Category: Morality

Book Plunge: Anarchy Evolution Chapter 9

What about the afterdeath? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In wrapping up this book, we are going to look at the afterdeath, which is what I prefer to call the afterlife seeing as one’s life never truly ends. That being said, at the start, Graffin says without the thought of an afterdeath, we would all act like spoiled infants. Kind of hard to deny that if you look at the world around you.

Unfortunately, I fear a lot of people will act worse if they have power as well. Look at the greatest atheist tyrants in history. No Heaven to gain or Hell to shun. No judgment to be given to them. Why should they care about anyone else?

Graffin says many naturalists care more about improving the world than theists do because theists are focused on the next one. The problem with this is history. Many of those people most focused on the next one, as Lewis said, made the most improvements here. They did so because Jesus taught them to change the world.

Graffin also says many religious people say without Heaven and Hell there is no incentive to live a good life. I would hope more of my fellow Christians would say we live a good one because Jesus commanded us to, but that is a further incentive. If naturalism is true, why should I be good if I can get away with otherwise? What does good even mean?

He also says none of us have a plan for our lives from an intelligent designer. If he means an individual will, I agree. He then says that because there is no designer, we can wake up each morning and say what’s done is done and what can I do today?

You can do that as a Christian.

In many ways, you should do that as a Christian. We should realize the old is gone and all things are new. We should realize the grace of forgiveness.

So now it’s time to wrap things up as this is how the chapter ends and overall, this has been a rare enjoyable book on atheism. Some chapters, like this one, are short because a lot of the material is also about Graffin’s own life. If you care about music, you will probably like that.

I also made sure to highlight for my studies in my PhD program I am hoping to get into the information about music and resonating that showed up in this chapter. Graffin says it is a delight to hear someone listen to music he did and call it “My song.” It’s amusing to hear of how sometimes he pulls up next to someone and he can hear them playing his music in their car.

As a writer, I consider it a great compliment to hear someone say that something I wrote touched them in a powerful way. I still remember having someone at a church I used to attend in Tennessee tell me how much he liked a sermon I gave. When I asked what he did in response he said “That’s why I’m teaching Sunday School now.”

So this is actually a book that’s worth reading in the atheist world. Definitely so if you have a keen interest in music.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Anarchy Evolution Chapter 8

What does believing entail? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

A surprising statement in this chapter is that Graffin doesn’t like the word natural. He says that in a sense, everything is natural. There are some problems with such a statement. If we don’t know what natural means, what does it mean to say everything is natural? Second, if we don’t know what it means, how could we know that everything is natural? Finally, if you are equating natural with what is real, is that not begging the question?

This is also one reason I don’t speak of natural/supernatural. The terms are too vague. I prefer to speak of material and immaterial or extramaterial.

He also says he has a similar problem with God. If the word refers to something that is everything and everywhere, what purpose does the word serve? First off, the word would likely still have some meaning. Second, that’s pantheism, Patrick!

He then goes on to say that if God is something, it should be observable by everyone, examined, and shared by other people. If this is the standard, then several immaterial realities cannot be real. That would include triangularity, goodness, love, numbers, and even existence itself.

“But I see existence every day!”

No. You see things that exist just like you see good things and you see triangles, but you do not see existence, goodness, and triangularity.

Not too long after this, Graffin says the naturalist worldview says that everything is capable of being observed, experimented on, and understanding. Again then, none of those things I mentioned can exist on naturalism. That is the problem with it.

If there is no destiny, there is no design. There’s only life and death. My goal is to learn about life by living it, not by trying to figure out a cryptic plan that the Creator had in store for me.

Graffin, Greg; Olson, Steve. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (p. 214). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

This is a problem science has got under naturalism where it denies final causality in denying ultimate purpose. Get rid of final causality and science can’t exist. There has to be regular connection between A and B. I do agree that there is no cryptic will of God for our lives that we are to discover, which will be the subject of soon-to-come blogs.

Standing among those remnant populations, it is impossible not to conclude that we are somehow a part of all this. Some would call this a “spiritual connection”—the sense of being part of some larger web of life. Whatever you want to call it, the feeling is inescapable that we are living among the leftovers of a recent mass extinction. This realization is as emotionally moving to me as, I’m sure, the realization of God’s will was to my great-grandpa Zerr.

Graffin, Greg; Olson, Steve. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (p. 232). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

I find it fascinating that Graffin so often makes these statements in this book. He says earlier there is no destiny but just life and death, and then says this. It’s like he’s almost there but refuses to take that final look to see if there is something more. It’s tragic really.

In the last chapter, we’ll see what Graffin says about the after-death.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Anarchy Evolution Chapter 7

Is there a place for faith? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Once again, it’s a relief to read Graffin in comparison to other atheists. Graffin does not speak down on faith entirely. There is a problem that he never defines it, but at least he’s not on a tirade like someone like Richard Dawkins is. He says there is a place for it.

So let’s start with this quote I found directly relevant to me:

Not everyone feels empathy to the same degree. On the one hand, some autistic people appear to be born with a neurological condition that severely limits their ability to appreciate the emotional state of other humans, despite having similar experiences. On the other hand, sociopaths either feel no empathy or have become so adept at suppressing it that they never bother to assume another’s perspective. And all of us can become so tired, frustrated, angry, or bored that we ignore our empathic impulses, even when doing so makes others and ourselves miserable.

Graffin, Greg; Olson, Steve. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (p. 184). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Speaking as one such person on the spectrum, it’s not that I do not care about other peoples’ emotional states. It’s that I cannot tell what those states are. If someone is silent around me when I think they should say something, I wonder if the problem is me or not. This is especially so when it comes to the opposite sex. I know other neurotypical men struggle with this, but I suspect much more with me. Is the girl flirting or is she just talking? If she speaks with me is that interest or not?

That being said, empathy is not a good basis for our relationships since people have different degrees of understanding and just because I can feel X with someone, it doesn’t mean that I am obligated to do anything. Not only this, this is a highly western way of thinking. This is not a Woke thing with saying Western Civilization is bad. Western Civilization is incredible. It’s saying that in Eastern honor-shame cultures, empathy wouldn’t have the same appeal. People would think not based on how the individual feels, but on the attitudes of the group at large.

Graffin goes on to say that Western religions base moral codes on analogizing human nature and then looking at superhuman figures, such as Jesus or for a lot of Catholics and Orthodox people, saints. (Not to say Protestants don’t have saintly role models as well.) I do not know what he means by analogizing human nature, but I contend he would be benefitted by reading a book on Christian ethics to see how we make our decisions.

In a surprising twist, he says that science is based on empathy. He says that it relies on a shared experience of the world. He then turns and says it is also the best basis for human ethics, which again does not work since many cultures actually have quite different experiences of how the world should work. How do we adjudicate between them? We have to point to something beyond them.

Many religious believers mischaracterize naturalists as people without faith, but that is absurd. Everyone must believe in something—it’s part of human nature. I have no problem acknowledging that I have beliefs, though they differ from more traditional kinds of faith. Naturalists must believe, first of all, that the world is understandable and that knowledge of the world can be obtained through observation, experimentation, and verification. Most scientists don’t think much about this point. They simply assume that it is true and get to work. But this assumption has relevance to people other than philosophers. When intelligent design creationists, for example, speak of replacing methodological naturalism in science classes with theistic naturalism, they are threatening to remove this assumption from the shared presuppositions of public discourse.

Graffin, Greg; Olson, Steve. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (p. 204). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

This is a surprising statement again, but yet a refreshing one. He is right in that science assumes that the material world exists and we can have knowledge of it. This is something they should consider. I am again unsure what he means by theistic naturalism.

He also says natural selection is not the main driving force of evolution. He says luck is actually a big part of it. He also says we cannot base our lives on the idea of saying “I am more fit than you, so I get to reproduce and you don’t.” The problem is, “Why not?” Graffin may say he doesn’t like that, but the person who thinks they are more fit could just say “Why should I care about what you like? I need to produce progeny!”

He also says we cannot judge people with respect to an arbitrary idea of what should be considered optimal, but from a naturalistic perspective, why not? It can be granted he would not like that. It is not granted that from his perspective, that is automatically wrong. Graffin has to give the reason why the person in power should care.

He then tells us that simply by existing in the human race, we all have a worth and a dignity that is inherent. Okay. Why? If all we are is matter in motion from a cosmic accident that will die in a universe that will cease to be, why should I think any life has inherent value? I agree that all human life has inherent value, but I do not think it can be supported in naturalism.

I don’t believe, for instance, that evolutionary biology or any scientific endeavor has much to say about the value of love. I’m sure a lot can be learned about the importance of hormones and their effects on our feelings. But do the bleak implications of evolution have any impact on the love I feel for my family? Do they make me more likely to break the law or flaunt society’s expectations of me? No. It simply does not follow that human relationships are meaningless just because we live in a godless universe subject to the natural laws of biology. Humans impart meaning and purpose to almost all aspects of life. This sense of meaning and purpose gives us a road map for how to live a good life.

Graffin, Greg; Olson, Steve. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (p. 206). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Why doesn’t it follow though? If Graffin’s worldview cannot explain love, it is a quite weak worldview. Humans can import meaning to loving relationships, but they could also just as easily import it to destructive ones. Who is to say someone would be wrong in doing so in naturalism? What is this good life Graffin speaks of? Again, there is no real in-depth look at the questions.

He lastly speaks of love in relationship to Allison, his now wife. Love requires a trust in that there is no 100% knowledge, though there can be good evidence. He describes love as a unique feeling. I contend love produces feelings, but it is not a feeling. It is an action that one does. Still, Graffin does speak of that trust as a form of faith, which again is refreshing.

Next time, we’ll talk about what it means to believe.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Book Plunge: Christian Body – Dealing With Lust

How do you deal with lust? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Frost in this section is talking about the problem of lust and lack of sexual control. Frost tells us that usually the antidote given to lust is more rules meant to contain it. I agree that this in itself is not the answer. However, it can be part of the answer. An alcoholic could need to take an alternate route home from work instead of one that goes by the neighborhood bar. An obese person might need to have someone else do the grocery shopping.

What we can all agree on is that this is a heart issue and the problem lies in the heart. This is a worldview problem. You can take steps to deal with the problem externally, but you also need to deal with the problem internally. This is why some people talking about weight loss will actually say diets don’t work. Diets are temporary. You need a whole change in view.

It could also be some struggles you will always have. Sam Allberry comes regularly and speaks at our Defend conferences here in New Orleans and as far as I know, he still struggles with same-sex attraction, but chooses a celibate lifestyle. I went to Celebrate Recovery in the past and there were several alcoholics there. They still made it a point to avoid alcohol. One glass of it after years of sobriety can ruin someone.

Now I know a couple of people who have said naturism helped them overcome their porn addiction and while I will not question the experience, I wonder how that really healed the heart. It often seems that there is a disjunction going on, and something I plan to talk with the counseling department about here at my seminary in doing research on this. I am not a psychologist after all so I cannot understand as well what is going on in the mind.

The problem with porn is that it sees the opposite sex as only sexual beings. They are there merely for your sexual pleasure. The opposite end is to deny that they are sexual beings at all. It is to deny that the body is sexual. It is. That is the reason it can perform sexually all things being equal. There are aspects of both sexes meant to be sexually appealing to the other. For us in the West, it is normally the sexual organs, at least when talking about what is seen as attractive in women.

Frost goes on to say that because our culture has put up a bunch of rules such as clothing instead of going with grace, we have become more perverted.

Sorry, but this is just an unbelievably false statement to make.

Christian cultures have had clothing for thousands of years. Did we see this going on rampantly in the Middle Ages like we do today? Did we see this going on in the early church? Did we see this going on in Puritan culture? Could it be that what really changed our culture was the sexual revolution, the rise of feminism, and a false view of sex?

This is the problem in that we don’t have a worldview that explains how sex fits in. This is why so many people look at same-sex relationships and say “I don’t see the problem here.” Many Christians don’t have a reason for being opposed other than “Well, the Bible says so.” This leads the world to think they’re crazy. It’s as if God is being arbitrary here. Sexuality has been reduced to just a form of pleasure and marriage means little.

Frost concludes this saying many cultures that were prudish (though not explaining in what way) exploded with promiscuity after Christians came bearing clothes. We are not told who these cultures are. The data is absent. I am not surprised at this.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Christian Body — Icky

Is the body icky? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Frost devotes this chapter to what he calls the “ick” factor. Right at the start, he says that it is clothing that causes lust. Keep in mind in the previous chapter, he said nothing that we see can cause lust. Apparently, that rule changes when it comes to clothing. Seeing a woman with clothes on will cause lust, but I guess somehow seeing her naked won’t?

Frost seems to think we have an intense hatred of nudity in our religiosity. If so, then why were great masters of art who were Christians doing paintings of nude figures and sculptures of nude figures? They also wanted to show the body as something to honor, but that doesn’t mean they were practicing nudists. You can say you want to honor the body, but that doesn’t mean put it all on open display any more than saying honoring the marriage bed means put your marriage bed out in public so everyone can see it.

Frost says when he was in Africa, he and his friends would ditch their clothing and go swimming. If he did that here in America, that would not be accepted. Frost immediately jumps to the idea of insecurity. Is that the reason? Does he know the hearts and minds of the people he’s writing about?

Could it be for some? Sure. Could it not just as much be that that’s just not something that you do here because it’s out of sync with the culture? If I went to another culture, I would need to learn the ins and outs of that culture and not just assume that it was like mine. It would not be appropriate to say “The reason you’re not like the culture that I have grown up with is because of X negative trait about yourself.”

A parallel I can think of is a dead body. For many of us, a dead body is a horrifying sight to see. For many in the ancient world, it would have been an every day sight. We recoil in horror often when we see a dead body and don’t even want to touch a “stiff.” Now to be fair, at a certain point, there is disease to think about, but it could also be a respect thing.

I have heard someone who argues with atheists who asks why we don’t eat our dead relatives? Wouldn’t that be a source of food and from an atheistic perspective, wouldn’t that be beneficial? There is nothing to the body any more after all. It’s an interesting point. The main reason we don’t I suspect is we have a great respect for that body.

Frost then makes an argument I find just bizarre where he says that if we look at animals and see them naked and don’t think a thing about it, why are we hesitant with our fellow man. Well for one thing, I don’t think many of us turn over the bodies of our pets to look at their genitalia. Sometimes, we can’t even tell entirely due to how small their bodies are or how furry. Second, our bodies are much more noticeable with all that they have. Third, we are more prone to misuse what we see in fellow humans than in animals. No one thinks odd of you if you are aroused at the sight of a human, but if you were at the sight of an animal, you need some help. (But give it a few years and some “Progressives” will be normalizing that more and more.)

No. The human body is not icky. If anything, it is something that should be honored. That’s why I don’t encourage putting it on open display.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Christian Body — What Causes Lust?

Where does lust come from? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I still remember sitting with my former father-in-law at a restaurant at an ETS meeting in Atlanta. He and I were joined by another scholar older than my father-in-law is and were chatting about various matters. Music is playing with a country song of some sort being the song and there was a music video of it and while it wasn’t pornographic, it was pretty clear what was going to happen.

And I remember the older gentleman being asked something and he said “Sorry. I wasn’t paying attention. I was looking at the video.”

Okay. Probably not the best thing, but it felt kind of good to think that even in one’s older age, that drive was still strong.

Frost in this chapter says that according to the Bible, nothing that he sees can cause lust. It only exposes what is wrong in the heart. There is some truth to that. We are not forced to ever sin by anything outside of us. All sin is chosen willingly.

So what is the relationship between us and lust? To begin with, if a woman takes off her shirt in front of me, I am not able to choose my immediate emotional and/or physical reaction. I can choose what I do with it. I know there have been times when watching a movie that I have turned away because I thought too much of a woman was about to be revealed.

On the other hand, there are times when even such thinking would be completely inappropriate. If someone decides they want to watch Schindler’s List because there are a lot of naked women in it, and there are, they have a bigger problem. The thought of women being forced to be stripped nude in preparation for the gas chamber of death should not be a turn-on at all.

That being said, there is also the point of understanding one’s weakness. I used to attend a Lutheran Church that had an event called Bar Church. Now and then, they would have a church service in a bar. Now I never have drank alcohol, but I still attended. When announcing the event, they were also quite clear. If you struggle with alcoholism, do not come.

I am a man who has never struggled with pornography, but at the same time, I don’t put myself in dangerous situations either. I have a strong plan to never have a woman over to my apartment when it is just me and her and vice-versa with going to see a woman. (Family excepted of course.) I follow the Graham Rule because I know how easy it is to have your reputation damaged. How many men in ministry have fallen into sexual sin?

One sure sign I think you are about to fall into a sin is if you think you cannot fall into that sin. While Frost thinks nudity is the way to overcome pornography, I contend the way to overcome it is to have a healthy respect for women while at the same time honoring their bodies. A woman’s body is to be viewed as a treasure saved for the man she loves.

Also, we have to watch ourselves over what can cause someone else to sin. It’s not a one-to-one parallel, but when my former roommate and I back in Charlotte had Mormons over, we didn’t order sodas or tea or anything like that. We got Gatorade instead. We also had a pizza from Little Caesar’s every time, which I think is a great thing to do when wanting to reach Mormons. If we had something like tea, which I love, it would have damaged our witness to them.

I don’t agree with liberated Christianity as it’s called, but if you want to practice that, remember don’t practice it where you could put a stumbling block in front of another.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Christian Body — Naked Baptisms

Did Baptism used to be a lot more graphic? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So the main point I want to emphasize in Frost’s next section is baptism. I do want to say that for a section about clothing standards in biblical times, no biblical scholars are cited. It’s getting rather tiresome. What Frost points out towards the end is baptism and that it was done in the nude.

Here’s what St. Cyril said about it:

2. As soon, then, as you entered, you put off your tunic; and this was an image of putting off the old man with his deeds. Colossians 3:9 Having stripped yourselves, you were naked; in this also imitating Christ, who was stripped naked on the Cross, and by His nakedness put off from Himself the principalities and powers, and openly triumphed over them on the tree. For since the adverse powers made their lair in your members, you may no longer wear that old garment; I do not at all mean this visible one, but the old man, which waxes corrupt in the lusts of deceit. Ephesians 4:22 May the soul which has once put him off, never again put him on, but say with the Spouse of Christ in the Song of Songs, I have put off my garment, how shall I put it on Song of Songs 5:3? O wondrous thing! You were naked in the sight of all, and were not ashamed ; for truly ye bore the likeness of the first-formed Adam, who was naked in the garden, and was not ashamed.

3. Then, when you were stripped, you were anointed with exorcised oil , from the very hairs of your head to your feet, and were made partakers of the good olive-tree, Jesus Christ. For you were cut off from the wild olive-tree , and grafted into the good one, and were made to share the fatness of the true olive-tree. The exorcised oil therefore was a symbol of the participation of the fatness of Christ, being a charm to drive away every trace of hostile influence. For as the breathing of the saints, and the invocation of the Name of God, like fiercest flame, scorch and drive out evil spirits , so also this exorcised oil receives such virtue by the invocation of God and by prayer, as not only to burn and cleanse away the traces of sins, but also to chase away all the invisible powers of the evil one.

4. After these things, you were led to the holy pool of Divine Baptism, as Christ was carried from the Cross to the Sepulchre which is before our eyes. And each of you was asked, whether he believed in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and you made that saving confession, and descended three times into the water, and ascended again; here also hinting by a symbol at the three days burial of Christ. For as our Saviour passed three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, so you also in your first ascent out of the water, represented the first day of Christ in the earth, and by your descent, the night; for as he who is in the night, no longer sees, but he who is in the day, remains in the light, so in the descent, as in the night, you saw nothing, but in ascending again you were as in the day. And at the self-same moment you were both dying and being born; and that Water of salvation was at once your grave and your mother. And what Solomon spoke of others will suit you also; for he said, in that case, There is a time to bear and a time to die Ecclesiastes 3:2; but to you, in the reverse order, there was a time to die and a time to be born; and one and the same time effected both of these, and your birth went hand in hand with your death.

And yet even in this there is some dispute. There is some belief that there were deaconesses who handled the baptism of the women, for instance. Let’s point out a few things.

Nudity here was for a specific purpose. It was not the norm. If Frost wants to show the early church didn’t have the standards we have about clothes, then we have to ask why did they dress again? If nudity represents freedom in Christ, why did they not stay that way?

These are questions Frost doesn’t wrestle with, but I do. Frost needs to point to normative behavior. He is not doing that. He is pointing to the way people dress for a specific event. You might as well say wearing a costume on Halloween or for a Masquerade Ball shows how people dress normally.

If anything, I think this actually hurts Frost’s case and again, he doesn’t point to any biblical scholars. By the way, he also ignores something else. Archaeologists have regularly dug up pottery in ancient Israel. They have also dug up an abundant number of loom weights. Thus, Israelites were apparently busy making a lot of clothes.

I wonder if Frost knows that.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Christian Body – Clothing Standards Worldwide

How do cultures view clothing? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

It’s hard to talk about clothing standards worldwide in a few pages. One would think that would take a whole book in itself. Early on, he says that ancient Chinese women were insecure about their feet and would only uncover them for their husbands. My problem here is no source for both claims. Suppose I grant for the sake of argument they didn’t uncover their feet. How does Frost know it was from insecurity? Does he have any Chinese writings that say that?

I remember reading once in Chesterton that someone in the future could think that because we put flowers on gravestones, that would mean we thought the dead could smell flowers. No one places the flowers on a grave hoping their beloved dead likes the smell. We do it for different reasons. Now it could be that the Chinese women were insecure about their feet, but he needs to show that. It could be that feet were seen as special and they wanted to save that for their husbands.

He later says a statement I am unsure how to interpret.

Truly, culture is contrived without substance and completely arbitrary. It is whatever people think it is.

Frost, Aaron. Christian Body: Modesty and the Bible (p. 164). UNKNOWN. Kindle Edition.

What does this mean? Does this mean that a culture has nothing that defines it? Does it mean it can be whatever people want it to be? Someone could think we live in a dystopian Handmaid’s Tale in the West and I could think we live in practically Sodom and Gomorrah and we’re both right? This is a kind of statement that needs to be explained, but Frost does not do that.

Now Frost goes on from here to list several different cultures. I have written on this in past looks at this book and my same standards still apply. I would like to see more up-to-date scholarship on this area and I would like to have a philosophical explanation of Natural Law theory.

Keep in mind, I could fully accept that there could be cultures where different parts of the body are seen as erotic to them that we do not find erotic at all, and vice-versa. There would also be some cultures where clothing would be an absolute necessity, such as people who live in extremely cold climates.

If clothing is the cause of the sin of lust as Frost seems to think, are those cultures bound to struggle with sin due to the effects of clothing? Once again, and I know this is a radical suggestion, but could it be the problem is not clothing but that the problem is that the heart of man is sinful?

Frost seem to have gone from one extreme to another and I think both extremes are problematic. I have a problem with a nudist culture, but I also have a problem with a culture that tries to hide all bodily beauty, such as the way Muslims treat women and require them to wear full covering even in hot weather. The answer lies in the middle.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Christian Body — The Moral Effect of Clothing

Does clothing have a moral effect? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Frost tells us that if we were to visit a nudist society, we would find it is actually family-friendly. Well, that might depend on which one you go to. I daresay that across the board there are always exceptions. However, one thing he does say is that the body loses its sexual connotation and becomes unprovocative, the way that it should be.

But is that how it should be?

For instance, you have some valuables that you do keep out in public, such as fine art that you want people to see, but at the same time, you might still keep them behind glass or something similar. Meanwhile, you have other valuables that you keep away for special occasions. You don’t put the fine china in a separate cabinet because you’re ashamed of it. You keep it there because it’s for special events. I have a suit in my closet. I haven’t worn it once since I came to New Orleans. Am I ashamed of it? No. It’s for special occasions.

What if the human body could be the same way?

What if the human body is sexual because we are sexual beings. What if parts of the body were made to arouse the opposite sex, among other things? What if a man or a woman doesn’t display their body not because they’re ashamed of it, but because they think they should save it for someone special that they trust. What if that body becomes a symbol then of the unique trust they only give to one another?

This is part of the problem. Frost says we have a problem with lust, and he is right with that, but then says “Get rid of clothing and there’s no issue” and he’s wrong on that. The problem with lust is not that we see people as sexual beings. The problem is that is the only way that we see them. We see them as objects to fulfill our desire. A man sees a woman as something to conquer instead of a person to woo. The female body for a man in the former becomes an object to conquer and claim dominance over. In the latter, a treasure to adore.

Frost also says that when we bring clothing to these societies that practice nudity, we end up creating problems of lust. Again, the account he gives comes from the 1800’s with no further research on that. A problem here is that Frost regularly says the problem of lust is not based on anything external, but then turns around and says that clothing, something external to us, creates a problem with lust.

As an illustration, see here:

Is a shortage of clothing the root cause of moral stumbling? Does clothing prevent stumbling? In James 1:14 we read, “each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.” From this we learn that lust is caused by our sinful desires, NOT by the sight of anything created.

Frost, Aaron. Christian Body: Modesty and the Bible (pp. 61-62). UNKNOWN. Kindle Edition.

But then he says:

The point I am making is that the natural body does not actually cause involuntary lust. Though it seems counter-intuitive to our backward, legalistic way of thinking, it is actually the clothing that causes the lust, and when those standards are finally removed, the erotic effect quickly disappears as naturists around the world can attest.

Frost, Aaron. Christian Body: Modesty and the Bible (p. 65). UNKNOWN. Kindle Edition.

And again on the other hand:

According to the Bible, nothing I see can cause lust; it can only expose the lust that was already festering in my heart and needed to be brought to the surface and dealt with.

Frost, Aaron. Christian Body: Modesty and the Bible (p. 210). UNKNOWN. Kindle Edition.

So nothing I see can cause lust, but….

The clothing standards we cling to for moral protection have created and empowered the lust and sexual addiction in our culture.

Frost, Aaron. Christian Body: Modesty and the Bible (p. 131). UNKNOWN. Kindle Edition.

So which is it? Frost can’t have it both ways. Now as a man, I don’t care if the woman is completely naked or if she’s wearing completely covering armor over her, if I lust, I am the one to blame for my lust. Yes, she could be doing something that makes it easier for me to lust, but I bear responsibility for my own sin.

So again, I don’t think Frost makes his case. If anyone is trying to evade responsibility here, it is not people who practice what is called purdah, but himself.

We’ll continue next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Book Plunge: Christian Body — Unclothed Cultures

What about unclothed cultures? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

It’s really sad that this is in the book that Frost decides to cite other sources. When he’s talking about the Bible and archaeology and other such things, he cites no sources. When he gets to talking about anthropology, he does.

What Frost cites are reports from the late 1800’s about places around the world where nudity was supposedly the norm and yet people were quite virtuous.

I’m not an anthropologist nor do I play one on TV. However, that being said, I want to make a few observations.

First off, natural law applies to everyone. Everyone has some standards of right and wrong and there are universal moral truths that we all know and can’t not know. Some of us can suppress them and usually we try to redefine reality to fit our moral beliefs. Hence, when it comes to abortion, you’re not aborting a human person say defenders of the practice, you’re aborting a fetus (Supposedly taking that to mean something non-human) or a parasite.

Second, there was a tendency to try to break away from biblical morality at the time. Consider works later on like Coming of Age in Samoa which was found to be massively wrong later on. The goal of many was to show these people didn’t have biblical morality and yet they lived in a paradise and it was much more closer to the idea of free love.

Third, I get suspicious that all of these sources are dated to the late 1800’s. Is there nothing from more recent research that can further back and expound on this? Have these societies now somehow become totally corrupt?

Fourth, all societies have some kind of modesty standards in what behavior is acceptable for men and women. There is not a society out there that is “Anything goes.” All of them have a morality of some kind that is to be upheld. Someone like Frost can say it is different from ours and to be sure, it could be, but it is still a standard.

Right now, I am also thinking of the second time I went to the National Conference on Christian Apologetics. We had a speaker that spoke of witnessing to a tribe whose name I can’t remember right now, but he talked about bringing the gospel to them. At one point, there was a man among them who converted and after he did, he was given a name that meant “Does not chase after women.”

Bringing a society clothing will not ruin them. If you think clothing leads to a downfall in society, you’re missing the main point. Sin leads to the downfall of a society and the only way to eliminate that problem is not by going nude. It is by turning to the cross and coming to Jesus. If a culture can be Christian somewhere in another country and have different clothing codes than mine and still honor Jesus and honor the marriage bed, good for them. In the same way, we can honor Jesus in our clothing culture and honor the marriage bed just as much.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)