more in some of his others essays about religion causing more harm than good, etc

[Jake]

David wrote: "I think your last statement is a false dichotomy, sin resides in the human heart AND world history."

I was not making the statement to be a dichotomy (as if evil can't be in the world because it is the heart, or visa versa), so it can hardly be false. Howbeit, I do not believe sin or evil resides in externals (although I understand that we often use such terms loosely in describing things like shark attacks, hurricanes, disease etc.).

There is faith, and there is sin. But both of these are states of the soul. I don't think a particular arrangement of matter can be evil any more than it can have faith.

There are, of course, very big issues involved here - primarily regarding the nature of God's sovereignty and natural so-called evils. God said, 'Cursed be the ground for thy sake,' and... it was good. It wasn't nice however.

For me to say that God has not coached his team well, I would have to pretend that I know what game he is playing, and I don't believe that is possible.

For some reason a story from Herodotus popped into my head.

The King of Persia got together two different tribes of people and asked, 'Would you eat your parents after they died?' to which the first group (who burns their dead) responded in disgust, 'Absolutely not!' He then asked a tribe of men who eat their deceased, 'Would you burn the bodies of your parents?' - and they had the same reaction of horror and disgust.

I guess I'm saying, I am not qualified to even pretend that I can judge God's work. I can't even judge my fellow man. I have my intuitions - but intuitions vary, and really tell me only how I DO react to objects, not how I should; and they do not tell me what they ought to be.

Without enshrining moral intuitions, as I think Russell (for all of his so-called 'logic') has clearly done in this essay, the Problem of Evil and its related arguments cannot even be conceived of - certainly not in a logical sense.

Perhaps I should add also that, while I understand how deeply we all feel our moral values, I do not think it is at all appropriate from an argumentative perspective to take them so for granted that they are offered as reasons by themselves - especially in the absence of a robust theory of meta-ethics to ground them. And Russell pointedly avoids giving or hinting at such a theory in the essay. I don't think such an otherwise mathematical mind should be let off the hook for such an omission.

[David]

Genni (post 32) - I think the Christian church is more united on a grassroots level. Our campus ministry consists of Orthodox Presbyterians, Mennonites, Methodists, Catholics and Pentecostals. They have differences but we all get along. I think the sort of people who come to argue here online tend to be more argumentative. I assume we'd still argue in real life, but I like to think we would take communion together and help those in need.

[David]

Genni (post 34) - I think the world has gotten better, I would not want to live in any other time period. Medical advances (vaccines, among other things) and a near universal recognition that certain things are evil (genocide, slavery) are two points I'd make. Not everyone likes this - some deny vaccines, some still enslave others.

[David]

Since Jake has mentioned the moral argument, I'll make a few comments on what I saw in Russell. I think it is a misunderstanding of Christian thought to say either God arbitrarily commands things or God is subject to some higher law. I do think some Christians talk as if God arbitrarily commands things - so God, being God, can command genocide and who are we to question God? I do think think that is a good view.

I think God = good. What I mean, and what Russell misses, is humans fully flourish in relationship with God. As Augustine says, our hearts are restless till they find rest in God. When God commands things, they truly are good for us and lead to human flourishing. If we pursue the good we are pursuing God.

To use an example, I'd argue it is more satisfying for humans to live in committed relationship. Greed is wrong because it is more satisfying to be generous. Or, the fruits of the spirit, in the long run, are better for us.

[[deleted user]]

Maybe Russell was so loose in this essay because it was more a popular talk than a philosophical tome.

If I put on my scientist hat, I find one statement quite jarring:

"They are statistical averages such as would emerge from the laws of chance; and that makes this whole business of natural law much less impressive than it formerly was."

I see no reason why the statistical laws should be less impressive than any other laws. Clearly the co-author of Principia Mathematica (a book I've not read) had a vested interest in advancing the cause of interconnected determinism. Those of us who study systems that are opportunistic rather than deterministic (biology in my case) have no reason to see chance as a less impressive factor in nature than apodictically predetermined cause.

As many people have said in response to Einstein's famous statement about quantum mechanics, a God who plays with dice is no less a God than one who doesn't play.

It all seems to tie together, doesn't it? Chance, free will, the possibility of earthquakes in Lisbon, the possibility of a KKK arising?

Realistically, all we need to be able to have faith in a God reconciled with metaphysical possibility is the idea that something we don't understand COULD exist outside of the devolution of energy through entropy, which we experience as time, and cause, and effect. As other commenters have noted above, secular physics also demands some sort of a starting condition for the Big Bang(s); I'm not an expert on this but I've read that the problem is that equations extending into this realm include mathematical 'imaginary numbers.' Maybe someone can speak to this. In any case, our particular causal stream need not be the entirety of the cosmos or, let's say, meta-cosmos.

Now, as for evil, what could be more simple and unavoidable as a possibility? It isn't substance or a kind of ghost; it's merely an ethical position. In my own sci-fi book, I mention a reference called the Book of Power (Teofin tse Qomoqush). This book describes evil as 'the extremity of self-distraction.' That's a translation, and perhaps an awkward one, since for some people the phrase 'self-distraction' means 'having fun, amusing oneself.' What's actually meant there is having one's ethical attention entirely focused on oneself and one's own status and satisfaction, with no regard for others except the canny calculations needed for strategic advancement.

God could hardly create ethical beings with free will in such a way that they could be prevented the possibility of turning in towards themselves.

Here's a relevant passage from the Teofin (which is not included in my book and is not generally available at this time, so this is not a plug. It includes the ungendered pronoun sey and its conjugations.) Evil is defined in the last paragraph.

"Our Lord has asked us to ponder this: "If salt loses its savour, what will restore it?" If a human's restless consciousness draws sem away from faith and towards self-distraction, what shall restore the satisfaction in the old way of faith?

The answer is that since faith is an expansive field of opportunities and self-distraction is an always-shrinking one, faith can be renewed in a way that reveals itself as vitally transformed. But it is difficult for the self-distracted one to assert enough nonself-consciousness to realize this.

In a sense, the self-distracted human commits semself to death by drawing ever closer to the purely vegetative. Seir restricted outlook loses sem the fullness of information attained within faith, and it draws sem to concentrate rigidly on narrow schemes. Even seir vital forgetfulness is inhibited because sey cannot see the broader alternatives that favour abandoning seir plan.

Our Friend (= Jesus) himself was crushed out of bodily life by the collapse of worldly opportunity. He suffered the self-distraction of every human: each individual, even his friends, made a choice of some kind against faith. In this collapse of the whole of humanity our Lord died. Now no one who suffers the sins of one human being or even of a crowd can cry out against the Lord's injustice for creating a world of choices. Our Friend has suffered the adverse consequences of the self-distractions of all humanity: humiliation, torture, asphyxiation, physical degradation, the anguish of bodily shock, the sensation of ineffectuality, betrayal, loneliness — facets beyond enumerating. In this land of opportunity he pleads for forgiveness, because all are fallible in this land of choices and only in forgiving others can we genuinely forgive ourselves.

In the exhausting act of forgiveness, which lifts up a wounded head so that it looks again in the direction of faith, our Friend is complicit and has experience of the exhaustion. And once the forgiveness is complete, the exhaustion is washed away in the cleanliness of renewal.

To forgive does not mean renouncing opposition to self-distraction and especially not to its extreme form, which is evil. But a true opposition to evil is found only in un-self-centred faith, and out of such faith forgiveness will ultimately grow. Nonetheless the chooser of evil must experience justice and must fast or be made to fast from freedom of choice until sey has suffered some deprivation sufficient to balance the deprivation of the victim. Indeed, if sey understands what sey has done, sey will wish no less a demonstration of community with seir former victim, not as a self-distracted purgative or display of expiation, but as a true healing embarrassment. But we do not demand an eye for an eye, for justice always places a fifth finger of outright forgiveness on the balance so that the penalty administered is an example of both justice and forgiveness."

[Paul]

Somehow missed this thread the last time I came through, so I'm catching up a little bit.

I was disappointed with Russell's first essay. Perhaps because it's a transcript of a lecture, but it didn't really carry the intellectual weight I'd have expected. Perhaps this is the result of looking back after 90 years of skeptico-philosophical development (the trendsetters tend to be victims of their own success when viewed by posterity).

I especially found disappointing his attempted takedown of Christ as moral exemplar. Although he does preface the discussion by noting that he is not addressing the questions of the historical Jesus, which were certainly active and well-known at the time, I think refusing to do so greatly weakens anything he has to say here. If he points to x statement as an example of a weakness of Jesus, but that statement is generally agreed by NT scholars not to actually be a statement of Jesus, or to mean something different than what the plain-text meaning might suggest (the much-disputed "failed prophecy" of the second coming is a big example of the latter), then Russell is not really responding to anything but the simplest of arguments.

And this is where I guess I find fault with Russell's essay: His arguments seem to be posited against very simplistic views, ones that are not held by biblical scholars nor philosophers who are Christians.

The one piece I did find interesting was the discussion of design and probability, foreshadowing the present debates over intelligent design and fine-tuning. I side with Russell on this one; the fact that the chances of life randomly developing on Earth might be astronomical (heh) doesn't really mean anything. Say they are one in 10 trillion. Given the vast numbers of stars and planets, as well as the universe's vast age, it doesn't really seem that unlikely to me that one of those would pan out. And regardless, really really really improbable doesn't mean impossible. Tweaking any one of the things we find necessary for life as we know it might not lead to a dead, lifeless earth. It might mean life would look a lot different, and that dolphins made of gold and breathing sulfur would be the dominant life form instead of humans made of carbon and breathing oxygen.

Anyway, all of that to say, I agree with Russell that apologists tend to overstate their case regarding both the evidences for design and the improbability of the existence of intelligent life. And I say that as someone who believes that the universe was in fact designed to produce the best possible world through the natural evolutionary processes, even if that world is pretty crappy a lot of the time.

Responding specifically to Genni in Post 34:

Has the world gotten progressively better? Is it even possible to gauge?

I think the answer to this question is actually very easy: Yes, it has. The primary measure I would use is life expectancy, which has doubled across the world over the past 500 years. Even the poorest parts of our world have better access to food and water than the poorest parts of the world centuries ago. It's not a smooth or especially quick progression, obviously. For whole societies, especially in Africa and the Americas, the advance of "civilization" meant the decimation of their way of life, if not their actual lives themselves. But over time, we do see the quality of human life improving, and I do attribute that to the qualities with which God imbued the world – again, getting back to having faith that God has created the best universe of all possible universes to achieve God's ultimate goals.

[Genni]

Paul wrote: "Responding specifically to Genni in Post 34:

Has the world gotten progressively better? Is it even possible to gauge?

I think the answer to this question is actually very easy: Yes, it has. The primary measure I would use is life expectancy, which has doubled across the world over the past 500 years. Even the poorest parts of our world have better access to food and water than the poorest parts of the world centuries ago. It's not a smooth or especially quick progression, obviously. For whole societies, especially in Africa and the Americas, the advance of "civilization" meant the decimation of their way of life, if not their actual lives themselves. But over time, we do see the quality of human life improving, and I do attribute that to the qualities with which God imbued the world – again, getting back to having faith that God has created the best universe of all possible universes to achieve God's ultimate goals. "

If this is the best of all possible univereses, what must the other universes be like? :-)

If he created this universe to achieve some goal, what is it? Just curious what your ideas are, since you mentioned it.

Is life expectancy an appropriate measure of improvement? I guess I am wondering, if people have a longer life expectancy, but an increasingly larger percentage of people commit suicide, then something must be off, no? Things have not improved enough for them? Please forgive the sensitive subject. It was just my response.

[Genni]

Mark wrote: ".God could hardly create ethical beings with free will in such a way that they could be prevented the possibility of turning in towards themselves."

Why is free will so highly valued? To have been created with no free will, but somehow immutable in goodness seems like a great alternative. But I do speak in ignorance. I suppose it either was not possible, or there really is something about free will that makes the possibility of evil worth it?

[Genni]

I reread the moral argument section. Russell says that if we are sure there is a difference between right or wrong then we must answer the question: is that difference due to God's command or not? My question is, what is embodied in the "or not"? If we are correct, and there IS a difference between right or wrong, is God's command the only possibility extant?

[Paul]

The importance of free will is largely (although not entirely) a Western cultural creation. Not that I don't think it's very important — I do — but you're right that we tend to approach questions of evil and salvation with this notion of radical individualistic free will that may not even have a basis in the reality of how our will is actually exercised in a context dependent heavily on our own experiences, subconscious urgings and surrounding impulses.

Life expectancy is a shorthand measure of health, and therefore of poverty, access to food and clean water, and other elements that affect one's lifespan. Are suicides as a percentage higher now than 500-1,000 years ago? Perhaps so. I don't know. I'd say they are offset by the significantly fewer people being killed because they are the wrong race, hold the wrong religious beliefs or are believed to be a witch.

One oversimplistic argument Russell does not make in his essay, but should have, is that religion had unchallenged authority over political and social life in Europe for 1,000 years (500-1500), while science and secularism have been in the process of supplanting that hegemony over the past 500 years. In which period have the greatest advances in science, technology and human standards of living taken place? Again, oversimplified, and it discounts the role of many Christians in helping those improvements occur. But still, it's an interesting argument, one that could be fleshed out with little effort.

[[deleted user]]

Why is free will so highly valued?

It's hard for me to imagine what, if any, sensation of being I would have if I were robotic rather than free, but what I like to think - and this may be along the lines of a personal myth - is that the Lord has raised us up (via a series of inherent possibilities manifesting through biological evolution) as delegated co-creators of the universe - focusing, of course, on our own little bit of it. Having the intelligence to recognize and respond to opportunities, and to transform the basis of our actions via conversion and epiphany, we legitimately bubble up from the purely created level to the creative level. Hence, we become qualified to meet God made flesh, if we are graced with his presence. A saviour is not going to be sent to dogs or bonobos in that they are alectical (not freely choosing at the level of self-transformation).

A more extended discourse on this topic is available on request or upon later random impulse.

[Genni]

Mark wrote: "It's hard for me to imagine what, if any, sensation of being I would have if I were robotic rather than free,"

Why do we think that those are the only two options? For example, angels. Granted, the Bible gives little specific information about them, but from what it does say, they exercised free will in a great battle in heaven, with a third of them choosing to follow the Adversary. My interest here is not whether or not this is true or allegorical or whatever. My interest is in the idea of there being different types of free will. Just because our experience of free will (if indeed we do have it) is such as it is (I can't even explain it) does not mean that it is the only possible type to be had, right? But I suppose all of this is tangential. I still like to ask though.

[Genni]

Paul wrote: "The importance of free will is largely (although not entirely) a Western cultural creation. Not that I don't think it's very important — I do — but you're right that we tend to approach questions o..."

It seems that we are both trying to measure with terms we are unsure of. I will confess, I am not easily convinced, and this is probably because I tend to be pessimistic in outlook.

As for your other idea, I think it would be as difficult to measure the advantages/disadvantages of life under the church vs. Science/secularism as it is to measure world progession in general. But I could be wrong. :-)

[David]

Good discussion all!
If he created this universe to achieve some goal, what is it? Just curious what your ideas are, since you mentioned it.

As a Christian, I think the goal is relationship - God desired (did not need, for God does not need) other beings to live with in relationship. I think life, on into infinity, is a growing closer and closer to God. So the goal would be relationship, beauty.

Why is free will so highly valued? To have been created with no free will, but somehow immutable in goodness seems like a great alternative.

I think for love to take place, there has to be some degree of freedom. If scientists ever create life-like robots that can be programmed to say they love you and that you can have sex with, this is not real love. Likewise, if we did not have the option to say no, I do not think love of God would be real.

That said, I think free will is more complex, it is not a simple dichotomy of determinism vs. freedom. If there is a slice of cake on my kitchen counter, I have the freedom to say no but that freedom is influenced by many other things - how hungry I am, how susceptible I am to sweets, etc. In other words, things like desire and habits play a huge role. I think we are still free, though as we make choices through life we become more or less free. If I constantly indulge my sweet tooth to the point where I cannot not eat the cake, my decision in that moment may not be free though I am responsible for all the choices that led up to it.

My question is, what is embodied in the "or not"? If we are correct, and there IS a difference between right or wrong, is God's command the only possibility extant?

If I read this correctly, I gave my answer in post 38.

[David]

His arguments seem to be posited against very simplistic views, ones that are not held by biblical scholars nor philosophers who are Christians.

Should we fault him for this? I mean, bible scholars tend to be in the minority of Christians on a lot of things. Or, to put it another way, if you are trying to convince people of your position argue in ways that connect with them.

I think this is a challenge for Christians too - some of us read books that talk about giving answers to common questions but are these the questions being asked? I think a few intellectual types reject faith for certain reasons, but the majority walk away for less thought out reasons. If we focus only on answering the reasoned questions of the few we risk not connecting with the many.

Or to put it another way - I think William Craig has good points in his debate but when he faced Sam Harris, Harris won on rhetoric. Good arguments is only half the battle.

[Paul]

Genni writes: If this is the best of all possible univereses, what must the other universes be like? :-)

If he created this universe to achieve some goal, what is it? Just curious what your ideas are, since you mentioned it.

Just as we can catch glimpses of what we hope is the world to come within our own world, I think we can catch glimpses of the world of horrors that could have existed given other patterns of development.

I agree with David on the goal. God is love, after all, but love is meaningless without a relationship in which to express it. Thus God created a universe so that God would have something to love. It sounds very non-omnipotent to phrase it that way, but I think omnipotence is somewhat overrated anyway. ;-)

I also agree with David on the complexity of free will, which is why I tend to go against the grain a bit on its importance. As I said, I do feel free will is important, but I think we imbue it with a little too much American individualism, forgetting that God may not consider our culture the yardstick by which to measure freedom. An argument could be made that a truly free will would always choose God, and that it is precisely because our wills are enslaved and corrupted that they don't. In which case, a superficial removal of free will — say, in a universalist scenario — could in fact lead to a deeper, truer exercise of it. Anyway, I digress.

Should we fault him for this?

No, I'm just saying why I was disappointed in the first essay. My expectations were out of tune with what he was delivering.