The Problem of Evil, Part 1

I have due in a week or so a paper on the Problem of Evil. The problem is well-traveled, and is indeed a problem. But, as we have seen, problems are not beyond what we can overcome, and may indeed have an answer. No need to through out the baby with the bathwater on this one.

I have a stack of books to go through, so I will be using this space to sort out their individual contributions, and perhaps also my final thoughts. To begin the process, a very brief introduction can be given by Alister McGrath in his Christian Theology.

The problem, he briefly states as: "How can the presence of evil or suffering be reconciled with the Christian affirmation of the goodness of the God who created the world?" (263) He begins with Irenaeus, who, like many Greeks of his time, saw humans as potential. It is the case for these thinkers that humans have the capacity and ability to develop, and have within them ultimately this potentiality. It is the view many hold today in some sense, in that it views the problem in terms of what God wants us to become; it is a form of "soul-making". If it is God's will that we learn humility and develop a sense of compassion, perhaps there is some merit. Francis Collins and Timothy Keller have both recently adopted something of this view, noting that some of the times humans grow and learn the most is in the presence of suffering, deserved or otherwise. It is in these times that we learn forgiveness, mercy, and grace, and where we most earnestly seek God. McGrath credits this view in part to John Hick, who holds that in order for humans to become what God desires for them, they must endure evil as they take part in a free world. Choosing good only has value in the event that one is not compelled to, and that choosing evil is at all times an option.

But there is a problem. Is this a picture of a God who allows suffering to teach us lessons? Where this might make sense on a personal level, what lessons are we to learn, individually or collectively from created tragedies like genocide or natural ones like tsunamis? This seems to come dangerously close to the view that people "deserve" natural disasters because God is angry, and does nothing but perpetrate the idea that God is out for blood. God will judge, to be sure, but the view that he is in the process of doing so constantly, and that we ought to mind our manners lest he smite us is anything but helpful, and certainly not Biblical. It also brings into question our duty to resist evil if God has purposed evil in the world. If evil is the maker of the soul, on what grounds should it be defeated or fought against?

He then mentions St. Augustine, who was combating the notion of the Gnostics that evil the world was because matter itself is evil, and that creation came to be by an evil being. Redemption would be by a different god, one who was different from the "demigod" of creation. Augustine understood that creation and redemption were necessarily both the work of God. And it is human freedom that introduces evil by way of the temptation by Satan and fall in the Garden of Eden. But, the problem here is that humans could only choose evil if God put it in the Garden, which was supposed to be perfect, where God and man mutually cohabited, for them to choose. Augustine explained that Satan fell from Heaven when he was tempted, but again, who tempted Satan? Was their sin and evil in Heaven? How can we account for the origin of rebellion against God? McGrath, and apparently Augustine have no answer at this point, and is one I think needs to be answered by the sovereignty of God. But we will have to return to this point later on.

McGrath, Alister E. Christian Theology: An Introduction, Second Edition Wycliffe Hall, Oxford and Regent College, Vancouver. Blackwell Publishers, 1997, Pgs 263-267.

An Update... and a Bible Difficulty

For anyone who might read this who otherwise might not know, I have a few things going on that are prohibiting me from spending as much time on this as I would like.

The first of those things is school. It isn't that I have too much to do, or that it's too difficult, but that, as per the nature of philosophy, my homework isn't limited to what has been explicitly assigned. And, as per the current nature of the University, philosophy courses regularly make jokes and invectives at the expense of believers in anything other than scientific naturalism (or whatever other view the professor happens to prefer, be it Jungian or Spinozist or whatever else). What this means is that I am constantly under fire for positions held, and spend more time better understanding and solidifying my positions than actually doing homework. It is both a blessing and a curse. I have been pushed to be able to defend myself, which I welcome and accept, but have had to deal with a good deal of unnecessary and childish ridicule. The real disappointment at the end of the day isn't my feelings, but the resolve of those who are less committed to truth and more easily swayed by one-liners and philosophical quips. Professors deliberately tell half-truths on issues of high importance to score points in laughter like their tenure depended on it.

So, what I will do from now on, instead of trying to put together groups of blogs about certain topics, is write about what it is that I'm doing at any given time. It should give me a chance to nail down some thoughts and collect my ideas, as well as open them to some criticism to whomever wishes to criticize.

That being said...

I have spent the last few days trying to find the best way to answer my Modern Philosophy teacher and skeptical classmates that the Bible is not wrong about the value of Pi. For those not in the know, 1 Kings 7:23 says the following:

"And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about." (KJV, italics mine)

Ok, so a molten sea is a great big vessel, which we see here is "ten cubits from the one brim to the other," has a height of five cubits, and a line of thirty cubits compassed it round about. And a cubit, we know, was approximately the distance between the elbow and the tip of the outstretched hand, or about 18 inches. So then, this molten sea had the following dimensions:

Height: 5 cubits, or 90 inches, or 7.5 feet
Diameter: 10 cubits, or 180 inches, or 15 feet
Circumference: 30 cubits, or 540 inches, or 45 feet

Problem? The ratio of the circumference and diameter of a circle is necessarily 3.141592... or "pi". Here it seems the Bible thinks pi=3 (30 cubits / 10 cubits). If you believe that is what the Bible says, then you are likely to see in this passage an error so basic that it renders the entire Bible unreliable.

So after a couple days trying to sort this out (it's more complicated than you might think), I have come to the following couple of conclusions.

First of all, it does matter. Second of all, it does not mean that God says pi is 3, and mathematicians are wrong. But what we can say is that, (1) Cubits are an inherently imprecise standard of measurement. Using a body part is clearly not standardized, and is therefore better suited to rough approximations, such as how we might make rough measurements of our own. When using cubits, the Bible does not use them with much precision. It measures things in half cubits, but not thirds or fourths. It just isn't reasonable to do so. With that in mind, it is easy to see how 30.4 cubits could become 30 cubits, and 9.68 cubits could become 10 cubits, which is an example of numbers with a ratio of 3.141592 between them. And 30.4 cubits would be about 45 feet, 7 inches, or 540 inches, plus 7 inches. Plus or minus 7 inches matters to a mathematician, but not to someone measuring in 18 inch segments of forearms. It is therefore an error--a category mistake--to assume that round numbers are certainly false.

If gas was $3.06 per gallon, it would not be incorrect to say that gas was $3 per gallon. Or if a room was 10'2" x 12'1", 10x12 would be a sufficient measurement.

Some have argued that the Bible doesn't explicitly say they are round numbers, so we cannot assume that. But we know for a fact that if it was a round vessel, then 10 and 30 were not the actual numbers, so assuming a round figure is logically sound. And in the examples of our speech today, one need not qualify the figures given as round numbers, because they suit our audience. If we are in court we may have to say exactly how much gas cost. If we are ordering carpet we may have to say exactly what the measurements are, but for a general measurement it would not be necessary.

Furthermore, in his book, The Joy of Pi, David Blatner includes the following:

"What is pi?

Mathematician: Pi is the number expressing the relationship between the
circumference of a circle and its diameter.
Physicist: Pi is 3.1415927 plus or minus 0.000000005.
Engineer: Pi is about 3."

(http://www.abarim-publications.com/Bible_Commentary/1Kings7v23.html)

That site offers that quote from Blatner, and goes on to offer several solutions to this problem by way of some advanced mathematical theories concerning the validity of using numbers at all, which are very interesting, but a bit off topic. But their conclusion is that the Biblical context for these numbers is more important than the actual values of numbers at all.

All of this is really the blown up way of saying that the Bible's inerrancy is not threatened by this problem. It is a difficulty for sure, but not an error. The bottom line for me is that this a contextual description of the vessel, not a blueprint for it. The writer may or may not have had the technical prowess to know the extended theoretical value of pi, but in either case is not wrong per se in his description.

And that is what I will attempt to persuade my Professor and his anti-Bible minions of in the morning.

The God Delusion, Pt. 1

I have been meaning to get around to reading completely and tackling the issues in Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion for quite some time. This has been done well in several places around the internet, but perhaps I can sum up some critiques and add some of my own for anyone who might have landed here. I will return to C.S. Lewis' Miracles after this...

First of all, this book represents a classic example of the sort of thing Christians who expect to engage modern culture on almost any level ought to familiarize themselves with. But not because it's good or convincing, but because people think it is. Of course every atheist or agnostic or God-hater I know thinks this book is tremendous, and at least one former Christian I know of read this book and went off the deep end, convinced his faith was a fraud. The former case is to be expected, but the latter is disappointing and unnecessary in the highest.

The arguments in this book are presented with unbridled arrogance and spotty logic, which makes it hard for the common reader to refute. (And apparently it makes it hard for the "intelligent" ones, too, given the several pages of praise offered at the beginning and back cover of the book.)

One final point before beginning with Chapter 1 is that the paperback version (which I have) has a Preface where Dawkins responds (sort of) to some of the alleged frequent responses to his book. I will deal with these at the end of the review.

Chapter 1 is called, "A Deeply Religious Non-Believer". It begins with Dawkins' usual praise for science and scientists, squeezing everything else out. He quotes Carl Sagan almost immediately, asking:

How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, 'This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant'? Instead they say, 'No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.' A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. (32-33).

This is almost too easy. First of all, what Christian (which, by the way, is the main religion attacked throughout the book) has ever said such a thing as 'My god is a little god"? And which Christians do not proclaim the absolute majesty, grandness and scope of the Universe?

But what Dawkins wants is to make science the one who notices the wonder of the world, complaining about the "transcendent wonder that religion monopolized over the past centuries" (33). This opening chapter is at pains to explain to the reader than whatever Dawkins asserts, or believes, no matter what it is, is based in only science, not faith or religion. What this does for the uncritical reader is put Dawkins on one side (the high road; the intellectual road) and faith and religion on the other. It's a tactic he must establish because his position is absolute that the religious cannot take part in science. This type of exclusivity is par for Dawkins type, who uphold science as the only real arena for scholarly or serious discussion. The length at which he goes to avoid the possibility of God can be clearly seen when he says, "Human thoughts and emotions emerge from exceedingly complex interconnections of physical entities within the brain" (34). He doesn't explain how this is possible, just that they do, and if you disagree, well, so much for your theory. If this isn't a faith-statement and a central tenet of the naturalist and Neo-Darwinian religions, I don't know what it is.

This discussion is closely tied to that of the Naturalism vs. Supernaturalism. To say that all thing emerge from nature is begging the question, assuming that naturalism must be true. But supernatualism is not a logical impossibility and to therefore assert that naturalism is true because nature is all there is is tantamount to saying, "I'm the boss because I make all the rules." (But why do you make the rules? Because I'm the boss...) Consider:

Premise 1: IF nature is all there is, THEN naturalism is true.
Premise 2: Nature is all there is.
Conclusion: Naturalism is true.

This is a logically valid argument, known in formal logic as Modus Ponens. (If A, then B. A, therefore B.) This rule of inference says that if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true. But what is not guaranteed is the truth of the premises, because formal logic is not concerned with truth values. However, it is not necessarily true that nature is all there is. This argument can be, and is, unsound, and to dismiss supernaturalism on these grounds is an unjustifiable position.

As a scientist Dawkins believes he must take this position because it is his job to always search for the natural explanations in the face of unanswered questions, but to simply assert that things "emerge" from a nature that is itself not self-existent is as bankrupt and unhelpful a position as any he seeks to attack.

To be continued...

Miracles, Pt. 2

Chapter 2 of Miracles is concerned with the distinction between Naturalism and Supernaturalism. A naturalist sees everything as "part of the whole", that nothing exists beyond what can be called "natural". Everything that is, is "going on of its own accord" (p. 11).

The definitions are further established, but it is to understand that for the naturalist, there is but one nature, in which all things can be understood. And for the supernaturalist, there is some thing or "One Thing" in which all things find their meaning, their direction, their purpose and their creation. There is, for the supernaturalist, some thing that exists in and of itself; it exists because it exists, and all things find the reason for their own existence in the One Thing.

This can be understood as Aristotle's Unmoved Mover, the uncreated creator, the necessary, the Alpha and Omega, the God of the Universe.

Believing that in nature there is no reason for existence at all, and that nature cannot explain itself (is not self-existent), there must be a necessary being that causes all things. That nature exists, or that any law or condition in nature exists cannot account for necessity, only contingency, and a limited one without first causal properties.

If naturalism is all there is, then miracles are necessarily impossible. But that supernaturalism is possible is still no proof of the probability or certainty of miracles. God may very well never interfere or miraculously intervene.

"Our first choice, therefore, must be between Naturalism and Supernaturalism" (p. 16).

Miracles, Pt. 1

Where else would I start on my question about miracles but C.S. Lewis' Miracles?

Miracles always seemed to me like the kind of thing Christians would abandon quite readily in the face of any real questioning for fear of sounding dogmatic, inept or plagued by lunacy. Take the exchange in Bill Maher's Religulous, where the blundering store-owner who claims miracles have changed his life (but is apparently unable to think of any) is dismissed right out with Maher's laughing retort that miracles are only miracles if you call them that, otherwise they are coincidences or happy predictions or less.

The problem lies in being able to say something miraculous happened without being the hapless strawman the naturalist wants you to be so that he might draw his sword and valiantly and condescendingly lay waste to your foolish conclusions.

What C.S. Lewis does is to start from scratch. First and foremost, "The question whether miracles occur can never be answered simply by experience... Our senses are not infallible. If anything extraordinary seems to have happened, we can always say that we have been the victims of an illusion. If we hold a philosophy which excludes the supernatural, this is what we always shall say. What we learn from experience depends on the kind of philosophy we bring to experience" (p. 7, emphasis mine).

Kant began his Critique of Pure Reason noting that while all knowledge begins with experience, it does not therefore necessarily arise from it. It is possible, and indeed a necessary condition that certain knowledge comes before certain experience. One need not see a specific object fall to know that all unsupported objects fall. The general rule is learned perhaps by experience, but the truth of a specific instance can be known a priori, necessarily. It is to say, then, that where the empiricist would deny miracles on the grounds of experience only, there is a fundamental ignorance of the nature of knowledge. For this reason, Lewis dismisses the dismissal of the possibility of miracles in terms of experience alone. A proper philosophy must first be constructed to deal with the problem squarely.

Furthermore, one cannot begin with history, says Lewis, "For if [miracles] are impossible, then no amount of historical evidence will convince us... history can never convince us that a miracle occurred" (p. 8). Again, to write miracles off as impossible beforehand makes any other proof or likelihood categorically impossible.

Reading Biblical accounts of miracles is insufficient outside of the philosophical or logical possibility of miracles. So then, "It is no use going to the texts until we have some idea about the possibility or probability of the miraculous. Those who assume that miracles cannot happen are merely wasting their time by looking into the texts; we know in advance what results they will find for they have begun by begging the question" (p. 9).

Growth

In his Kingdom Triangle, J.P. Moreland suggests the importance of growing intellectually and increasing confidence in God and truth. An more worthy venture hardly comes to mind. His first of three ways toward this end is to,

"Be ruthless in assessing the precise nature and strength of what you actually believe and develop a specific plan of attack for improvement" (p. 133).

His suggestion is to make lists of things that you believe, or don't believe, and the degree to which either is as it is. Furthermore, and what interests me most, write down questions you cannot answer, but would like to. This is something I will be doing here, and I hope that anyone who reads it may offer insight if they have it. Not slogans or cliches, but knowledge and understanding.

Here then, are 10 questions I shall seek to understand better than I do:

1. In what ways does Christianity differ from early Mediterranean religions, and why should it be seen as anything other than a copycat religion stemming from a Judaism stolen from an Egyptian heresy?

2. What makes me think that prayer works, or in what ways do I believe in prayer? Is it just for us? Does God listen or care? How should one pray; how should one not pray?

3. What sort of political ideology is most compatible with the life of Jesus and the prescriptions laid out for us by scripture? Should we care? And if so, what policies ought we care most about and which might we appropriately shun? What, specifically, should we believe about gay rights, abortion, war, democracy, capitalism, animal rights, social justice, poverty, trade, terrorism, the military, foreign policy, Israel, or taxes?

4. Who wrote the Bible, and who canonized it? How do the different versions differ, and which one is most accurate and why?

5. What is the appropriate response of Christians concerning the end of the world, the second coming of Christ, the Antichrist and the mark of the beast, and the book of Revelations?

6. What are the prevailing theories that leading Christians hold concerning Evolution and Creation? How do Christians either combat the overwhelming evidence for evolution or how do they reconcile evolution with a belief in the inerrancy of the word of God and any particular notions of the importance of creation? Is theistic evolution tenable or too weak? What are Darwinian responses to the problems raised by specified complexity and the non viability of transitional forms?

7. Are miracles a violation of natural laws?

8. Why is naturalism, or scientific naturalism, not a more reasonable approach to the difficult questions of existence, being, morality, etc? And isn't the appeal to God on difficult issues a mere cop out or default position which is destined for embarrassment given the possibility of finding natural causes for otherwise-imagined God-based answers? Does naturalism escape the dogmatic snares of religion?

9. What is the most appropriate Christian response to Post-Modernism and relativism? What about the Emerging Church?

10. What do I do with the doctrines of predestination? What do I believe about Calvinism? Which points do I accept; which do I deny? What does scripture say about grace and works, and what are the current leading positions on the debate? What does free will mean? Is there a limit to God's sovereignty? Has he given us full reign over our choices? Doesn't he know our answers anyways? Is God waiting on us to decide anything?

There are many others, of course, but these are most troublesome to me, and most pressing. So, it is my intention to read up, and to get bits and pieces of answers and insights wherever I can. If you read this (Jen, Nick, Andy, Ashley, Reuben, whomever), perhaps you have questions of your own, or perhaps you can help me with mine.

Ok? Ready... break.

Furthermore on Knowledge...

"Our religion is a religion of knowledge, not private faith, and we must teach people the ins and outs of knowledge as part of the recovery of our heritage as the sons and daughters of God."
J.P. Moreland, Kingdom Triangle, p. 130

Knowledge is a great treasure, but there is one thing higher than knowledge, and that is understanding... To make sense of information - to understand it - one has to put it into fruitful relationship with other information, and grasp the meaning of that relationship; which implies finding patterns, learning lessons, drawing inferences, and as a result seeing the whole. This task - achieving understanding - is par excellence the task of philosophy.
A.C. Grayling, The Mystery of Things, p. 1

This is precisely what it is to have a Christian worldview: To have knowledge of Christianity and its rich cultural and intellectual heritage, of the Bible, and of God, and to apply it to the whole of one's life. This must be the responsibility of anyone who believes Christianity offers not just salvation, but truth about the world and hope for it found nowhere else.