More from the frontlines...

As to be expected, our friend Matthew has followed up with some kind and tenderhearted responses. I was really hoping that we would receive some kind of significant and meaningful response to the question I have been posing, but that was wistful thinking I suppose. Notice the hubris that seems to be emanating from these kind of replies. It is almost as if he has dismissed any possibility that belief in the Christian God and Christian religion could be at all intelligbly defensible. You can gather from how he approaches this subject that he must think that to adhere to orthodox Christianity or the integrity of Scripture, one must be a neanderthal. He continues to launch these, shall we say, guerilla attacks on the integrity of Scripture. Yet all the while he is avoiding a simple, direct yet important question. As usual, my comments are in bold:

"Wait... you require evidence for God to exist before you believe in him? Now who's pooing on faith? I personally think that God can't be known through experiences, evidences, or proofs; to do so would eliminate the need for faith, and thus the need to believe in God. If you can PROVE he exists, no faith is required to "see" God's influence in the world."

I was making a play on words. I do not believe that you prove the existence of God the same way that you prove that there are crackers in the pantry. This is not to say that there are not EVIDENCES for God. I have never said that there were no evidences for God. The problem is that no one interprets those evidences neutrally. We all interpret evidence through a conceptual framework called a worldview. This is why evidence alone will not lead one to belief in the Christian God because all have that evidence and suppress it (cf. Rom. 1:18-21). My point is that you operate upon a rational, logical basis and yet your worldview destroys the very foundation for logic and reason.

"Actually, "sir," you are using an argument from authority that is fallacious. "The Bible claims that [blah blah blah]... The reason that FALSE religions exist is because man is incurably (interesting word choice... like an incurable disease?) religious and in their mutiny against the Maker they have gone after false gods" (my emphasis, your grammatical errors). The Bible is not an authority for anything except itself. The bible is not an authority on other religions, nor is it even an authority on Christianity--the vast majority of the bible is a Jewish text, often wrongfully interpreted by Christians who do not practice the Jewish rituals nor have the Jewish education required to understand the book. False, false, false!"

Again, everyone has an absolute to which they appeal to in their worldview. You can reject absolutes and still be appealing to an absolute. It's called relativism. The statement "all truth is relative" is itself self-refuting because it is absolute. The absolute of your worldview seems to be "only statements that are empirically verifiable are legitimate." Yet you cannot test or verify scientifically that statement! The question is: does this statement best account for reality? Does it best account for human experience, your human experience Matthew? When you go to a musical performance, do you come away saying it was "beautiful"? If so, how do you account for beauty? Is it empirically verifiable?

Secondly, the Bible is not a Jewish text hijacked by Christians. The 39 books of the Old Testament were written in mostly Hebrew and some Aramaic. However, it is anachronistic to speak as if Christianity emerged out of Judaism when really, historically speaking, you have Christianity and Judaism both emerging out of ancient Israel religion.

"If I were to say that the Constitution is the authority on government, and that every other country must follow American constitutional laws or suffer the consequences, you would think me mad! But because it's a "religious" document, suddenly it sprouts wings and is given clear majority over other religions (including Judaism) that were around earlier and themselves improved on Christianity (to their thinking)? I think not!"

I am not appealing to the U.S. Constitution as the absolute standard in my worldview. I am appealing to the Bible. You are making a categorical error. Every worldview has an absolute standard to which it appeals and to which it interprets experience. The problem is you have elevated epistemology above metaphysics and said that it is not even important to address questions accounting for the nature of reality. This anti-metaphysical epistemology prevents you from seeing the fact that you operate in your everyday experience as if there was some rational basis for filling up your gas tank or kissing your loved ones goodbye. The question is: how, in your worldview, do you account for reality? You say you are not a logical positivist but when you approach the question of God you become one. You make claims like, "There is no evidence" or "until science proves", all the while not even realizing that God is the basis for believing you can even prove anything!

"Let me clarify something for you, since you obviously have a problem here: neither of these words, "Trinity" or "triune," appears ANYWHERE in either the Old or the New Testament. I DEFY you to find an example of this. Seeing as your very document undercuts your argument, perhaps maybe your dogma is creeping in, your factionalist training?

Nice False Dilemma there, as well! "Either God made everything orderly, or there is no order at all!" Well, there's order, but there's no evidence for God in that order. If you want to BELIEVE that God created such an order, go for it! Rock of our country, the ability to believe anything you want. But if you won't allow anybody else to believe anything else about the universe, say that THEIR god made it, or that NO god made it, then you've got a problem."

Wow. Matthew O'Donnell has informed me on something I did not know! The word "Trinity" does not appear in the Bible? Really? The hubris that is oozing from his replies is almost unbearable. Matthew, I, nor any informed Christian, ever claimed that the term "Trinity" ever appeared in the Bible. This does not mean the concept of the Trinity is not taught in the Bible. Just because the word "Trinity" does not appear in Scripture, does not mean we cannot employ extrabiblical language to articulate more clearly Biblical meaning. The term "rapture" does not appear in the Scriptures either but it does not negate the fact that the New Testament teaches that Christ will return to gather believers with him in the air.

Again, you misunderstand what I am saying. I am saying that apart from belief in the Christian God, no worldview can account for the order we see in the universe. If you want to tell me how macroevolution or the big bang theory can account for order, I'm all ears. And I never said anything about not allowing anyone else to believe as they choose. I'm not militant.

"I guess I don't have a worldview, since my worldview doesn't appeal to a universal standard. Could it be that it is only YOUR worldview that appeals to such a restrictive and reductive standard? Can you provide any examples as to what possible "standard" i could be following, other than the very random and lucky occurrence of my thoughts at the time? Is that not enough of a worldview for you? I apologize for your disappointment. :)"

Denying you have a worldview is akin to denying the fact that you breathe oxygen. Again, I have suggested the standard you have been appealing to: empiricism. You may claim that you are not a logical positivist but you approach the question of God as a logical positivist. If the standard for determining truth is nothing more than "the very random and lucky occurrence of my thoughts at the time" then we might as well end this debate, as we have no rational or logical foundation to continue it.

"And again, i DON'T FRICKIN' KNOW how to account for the laws of logic. Unlike you, i choose to withhold judgment on the nature of the universe until such time as more concrete and conclusive evidence sways me in one way or another! Laws of mathematics exist independent of me, represented as laws of gravity, radiation, thermodynamics, electricity, etc. Are you really asking me to morally justify the rising of the sun, or the condensation on my windows in the morning? Sounds pretty stupid to try and map human morals onto non-human events!"

Herein is the heart of the matter: you do not know how to account for the laws of logic. You presuppose their existence in your speech and actions but the very foundation of your worldview destroys them. Let me ask you this: do you look both ways when crossing the street? If so, why? Why do you think that because I drop a ball 1,000 times that it will always drop to the ground? Why wouldn't it shoot back up or move horizontally? If the universe is based on randomness and chance, how can you justify these universal, invariants?

You have claimed to not filter everything through the lens of empiricism but here again you say "i choose to withhold judgment on the nature of the universe until such time as more concrete or conclusive evidence sways me." Two things here. One, you are operating on the basis that the only facts we can know about the nature of the universe are those that come from observation, again showing your reliance on empiricism. Secondly, the ironic thing is that you DO NOT withhold judgment. You do not withhold judgment before you go home at night and say, "I probably should not leave a porch light on as there is not concrete or conclusive evidence that sways me that because the sun went down yesterday evening, it will go down today." You have no "concrete or conclusive" evidence swaying you to believe that tomorrow will be like the past. The only reason you have for believing that the sun will set tonight is because that is what happened last night. This is just one of a dozen of things that you do without having a scientific reason or empirically based explanation for why you do it! So, Matthew, how do you account for the uniformity of nature?

"As for human morals, yes, there are societal conventions. Slavery was one of them. It still is. Fortunately, some very liberal guilt was responsible for the attempted eradication of slavery here in the west, and so we have less of it than say, Indonesia or India today. And don't forget that YOUR FRICKIN' BIBLE was used to justify slavery, to JUSTIFY THE ENSLAVEMENT OF HUMAN BEINGS, OF CHRISTIANS!!"

Human morals are societal conventions? So if they are societal conventions does that mean that if our entire society (that is the U.S.) got together and said, "It is moral to enslave black people" or "It is moral to torture gay people" that it would suddenly be moral? Here is a biased view of slavery in the United States if I ever heard one: "some very liberal guilt was responsible for the attempted eradication of slavery." You act as if every Bible-believing Christian was for slaves! If you take the time to study this issue, you will find that there were many Christians who lobbied for the eradication of slavery both in the States and in Great Britain (example from U.S.: Harriet Beecher Stowe; example from Britain: William Wilberforce).Just because the Bible was used to justify slavery, does not mean the Bible contains error. Just because someone abuses the Bible, does not make the Bible evil. Just because someone wrongly interprets a text, does not mean that text is meant to be interpreted in that way? Got it?

"But morals are forever bound by their very human roots: flawed, yet uniformly so. If human beings were to "evolve," perhaps our morality would evolve as well, perhaps not. I've seen no evidence pro or con on that front."

This is quite an interesting statement. I would like to explore this statement in more depth: "But morals are forever bound by their very human roots: flawed, yet uniformly so." It is such a shame that Matthew has to keep diverting the subject at hand: account for the laws of logic, morality, beauty, uniformity of nature, etc. If morality is bound by our human roots and uniformly flawed, how come all humans do not agree on the same morality? How come some cultures still practice cannibalism and slavery and others female circumcision? If there are no moral absolutes, then we have no business attempting the eradication of these practices. If there are no moral absolutes to evaluate other cultures by, then sati would still be in practice today in India (by the way, it was William Carey, a Christian evangelist, who helped to get this abolished). If these moral absolutes are linked to our human roots and are "uniformly flawed", then we would all be morally flawed in the same way and there would be no reason to find cultures disagreeing on a moral practice.

"Added to this is the fact that no portion of a religious text is logically interdependent with axiomatic thought--namely, that all religious texts are allegories, stories to elucidate a deeper moral not necessarily found in the text (for instance, Jesus murdered by Romans --> salvation for Christians... no logical connection without further explanation). Therefore, you must PRESUPPOSE a logical framework by which to view Christianity's dictates--indeed, an actual framework UNDERNEATH Christianity is required to view the "proper" Presuppositionalist view of Christianity, as opposed to an "improper" view as taken by anyone who disagrees with Presuppositionalism. Not with Christianity, of course--just with the tenets that Presupps decide to abide by.

So YES INDEED, you are a hypocrite. You attempt to pry open others' epistemological frameworks while covering up the fact that you've cherry-picked an epistemological framework of your own, and a really shoddy one at that. I mean, taken as a whole, the Bible is actually contradictory in numerous places, and entirely uncertain morals and metaphors are numerous (Jacob cheats Esau out of his inheritance, and God therefore favors him? God kills 52 children using stampeding bulls for making fun of his prophet's bald head? ad nauseam...)."


A few final thoughts: In Matthew's closing comments, he mentioned the mystery of inquitiy. This is the infamous Acchiles' heel of Christianity according to atheists. The problem is Matthew has a greater one. If there is no God, how do you even account for evil? If the universe is based on randomness and chance, there is only human behavior, not evil. While Christians recognize the mystery involved in the presence of evil, the false syllogism of--God is benevolent, God is all-powerful, evil exists, therefore God must not be benevolent or all-powerful--does not hold. The Bible clearly states that it is good that evil exists. Note, I did not say that EVIL IS GOOD. This is a huge distinction. I said that the Bible states that it is good that evil exists. So a better syllogism would be:

1) God is all powerful.

2) God is benevolent.

3) Evil exists.

4) God in his sovereignty is all natural and moral evil to the greatest good and his highest glory.

Finally, not all of Scripture is to be interpreted "allegorically." There are times when the Bible is to be interpreted figuratively and times when it is to be interpreted literally. We know when to interpret figuratively and when to interpret literally the same way we know when approaching any other text. We examine the historical and literary context, the context of the passage within the larger book, syntax, grammar, and so forth. The way we understand the meaning of the narrative of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection found in the gospels is not because of some imposed conceptual framework but because of the didactic material that explains it (found both in the gospels and in the remainder of the New Testament). In other words, the didactic informs the narrative sections of Scripture. One remaining comment: if you suppose that the story of Jacob and Esau is meant to be read as a moral narrative suggesting that Jacob earns God's favor because he cheats Esau, you're off track entirely. The point of the narrative of Jacob and Esau (and all of Scripture for that matter) is that God chose Jacob in spite of all that he had done! God did not choose Jacob because he craftily outwitted his older brother. God chose Jacob because he was the most unlikely of people to receive the favor of God. In ancient cultures, the rite of primogeniture meant that the eldest received the inheritance and the land. The story of Jacob and Esau shows that God chose one who is the least deserving and least worthy. This is so that no one can boast in the presence of God (cf. 1 Cor. 1:26-31).

More to come...