—because if there was a prize, Botten would have to award it to me. He recently wrote a surreal account of our exchange from the other day which he closed with the following offer: “There is a prize for anyone who can spot the ‘parting gratuitous invective’,”^[1] referring to my accusation. I am happy to claim that non-existent prize:

Ryft, I’m through with you as well. You’re just as bad as Alan for avoiding direct questions.^[2]

I suppose Botten could respond by saying that was not an insult but a compliment; however, given the record of his opinion of Rhology (who he calls Alan), I think he would find it rather difficult making that stick.

Now I called this recent post of his surreal but perhaps I can add ironic; it was surreal insofar as it spun what actually happened in complete reverse, yet it was also ironic in that his post was accusing me of spinning things around. Readers can draw their own conclusion, of course, but have a look at what he said.

Indeed I believe that the earth is very old and that Genesis is not wrong in its account of creation, and indeed this so mystified Botten that he asked me numerous times and in various ways how this could be—but at no time did I blitz him with requests to prove me wrong. That is an utter reversal of what happened, which can be easily verified by anyone particularly because I provided extensive citations. He said that the earth being old directly contradicts what Genesis says about creation, which he equated with the young-earth interpretation. What I hammered him with were requests to prove himself right; that is to say, I expected him to support his claim. The earth being old contradicts the Bible only if the young-earth interpretation is right, and I was not about to let him beg that question. (Moreover, how could I demand that he prove me wrong when I did not make any claims about what Genesis says?)

He says he did point out “the biblical reasons for thinking that [Genesis] preaches a young-earth creation.”^[3] The only problem is that he actually did not. All he did was assert the young-earth interpretation—that Genesis recounts God bringing the world into material existence, including Adam, and that calculating the genealogies tells us this was not more than 10,000 years ago—but stating a case is not the same thing as making a case. For some reason Botten seems to think that the exegetical burden of proof is met by simply asserting the interpretation.

The earth being old contradicts the Bible only if the young-earth interpretation is right. So if he wants to make that claim—that the earth being old contradicts the Bible (and therefore the Bible is wrong)—then he will need to support that claim without begging the very question.

Or hurl gratuitous invective from the comfort of Reverse World.

(Incidentally, I have no idea why he had trouble commenting on that post; certainly others had no difficulty commenting there.)

1. ^[1] Alex Botten, “Christian blogger Ryft gets spinning,” An Atheist Viewpoint (2011, October 14), para. 7. ↩
2. ^[2] Alex Botten, “A question for young earth creationists,” An Atheist Viewpoint (2011, October 11, comments section, 21:11; emphasis mine). ↩
3. ^[3] op. cit., “Christian blogger Ryft gets spinning,” para. 7. ↩

An email I received this morning from a source I do not have permission to reveal:

I received the following email this morning from Rhology:

12 October 2011

David,

Well, you made Alex look like a fool. Not hard, but still.  :-)

Grace and peace,

Rhology

Rhology,

Is it that I made Alex Botten look like a fool, or rather that Botten made himself look like a fool? I think if one reflects a moment on that exchange we had, one would have to admit that I actually did very little, and thus deserve very little credit for how he appeared. He simply made two very bold claims which, frankly, I was interested in seeing him support. I mean, is that not what atheists routinely demand of those who make claims? But atheists are fatally allergic to the burden of proof; the moment it becomes clear that they cannot escape shouldering it the conversation is over, and not without gratuitous invective—a pattern to which Botten was apparently only too willing to contribute.

Let us recapitulate what those two interesting claims of his were.

First, he claimed that if young-earth creationism is false, then one must concede that the world was not created at all. This claim was found in the question that he put to those who think the universe and Earth were created in a week 6,000 years ago (emphasis mine): “Why, when he knew it would cause people to believe that the universe was not created (so leading people away from him), would your God make things look older than they are?”^[1] In other words, if people discover that the world is far more than 6,000 years old, then that will cause them to believe that it was not created. And that of course is not only a brutal non-sequitur fallacy (i.e., the latter does not follow from the former) but also defies current and historical reality, wherein there are and were people who accept both creation and a very old earth. The fact of the matter is, Botten made a blind leap that was simply contrary to reason, which I wanted to expose by having him attempt supporting that claim.

Second, he also claimed that “one cannot square biblical creationism with an old earth,” ^[2] wherein “biblical creationism” is equated with the young-earth view,^[3] such that positing an old earth view “directly contradicts the Bible.” ^[4] If I understood his point here correctly, then he was trying to support his original non-sequitur; that is, since the world being old directly contradicts what Scripture says about creation, given the young-earth interpretation, discovering its great age would cause people to believe that it was not created. That is still a brutal non-sequitur but the response I opted for was to have him support that claim, which I pursued by forcing him to provide the exegesis for the young-earth interpretation. In other words, I was not going to permit that as a given, because it would beg the very question. Obviously I disagree that the earth being old directly contradicts the Bible so I insisted that he shoulder his burden of proof.

Well, of course we cannot have that so with a parting gratuitous invective he disabled the commenting feature on the article.^[5] Thus we have Botten losing his cool—although not a Jim Gardner meltdown—because some Christian had the audacity to call him out on his claims and require that he support them, exhibiting that allergic reaction I mentioned and perhaps nowhere more clearly than by his transparent attempt at shifting the burden on to me.^[6]

So I cannot really take credit for what Botten did mostly by himself.

1. ^[1] Alex Botten, “A question for young earth creationists,” An Atheist Viewpoint (2011, October 11), para. 2. ↩
2. ^[2] Ibid., comments section, 11 Oct. 2011, 14:43. ↩
3. ^[3] Ibid., 18:12. ↩
4. ^[4] Ibid., 18:49. ↩
5. ^[5] Although I noticed this afternoon that he reenabled it at some point today. ↩
6. ^[6] “Do you claim that the Bible doesn’t give genealogies from Adam onwards, and that it doesn’t claim the Earth was created in a literal six day period, with Adam created on the sixth day?” (Ibid., 18:59); “Do you claim that the genealogies and the creation account are incorrect? If not, how can you claim the Earth to be old?” (Ibid., 19:15); “Please explain to me how the Bible can be inerrant yet simultaneously wrong. Tell me what other interpretation you would draw from the creation account and the genealogies” (Ibid., 19:52); [Describes the young-earth interpretation and then asks] “How would you interpret it differently?” (Ibid., 20:10); “Are you claiming the text of Genesis doesn’t say that the Earth and all that’s in it was created in six 24-hour days? If so, please support this claim with evidence from Genesis” (Ibid., 20:34). ↩

Is it consistent, on the one hand, to hold to an evolutionary world view, and yet claim, on the other hand, that humans who are causing the extinction of other creatures are improperly interfering with the evolutionary process (e.g. natural selection, survival of the fittest) that’s been shaping the development of those creatures?

That was the question bumping around in my mind on Sunday evening after listening to an interview with Conservationist,  Dr. Samuel Turvey (pictured), concerning the extinction of the Baiji – also known as the Yangtze River Dolphin.

During my Sunday afternoon drive home a couple of days ago, I found myself inadvertently listening to a program called Earth Beat – a product of Radio Netherlands Worldwide – courtesy of ABC News Radio, Australia. During the program we learned that Dr. Turvey has spent quite a bit of time working to locate and preserve any remaining members of the species that had been in steep decline for several decades. As it turns out, he was too late.

The Earth Beat website says that Dr. Turvey describes the demise of the dolphin as “a national tragedy and an international disgrace.” [emphasis mine]

Elsewhere, in several articles citing the paper co-written by Dr. Turvey concerning the extinction of the Baiji (a paper subsequently published in the Royal Society Biology Letters journal), he is also quoted as saying, “This extinction represents the disappearance of a complete branch of the evolutionary tree of life and emphasises that we have yet to take full responsibility in our role as guardians of the planet.”

Now I want you to keep in mind that the broader context of this story is an evolutionary world view. That’s critical context, given that we are dealing with the attempted conservation of a species that has arguably been eradicated by the industrialisation of the Yangtze River.

So here’s the remark that really caught my attention. Earth Beat host, Marnie Chesterton, says:

Read the rest of this entry

While in ongoing conversations I am trying to explore with Matt Oxley an intelligible conception of truth—a gentleman who claims to esteem truth so highly as to not only capitalize it but also idolize it ^[1]—he has made explicit and implicit references to a certain article of his regarding misconceptions about knowing truth. Therefore, we shall take a closer look at this article.^[2]

In the second paragraph Oxley admits that in this article he would like to talk about the nature of knowledge, that it is important to rightly define knowledge in order to understand what it actually means. So we have a very specific aim here; as a reader of his blog I expect to hear him talk about the nature of knowledge.

Thus it is quite ironic that he says nothing about it.

In that same paragraph he begins by describing how his understanding of knowledge today is entirely different from what it was when he was a believer, representing a seismic change in his psyche during his deconversion.

In the third paragraph he describes some of the things he knew as a believer and how unshakably he knew them. Except it was not unshakable because that knowledge slipped away from him when he replaced “emotional experiences and feelings” with empiricism as his epistemic criterion.

In the fourth paragraph he recounts his realization that everything he thought he knew had been built solely upon a circular basis and his realization that emotional experience was unreliable; as such “the word knowledge began to change as well.”

Four paragraphs into his article, with essentially only one left to go, and what has the reader learned about the proper nature of knowledge? Not a thing. In fact, the reader has not only learned nothing about the proper nature of knowledge but also nothing about how knowledge was defined or understood by Oxley as a believer. So let us turn now to his final paragraph and see if in those three sentences he finally gets around to talking about the nature of knowledge.

In this final fifth paragraph (disregarding the truly last paragraph, which was just a question to his ex-Christian readers) he describes knowledge as “the place where quantifiable truths meet belief” and something he deeply thirsts after, a motivation that drives him to further discovery and understanding. (And we also get an equally offhand remark offering insight into how knowledge was formerly constituted for him: “something unquestionable and divinely inspired.”)

In an article aimed at talking about the nature of knowledge, the reader is provided half of a sentence among five paragraphs, a clause which simply says “the place where quantifiable truths meet belief.” What does that even mean? Is this a romantic way of defining knowledge as justified true belief? Does it answer Gettier counterfactuals? What does it mean for truth and belief to meet? How is that meeting constituted? What does “quantifiable” mean?

It is too late for such questions. The article is finished.

At the end of the day the reader is left wondering what the nature of knowledge is, because half of a sentence romantically worded is neither perspicuous nor helpful, leaving the reader nowhere closer to understanding how Oxley defines knowledge, much less finding a solid argument why that is the proper nature thereof. What is the nature of knowledge? One cannot say, other than it has something to do with truth and belief meeting. What escapes me is how that is “entirely different” from his conception of knowledge as a believer. Consider, for example, the notion that faith is “the place where quantifiable truths meet belief.” How does Oxley’s romantic clause differentiate faith and knowledge?

If this is his definition of knowledge, then why did he lose his faith?

1. ^[1] He idolizes it in the sense of idolatry, for as he said (emphasis mine); “I’ve always valued Truth—so much that I’ve often capitalized it, as if the word Truth were just as good as the word God. (Actually, it’s better.)” ↩
2. ^[2] Matt Oxley, “Popular misconceptions: Knowing truth,” RagingRev (2011, August 4). ↩

There is this older lady on the Dalnet IRC network who for many years has exhibited a seething antipathy for Reformed theology, and has somewhat more recently been trying to understand the presuppositionalism by which those who are Reformed tend to argue their worldview. Although I often do not bother engaging her on such subjects (given certain reasons that experience has produced), tonight I acquiesced. Since who she is on IRC is not relevant, I have chosen to give her the name “Lisa” in the following conversation.

Read the rest of this entry

“If you had to choose between truth and comfort, which would you choose?”

So the question is posed by Matt Oxley rhetorically to the readers of his blog as a way of introducing his thoughts on the existential tension between truth on the one hand and comfort on the other, a tension he experienced as he progressively expunged his former charismatic Christian faith, a painful process of replacing what was comfortable with what is true. Oxley is a self-proclaimed atheist who is sharing with others the dimensions and contours of his journey away from the charismatic faith that he once held dear, an itinerarium mentis in a direction opposite of mine toward an ostensibly godless view of the world and life.

“When I began recognizing this truth,” he writes regarding the deception in charismatic churches, “it was anything but comfortable.” And this former comfort he describes as a sort of uneasy truce between how he wanted the world to be and how it actually is, a cognitive dissonance maintained by a promissory note of a celestial afterlife. Now if that accurately characterizes the intellectual life of the charismatic, well then, I could hardly fault his journey away from it. In addition to the moralist burden he describes having to shoulder (i.e., “denying your carnal desires and working to please [God] all of your life”), the intellectual anorexia would surely leave me desperate for something more authentic and honest. For some of us, a group I suspect Oxley would count himself among, such intellectual curiosity is inexorable and insatiable. But just here marks a notable difference between someone like Oxley and someone like myself; we both came to a point where we lost faith in a childish understanding of God, but I did not confuse that with losing faith in God whereas Oxley did. Having said that, there is a more important observation that I should like to make about his post.

He places such a high value on truth that often he capitalizes it, almost as though the word Truth were just as good as the word God (although on his view it is better). I should think that as a former Christian he could probably define to some extent what ‘God’ means, and he certainly defined what ‘comfort’ means, but notice the odd fact that he never bothers to define what ‘truth’ means. “The way I determine what is true,” he said, “has changed dramatically,” but then notice that he never bothers to give that account. How is it that someone who esteems truth above comfort can provide an account of the latter but offer nothing on the former? He described what his perspective on truth used to be: “I used to believe that if the Bible said it [then] it must be Truth. I didn’t even have to question that conclusion; my faith allowed for that to be so.” Yes but that was when he firmly staked his yellow Gadsden flag in the soil of comfort. “It was comfortable to me and I had no reason to question it.” Things are different now, he would have us believe. Comfort was swallowed up in truth, that principle he esteems enough to capitalize but not enough to provide an account of. He surrendered comfort to pursue truth, but was that before or after determining what is true? And this issue is made all the more salient by his comment about embracing the “standard of evidence” he knew existed but ignored most of his life, which represents a potential confusion of the metaphysical (what is true) with the epistemological (how we know it).

I can appreciate Oxley’s disdain for the way he viewed the world and life in his charismatic faith, but I find myself concerned by the echoes of Eden reverberating through his equally naive approach to this new journey. Has he exchanged comfort for truth, or just one type of comfort for another? While he says that he has a very different way of determining what is true, he does not give any sort of account of that except by means of what that way used to be and no longer is. Moreover, even his description of the way he used to determine what is true is not entirely meaningful. “If the Bible said it, then it must be truth.” For that to be meaningful there must be some way of determining what the Bible said (i.e., rules and principles of interpretation). I could go on but the point has been made. I should like to offer a challenge to Oxley for an upcoming blog post:

• “Please explain the way you now determine what is true.”

I am not sure I can entirely relate to Oxley’s experience of existential tension between truth and comfort. I am a critical skeptic by nature, an intellectual attitude that I had not only prior to my conversion to the Christian faith but one that has been deeply cultivated by that faith; that is to say, I have always pursued that which shakes me up from intellectual comfort, constantly seeking out things that challenge my beliefs. I am not sure why someone would prefer comfort over truth the way Oxley did; it is a foreign concept to me. But that just goes to underscore the point I had implicitly made earlier, that one does not need to lose faith in God in order to abandon a childish understanding of faith in God. Truth, logic, reason, knowledge, science, etc.; such things thrive under Christian theology, notwithstanding some weak charismatic faith that cowers with a contrary opinion. I applaud Oxley for turning his back on an intellectual wasteland, but I do not understand his choice of embracing another one.

———-

Matt Oxley, “Truth over comfort,” RagingRev (2011, August 25).
http://ragingrev.com/2011/08/truth-over-comfort/

What a big question. A question that I wager almost all of us have struggled with at some time. I certainly do not intend to probe the full depth of this question here – at least not in one article. And nor do I think I would be capable of doing it justice, as to study this question only raises a multitude of others that need to be addressed – Who/What is bad? Who/What is good? Why should we expect only good things to happen to good people? Is suffering bad? Is there an objective purpose to our existence? And the list goes on.

Instead, my goal here is far more modest. To share with you a reflection that was motivated by a brief conversation with a friend of mine. A non-Christian as far as I know – yet not someone who I have any reason to think is at all averse to a Christian world view – who, due to some recent personal events, found herself asking, “Why do terrible things happen to the very best of people?”

And I thought, what a question! And then I thought, what an opportunity! And so I began to wonder, if I’m going to respond to that, I don’t merely want to sympathise with her or provide shallow comfort – I suck at that anyway. Instead, I wanted her to think about the question she asked in a deeper way. I don’t know if this is the best way to put it, but as Christians, I think we do have deeper answers to these questions than non-believers. We have a way of looking at the world that many others haven’t considered.

So I rephrased her question from a broader perspective. “Or, why do bad things happen, at all?” I suggested.

“Too true,” she agreed.

At this point another of her friend’s weighed in. “I completely agree. There’s no rhyme or reason,” she said. “The jails are full of much better candidates for some of this stuff. It seems unfair.”

I took this as an opportunity to offer some deeper observations.

“To reflect on events as being good or bad kind of implies that there’s a purpose to life, I think. So when we despair over bad things happening to nice people, we are implying that their purpose is not being fulfilled. In other words, we have an idea that life does have an objective purpose and that death or suffering unfairly prevents us from achieving that purpose. And that, to me, is quite an interesting reflection to explore.”

But I didn’t want to leave it at that. And so I continued. “Do human beings actually have an objective purpose in life, one that is marred by suffering and death? Or is our purpose merely subjective or illusory?”

Presupposing a certain discomfort with the questions, I apologised. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get all deep on you guys. I just find these natural intuitions that human beings have to be a curious thing, and yet many of us are unable to make sense of them.”

At this point I think the gig was up. Duane was getting all religious again. Well, I wasn’t really. But I didn’t quite know how else to interpret the silence. Perhaps they were concerned where I was heading with this. I’d like to think it was because of the gravity of their thoughts. But I let it rest at that, praying for another opportunity to take every thought captive, in the hope that they may be put into service to point the way to our Lord and Saviour.

Approximately 24 hours ago Ray Comfort and his Living Waters Ministry released the short 180 Movie regarding the subject of abortion, which has not only exploded across social media but also reignited conversations all over North America over the moral question about abortion. A bit skeptical about the film, given the hype and build up to its release, I decided to give it a viewing, mostly because I knew I would encounter conversations about it in my circles and wanted to be properly informed. And good thing, too, for the conversations have been plenty. While many of those conversations have regarded the biblical and theological integrity of the Way of the Master gospel witnessing techniques, one of them tonight regarded the issue for which the film was made in the first place, which I want to share with you here. While I have changed the young man’s name to protect his identity, the following is the conversation that we had tonight over the moral question about abortion. He did not explicitly state his position on the subject but I gathered that for him the issue remains a somewhat open question (due to things he had said prior to the part I am sharing here), having not settled definitively on one side or the other. He is a Christian but converted quite recently, a matter of a few months ago. We pick up the conversation mid-stream, where he is critically evaluating the merits of defining life in the womb as human.

~ * ~

JOHN: I don’t think the biological distinction between “human” and “non-human” is the morally relevant question.

DAVID: What then is the morally relevant question as it pertains to valuing human life?

JOHN: It’s like I said: “persons” are afforded full dignity and value. In fact, we already know that not all persons are human beings anyway.

DAVID: Who or what defines personhood?

JOHN: Oh, well God, I should think.

DAVID: Does Scripture give any indication at which point such personhood becomes morally relevant?

JOHN: I have looked and, actually, I don’t think it’s very clear.

DAVID: So the Bible is unclear about human life in the womb?

JOHN: It doesn’t seem to be very clear on that issue.

DAVID: Are you familiar with Psalm 139:13-15 and Jeremiah 1:5?

JOHN: Yes.

DAVID: What is unclear about the moral relevance question in those passages?

JOHN: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” I don’t see how that is going to make your case.

DAVID: That rather clinches it, I should think. Not only does God knit together the human life in the womb, but that life belongs and is known to him before that life is even conceived. Does that not indicate fairly clearly the moral relevance pertaining to the value of human life?

JOHN: It seems to be a statement of God’s foreknowledge, more than anything. I don’t think you can extrapolate anything else from that, particularly not anything helpful about dealing with a full-fledged person in the womb.

DAVID: That bothers me somewhat, that you don’t think anything beyond God’s foreknowledge can be extrapolated from that—such as, for example, his purpose for that human life, to which it is already set apart (consecrated) before it is even formed in the womb. The text rather explicitly states this. Ergo, you certainly can extrapolate more than God’s foreknowledge from this—not to mention what can be understood from this text and Psalm 139 about human life belonging to God.

JOHN: But the verse isn’t about that. It’s about God’s purpose for Jeremiah and foreknowing his destiny. I’d be more convinced if that verse was combined with more explicit statements about the topic, but that seems to be as good as it gets.

DAVID: How is what you said essentially different from what I said (vis-a-vis God’s foreknowledge and purpose for that human life)? You repeated what I said as if it was different from what I said.

JOHN: So, God making statements about foreknowing Jeremiah’s destiny implies that human life begins at conception? Non-sequitur.

DAVID: God foreknows Jeremiah’s destiny because he ordained it; before he was born God knew him, God consecrated him, God appointed him to a particular purpose.

JOHN: Yeah, right. So?

DAVID: What it implies, again, is that God not only knits together the human life in the womb but that human life belongs and is known to God before it is even conceived. That indicates rather clearly the moral relevance vis-a-vis the value of human life.

JOHN: Right, and God also foreknew that his parents would get together in the first place. I don’t think any relevant conclusion could be drawn from that, could it?

DAVID: John, that life is knit together in the womb by God; that life belongs and is known to God before it is even conceived. That life does not belong to itself, or to the mother or the father. It belongs to God. That is the morally relevant question as it pertains to human life.

JOHN: Yes, before he was even conceived God knew him. Obviously before he was conceived he wasn’t actually a person.

DAVID: Indeed. And yet even then that life belongs to God—because he is the one who brings it forth, knitting it together, having a purpose for it. If that life belongs and is known to God before conception, what about at conception or thereafter? You see what I mean?

JOHN: Okay, but in the situation outlined by the verse itself, God states that before Jeremiah was conceived God knew him. I think the “before” part is actually a problem to the argument.

DAVID: I cannot imagine how.

JOHN: Because if God knew Jeremiah even before he was conceived, then it must be that his parents had to get together or they’d be doing something wrong, frustrating God’s plans, not forming the life which is properly his, etc. And that seems highly implausible.

DAVID: That is an interesting and separate question from the one we are looking at.

JOHN: Well, I am arguing that perhaps the verse should not be taken in that direction, at the risk of implausible conclusions.

DAVID: Okay, let me address that. First, this subsequent issue you are raising pertains to the parents and their coming together, whereas our question pertains to the issue of moral relevance with respect to the value of human life. Therefore, it is a fallacious avenue to pursue (ignoratio elenchi). Second, we can certainly pursue that question if you like, but not until after the present question is settled. Third, your objection, at any rate, carries the implicit assumption that it is possible the parents could fail to come together (and thus do something ‘wrong’).

JOHN: I’m employing what I understand to be an analogous argument to yours about the nature of the verse, to demonstrate a reductio.

DAVID: See the second point.

JOHN: Yeah, I realize you think they are separate issues. But it strikes me as the same sort of reasoning being applied to different parts of the verse.

DAVID: Let us assume for the sake of argument that the verse carries the implication that I am arguing for. Let us continue in that vain. So, if that verse carries the implication I am arguing for, then what does that tell us about the moral relevance pertaining to the value of human life?

JOHN: That’s a loaded question (which is, by the way, what I think Ray Comfort was doing).

DAVID: An ‘arguendo’ does not a loaded question make.

JOHN: No, that’s not it. It’s the term “human life.” But setting that aside for a moment…

DAVID: Do we need to get into imago Dei? I would point to Psa 139:15 (cf. Job 10:9–11) as answering that question with its implicit reference to Genesis.

[A pause in the conversation for a few moments.]

JOHN: I think I lost track of what exactly I should answer—what the consequence would be of agreeing the verse implies that God directed the development of Jeremiah in the womb, or of agreeing that God directs the development of everyone in the womb? Sorry, I’m getting tired.

DAVID: You raised the issue of what the morally relevant question is with respect to valuing human life (with respect to the abortion issue in the context of The 180 Movie). My answer, calling upon those two texts from Scripture, seeks to answer you on that score, showing that the morally relevant question is answered by the fact that all human life belongs to God—not only in the womb but even prior to that. That is, abortion is wrong because that life belongs to God. Not to itself, nor to its mother, but to God. That answers what the morally relevant question is.

JOHN: Right, okay, which to me seems to leave us precisely where we started—namely, what counts as “human life.” The fact that God knew Jeremiah even before he was conceived (when obviously Jeremiah the person, the human life, was not around) doesn’t help to settle that question.

DAVID: If that person belongs and is known to God before it is a human life, would that not also apply to when it is a human life?

JOHN: If I accepted your interpretation of the verse for the sake of argument, that God knitting Jeremiah in the womb suggests that any developing embryo, fetus, etc., belongs to God and therefore only God has the right to direct what will or will not happen to that (developing) life, then yeah, I could see how that could apply to the morality of abortion. But I would suggest that that is a different argument than relying on defining a blastocyst as a human person or life or whatever. And I think that is a lot of weight for a single verse to carry, when the verse isn’t explicitly about that.

DAVID: Answer that question I asked you, please: “If that person belongs and is known to God before it is a human life, would that not also apply to when it is a human life?”

JOHN: You are assuming it all counts as human life. That is precisely what I question.

DAVID: I am getting to that.

JOHN: Okay. Then yeah, I granted that with my previous comment. (Also, I need to get going soon, after your next point.)

DAVID: All right, now observe the following. If that person belongs and is known to God before it is a human life (which answers the question of moral relevance), and if that person constitutes a human life upon being born (infant), then the moral relevance of abortion is answered at every stage in between—from conception to infancy.

JOHN: Right, which I just granted.

DAVID: At what point you happen to consider it a human life is irrelevant if that person belongs and is known to God even before it is a human life.

JOHN: Well, it wouldn’t be a person. But yes, I granted that.

DAVID: It would not be a person according to who or what?

JOHN: If the issue is that the (developing) human life or person “belongs to God” and therefore only God has the moral right to direct its progress or non-progress, then okay. That is an argument different from arguing that it is wrong because the blastocyst is a human life or person.

DAVID: Right. Whether it is a person, a human life, a potential human, etc., all of those points are irrelevant, given the answer to the moral relevance question.

JOHN: Okay. And I did explicitly state in the other conversation that a different argument could be advanced using a different morally relevant fact. So I think I will tentatively agree that, if I grant that interpretation of the verse, the argument could then follow.

DAVID: There are countless ways to answer this question. I have simply advanced two.

JOHN: Sure.

DAVID: The prior one I never actually got to finish because our conversation was hijacked.

JOHN: Yeah, the topic can rile people up.

DAVID: Are you too tired to argue for how that interpretation creates a problem for my argument?

JOHN: I think so. I am supposed to get up fairly early tomorrow. But, if you’d like, I’m game to pick it up another time.

DAVID: Sure thing.

JOHN: Okay, cool.

~ * ~

Have you watched The 180 Movie? Has it sparked conversations in your life about the moral issue of abortion? Do you have any positive encounters to share?

It gets worse. In addition, an omnipresent and omniscient (all-observing) God, as bound into his creation as his creation is bound into him, must be able to observe everything. We know from quantum mechanics that observation collapses the wave-function of photons, leading to no superposition. But we know superposition exists, therefore this God with those attributes cannot.

Since I speak English and not mathematics I tend to avoid delving into quantum mechanics. This subject loses its precision when translated into English, and I am simply not fluent in mathematics. But I will indulge your point briefly in order to show how it fails to achieve the ends to which you put it.

First, we do not “know” that the wave-function collapses, much less due to observation. Although that is consistent with the familiar Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, it does not feature in the many-worlds interpretation, for example, nor the de Broglie-Bohm theory (in which the universal wave-function never collapses, only the conditional wave-function of a subsystem and is strictly an epiphenomenon) and so forth. As such, unless you are unfamiliar with epistemology, which is possible, it is disingenuous of you to pretend we “know” something that is theoretical—especially when it does not exist in competing theories.

Second, even granting you the Copenhagen interpretation, the observer effect in quantum mechanics is predicated on the ‘observer’ being constituted by matter—even if it is only a single electron. Thus the God of Scripture necessarily fails to represent the problem your point attempted to construct, for he is transcendent and immaterial.

Justin Taylor yesterday at The Gospel Coalition offered some comments about the issue of “angry Calvinists.” It may be due to the fact that I am not plugged in with any particular inner circle of blogs or online ministries or what have you but quite frankly I was not aware that there exists an issue of angry Calvinists. Either that or the term “angry” may be less than accurate, such that the issue is more about Calvinists who are aggressive or insensitive in their passion for the doctrines of grace—in which case the stereotype as such is an inaccurate caricature. And I think that Taylor could probably agree that it is more about being aggressive or insensitive than it is about being angry, for he invokes terms like “mocking, rude, sarcastic, and nasty,” which is not necessarily from anger but is certainly aggressive and insensitive.

Now, he suggests that one will see this sort of attitude from people of varying traditions in the posts and comments area of blogs that discuss issues of theological significance or “ultimate things”—and we have certainly witnessed that here—but he almost seems to imply that this is a tempting excuse, a feeble tu quoque fallacy, and spends the rest of the article offering suggestions for how Calvinists can not only own up to this problem but also how to be self-conscious about it and correct it. I am particularly drawn to the thoughts shared by Joe Thorn in his interview with Ed Stetzer on that point.

And I am certainly not denying that this perception exists out there, nor even the reality that the inaccurate caricature draws upon. Just last week several of us from church met at the beach for fellowship late Sunday afternoon and joining us were some people from another local Baptist church, including their new pastor. Someone pointed to the book that I had with me—James White, The Sovereign Grace of God—and asked that pastor what he thought of the author. (A strange question when removed from its original context but it was relevant to preexisting conversation.) He said that although he really appreciates the doctrines that White firmly believes and defends he did not really care for the aggressive and combative personality White has. And that is something I have heard more than once so I cannot deny that this perception exists.

But I have to go back to Taylor’s implication that this problem is not at all unique to Calvinists—as anyone who is a Calvinist can invariably attest! There are so many examples I could draw upon to make this point, but what better example could I use than my own self? When I was converted to Christianity it was upon hearing for the first time the gospel of Christ presented to me by a gentleman whose anti-Calvinism would later rub off on me. Through our doctrinal studies he had me convinced that Calvinism was practically blasphemous, and for years I had that attitude. And in those rare occasions when I would confront a Calvinist I was very harsh about the teaching. Aggressive, insensitive, nasty; these words were applicable. That is how I treated Calvinists and their doctrines for many years. So I can well attest that this problem is by no means unique to Calvinists. And even now, holding to Reformed theology as I do, I get confronted by people who have the same attitude I once did, getting called all sorts of rather unpleasant things (to put it lightly).

I do agree that Calvinists need to own up to their failings and strive to be self-conscious about them and work to correct them—but it is not just Calvinists, as those people who are rigorously anti-Calvinist routinely demonstrate, just as I once did too. This is a problem that anyone who is part of the family of God needs to address in their own lives, if and where applicable. I think Thorn’s final remarks bear repeating, and with a note that it should apply to all Christians:

Anger is sometimes very appropriate. We see that in the prophets and Apostles, and even in Jesus. But when dealing with brothers and sisters in Christ it’s important to do more than “set the record straight,” or prove one wrong and point to the truth. We need to do that, but we need to do it in a way that bears fruit, and biblically that means doing such work carefully. Sometimes it does mean we need to drop bombs, but more often it means we need to sit down with a brother (literally or figuratively) and reason with him. … [There are people who] need some counsel on being more gracious, humble, and gentle. We all do. At the very least, we all need to learn to be better teachers and physicians of the soul when it comes to correcting each other.

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• Justin Taylor, “The problem of ‘angry Calvinists,” The Gospel Coalition (2011, September 16).
  http://thegospelcoalition.org
• Ed Stetzer, “Joe Thorn and angry (fake) Calvinists,” The LifeWay Research Blog (2011, September 14).
  http://www.edstetzer.com
• John Piper, “Why are Calvinists so negative?” DesiringGod (2008, May 21).
  http://www.desiringgod.org