RobertLW

In reading the posts in this thread upon my return from vacation, I have discovered an interesting fact. I am an atheist. Obviously, I still confess my belief in the Biblical God and the inerrant and infallible nature of His Word, but that doesn't really matter does it? If I want to be considered an atheist and speak about my God I am perfectly within my rights to do so. But would that not be deceitful? It would be just as deceitful and foolish as one who calls himself a Christian yet abandons the tenants, doctrines and philosophical ideologies of Christianity. I mean, I can call myself a Ford and sit in the garage but that does not make me drivable. Someone who "calls himself a Ford" and yet is not "drivable" has accused me of being dishonest and without integrity.

It would seem that some in this forum would call themselves Christians yet cast doubt on the Deity of Jesus Christ. They would profess God and His Word as authoritative yet pick and choose which teachings to follow thus betraying their true faith, autonomy. This is the very definition of an apostate, the scourge of Christianity. Let us take neo-orthodoxy for example. A very tenuous theological and philosophical position that allows someone to both affirm and deny the Word of God. Does not make much sense either theologically or philosophically, does it? When a defense of the Word of God is based in the world, it is only a defense on those worldly ideas. A defense of my faith must be rooted in the Word of God. It is the very definition of deceit to profess God's Word yet deny His authority. It is this kind of "St. Paul got it wrong" type of "I see therefore I am the authority" approach to theology that creates such personalities as Jim Jones, David Koresh and so many others along Christian history that gives Christianity a bad name and brings disfavor and dishonor upon the very God they profess. If you feel you are the final authority, simply say so with honesty and deny the final authority of the Word of God. Do not practice deceit and do both. Do not be an apostate.

I applaud BGiscool for being able to discuss issues within this forum in a kind and understanding manner, but because I don't have much time to devote to this forum I have to be very clear and say what I really think.

jbernier, if you want to be the one to call yourself a Christian, fine call yourself a Christian, but then let's consistently define "Christian" as "One who calls himself a Christian and yet believes he will decide what is true and what is not true in the Bible and Christ was just some peasant who had some followers who taught some terrible things about homosexuals". We can then call me a "Jesusian" or a "Yahwehist" or even a Moron. I don't care as long as we define the word I am called as "One who believes the bible to be the holy inerrant and infallible word of God (wholly true), Jesus Christ to be truly God and truly man," etc. etc? That way you cannot say, "I'm just as Christian as you are" when you are anything but. So if you want to be the "Christian" please pick a word (as long as it's not obscene) you would like to assign to my beliefs and stick with it, as I will. This is a great example of neo-polytheism as I call it, people believing in completely different Gods yet claiming to believe in the same God.

I have been accused of not taking the Bible seriously and on it's own terms. I do. What I do not do is engage in the "evidentualism" of the world that most people are predicated to in this forum. I take it seriously enough to allow it to be self-authenticating, as it clearly instructs me to do. I do not allow the world to either define or dictate to me the terms under which I interpret the Word of God. Under the umbrella of philosophy, it is my metaphysical basis for reality, my epistemological basis for knowledge, and my ethical basis for morality. All this is very serious, I take it seriously and I can only do so on the Bible's terms. I do not say that it is the Word of God because it is inerrant; I say that it is inerrant because it is the Word of God. For those who would accuse me of lacking integrity or dishonesty with my arguments, I would suggest researching such scholars, theologians, philosophers and teachers as Van Til, Bahnsen, and Frame. My defense is rooted in scripture. I do not move into the world with pretended neutrality in order to defend my faith for I am not neutral.

I have been clear with what I believe; yet most answers I receive are non-responsive and accusatory in nature. How many times do I have to spell out the philosophical nature of my belief? I believe what I believe because of the impossibility of the alternatives. I cannot simplify it any more nor can I be any clearer. It seems to me that no one is really interested in exploring this position with me, rather it seems all are more interested in an arbitrary dismissal of it. This is fine, but I do not appreciate the accusations of dishonesty. I would rather someone honestly try to show me why I am wrong.

What certain Christians need to ask themselves is; why is it the skeptics agree with you? Does not really fit into the Biblical antithesis, does it? Since it does not, some in this forum should reconsider the use of the word Christian as self-descriptive or at the very least, re-define the word so it accurately reflects your true beliefs.

Regards,

Robert

Vorkosigan

No, but not many people would take your "atheism" very seriously. In any case, "Christian" is a broad term that encompasses more than thirty thousand denominations, so it is clear that there will be differences. The question is not why Christians differ from you, but why you cannot accept it.

In any case, this strikes me as the wrong forum for this. Off to GRD.

Vorkosigan

Cross Examiner

1. You say that we do not know innately that baby-torture, for example, is simply wrong, correct?
2. Instead, you say that we have an impulse or an instinct to avoid such behavior, correct?
3. Do you believe that moral statements (e.g. 'baby-torture is wrong') are noncognitive? If so, are you an emotivist or an imperativist?
4. So you assert that this 'powerful teleological sense' is 'built' into man by _____ in order to facilitate his awareness of other minds and the behavior of others, and it is not that man might recognize the design and order in the natural world.
5. You miss my point. I do not assert that the sensus divinatus can judge whether or not an object or idea is infallible and inerrant, only whether or not said object or idea bears the marks of divine origin or not.
6. OK. Put the pom-poms down for a second. You have 'shredded' Plantinga's arguments on what, exactly? This should be interesting.
7. While I am pleased to no end that you agree with me I am not correct because you agree with me, Vorkosigan.
8. If baby-torture is indeed wrong, as you concur, then I take it that you hold to a cognitivist theory of moral statements? If so, are you a subjectivist? An ethical naturalist?
9. What relevance do these why questions have to the issue of what the intuitional basis is?
10. Are you asking here what distinguishes the natural from the supernatural?
11. And that is a good thing since I do not intend the phrase 'I suspect' as an argument.
12. Ipse dixit, as Doctor X would say.
13. You are not merely offering an alternative explanation here; you are making a truth-claim, correct?
14. I've not read that.
15. The 'poor explanation' to which I refer is not cognitive science (per se) or anthropology but the very existence and knowledge of absolutes (e.g. truth, morality) that would justify/falsify scientific knowledge, law and all the other 'ought' and 'ought nots'. To that end, you can help the skeptics out over here, if you like.
16. You misunderstand me. A transcendental argument attempts to prove what the preconditions are in order for x to obtain. If x is the human experience of knowledge, for example, then what the necessary preconditions of x are is what is argued over. But we digress.

Anyway, you seem to think I was arguing that the sensus divinatus exists in fact (you can tell when I argue for/against the verity of some proposition P because I typically state premises and conclusion formally and up front). This is not the case. That talk at IIDB would be futile in my humble estimation. And I do not mean that as a slight, I mean that we have insufficient common ground from which to work. What I have done is explained what the intuitional basis is and does, in response to the general confusion over these two issues. You, Vorkosigan, have now asked questions of my explanation and have offered your own counter-explanation (with one possible exception) -- and your difference of opinion is noted. But if you are going to make an unambiguous truth-claim then you are volunteering to do some spadework. Let me know how you want to play this.

Regards,
BGic

jbernier

Uhmmm...that might possibly, maybe, perhaps, conceivably, be a halfway decent critique if I had said something even vaguely, remotely, kinda resembling the straw man argument you just assigned to me. As it stands it is so much bluster.

Ah, yes, the old "You obviously can't be a Christian because you do not agree with my definition of Christianity" routine. That got old and tired about the time of the old heresy hunts and witch burnings.

Sure. If you no longer want to be considered "Christian" no skin off my nose. Your choice; has precisely nothing to do with me.

Yep.

Na-uh. No such clear instructions in the scriptures. Does not exist. It only, possibly, says that if you accept that the canonization process selected the right books and that a couple off-hand comments in Paul refer to the whole canon. Problem: The canon was only selected in the centuries after the scriptures were written. Thus your belief in the self-authentication of scripture relies upon the authority of the church fathers and thus their authority is logically prior to that of the canon. In that case the canon is not exclusively self-authenticating; it is, at least in part, authenticated by the church fathers. Remember, the "Bible" does not exist as defined, authoritative, set of readings until the 4th century at the very earliest. Your argument suffers from severe historical anachronism.

jbernier

Note that you have to demonstrate the impossibility of the alternatives. Moreover, process of elimination does not a philosophical justification make in terms of worldviews as there is a theoretically infinite potential worldviews (certainly too many to make process of elimination a viable option).

btw, remember that this is an atheist forum - run by atheists, for atheists. They are gracious enough to allow people of all perspectives to come here. However, I do not go to an atheist forum expecting people to agree with my Christian and theistic beliefs - or even to take them that seriously. Indeed, my experience is that most people here are most accomodating of divergent viewpoints than I initially anticipated.

blt to go

This reminds me of something Vinnie raised with you earlier and (I think(?)) was not addressed.

Where, in each book, does it say it is the "Word of God." The BEST you have is 1 Timothy's "all scripture." You do understand that in Paul's time, this would have included the Apocrypha? Do you believe the Apocrypha is the inspired, inerrant word of god?

jbernier

Indeed - and it would not include the New Testament writings. The only option is to assume a 4th century definition of scripture - which fails to take the text seriously as a 1st century document.

Either way, it would be circular logic: "I interpret the Bible literally because the Bible says I should interpret literally and since I interpret the Bible literally that must mean that I must interpret the Bible literally." Indeed, the very notion of "self-authentication" is circular.

Oh, btw, 1 Tim says nothing about inerrancy - just says that all scripture is good for doctrine, etc., but says nothing about verbal literalism, inerrancy, etc.

JLK

BillyGiC, I've come to respect you as a sincere and informed person. You used the term "epistemological warrant" a few days ago, I knew instantly you were relying on Plantingan concepts.

My background is in science and my vocation/avocation for the last ~15 years has involved evolution, mostly science but have done (amatuerishly) a great deal of 'net interaction about evolutionary epistemology and evolutionary ethics (I can make a strong case some day for you that great gobs of ethics are intersubjectively "objective-for-humans", if you'd like).

About 10 years ago Plantinga wrote Warrant and Proper Function, which is the foundation for his later Warranted Christian Belief. I became aware of it and ll never forget the two hours I spent in the uni. library with WaPF. His entire concept is the rather trivial idea that knowledge is the "proper functioning" of one's cognitive processes/faculties in the right kind of environment. If any topic begged to be addressed in context with it's relation to evolution, this was it.

I check the ToC and begin skimming through the book. All sorts of addressing past philosophical concepts/ sematical clarifications / examples (with sentences containing things like "the defeater of the defeater of the defeater of X is not adequate to defeat the defeater ot Y, etc.). After about 20-30 minutes & thru perhaps half the book without much drama, I flip back to the ToC armed with the terminology to figure out which chaps. are going to address evolution. The second and third to last, I think. Turning there A.P. begins to walk up to the topic, edging around, than wandering off into rabbit trails to clear up minor aspects. As a side note, AP never quite gets the idea that entities/process can have more than one function. But much more importantly he doesn't work his way up to the central point (the evolutionary guarantee of adaptive functions) until - I forget - maybe 2/3's thru the 2nd last chapter. In fact, the core of his entire protest come down to 2 paragraphs! But wait.. even these don't address it and point to a footnote! The footnote is a paragraph which says essentially -- "I, Plantinga could be wrong if so and so means such and such implying this and that is the case." A case obvious to me. Can the prey come to avoid the predator?

Unbelievable. Plantinga, schooled in the academic historico-tradition of armchair philosophy and perhaps because he's a crypto-creationist, could not (as of then?) bring himself to study the basics of evolution of perception/cognition. I was gobsmacked. I had read a bit of his pals Wolterstoff(sp?) and Van Inwagen and thought at least these folks were sincere and informed. But this?

I went to see AP at a talk/debate several years ago. "TheisticScience" (what ever that is.) A man of great apparent christian modesty, which to me covered a deep self-confidence-- really an arrogance- in his (Reformist heritage) convictions. Just exuded a refusal to deal with the strongest counters to his ill-informed strawmen. So... ummm... reminiscent of... well.

As a lark, try googling up evolutionary epistemology and evo ethics.

JLK

Some of us have done this, Robert. The TAG is being "debated" (in a pathetic sense) elsewhere. The TAG is just special pleading cubed.

Understood. I do not think you have really examined clearly the real alternative. Not the 19th centry ones. I've been tempted to start a EoG thread entitled "The Incoherent, Incontinent, Incomprehensiblity of the Contrary."

blt to go

Then do so. I, for one, am certainly not schooled enough to participate at anywhere NEAR the level you apparently are, but I have been following TAG, and it seems demonstrably erred at the very base level or so elusive as to be incomprehesible. While I may not participate, I can assure you of one "lurker."

RobertLW - I can empathize with your "frustration" with jbernier. I feel a portion of the same. I do not comprehend (completely) how he can so rationally, competently and with clear elucidation explain his take on the bible, yet still hold to christianity.

BUT, BUT, but.....

He HAS explained his position to the point that I understand it, and could, with fair ease, explain it to someone else. While I do not agree with it (nor do I agree with Vinnie, Clutch, Sven, etc.) he has explained it to the point I understand what he is saying. Same with Vinnie, Clutch, Sven, etc...

I STILL don't understand your position. Perhaps you have explained it once. Perhaps you have explained it 60 times. I do not understand it. (And I would feel that it was due to my inability to read, if it were not for the fact that apparently others (Sven) do not get it either.)

You have claimed to be initially an errantist. You claimed to have argued on behalf of errancy. You claimed to have read through the bible as an errantist (I'll bet dollars to donuts you did not read the Apocrypha, as Presbyterians do not hold it to be part of the canon.) Yet SOMETHING changed you to become an inerrantist. WHAT?

(Unfortunately, I must use the word "claimed" as it would appear from your posts that you do not understand the position of errancy, nor the arguments, nor the reasons thereof.)

It would appear it was simply your conversion to christianity that "changed" your view. No logic, no reason, no research, simply pure blind, unwilling-to-change faith.

If so, fine, say it and be done with it. You have freely admitted (to your credit) that you have complete circular reasoning.

AGAIN, I say, What put you in the circle in the first place? If you have said it numerous times, I would ask you to say it once again. Not "I have said it as simply as I can," or "I assume the verity of the Biblical Authors," as simple answer to Why?

jbernier - good point as to the gospels (written after Paul) or the Peter letters, or John's letters.... But I have found that most christians feel that 1 Timothy refers to the entire bound volume that sits on the bed stand entitled "Holy Bible" whether Paul wrote it or it came after. That is why I only refered to the Apocrypha--why isn't it "inspired?" or "worthy of doctrine?"

And You are right. NOWHERE does the bible self-claim inerrancy.