Before addressing Chris’ latest concerns, I will take a few moments to respond to a guest post that was made on ChoosingHats by ‘ZaoThanatoo’.

On Zao’s Thoughts:

I mentioned in several places throughout my posts in this series that there must be real caution taken by the theist with regard to arguments such as these, to not assume the conclusion false to show the conclusion false. Let’s quickly recap the argument in question:

Horrific Suffering (def.) = that most awe-full form of suffering that gives the victim and/or the perpetrator a prima facie reason to think that his or her life is not worth living.

(1) Necessarily, if God exists, finite persons who ever more fully experience the reality of God realize their deepest good.

(2) Necessarily, if God exists, the prevention of horrific suffering does not prevent there being finite persons who ever more fully experience the reality of God.

(3) Necessarily, if God exists, the prevention of horrific suffering does not prevent there being finite persons who realize their deepest good. (from 1, 2)

(4) Necessarily, if God exists, there is horrific suffering only if its prevention would prevent there being finite persons who realize their deepest good.

(5) Necessarily, if God exists, there is no horrific suffering. (from 3, 4)

(6) There is horrific suffering.

(7) God does not exist (from 5, 6)

Now, it should be obvious that any objection to the argument which has as a component the denial of (7) is going to be fallacious. One cannot respond to this argument solely by saying, “God exists and he has morally sufficient reasons for permitting horrific suffering.’ Zao, however, extends my cautionary point into his own further analysis when he says:

Mitch contends that one must not assume that God exists (A) in order to disprove the above conclusion that God does not exist (~A).  This, he asserts, is question-begging.  However, for anyone wishing to criticize the conclusion, the alternative is to assume that God does not exist in order to argue that he does.  This is self-contradictory.  We must either assume God exists or God does not exist (A or ~A, Excluded Middle) in presenting our reasoning.  But assuming ~A to prove A is self-contradictory and assuming A to prove ~~A Mitch asserts is question-begging.

These are some strange assertions. If it’s the case that assuming that God does not exist in order to argue that he does is self-contradictory there is a real problem for argumentation in general, as assuming the negation of some proposition to prove that proposition is simply what is meant by “proof via contradiction” or reductio ad absurdum and it would be highly controversial for Zao to claim that instances of reductio are self-contradictory, yet that seems to be his suggestion. Further, it’s not clear why one need either assume that God exists or that she does not in analyzing the argument. This seems to entail that nobody who is agnostic with regards to the existence of God could ever analyze the argument, or that agnostics are committed to the claim that God does not exist, which is false. He appears to cite the “Law of Excluded Middle” as justification for this claim, but this seems confused. It may be the case that “God exists” is either true or false but this does not entail that one has to regard it as so. For example, the “Law of Excluded Middle” tells us that the proposition “Some man named Johnathan will ride a bicycle on November 21, 2014 and crash it into an Ice Cream Stand” is either true or false,  but this in no way entails that I must assume that the proposition is true nor assume that it is false. In short, nothing about the above argument begs the question. This should be clear, but it can be made clearer by formalizing the argument, if one wishes. If such is done, it will be evident that no premise is, nor has as a premise in its justification, the conclusion.

Zao also states:

I’m attempting to elevate the conversation by recognizing the epistemic role which properly basic beliefs or ultimate presuppositions (call them what you like) play in dealing with issues such as the problem of horrific suffering.

The talk about properly basic beliefs is quite confusing as it’s not relevant to the argument at all. I can only assume that when Zao speaks of “assuming” he’s not speaking of “assuming” in the logical sense, but rather in the epistemic sense. Of course, the fallacy of begging the question is a logical fallacy and so whatever might be going on with my epistemology it does not impact the logic of the argument. That is, even if I do believe that God does not exist, that does not make my giving the above argument question begging. Also, I have noticed a general trend amongst presuppositionalists to not only assume a sort of foundationalist epistemology, but to even assume others are foundationalists! How can I have properly basic beliefs or ultimate presuppositions if I think foundationalism is false? This isn’t an immediately relevant thought, but it’s interesting enough to flag.

Zao continues:

In Premise 1 we are told “Necessarily, if God exists, finite persons who ever more fully experience the reality of God realize their deepest good.”  Let’s break this down quickly for definitional purposes.  We’ll take “finite persons” to be, well, finite persons.  Finite persons who “ever more fully experience the reality of God” are people living life.  Every day every finite person existing ever more fully experiences the reality of God in various ways and to varying degrees, but every aspect of life is an experience of God in one way or another.  “Realizing their deepest good” means simply that they glorify God; and one may glorify God through either salvation or judgment.

So while Mitch’s definition is good, it is incomplete, as he stated: “…Indeed such an experience of God’s reality might manifest itself in different ways to different persons.”  Indeed, some people may realize their “deepest good” (glorifying God) through horrific suffering under the judgment of God for their sins.  So, given the above definitions, Premise 2 is false since certain persons glorify God most fully by suffering horrifically under judgment for their sins; and preventing that category of people from suffering would prevent them from “realizing their deepest good.”

Here, unfortunately, Zao misconstrues the argument. The finite persons who “ever more fully experience the reality of God” are not people living life simpliciter. They are the people who believe they are in a mutually interactive relationship with God of the sort to which theists commonly attest. This is a stipulative definition and I could have perhaps made it clearer, but this is one example of why I dislike long discussions pertaining to a brief survey article of some argument, there are things which get left out or overlooked that aren’t so left out or overlooked in the primary source. But, moving on, Zao is also mistaken about what it means to “realize one’s deepest good.” If you note premise (1) it’s explicitly defining what it means to realize one’s deepest good, and it means to ever more fully experience the reality of God. The rest of Zao’s response in its current form can be overlooked since it’s simply not relevant. Zao has, perhaps unintentionally, strawmanned the argument from Horrific Suffering.

On Chris’ Thoughts:

In Chris’ recent response he begins to steer the discussion in a different direction. He states:

Mitch claims that, “In the background of the argument is the question ‘What would a perfect being do?’” However, the argument pertains to God and not necessarily a “perfect being,” thus insofar as a question like this is in the background of the argument, the question is, “What would God do?” If the Christian concept of God is in view then it is the Christian concept of God which must be evaluated in terms of what the Christian God would do. Otherwise the argument simply does not pertain to the Christian God.

The argument does take the term God to refer to a perfect personal being and insofar as Chris might propose that the Christian God is not a perfect personal being, his conception of God evades the force of the argument. I didn’t make this fact explicit in the opening post for a few reasons: the first post was never intended to be exhaustive and the position that God is not a perfect being is a minority position in the philosophy of religion, to the best of my knowledge. With that said, I do know of a recently published paper which seeks to argue against the claim that “If God exists, God is perfect” though the title escapes me at the time of writing (e-mail me if you really want to know). With that said, there are a couple of options (at least that I can foresee at this very moment) along this road of objection. One can argue against any argumentation which seeks to establish that fact, obviously. Or one can argue for the proposition, “If God exists, God is imperfect.” Also, one claim that the attributes which I’ve argued would belong to a perfect being in fact would not. We can explore Chris’ article to see which, if any, of these routes are explored.

Firstly, it’s important to note that Chris presents some citations which seek to argue against the Ontological Argument. They don’t accurately address this argument however since no appeal has been made to God being that which none greater can be conceived. For that reason, a lot of what follows will be slightly misdirected but I will respond to what I think can be redirected appropriately. Chris first cites Van Til:

[W]e should be careful when we say that God is the being than whom none higher can be thought. If we take the highest being of which we can think, in the sense of have a concept of, and attribute to it actual existence, we do not have the biblical notion of God. God is not the reality that corresponds to the highest concept that man, considered as an independent being, can think. Man cannot think an absolute self-contained being; that is, he cannot have a concept of it in the ordinary sense of the term. God is infinitely higher than the highest being of which he can form a concept…When we speak of our concept or notion of God, we should be fully aware that by that concept we have an analogical reproduction of the notion that God has of himself. (Quoted in Bahnsen, Analysis, 634)

This quotation particularly misses the mark, but it can be illustrative. Van Til is arguing against the claim that God is the greatest conceivable being on the basis that no matter how great a being human persons can conceive, God is infinitely greater. Based on this quotation, one might want to respond to Van Til by saying that God is at least the greatest conceivable being or God is no lesser than the greatest conceivable being. Both of these options satisfy the above criticisms of Van Til and allow for one to still run an Ontological Argument, albeit of a different flavor. How is this relevant to the Argument from Horrific Suffering? Well, if the objection is that no matter how many great things I think being perfect would entail my list will never be exhaustive, we can absorb the objection by simply replying that while this may be true, being perfect could not be anything less. That is, perhaps my reflections lead me to say of God that, as a perfect being, she is perfectly loving and perfectly compassionate. I should not claim to therefore have exhausted God’s attributes, but what I can claim is that any further property ascribed to God such that God’s perfection increases will add to and not take away from those about which I have managed to think. Perhaps Bahnsen is in agreement when he states:

However, God has also revealed that He is much greater than anything that we can finitely imagine. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts (without our thoughts being false or misleading). (Bahnsen, Analysis, 634, n.163)

The key thing to notice here is that it is said God is much greater than anything we imagine. Greater, not worse.

Chris continues:

Recall that [Van Til] claims, “When we speak of our concept or notion of God, we should be fully aware that by that concept we have an analogical reproduction of the notion that God has of himself.” What Van Til is saying is that our concept of God  is God’s concept of God. Now this in and of itself is rather interesting, for surely no one should expect a Christian, which I would at the moment say that I am, to accept a man’s concept of God over God’s concept of God, but that is precisely what Mitch is asking us to do.

Let us keep in mind that Chris can only non-question-beggingly assert that God has a concept of God if it is non-question-begging to assert that God exists. In order for this assertion to be non-question begging, he has to mean by God something other than what the argument means by God; something other than a perfect personal being, since he has not yet argued that any of my ascriptions are false. He has suggested that my ascriptions are inexhaustive but that is of no consequence to the argument unless there is a necessary property of God such that its existence renders the operation of some other property limited. It’s yet to be seen if a suggestion such as this is even coherent, or if coherent, can apply to the ascriptions made in the previous articles.

Chris goes on to cite a previous quote of mine, I will quote the relevant portion:

Many of my discussions with Christians have resulted in their looking at the Christian story and saying that particular conceptual analyses don’t line up with the Biblical conception of God. As I’ve said before, so long as our conceptual analyses are reasonable, so much the worse for the Biblical conception of God; if a God did exist, it would not be that one.

This follows from taking the proposition “If God exists, God is a perfect personal being” to be true. If that is indeed true (and I hope to present my argumentation for this in a future article), and if the Christian story presents a depiction of God that is not a perfect personal being, so much the worse for that depiction. I hope my statement is clearer now, in light of what’s been discussed so far.

Towards the end of his response, Chris calls into question some of the ascriptions I’ve made and while I don’t see an argument against them in what he’s written, there are some questions worth answering. Chris says:

Any problems with Mitch applying his concept of “compassion” to the Christian God are now apparent as well. He writes, “Granting that there can exist no being more compassionate than God, if she exists, this perfect compassion coupled with perfect knowledge of what it is to undergo Horrific Suffering entails that God is, as Schellenberg puts it, maximally opposed to these sufferings.” But why does Mitch grant that God is compassionate at all? Perhaps some god is the very opposite of compassionate even in Mitch’s understanding of the matter. How would the argument then apply to that god?

Taking God to be a perfect personal being, we can reason as to the properties such a being would have by analyzing out the great-making properties of human persons; the great-making properties of personhood. That is, human beings possess the properties of being loving, being compassionate and being generous. These properties differ in quality from, say, the property of being deceptive or the property of being violent such that the properties of being loving, compassionate and generous can be called great-making properties. There are a lot of ways in which we can hash out this idea, but for the purposes of this article we can say that they are the properties which are intrinsically better to have than not, the properties we regard as great-making in that the more of these a person has, the more we speak of their excellence as a person in the positive sense. Now God, if the perfect personal being, will possess all the great-making properties of human persons to their maximal (highest possible) degree and probably possess some great-making properties that human persons do not. It is because of this that we can perform a conceptual analysis of what love means, what compassion means and so on, and reason (even if inexhaustively) as to which properties a perfect personal being would have. Such reasoning in this case has led us to the conclusion that because of God’s perfect knowledge and compassion which entails a profound awareness and opposition (compassion is sympathetic opposition), she will know what it is to suffer horrifically and not permit such a state if unnecessary for the deepest good of human persons. Again, since it is unnecessary for the deepest good of human persons, the existence of horrific suffering shows us there is no God.

So, in summation, and to be precise, the argument demonstrates that there exists no perfect personal being. It may turn out that this argument does not impact Chris in any way because as a Calvinist, he already agrees that there exists no perfect personal being. If this is the case, so be it, as the argument was never addressed to Chris directly (though his responses are always welcome). Certainly many people do believe in a perfect personal being and this argument has much discussion to provide amongst them. Alternatively, Chris might argue against the properties I’ve associated with perfection; arguments which I imagine will be quite interesting given how obvious the analyses seem upon reflection. At any rate, having the discussion head in this direction (if it continues) could serve to be very beneficial in understanding not only this argument, but other important issues in the philosophy of religion.

Note: For those who may not know, the article image is a reference to the old Christian poem entitled “Footsteps” which tells the story of a person told by God that they never walk alone, when God is asked then why at times there is only one set of footprints she remarks that those are the times in which she carried the person. I think this, though a story, can help to demonstrate what perfect compassion might look like.

At this point, Chris is still challenging premise (4) of the following argument:

Horrific Suffering (def.) = that most awe-full form of suffering that gives the victim and/or the perpetrator a prima facie reason to think that his or her life is not worth living.

(1) Necessarily, if God exists, finite persons who ever more fully experience the reality of God realize their deepest good.

(2) Necessarily, if God exists, the prevention of horrific suffering does not prevent there being finite persons who ever more fully experience the reality of God.

(3) Necessarily, if God exists, the prevention of horrific suffering does not prevent there being finite persons who realize their deepest good. (from 1, 2)

(4) Necessarily, if God exists, there is horrific suffering only if its prevention would prevent there being finite persons who realize their deepest good.

(5) Necessarily, if God exists, there is no horrific suffering. (from 3, 4)

(6) There is horrific suffering.

(7) God does not exist (from 5, 6)

In my most recent article I outlined reasons for thinking (4) is true. I want to bring out some underlying strands of the debate, that will simultaneously address Chris’ concerns.

In the background of the argument is the question “What would a perfect being do?” In answering this question, one engages in conceptual analysis (not just this question, practically all of Western philosophy involves conceptual analysis). In analyzing concepts, we take something like the concept of perfect love, for example, and ask the stereotypical philosopher question of what it means to be perfectly loving. It is the hope of the philosopher that such analysis leads to deeper understandings of the concepts in question. In my last article, I presented a series of considerations for thinking that a perfect being would only permit the existence of horrific suffering if it’s prevention would prevent finite persons from realizing their deepest goods. Forgive me for quoting at length:

Let us delve further, take the state in question, that of Horrific Suffering, defined as being “that most awe-full form of suffering that gives the victim and/or the perpetrator a prima facie reason to think that his or her life is not worth living.” States such as this are often the most difficult times in people’s lives, one need only speak with someone who has gone through such turmoil to realize this fact. God, however, would not even need to speak with these persons. The perfection of God surely entails an omniscience that encompasses all kinds of knowledge. This includes a perfect knowledge of how particular states feel to her created beings and thus, complete insider knowledge of the experiences of every created being. Granting that there can exist no being more compassionate than God, if she exists, this perfect compassion coupled with perfect knowledge of what it is to undergo Horrific Suffering entails that God is, as Schellenberg puts it, maximally opposed to these sufferings. Granting that God stands in maximal opposition to the experience of Horrific Suffering it is surely the case, entailed by our aforementioned analyses, that God allows persons to suffer horrifically only if such suffering is a necessary condition of these persons realizing their deepest good; a relationship with the Creator that will unfold throughout all of eternity, the only thing that God’s perfect nature will deem enough. In fact, even if the existence of Horrific Suffering were a necessary condition of some very-good-other-goods such that they, perhaps in quantity, “outweighed” the non-good state of Horrific Suffering, our above analyses entail that permitting such suffering is still inconsistent with the divine nature!

Given the analysis of the concepts in question, the conclusion to which we are led certainly seems to be that (4) is true. That is, reasoning about what these particular things mean leads us to a conclusion about what a being with those properties would do.

Thus, when Chris suggests that God has morally sufficient reasons for causing or permitting horrific suffering, a few things are occurring. Firstly, he begs the question against the conclusion drawn from the conceptual analysis. He assumes that there can be a reason such that in light of this reason God would permit the existence of horrific suffering even in cases where the deepest good of persons does not have such suffering as a necessary condition. But, our conceptual analysis leads us to the conclusion that there is no such reason; God would not do such a thing. Chris cannot merely assume the failure of the conceptual analysis, he has to argue for it.

The most relevant portion of Chris’ response, is, I think the following:

Is the thought that one’s life is not worth living really something which God is “maximally opposed to?” Many of us have in fact had such thoughts and have subsequently gotten over it. Some people do not get over it. If it is true that Hitler committed suicide then it is likely the case that he did not get over it. But is God “maximally opposed” to Hitler’s horrific suffering or the possible result of him taking his own life? What about the well-to-do millionaire who decides after losing a few million that his life is no longer worth living by virtue of the fact of him losing those few million?

Well, if our conceptual analysis is reasonable (which I contend it is) then the affirmative is a reasonable conclusion to draw. I’m not sure if Chris has ever gone through such a period, but at the very least he probably knows of someone who has gone through such a period and even many who have “gotten over it” regard it as the worst point in their lives. The relevant portion of the analysis is the feeling involved with horrific suffering, not the antecedent conditions. We are reasoning about a being that is perfectly compassionate and because of her omniscience shares in our experience. Whether Hitler, a millionaire, or whomever, the experience of Horrific Suffering does not change in content. Chris has even admitted this to an extent, in pointing out that it may have led to Hitler taking his life. It is easy for us, I think, to scoff at people like Hitler and say that they deserve it or what not, but we should not assume that a perfect being, if she exists, shares our shortcomings in this respect; we many not be perfectly compassionate, but surely she is.

So, has Chris offered any reasons to think that the above conceptual analysis is in some way misguided? Not directly. Directly, he’s only begged the question against it by speaking of “morally sufficient reasons for God to permit horrific suffering.” There are hints of a better reply in his responses however, namely, that of “skeptical theism.” A treatment of that topic would require another article, so for now I will only flag it as a possible course of objection for Chris.

Something that I’ve mentioned before seems relevant yet again. Whereas I am asking the question, “What would a perfect being do?” Chris seems to be asking the question, “What has a perfect being done?” The difference is subtle, yet illuminating in how both of us approach this, and probably many other issues in the philosophy of religion. There is some initial question as to whether or not the being Bolt calls “God” possesses the properties of perfection I’ve ascribed to the term. There is a tendency that I have experienced in my many discussions with Christian people to assume that this world is the type of world that God would create, since God did create it. But if our conceptual analyses lead us to discover that this world is not the world that a God would create as I think is the case here, we are left with the conclusion that there is no such being. Many of my discussions with Christians have resulted in their looking at the Christian story and saying that particular conceptual analyses don’t line up with the Biblical conception of God. As I’ve said before, so long as our conceptual analyses are reasonable, so much the worse for the Biblical conception of God; if a God did exist, it would not be that one. While I think there are hints of this confusion occurring in Chris’ thought, I would like to thank him for not, as many confusedly and amateurishly have, done something like throw the book of Job at me or cite various parables from the Bible. It should be clear how to do so in this context, would only be to beg the question even further.

So, our conceptual analysis seems to lead us to the conclusion that this world, with it’s occurrences of horrific suffering, is not the world that a perfect being would create and thus, there is no God.

Chris’ most recent response chooses to set aside his initial two objections and focus in on premise (4) of the argument:

(4) Necessarily, if God exists, there is horrific suffering only if its prevention would prevent there being finite persons who realize their deepest good.

His main complaint is that no reason is given for accepting the premise. This isn’t true, in my response I provided one such justification:

Looking at an analogous instance, it seems obvious that something has gone wrong when we are saying of the parent that they are acting in accordance with anything we might remotely pick out as being “good” when they cause or permit their beloved child to suffer horrifically when the prevention of that suffering would occur at no loss to the beloved!

This is a piece of prima facie justification and whether or not Chris finds it persuasive, it is there. I will, however, take this opportunity to say much more. If there is anything that perfect goodness is not, it is the causing or permitting of non-good states to obtain for the sake of their being non-good states. What might it mean to say of some person that they are perfectly good and without repercussion can avoid the causing or permitting of some other person their experience of pain (for example), but causes or permits such pain anyhow? It is difficult to make sense of in the same way it is difficult to make sense of there being some person such that they are omniscient, and yet they do not know my name. Whatever is a property of the person in question, it surely isn’t omniscience, and in our previous example, it surely isn’t anything close to perfect goodness. We can reason then that if a perfectly good being causes or permits the obtaining of some non-good states, her doing so must in some way be necessary for some greater good state. Surely a perfectly good being, if bringing about non-good states, does so reluctantly, takes no pleasure in doing so, and would avoid doing so if at all possible without sacrificing one of the greater goods.

Good parents exemplify this in their interactions with their children. They may take their child to the dentist, permitting the obtaining of the non-good state of painful tooth extraction, taking no pleasure in the non-good state obtaining, but permitting it because it leads to the good state of having a healthy mouth. In the above example, the parents seem justified in their permitting their child to suffer because of the upcoming greater good for the child. As Chris notes, if God exists, her being our creator grants her a particular set of rights over our lives that exceeds even that of parent and child. Given such authority, however, we are not to neglect God’s perfect goodness which would ensure that the instances of non-good states are justified in some way. Let us delve further, take the state in question, that of Horrific Suffering, defined as being “that most awe-full form of suffering that gives the victim and/or the perpetrator a prima facie reason to think that his or her life is not worth living.” States such as this are often the most difficult times in people’s lives, one need only speak with someone who has gone through such turmoil to realize this fact. God, however, would not even need to speak with these persons. The perfection of God surely entails an omniscience that encompasses all kinds of knowledge. This includes a perfect knowledge of how particular states feel to her created beings and thus, complete insider knowledge of the experiences of every created being. Granting that there can exist no being more compassionate than God, if she exists, this perfect compassion coupled with perfect knowledge of what it is to undergo Horrific Suffering entails that God is, as Schellenberg puts it, maximally opposed to these sufferings. Granting that God stands in maximal opposition to the experience of Horrific Suffering it is surely the case, entailed by our aforementioned analyses, that God allows persons to suffer horrifically only if such suffering is a necessary condition of these persons realizing their deepest good; a relationship with the Creator that will unfold throughout all of eternity, the only thing that God’s perfect nature will deem enough. In fact, even if the existence of Horrific Suffering were a necessary condition of some very-good-other-goods such that they, perhaps in quantity, “outweighed” the non-good state of Horrific Suffering, our above analyses entail that permitting such suffering is still inconsistent with the divine nature!

Premise (4) is thus established and since, as argued in the earlier articles, Horrific Suffering exists and is not a necessary condition in the relevant way, it follows that God does not exist.

Horrific Suffering (def.) = that most awe-full form of suffering that gives the victim and/or the perpetrator a prima facie reason to think that his or her life is not worth living.

(1) Necessarily, if God exists, finite persons who ever more fully experience the reality of God realize their deepest good.

(2) Necessarily, if God exists, the prevention of horrific suffering does not prevent there being finite persons who ever more fully experience the reality of God.

(3) Necessarily, if God exists, the prevention of horrific suffering does not prevent there being finite persons who realize their deepest good. (from 1, 2)

(4) Necessarily, if God exists, there is horrific suffering only if its prevention would prevent there being finite persons who realize their deepest good.

(5) Necessarily, if God exists, there is no horrific suffering. (from 3, 4)

(6) There is horrific suffering.

(7) God does not exist (from 5, 6)

Chris’ first objection takes aim at premise (2) of the argument. The premise is motivated by the existence of persons in the actual world who attest to experiencing the reality of God and who, themselves, have not gone through horrific suffering. Chris mentions that we must assume that these people are not “lying, deceived, forgetful, or otherwise confused about their alleged lack of horrific suffering.” He rightly notes the extraordinary implausibility of defending such a position, and I add that it would be a most uncharitable interpretation of those in question. However, he does suggest that such a question can be asked of their experiencing the reality of God. That is, of those who attest to experiencing the reality of God and not having gone through horrific suffering, how do we know that they are not lying, deceived or confused with respect to experiencing the reality of God? Chris says:

Now we need not take so strong a position as to deny that these people have experienced the reality of God in order to plant this objection. Rather, we may point out that the subjective nature of experiencing the reality of God is sufficient to raise our suspicions about these people who claim to have had the experience of God without the experience of horrific suffering. How do we know that what one non-suffering person believes is an experience of the reality of God is anything at all like what some suffering person believes is an experience of the reality of God?

To experience the reality of God, in the context of this argument, is to be in a personal relationship with the creator of the cosmos. A relationship of the type theists mention often. It is a being as aware of the existence of God as a child is aware of his or her loving mother. That such an experience occurs in the “ever more fully” sense is to simply point out that given the infinite complexity of God, there will always be more about God for some finite human person to know. That is, if God exists and is as awesome as theists often claim, it is difficult to see how any finite human person can exhaust the things there are to know about God, or exhaust the feelings there are to be had about God, or exhaust the myriad of forms a personal relationship with her might take. It is indeed doubtful that these things can be exhausted in the context of human-to-human relationships, let alone human-to-divine relationships.  Indeed such an experience of God’s reality might manifest itself in different ways to different persons; perhaps we should even expect such a thing given God’s infinite resourcefulness, creativity, and the existence of unique individuals. Chris’ question then seems misguided. Why should we have to know that what one non-suffering person believes to be an experience of God’s reality is what a suffering person believes to be an experience of God’s reality? What is it about the subjective nature of experiencing God’s reality that should lead us to, as Chris suggests, be suspicious of those who claim to experience God, having never suffered horrifically? I fear I must have misunderstood Chris here, as I cannot bring out the objection.

Chris’ next objection is also misguided, but I fear the fault is mine for not taking the time in the initial article to outline the meaning of “ever more fully experiencing the reality of God”.  Chris says that even granting that there exists one person who has not experienced horrific suffering and has experienced the reality of God, it does not follow that the individual is in a position to “ever more fully experience” the reality of God. I hope my paragraph above clarifies what is meant by that term. I am speaking here of, in many ways, an experience of God that unfolds throughout eternity and is such that, given God’s infinite resourcefulness and creativity, the fruits of which are inexhaustible by the finite human person. Now, as Chris continues there is an important distinction to be made. Chris says that:

It could be the case that the non-suffering individual experiences the reality of God in an increasingly fuller sense but that the individual will never experience the reality of God to the degree that she could have had she of endured horrific suffering.

But this is no objection to the argument. No matter which “level of experience” the finite human person initially finds themselves at, there will be an infinite amount of unfolding left to occur. This effectively diffuses Chris’ objection as the value is placed not in the degree at which the divine experience occurs, but in its unfolding nature, the “ever more fully experiencing.” But even setting this point aside, what would be preventing the experience of the non-sufferer from reaching the heights of the sufferer? Is it God, the nature of horrific suffering, or something else? And further, why think that such prevention is necessary? Thus, assuming Chris does not want to object to (2) by taking the strong position of denying that those who claim to experience the reality of God without having suffered horrifically have actually experienced such a reality, the premise seems to survive this round of scrutiny.

Chris’ next target is (4). The denial of (4) seems quite the denial indeed. To deny the premise suggests that if God exists, there can be instances of persons who undergo horrific suffering even though their doing so is unnecessary for the realization of their deepest good. Chris, being the good Calvinist that he is, writes:

It is conceivable that a perfectly good God would “justifiably cause/permit some person A to suffer” even if that suffering were not necessary for bringing about some greater good for A. God not only owns that person, but is Himself the standard of what is just. God does no man wrong by taking his life from him immediately and without any cause known to us, and the same might just as easily be said with respect to “horrific suffering.” Herein lies a serious difficulty with reasoning through atheists’ arguments; the assumption throughout this particular argument is that humanity is the main focus of God’s dealings rather than God being the main focus of God’s dealings as Scripture describes.

It would be fruitful to understand to which particular flavor of Divine Command Theory Chris adheres, if he does possess such a view. I think Chris owes us some argumentation as to how the existence of a perfectly good God is compatible with the existence of human persons unnecessarily undergoing horrific suffering. Looking at an analogous instance, it seems obvious that something has gone wrong when we are saying of the parent that they are acting in accordance with anything we might remotely pick out as being “good” when they cause or permit their beloved child to suffer horrifically when the prevention of that suffering would occur at no loss to the beloved! Chris hints that the analysis may be too narrow, assuming that humanity is the main focus of God’s dealings. The lurking suggestion might be that God causes or permits the existence of horrific suffering for her own “deepest good.” It’s difficult to see how this might work out. This does suggest, however, that there is some good-for-God which only obtains if finite persons exist. But goods in this category seem to be, for example, instances of personal relationship between God and the created. Certainly I do not want to limit the category to those things, but I want to note the prima facie implausibility of there being, as a good in that category, that finite beings suffer horrifically. What is it about the existence of horrific suffering that makes it a necessary condition for the realization of God’s deepest good?

But these considerations aside, Chris’ objection simply begs the question. Recall, he says: “It is conceivable that a perfectly good God would justifiably cause/permit some person A to suffer even if that suffering were not necessary for bringing about some greater good for A.” Temporarily ignoring the debate of whether or not conceivability is a suitable modal epistemology, that is, whether or not it is a suitable guide to possibility, the argument from horrific suffering seeks to demonstrate that such a thing is not possible. Thus, unless Chris is just assuming from the outset that this argument is unsound, the objection does not work. Chris needs to argue (in a non question-begging way) against any justification of that premise, rather than merely assuming the premise false!

It is also important to note that when Chris says, “… the assumption throughout this particular argument is that humanity is the main focus of God’s dealings rather than God being the main focus of God’s dealings as Scripture describes,” it seems he is taking it to be the case that if God creates a world, God creates this world. That is, he is taking the data presented by the argument and attempting to make sense of how it “fits” in this “Christian-God created world.” The argument, however, has as its conclusion that there is no God, so Chris must be careful not to beg the question against the argument by reasoning in a manner that assumes the conclusion false, to show the conclusion false. An appeal to Scripture to show that the existence of horrific suffering is consistent with the Christian story may easily yield to us the conclusion that “If God creates a world, God does not create this world.” More precisely, we must be careful in looking upon the actual world as being created by God when attempting to reason about the type of world God would create and the types of worlds she would not/could not! Argumentation may lead us to say, “So, Scripture claims that God made a world with unnecessary horrific suffering… so much the worse for Scripture.“

Given these considerations, Bolt’s objections to the argument in their current form fail, and we may successfully conclude that God does not exist.

The Argument

Let us start by defining a term:

Horrific Suffering (def.) = that most awe-full form of suffering that gives the victim and/or the perpetrator a prima facie reason to think that his or her life is not worth living.

Now, the argument as Schellenberg formulates:

(1) Necessarily, if God exists, finite persons who ever more fully experience the reality of God realize their deepest good.

(2) Necessarily, if God exists, the prevention of horrific suffering does not prevent there being finite persons who ever more fully experience the reality of God.

(3) Necessarily, if God exists, the prevention of horrific suffering does not prevent there being finite persons who realize their deepest good. (from 1, 2)

(4) Necessarily, if God exists, there is horrific suffering only if its prevention would prevent there being finite persons who realize their deepest good.

(5) Necessarily, if God exists, there is no horrific suffering. (from 3, 4)

(6) There is horrific suffering.

(7) God does not exist (from 5, 6)

As you can see, the argument is pretty straightforward. Premise (1) is developed out of the idea that there can be no deepest good (where a deepest good is a greatest good for a particular individual) that is superior to the experiencing of God’s reality. What could be superior to the experience of the perfectly good, merciful, loving, just, and wise creator of everything? Premise (2) is motivated in part by the existence of persons in the actual world who attest to experiencing the reality of God in some way and who, themselves, have not gone through the horrific suffering defined at the beginning. Such suffering then cannot be a necessary condition of finite persons realizing their deepest goods and so, the prevention of such suffering would not prevent that realization from occurring. Premise (3) is a simple deduction. Premise (4) is motivated by a typical theistic response to the traditional problems of evil. That is, many theists maintain that a perfectly good God would justifiably cause/permit some person A to suffer, if that suffering were necessary for bringing about some greater good for A. Premise (4) reason then that there are instances of horrific suffering only if preventing this suffering prevents the realization of the deepest good for finite persons. We’ve already seen that it does not, however, and so from (3) and (4) we may reason (5). There obviously are cases of horrific suffering in the world, and (6) is proffered. From (5) and (6) we may deduce that God does not exist.

Free-Will Theodicy

One possible response to the argument would be to suggest that individuals need to be able to cause (or remove) this type of suffering in order to have a world that is serious enough for the virtues of soul-making and choices of destiny. But it is difficult to see how such a condition cannot be satisfied by a world where choices leading to or resulting from the horrific suffering outlined above would not suffice. Taking our actual world as an example, one is tempted to ask “How free are we really?” As we are no doubt exposed to, there exist instances where the occurrence of murder, rape or other such crimes seem to be better explained by the prior states of the world than by the free action of the individual. That is, those who are raised terribly such that their actions seem plausibly explained in sociopsychological terms properly considered an unfreedom. But more interestingly, there are a great many people who do not engage in bringing about horrific suffering who do not even seem able[1]. There seem to be good evidences that a great many people are simply incapable of performing actions which lead to horrific suffering. There are those who, no matter how hard they tried, could not bring themselves right now to rape, murder or launch nuclear bombs at some populated area. Is there really a relevant sense in which we are free?

Freedom in the actual world, thus, does not seem ‘bound up’ with the capacity to cause horrific suffering. But perhaps our reasoning is incorrect, perhaps this is not the case. At least, God could ensure that through the relevant stages, creatures are incapable of performing actions leading to horrific suffering without rendering them less free than they actually are. But even if this is misguided as well, surely we can think of a world where such horrific suffering is absent and note that this world still contains freedom and responsibility. Persons, even if unable to bring about horrific suffering, could have the ability to bring about many nonhorrific evils. This seems to satisfy the relevant concerns as in this world there is much for us to work on improving: emotional pain still exists, we are afraid of death, we have political disputes that may result in war, etc. Such instances are occasions ripe with the ability to produce, in the relevant creatures, choices moral/spiritual significance. We seem able, then, to detach horrific suffering from the development of our selves in this way.

Free-Will Defense

Schellenberg makes use of Peter Van InWagen’s outline of a defense (page 262). Schellenberg notes that the defense, which I will not produce here, makes the following assumptions (keep in mind that InWagen is a Christian):

(1) That love might essentially involve free will.

(2) That creatures gifted with the beatific vision might nonetheless rebel against God and leave Eden.

(3) That what it means to be separate from God might be to live in a world of horrors.

(4) That seeing the horror of life without God might provided the most effective motive of cooperation and return.

(5) That if a reconciliation plan involving horrors was implemented when the rebellion first occurred, many millennia ago, that plan might nonetheless not yet have proved successful.

(6) That those who experience horrors might all know of the existence and nature of God and of God’s call to return.

(7) That if God’s plan is thus, the number and distribution of horrors today might be great and wide enough.

These are assumptions which I want to flag for the purposes of introducing Schellenberg’s argument and a couple of responses, but for a full outline and criticism of InWagen’s Christian Story consult the primary source already named at the beginning of the article. Suffice for the purposes of this brief overview is to note the assumptions above as being assumptions which are anything but obviously (or perhaps even plausibly) true. A brief interesting question to note in passing, re (1), is “What really happens to what we know of love if we find out that we cannot have done otherwise?”

Lastly, one other type of defense would suggest that it is logically possible that God, when contemplating her creation of the world, saw that for each world she would create without horrific suffering in which free creatures achieve their deepest good in freely chosen relationship with her, the attempt to actualize it would be disrupted by uncooperative free agents. Thus, since it’s possible that God cannot achieve her goal of freely chosen relationship with persons without permitting horrific suffering, then any claim that God would necessarily prevent horrific suffering is, at best, unjustified. However, this, Schellenberg suggests, is the wrong conclusion to draw. That God would necessarily prevent horrific suffering becomes unjustified only if freely chosen relationship with God is entailed by possession of the deepest good for creatures. But, it seems clearly not. Taking God’s options in creation and the infinite number of modes of relationship with her, there must be many ways in which our deepest good can be achieved in the absence of freely chosen relationship. It could be the case that God’s glory is made so clear to creatures that our desires to oppose her simply fade away. That is simply one example out of an infinite number. 

Surely God would give consideration to the modes of relationship other than freely-chosen relationship. Alternatives to permitting horrific suffering that are still compatible with finite creatures realizing their deepest good. Any such alternative, since these worlds are equally (as Schellenberg says) splendid is always going to seem preferable to a world where horrific suffering occurs, even if the world in question is a world with freely chosen relationship. Simply consider, as Schellenberg invites, “…if a perfectly good, and loving, and empathetic, and wise God is able to choose between a scenario whose goodness is very great but requires the permission of horrific suffering and a scenario with goodness equally great and no need for such suffering, how does one think the divine would choose?”

_____________________________

[1] As Schellenberg notes, where capability in this context is hashed out by my rejecting the idea of perpetrating horrors at one time, and at the same time being able to choose to do otherwise.

If you consider thoroughly the ramifications of a deity taking care of us, what you’ll find is an irresolvable logical conflict between God guaranteeing health and safety on one hand, and the motivation for of caregiving and interdependence on the other. That behavior happens to define human existence like none other.

So, God doesn’t allow people to suffer and die for specific reasons. He does so because it makes more sense than not that we live as mortals – i.e., with the vulnerability to suffering and death.

God allows suffering and tragedies in our world because only as flesh-and-blood mortals does life on Earth make any sense.

Bad things don’t always have to be understood as serving some greater purpose. However, immanent mortality, or the fact that anyone can suffer and die, is the primary ordering principle of human life. Our mortal vulnerability motivates the behavior that builds an important depth of experience to humanity – including the search for spiritual knowledge.

That’s why God allows us to suffer and die. We have to live as mortals.

In mortal life, there are many flaws and imperfections, but there are no definable or achievable qualities that could be called perfect.

One could say that life builds upon imperfections and frailty – forming immeasurable good out of the possibility of evil and suffering. Our mortal vulnerability motivates caregiving and social organization – the behavior that anchors all culture and civilization. Everything we get from permanent culture – knowledge, traditions, institutions, identity, the structure of families, societies, the civil order of nations, our sense of worth or esteem for our place in them – we owe to the social stability of cooperative living and childrearing. We owe to the behavior compelled by the fact that anyone can suffer and die.

We suffer because the impassive forces that generate and sustain life also imperil it, and because no human could be perfect enough to be free of the potential for evil. But we’re members of families, cultures and civilizations because of our mortal interdependence and the need to guard against human flaws and natural peril.

The theodicy I’ve developed not only explains how mortality structures our existence, it shows why nothing else makes sense – especially and including a deity manipulating existence from the heavens to keep good people safe and healthy.

For God should not be regarded the same as a human bystander who has the means to avert tragedy but does not. (Otherwise, he is either not good or not powerful, the dilemma asserts.) God is the bystander to all tragedies everywhere and throughout time who, if he chose to make us safe himself, would change existence – and not for the better. That’s why I argue that it’s not just important, but essential that people address the dangers of the world instead of God.

Were God to ensure people’s health and safety (or, the health and safety of “good” people, “innocents,” etc.), or arrange that we never suffered too much, he would create a world without incentives or consequences. The result would be a profoundly different world, not a better one.

That’s because God couldn’t address evil by changing the outcomes of only the atheists’ favorite examples of manifestly un-Godly suffering. A just God couldn’t address suffering according to context, newsworthiness, historical significance or sensation unless he was only interested in public relations. Under God’s active stewardship, no earthquake would mean no natural hazards to life at all. No Holocaust could happen because there could be no murder. No tsunamis could threaten life because no one could drown. Precluding cancer could only be part of preventing any excruciating or deadly disease. And we couldn’t suffer or die from starvation or thirst because we couldn’t depend on any kind of sustenance.

Asking for a world in which God keeps innocents safe is asking for a world in which it’s unnecessary to raise children. It’s also asking for a world in which innocents don’t have to live cooperatively with others, work for a lifetime or organize socially at all. A world unburdened of compulsory parenting or work wouldn’t be a bad or evil place. But it certainly wouldn’t be our world “improved.” It’d be idle and more primitive than anything on our planet.

And if God as a rule made exceptions and intervened during times of distress, he would only turn the living incentives we have inside-out and encourage us to live in conditions that guaranteed good health. If our vulnerability to nature extended only as far as we understood it, the advance of knowledge would be hazardous. Likewise, children would be safer without parents. We’d be inclined to avoid fertile soil and water sources that made us hunger and thirst (and compelled us to work for food and water). Isolation from human assistance would distance us from suffering. And if we figured out that people who are physically trapped remained miraculously healthy until rescued, we’d know that one of the best ways to ensure the safety of those we care about would be to entomb them against their will.

It’s easy for atheists to cite incidents and kinds of suffering in isolation and note that God failed or fails to intervene to correct each one. What’s impossible for them for anyone to do is to put all those corrections together, with God creating, arranging, intervening, or whatever, and leave behind a sensible world. We live as mortals and are all able to suffer mortal consequences. Nothing else makes sense.

In fact, we make sense of our existence by giving it cultural form and meaning because we’re all mortal. God could create life and even sustain it, but it’s the living who endow it with value. And we’ve done so by taking care of children and with the social organization that bonds us to families and that forms cultures.

The better aspects of human life exist because health and safety are in the care of mortals and only mortals. It’s not fair to everyone, and the results of our failures and vulnerabilities can be gruesome. But on the one hand, who did anything to deserve a certain amount of life? The answer is no one, and that happens to be true whether a God exists or not.

There’s no divine plan that requires thousands to be crushed, trapped, stranded and killed by rubble. But there is a good reason why we must live as mortal flesh-and-bones, vulnerable to nature and other people.

It’s an essential and even defining fact of living that maintaining health, safety and life itself is our endeavor, and ours exclusively – not God’s responsibility, or ours with God as a backup. I call it the logic of living. It’s not theology, and it’s not even religious; it’s common sense, woven into the fabric of being. Flesh-and-bones is our responsibility. I believe that God concerns himself more with the soul within. It’s an order that works best for us.

What is sentimentally good is not always wise. So it would be with God safeguarding life and limb for a people whose existence is based on behavior meant to safeguard life and limb.

Our world is not perfect, but not because there’s no God or because there’s no good or omnipotent God. It’s not perfect because there’s no such thing as a perfect world.

In keeping with the spirit of Lao Tzu, I would like to “respond intelligently, even to unintelligent treatment”. There were some points raised that I think should be responded to, some of which are more ‘personal’ in nature. Again, I must encourage everyone to listen to the recording prior to reading this response, as to obtain the appropriate context of the statements made by both parties. Some sections that follow may feel a tad bit nit-picky, but this is done on purpose. I think this will be a fun exercise in critically examining what’s being said by Slick during this radio show, and discerning just how much substance there is to all of it.

The Persecution

At 2:55 Festivus comes early with an airing of grievances! It is indeed true that recently there has been some hostility between DC (the ‘persecuted’) and some of the other users here at UP. Chat logs demonstrate that there has been hostility of the type outlined in the audio passage on both sides of the issue, that is, performed by both DC and others. In all cases disciplinary action was taken, however, the chat logs do not (to my knowledge) show any instance in which someone called DC “stupid for believing in a mythical god”. In fact, I suspect most of the users would frown on such a statement given how “New-Atheist-ish” it sounds. This is, of course, small potatoes when contrasted with where the audio journey will take us.

It may be worth mentioning that I’ve, personally, noticed what I think to be an interesting change in DC as of late. I have noticed that DC has become quick to pronounce his persecution at the hands of non-Christians when interacting with them in discussion. Now, I am not denying that Christians are indeed persecuted at times (I think it safe to say that every human being is persecuted at some time or another, and Christians are certainly human beings, sometimes persecuted because of their beliefs) but Slick offers a trinket of encouragement at 3:46 that makes it all too easy for the Christian to think that instances of disagreement are instances of Christian persecution, saying  ”If you’re not being attacked, you’re not doing the word of god”. There is some question as to what it means to “do the word of God” but the most charitable interpretation I can think of is that it means (or at least involves, largely) defending one’s Christian commitments. Given this statement we can know (via modus tollens) that if one defends Christian commitments, they will be attacked! Slick is quick to qualify that his principle is only meant to apply to situations of argument. What seems odd here is that by restricting the usage of his principle, he hasn’t actually told us anything interesting! Should it not be entirely obvious that if a Christian is in a situation where he/she is defending their Christian commitments, they are being attacked? If there’s no attack (or at least, a perceived attack) from where comes the need for a defense? Note a couple of things about Slick’s principle; firstly, it’s applicable to absolutely anyone. No matter who you are, or what you believe, if you are in a situation of argument and you are defending your position, you are being attacked. Secondly, note how the rhetoric is constructed in such a way that makes it very easy to affirm such persecution. The principle imposes itself on instances of discourse and fuels this notion of persecution. Consider, if you are an atheist and in the context of an argument, if you are defending atheism then you are being attacked. That’s great! But why think this is an instance of persecution rather than disagreement?

There is another way to interpret Slick’s statement, and that is to take “attack” to refer to a type of person-centered (rather than argument or idea centered) criticism. Something akin to the instances of hostility referred to above. I thought to include this interpretation of Slick’s principle first, but did not do so because it is uninterestingly false. Modified, it would be roughly: “In situations of argument, if you are defending Christian commitments, you are receiving person-centered attacks.” I doubt it will take much argument to show why this is false, but one absurd conclusion from Slick’s principle is that in every dialog ever had between a Christian and a non-Christian the only times where the Christian was *actually* defending Christian commitments are the times in which the non-Christian interlocutor retaliates fallaciously. All of those civil dialogs between prominent Christian philosophers and their opponents can be discarded, unless the opponent lashes out at some point. For added absurdity, look now to Jesus’ interaction with Nicodemus (John 3:1-21). In the defense that Jesus offers in response to Nicodemus’ questions, Nicodemus does not attack Jesus. If Matt Slick is correct in what he has said here, Jesus was not doing the word of God. This seems too silly to take seriously, but again, the rhetoric is certainly useful in invoking feelings of the previously mentioned sort.

Strangely, at 5:04, Slick tells DC that these people (the ‘attackers’) are not insulting ‘him’, they are insulting a ‘figure’ (referring to his screen name, I assume). The use of language here becomes a bit confusing, if ‘DC the person’ is not being insulted, what has Slick been talking about all this time? He then concludes from this that ‘DC-the-person’ just has to “take it”… but take what? We were just told that he’s not being attacked! This appears to be the second instance of a sentence which doesn’t really say much of anything. I find sentences of this type to be particularly interesting in counselling-type conversations, they are the blank cheques of language. I find they are often thrown about and fully left to the counseled to interpret, the end result of course that they are often interpreted as favorable to the perception of the status of whatever ailment is being discussed at the time. Sylvia Browne seems to do it, and now, Matt Slick?

At 5:11 Slick graciously remarks that those who engage in the aforementioned hostility are “servants of the evil one”. As far as I know, I’ve not been hostile in this way to DC and so thankfully am excluded from being a servant of the evil one (for the time being) . Not only are these people servants of the evil one, but DC is told at 5:21 that if he lets them get to him, he will become depressed and start to doubt everything! Not only is this section a glaring instance of a special type of ad hominem we like to call ‘poisoning the well‘, the things DC is being steered away from are curious. Apparently, becoming depressed and starting to doubt things are some very bad things to go through, but I’ve heard numerous conversion stories that start out precisely like that: “Well Karl, I was really depressed and I started to doubt everything… [fast forward 5 minutes] Hallelujiah!” In fact, DC is an example of one of these folks himself (I will not repeat the story here, as I do not know if he would approve, but you can ask him yourself!), but for DC these things led to a great realization. I suppose going through depression and intense doubt is only bad, and should only be avoided, if they do not lead to Jesus. But, what if DC feeling these things indicates yet another coming great realization (surprised face)?! At any rate, what Matt Slick seems to be doing here is, in fact, poisoning the well against those would would attack DC. Of course, he is being attacked because these people are servants of the evil one who despise the lessons of righteousness he espouses, they couldn’t possibly have a point, because they seek only to persecute!

At 6:00 DC is told that “… when you ruffle the feathers of the bad guys… [inaudible]… but you have to understand that in the demonic realm that there’s going to be a certain amount of attack that comes to you… and, plus, if you just hear how bad you are in so many different ways it has an effect on you as well.” A few things, firstly… the bad guys? This well is getting awfully poisoned! Demonic realm? No comment. I did however find the last portion interesting, it’s spoken in a rather negative tone saying that “if you just hear how bad you are in so many different ways it has an effect on you as well”. The tone and the context leads me to think that the effects which Slick is referring to are negative effects. If this is what he means, I would agree with him that hearing how bad you are over and over has negative effects. Empirical verification of this fact can be obtained by sitting in the CARM chat room and listening to some Christians talk about, as they often do, what terrible, worthless, abominations of human beings they all are. Now I’m no psychiatrist, but I’m not sure that partaking in such a discussion is good for your mental health (were we not just implicitly told that we should avoid depression? If this doesn’t cause depression, what does?!). I find the differences in reactions to negative labels particularly interesting, as they seem to change in different contexts. Consider: Christian #1: “Hey, you’re a terrible human being!” Christian #2: “Thanks, you too!” vs. Non-Christian #1: “Hey, you’re a terrible human being!” Christian: “Help, I’m being persecuted!”

Slick confesses at 6:34 that “It is difficult to love the people who are in the [service] of Satan. It is difficult to try and reason with them, and they express hatred. You love them, and they are vile to you.” There are a couple of gems here, but most importantly look at how the term “hatred” is used. Remember, it’s hatred folks, not disagreement, but hatred! He continues, “How do you maintain an attitude of love for them by not being affected by their ungodly demonic attacks?” Correction on my previous sentence, it’s ungodly demonic attacks folks, not disagreement. It seems astoundingly easy to feel persecuted when instead of finding yourself in a disagreement, you find yourself in some remake of Constantine!

Moving along, 7:50: “There are times when I say to myself I’m not being loving enough, and I pray, Lord forgive me, I’m not being loving enough…” 8:48: “You’ll notice, I go in the chat room, you notice I’m very quick to hit the ban button… I am not going to put up with any crap from these idiots… I’ll tell you why, because what they do, they are spiritual vampires, they will suck you dry…”

Well no wonder DC and Matt feel persecuted, with demons and vampires already around, they are one werewolf away from being in a Twilight film! But in all seriousness, I just want to draw attention to the interesting juxtaposition between Matt’s statements. Perhaps it would be easier to love these people, if you didn’t paint them as idiotic demon spirit-suckers. But, more seriously, this is another clear instance of well poisoning.

Moving forward a bit, DC questions why, on this site, no other Christians stepped in to help him defend his position. At 12:33 Slick remarks that “…you will find Christians, for example, who will say ‘you are a bigot, you don’t know what you’re talking about, you’re in sin’ and these are the ones that are aiding and abedding the enemies of the gospel.” At this point we seem to be moving away from statements that, I contend, bring about or strengthen a persecution mindset, and we are moving towards what seems to be almost a type of paranoia. “You can’t even trust some Christians, as they are in cahoots with the demon soul-suckers. Who are these Christians that are in cahoots? Oh, well the ones who disagree with you!” What does this do to the idea of Christian edification?

Atheism

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, at 16:45 Slick remarks: “When you tackle atheists, because these usually are atheists and liberal wackos, they don’t believe in the Christian God… it’s an easy thing to do… it’s really easy to beat atheists.” Now, I’m not sure how we suddenly jumped from the persecution of DC to talking about atheists, but it happened.

The chat continues: Matt: “You said it was an atheist website, right?” DC: “Yup.”

Hold the phones! UP isn’t an atheist website. Sure, lots of articles are written by atheists (theists, UP wants your contributions!) but the majority of our chat users (where DC spends all of his time here on UP) are non-atheists. I don’t know why he thinks we’re an atheist website (maybe it makes the plot of the persecution story juicier?), but let me put the kibosh on that right now. We’re certainly not a Christian website, but we are not an atheist website.

At 17:12 Slick remarks, with regard to atheists, that: “… you’ve already got them beat. The way to do this is to be strategic. You’ve got to understand that what atheists like to do is gang up on you, you’ll say one thing and they will come in fifty different directions… and complain that you don’t know this and that.” At this point, Slick has appeared to have stopped consoling DC and is now gearing him for battle (Go Team Edward!), but not before he poisons the well yet again and commits the fallacy of hasty generalization. In fact, to avoid repeating myself, roughly all of his chat about “atheists” and what they do commits this fallacy. Further, Matt’s discussion about ‘atheists’ and how they respond to arguments and the like suggests to me that Matt should interact with some more philosophically minded atheists. I’ve extended an invitation to interact with him a couple of times, but as you’ve heard while listening to this radio excerpt, he does not like to engage in written format. He has invited me to phone into the radio show, but I think the issues with some of his particular thoughts far too complicated to be discussed via that format. Though, at 18:30 Matt would have you believe that the reason I’ve not called up is because I know I’m going to get my “clocks cleaned”. I’d like to know how he thinks he knows such things, but needless to say, that statement is probably based on yet another instance of fallacious reasoning. Granted, while we’re playing this game, let me join in and say that the reason Matt Slick will not engage in written dialogue with me is because he’s afraid he’ll get his “clocks cleaned”! Hey, that was kind of fun…

18:37: “Now what they’re going to do is hide, and lie, and cheat, and steal. Just consider them like that.” If you’re confused, you’re not alone! Perhaps we should thank Matt here though, since he did restrain himself from mentioning our demonic soul-sucking practices in this particular example. Not only do I not understand the relevance of this point, I find his usage of “just consider them like that” interesting as well. We’ve poisoned this well so much that the residents of the city are drinking alcohol for hydration! Is he actually telling DC to just consider atheists as those who hide, lie, cheat and steal? Do I even need to list the fallacies at play here?

At 18:50 Slick begins to draw some battle plans. “Here are some principles: use what they say against them… it’s very easy to do. You have to understand something, they do not have the proper basis of rational thought, nor do they have the basis of moral objectivity. They don’t have those things…” He continues on recounting a dialog between him and some atheist wherein he “stumps” them by asking, “how do you know?” I think the same question needs to be extended to Slick based on the statements he’s just made. 19:52: “She has now hung herself [by making an assertion]… when they make assertions, ask them to verify their assertions.” I feel just eerie listening to this, it really is some sort of battle plan (though it kindly left out the bit about how you can defeat us by driving stakes through our hearts!).

Aside from DC’s monumental misunderstanding of moral nihilism espoused in the latter portion of minute 21 (how can things be morally permissible if there exists no morality?) Matt continues with his instruction, at 21:48 he states “…in order to [use the atheists statements against them] you’re going to have to study logic… you should learn [list of fallacies]…” I will politely recommend that this instruction be adjusted inward. What Matt seems to take to be the goal of logic, I doubt is actually the goal of logic. But, further, he tells us about a girl who said she enjoyed the content on his website, but could not trust it because Matt is a Calvinist. Matt identifies this as an instance of the genetic fallacy. At 22:32 he says, “… the information on the website needs to be studied on its own merits and not judged by the source, but by what it is.” Well let’s hold the phones again, Matt seems to tread awfully close to committing this fallacy throughout the discussion. I find it curious that he acknowledges that arguments need to be considered on their own merits, but spends a considerable amount of time teaching DC how to argue against atheists and not particular atheistic arguments. Interesting, yes?

The reason I feel so uncomfortable about discussions like this is that its all too similar to putting guns on children and sending them out to shoot people. Matt Slick has given DC a particular rhetorical technique to use, but he’s not given him any explanation as to why his analysis is correct. I find that to be some scary stuff indeed.

At 24:11 he goes on to suggest that in arguing with atheists DC should think about where their argument leads. Just a minor point of clarification, if Slick is suggesting a proof by contradiction, hooray. If he’s not, he’s implicitly utilizing another fallacious method of reasoning, namely, the fallacy of the slippery slope! If he does that, he’ll just commit a whole bunch of other fallacies! (There’s an example of it, just for fun!)

Oh, another added bonus, at 25:31 Matt actually utilizes the fallacy of the slippery slope. Doesn’t he offer a course on logic on his website? Oh well, at least he doesn’t soul-suck.

The next portion is largely uninteresting, as I find it to be the usual confused chatter about morality. I strongly suggest a course in ethics for Mr. Slick, however.

At 28:20 something really strange happens. Earlier, DC identified with Matt an instance of fallacious reasoning known as the genetic fallacy, but now DC actually commits the fallacy! He says: “Even if an atheist gives you a formal argument, and you don’t understand it at the time, if you put enough time into it, you start to look at where the worldview is coming from, you can tear it to pieces.” What?! Why didn’t Matt Slick, our resident logician for the day, call DC out on this fallacy? Maybe fallacies are only fallacies when used by vampires!

Conclusion

I could go for quite awhile, I think, but I don’t want to make this too long to read. Admittedly, I have been facetious in places but I hope at the very least I’ve drawn out some issues that are interesting to think about. The encouragement or provocation of “Christian Persecution-(ism?)” from fellow Christians, the vilification of non-Christians, and the arming of ill-prepared Christians with quick-draw tactics forgoing teaching with any real rigor. When all is said and done, this conversation at least gives the non-theist a basis for claiming persecution. I’ve never felt more vilified in my life!

I focus on Christianity and homosexuality due to prominence and familiarity. What I say applies just as well to other anti-gay religious beliefs and other sexual identities (e.g. bisexuality, transexuality). I do not deal with them separately to avoid repeating myself.

Why there’s nothing bad about homosexuality

Equality should be presumed. It wasn’t the case that blacks or women needed to ‘prove themselves’ before society condescended to treat them fairly – it should have been like that in the first place. So those who think homosexuality is bad should explain what is bad about it.

There are three main strategies. First is that homosexuality leads to bad things. Second is that homosexuality is bad in itself. Finally homosexuality might be known to be bad through religious conviction.

Does homosexuality lead to bad things? There’s a huge volume of research done on what correlates with homosexuality; some bad, some good, and most indifferent. There are also problems of whether results in one cultural setting apply to another, and much of it is confounded by stress induced by societal homophobia and conflict between sexual preference and religious identity. Happily, experts have already waded through this quagmire on our behalf. Take gay parenting – as if homosexuals can raise children, there’s probably nothing too badly wrong with them.

Here’s an excerpt from an amicus curiae brief by the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Council of Social Workers:

Indeed, the scientific research that has directly compared outcomes for children with gay and lesbian parents with outcomes for children with heterosexual parents has been remarkably consistent in showing that lesbian and gay parents are every bit as fit and capable as heterosexual parents, and their children are as psychologically healthy and well-adjusted as children reared by heterosexual parents. Amici emphasize that the abilities of gay and lesbian persons as parents and the positive outcomes for their children are not areas where credible scientific researchers disagree. Statements by the leading associations of experts in this area reflect professional consensus that children raised by lesbian or gay parents do not differ in any important respects from those raised by heterosexual parents. No credible empirical research suggests otherwise.

Similar statements have been made by professional bodies representing child psychiatrists, family physicians, counsellors, psychotherapists, teachers, lawyers, and adoption agencies. This is not confined to the US – UK and Canadian psychiatric bodies say the same. In short, the people who actually know what they are talking about unanimously agree that homosexuals, far from being uniformly bad parents – or even sub-optimal parents – are just as good as heterosexual parents. Exactly the same story emerges if we look at other bad things homosexuality is meant to lead to: it doesn’t.

The argument wouldn’t work anyway. Pretend that all the experts are wrong, that there is some ‘endogenous malaise’ to homosexuality. So what? We should only object to those homosexuals who actually do these bad things (whatever they are), not the entire group ‘at risk’ of doing so. Even if homosexuals would be ‘better off straight’, their sexual preference isn’t a matter of choice. The question would be how these people could make the best of the sexuality they were given – lifelong celibacy or forcing themselves into heterosexual relationships would seldom be it. Even if the ‘facts’ are granted, they still aren’t good reasons.

So maybe something’s intrinsically wrong with it. What would that be?

Maybe it’s unnatural. But what ‘natural’ means or what’s bad about being unnatural are hard to fathom. In many ways, homosexuality is natural: it arises without outside interference, and it occurs in other species too. In this sense medical interventions are unnatural, but these aren’t bad things – unnaturalness has nothing to do with badness. A moralized conception of ‘natural’ is needed for the argument to get anywhere, but this begs the question: why takes moralized conception A, which rules out homosexuality, instead of moralized conception B, which doesn’t – save for a reason why homosexuality is bad in the first place?

Maybe homosexuals aren’t using sex the way it is supposed to. But there isn’t any ‘supposed to’ about it. Humans arose by evolution, which isn’t goal oriented: what happens to improve survival flourishes, what doesn’t dies out. Pace natural law theory, there isn’t a ‘supposed to’ stamped on biology itself, but rather a ‘just happens’. Sex is a good way of transmitting our genes forward in time, and that’s why our minds and bodies are wired towards it.

Homosexuality might be considered faulty wiring – having sex with your own gender isn’t a good way to reproduce. In evolutionary terms, it probably is counter-selective. But evolutionary advantage, like unnaturalness, has nothing to do with good or bad. Celibacy, monogamy and unconditional altruism might also be counter-selective, but they aren’t bad things.

The secular case against homosexuality is wrong. In many cases, it is doubly wrong: invalid arguments based on bad data. Although only touched upon, the case for homosexuality is overwhelming: it is vindicated both by the abject failure of these arguments and the (pretty normal, pretty positive) lives of homosexuals themselves. The reason why the vast majority of the irreligious think homosexuality isn’t bad is because – barring religious conviction – everything speaks obviously and powerfully in its favour. For all the insinuations, all the canards, and all the slurs you can dredge up against homosexuality, reality begs to differ.

As it happens, the ‘secular case’ is made by people who are actually religious. Seldom are anti-gay arguments penned by inquisitive Atheists forming their beliefs by free inquiry, but Christians trying to justify beliefs they are already committed to. The real issues are religious. Are religious convictions against homosexuality right, or at least rational?

How not to be a religious nutter

Assume God exists. Assume Christianity is true. Imagine yourself as a Christian. Say you know that there’s a mountain of evidence suggesting that homosexuality isn’t bad, yet your religious beliefs say it is bad. Which should you trust?

God cannot be gainsaid, but given how many slavers, terrorists and ethnic cleansers thought God was on their side, he is evidently misheard often. All sorts of silly (creationism, heliocentrism) and evil (slavery, segregationalism) ideas have been read into the Bible or endorsed by the church. Given Holy Scripture or Sacred Tradition track truth unreliably, you shouldn’t stick to them in the face of immense countervailing evidence.

To take the Bible (rather, your interpretation of the Bible) or Tradition (rather, your tradition) in the teeth of all the evidence suggesting they are mistaken requires exceptional confidence in their reliability: it is belief in them no matter what. But belief no matter what is crazy – if you are mistaken, nothing can rescue you from your error. And we know that mistakes have happened in the past – in the case of creationism and anti-miscegenation, they are still happening now.

The sane thing to do is adjust your religious convictions. If your reading of the Bible suggests God made the universe several thousand years ago and man was designed specifically whilst all of modern science suggests the universe kicked off fifteen billion years ago and man evolved, it is your reading of the Bible you should reject, not modern science. Likewise, if everything shows homosexuality is fine and only your reading of the Bible says otherwise, you should look for another interpretation congruent with ethical fact.

Christians willing to do this are often called a variety of nasty names by those who aren’t: that they are selling out to popular culture, that they’re willing to take social norms over Biblical wisdom, that they’re not really Christian. But they aren’t ‘not Christian’; they’re just ‘not crazy’. The ethical concerns that speak in favour of homosexuality are both overwhelming and consonant with a programme of liberation which has an excellent track record: it was right about slaves, and those who said God wanted some for servitude were wrong; it was right about sex, and those who said God wanted submissive women were wrong; it was right about race, and those who said God wanted black and white segregated were wrong. It is right about homosexuality, and those who say God wants gays to apologise for their relationships are wrong.

Where’s the problem? What’s the problem?

The arguments against homosexuality are rubbish. They are usually invalid, often are based on false data, and are in any case woefully insufficient to justify the ‘Christian position’ on homosexuality. Christians might try to sweep these beliefs under God’s carpet to relieve them of having to consider the issue on merit, but we have seen this can only be done by adopting the belief forming practises of a nutcase. So Christians opposed to homosexuality, for whatever reason, are being irrational – and are irrational whether or not Christianity is true or reasonable. But why is this bad?

Opposition to homosexuality fosters discrimination. Those who oppose homosexuality generally also oppose their unions being given equal recognition before the law, oppose homosexuals adopting children, and at least want to preserve their ability to discriminate. All of these are harmful, not only to the minority treated unjustly, but for wider society as well

Not all Christians who oppose homosexuality are like this. Some might endorse a robust divide between church and state, and so not want any differential recognition enshrined in law. Also, although they think homosexuality is bad, they don’t think homosexuals are worse than anyone else: homosexuals are sinners just like they, and would still be sinners regardless of gay sex being sinful. So where’s the problem here? Hate the sin; love the sinner, after all.

The problem is these beliefs are evil. Homosexuals are accused of suffering some mental or moral malaise; of being better off straight; that any romantic or sexual relationships they form are wrong; that the love they feel for their partner is a twisted, second rate, facsimile of the heterosexual ‘genuine article’; that they are unfit to bring up children. Alone, these are despicable. Together, they are a programme to attack, demean and castrate someone’s sexual identity. They are appalling even if they remain legally silent – and are toxic to a just and humane society.

An attack on an enemy of freedom

Not all Christians oppose homosexuality. These people should be praised – it isn’t easy being right when your religious community is wrong. But they remain a noble minority; worse, Christianity itself seems to drive the sexual prejudice expressed by most Christians. Those who aren’t Christians probably won’t care what damage this does to the Church, but everyone should care about the damage the Church’s attitudes have on society in general, and homosexuals in particular. What should we do about it?

Opposition to homosexuality should be attacked – it is the casus belli for a culture war. These beliefs should be silenced not just in the statute books, but in popular culture as well. The two main sources of homophobic sentiment in the public sphere are the far right and the clergy. Neither should be gagged by censorship, but drowned in contempt and ridicule. The laughter that greeted Nick Griffin’s ‘almost totally non-violent’ KKK should greet those who suggest the equally ridiculous ‘disorder’ of homosexuality. When religions are co-opted to shelter it, they should be attacked as well – the rainbow flag should be stuffed down the Church’s throat. Anti-gay sentiment should be recognised as irrational, immoral, and illicit for civilized society. We should all come out of the closet as gay rights activists.

Acknowledgements:

I thank Nathan Paylor and Nicholas Inglis for their criticism of earlier drafts and ideas.

Has homosexuality always been seen as sinful to Christians?

“I hope to take steps towards correcting the peculiar view, which has become almost universal among Christians in recent decades…”

The case that Payton and B.A. Robinson make is that post-KJV Bible translations like the NIV, ESV, and NASB have mistranslated 1 Timothy 1:9-10.  From that Payton concludes that the verse in question has never been seen as condemning homosexuality prior to the first time arsenokoites was translated as pertaining to homosexuality specifically.  While homosexuality isn’t the only sin that the Apostle Paul is listing in the verse, it most certainly does refer to homosexuality, thereby showing that it has always been seen as a sin.  Rather, the movement that Payton is supporting has proposed interpretations of scripture that are only about 50 years old (generous estimate) if he can provide any older ones, I’ll give him that point.  While I will agree with him that neither Calvin nor Luther saw this verse as pertaining to homosexuality in particular, they did both see that the Bible condemns homosexuality as a sin.

Is it right to argue that translator’s prejudice guide their textual reasoning?

“Such a position cannot be taken on any logical basis, but must instead be the result of a kind of prejudice born from a misguided attempt at intuitivist morality.”

Unfortunately in Payton’s article there are no references to New Testament scholars who support the translation of arsenokoites meaning homosexuality.   This would have been very helpful to the reader as to seeing the rationale behind the translation, and then critiquing that. Instead what we are given is an assertion that the translation was guided by prejudice rather than textual reasons. That is a serious charge and even slanderous.  At best the assertion that prejudice rather than textual reasoning guided the translation is wholly an assumption that cannot be proven unless the translators admit such a prejudice.  Therefore it isn’t a wise remark in this debate, as it is an attack on the translator’s character rather than their reasoning of the issue.

What is the rationale for translating arsenokoites as pertaining to homosexuality?

“It is a compound word, formed from two well-known and well-precedented words; “arsen“, meaning “male”, and “koitai“, meaning “beds”. We might suspect, then, that Paul is not writing about “them that defile themselves with mankind”.”

We must first look at the word arsenokoites and it’s origins.  As Payton rightly pointed out the word is a compound word, and Paul is attributed to it’s first occurrences in Greek literature.  Payton neglects to mention the theories behind Paul’s reasoning for making this word, most notably that Paul derived this word from two Old Testament passages from the Septuagint Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13.  I will refer to a brief description of the view by Brian J. Dodd (LXX):

Robin Scroggs has plausibly suggested that Paul created this new word by combining the two terms found in the Greek version of Lev 18:23 (LXX 18:22) and 20:13: arsen = “male,” and koite = “bed,” which translate the Hebrew for “lying with a male” (mishkav zakur; The New Testament and Homosexuality: Contextual Background for Contemporary Debate [Fortress, 1983] 106-8). With the likelihood that these Levitical prohibitions are echoed in 1 Cor 6:9, the NRSV is justified in translating the term as a reference to homoerotic intercourse, even if the English “sodomites” is somewhat archaic.

To be specific, the textual argument that arsenokoites refers explicitly to homosexuality, and that understanding was Paul’s intention in creating the word goes as follows:

1. “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”- Leviticus 18:21
2. “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.” -Leviticus 20:13

The above two verses communicate the same message which is explicitly forbidding homosexual practice.  The italicized portions are very important with the formulation ofarsenokoites in Paul’s understanding.  Let us now walk through the Septuagint from which Paul pulled arsenos and koites, again, the key terms are italicized:

1. “meta arsenos ou koimethese koiten gyniakos” – Leviticus 18:22 (LXX)
2. “hos an koimethe meta arsenos koiten gyniakos” – Leviticus 20:13 (LXX)

Arsenoskoites (males combined with bed or couch) is a Greek counterpart to the Hebrew phrase “mishkab zakur” which is used in the above verses in the original Hebrew form.

1. Mishkab is Hebrew for arsenos, which is Greek for bed or couch.
2. Zakur is Hebrew for koiten, which is Greek for male or males.
3. Mishkab zakur is used where sex between men is expressly forbidden.
4. Therefore, mishkab zakur is translated into Greek as arsenokoite, and used by Paul to reflect Leviticus 18:22, 20:13. Paul did this in order to call to the attention of the Greek readers that homosexuality is a sin, just as Leviticus says.

Paul condemns what Leviticus condemns.  This is also why Paul didn’t use words that already existed for the term homosexual. So it is not “abundantly clear that Paul is not referring to homosexuality here.” This also makes Justin Cannon’s study start off on the wrong foot, as he doesn’t make the connection between arsenokoites and the verses in Leviticus, which left Justin thinking the word must mean prostitutes.  Which is an unneeded substitute for a reference to the Old Testament law forbidding homosexuality.  I’m also very surprised that Cannon didn’t address the only two times that koite is used in the New Testament.  As both usages have a sexual connotation.

1. “Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality [koite] and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy.” -Romans 13:13
2. “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed [koite] be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” -Hebrews 13:4

As you can see, it isn’t unusual for koite to be used as referring to sexual intercourse, leading the argument to stand that arsenos (male/males) and koite (bed or couch with a sexual connotation) combined explicitly means men having intercourse together.

This makes Justin’s conclusion that arsenokoites can only refer to prostitutes nearly laughable.  Arsenokoites being a combination of male and bed has no room to imply trade, buying, or selling.  Homosexuality in all forms is condemned as a sin.

With all of that said, I think the biggest issue in Payton’s work is that it begins by assuming bad motives in the work of the translators of the newer versions.  The picture that he painted is that Christian history has had it all wrong.  This conflict would not happen if the arguments for the translation of arsenokoites were actually reviewed prior to writing a confident bashing of the modern translators/translations.

In conclusion, we can see that the recent inventions of pro-gay theologians are exactly that, recent inventions.  It is also odd that the verse in question was argued against as a linchpin of the entire debate that rages between pro-gay theologians and orthodox theologians.  While this verse is extremely important (as all verses are) the Bible is abundantly clear that homosexuality is in fact unnatural, and sinful.  To pick the verses that make this clear and crunch them and ignore the history of translation is an abuse of the scriptures that no apologist should allow.  No Greek Lexicon disagrees with the translations we have today, but even such a well-known resource is completely ignored.  The Arndt-Gingrich Greek Lexicon defines arsenokoite as “a male who practices homosexuality, pedarist, sodomite” and quotes Romans 1:27 as an example.  Strong’s Concordance translates arsenokoites as “a sodomite:–abuser of (that defile) self with mankind.” in obvious reference to Sodom.  This makes the case that pro-gay theologians try to make seem to be nothing more than conspiracy theories making allegations of discrimination and prejudice about those who have translated our Bible versions.

A brief statement on how Christians should see, and treat homosexuals

Christians are to treat homosexuals the exact same way they treat everybody else.  Homosexuality isn’t a worse sin than any other, but it is much harder to overcome than any other as far as sin patterns and lifestyles go.  Paul’s message in this passage is very clear, and convicting to every Christian.  Certainly there are men and women who have homosexual leanings that have come to Christ and began to repent.  There are ministries out there who can provide the testimonies.  One in particular I will reference is that of Joe Dallas, as he has a truly incredible story of his battle with homosexuality.

The Big Issue

Finally, the big issue is who is handling the text rightly?  It is one thing to just reject Christianity because of it’s views on homosexuality (as many homosexual advocates do.)  It is an entirely different issue to try to squeeze the Bible into promoting homosexuality bad interpretations/exegesis of the Bible.  There is a tremendous amount of work on this issue, and below I will link some that I find to be most trustworthy.  Perhaps you will find it refreshing that not all of the following links are in agreement with each other on all theological issues.

• A New Testament Perspective on Homosexuality

• But God Made Me This Way!

• Is the Bible ambiguous about homosexuality?

• Homosexuality: A Biblical Perspective

• Responding to Pro-Gay Theology

The cosmological argument is one of the oldest arguments for the existence of God. It has its roots in the work of the Greek philosophers Aristotle (384–322 BCE) and Plato (427–347 BCE). Today, we have two popular versions of the argument: theKalam and the Leibnizian arguments. Both attempt to show that there must have been a first cause or sufficient reason for the universe to exit. However, one seldom hears of the original cosmological argument as it was made famous by Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). Aquinas’s argument is handy if one wants to avoid heavy debates on the philosophy of time and the principal of sufficient reason that other cosmological arguments bring to the table.

The simplest statement one can find of Aquinas’s argument is found in his Summa Contra Gentiles:

We see things in the world that can exist and can also not exist. Now everything that can exist has a cause. But one cannot go on ad infinitum in causes… Therefore one must posit something existing of which is necessary. (Summa Contra Gentiles 15.124)

We can see that this argument, rather than focusing solely on cause and effect as Kalam does, or on sufficient reason as the Leibnizian does, attempts to combine the two by examining causal chains and their modal status. David Beck, a modern day defender of the TCA, gives the example of a train. If we visualize a train being pulled, we ask ourselves “What is the cause of the cart in front of us being pulled?” The answer is of course the cart in front of it, but what is pulling that cart? Well the cart in front of it. The problem is that we see that all the carts are dependent on the one in front of it to move, but this cannot go on forever otherwise the carts would never be in motion. We can break the causal chain by positing a being which depends on nothing for its movement; the engine which by its very nature is able to move. This illustration is clearly an analogy for existence. The contingent beings are the carts, and God is the engine: the thing of which by its very nature exists and does not depend upon another thing for its existence.

We can summarize our reasoning thus far in the following way:

P1. A contingent being exists.
P2. What explains this being’s existence must be in a set that contains either only contingent beings or contains at least one necessary (non-contingent) being.
P3. A set that contains only contingent beings cannot cause this contingent being to exist.
C1. Therefore this set contains at least one necessary being.
C2. Therefore a necessary being exists.

Premises one and two are not at question. The third premise is true due to the fact that if there was ever a time when nothing existed, then nothing currently exists, since contingent beings are finite in temporal duration and cannot cause themselves to exist. It follows then that if even one contingent thing exists, whether it be the universe as a whole, a chair, or my best friend Steve, then there exists a necessary entity.

What then can we deduce about then nature of this necessary entity? Firstly, Occam’s Razor eliminates the possibility of there being more then one necessary being, since positing a plurality of beings does not seem to be necessary for the explanation. From this, we can conclude that monotheism is true. Secondly, since this necessary being is the cause of space and time, the necessary being must transcend space and time, and therefore exist non-temporally and non-spatially (at least without the universe). This necessary being must therefore be changeless. The cause must also be immaterial since something can only be timeless if it is unchanging, and something can only be changeless if it is immaterial. It must also be unimaginably powerful, since it created all of space, matter, and time. Finally and most remarkably, such a transcendent cause must be personal, for how else could a timeless cause give rise to a temporal effect (like the universe)?¹ The only entities that we know of which can be timeless and immaterial are minds and abstract objects (numbers, sets, laws, theories, colors, etc). But abstract objects can’t cause anything. Therefore the being which exists, must be an unembodied mind. If the cause were just a mechanically operating set of necessary and sufficient conditions, then the cause could never exist without the effect. If the cause were timelessly present, the the effect would be timelessly present too. The only way for the effect to be timeless and the effect to be in time would be for the cause to be a personal agent with free choice. Thispersonal agent chooses to create an effect in time without any prior determining conditions.

Thus we are brought not only to a transcendent cause of the universe, but to its creator. So, from the Thomistic cosmological argument alone we can may conclude that a personal creator exists, and is uncaused, necessary², unique, beginningless,changeless, timeless, immaterial, very powerful, and personal. From this, it is reasonable to conclude that God exists.”

1. This deviates from Aquinas’s original presentation of the argument and presumes the past duration of the universe to be finite. Though there are good reasons for believing the past duration of the universe to be finite (The Kalam cosmological argument takes this approach), Aquinas’s goal was more modest: his argument is compatible with a universe whose past duration was infinite. However, I wish to extend the force of Aquinas’s argument, and hence I do not assume the eternality of the universe in this essay. [↩]
2. In the factual sense. [↩]