Why did David have a Census?

Who is the one who incited David? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I saw someone share this in a group and figured I should write something on this common objection. If you go to 1 Chronicles 21, you see this.

“Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.”

Okay. That sounds pretty clear. The devil rises up against Israel. David then takes a census.

Yet when you see how 2 Samuel 24 starts, there’s a tiny difference there.

“Again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.”

Okay. So maybe having the Lord instead of Satan isn’t a tiny difference.

What’s going on?

Let’s start by looking at the first one. One of the problems with the translations we have today is that people rarely look behind them. The text says Satan. Well, obviously that’s Satan. Right?

Maybe not.

For one thing, the devil comes against David in this and the response is to….take a census?

Sure. In Israelite law the king was not supposed to do that, but why would he do it here? If the devil wanted to tempt David, weren’t there better ways that would appeal to David a lot more? To give an obvious one, that one last time of naked woman bathing within eyesight sure seemed to do the job pretty well.

If you look at the word for Satan in the text, you will find it doesn’t always refer to the angelic being. For instance, in Numbers 22 when Balaam is riding on his donkey, the Angel of the Lord stands as a Satan for Balaam. What? You don’t remember reading that? Because the text doesn’t say that. It says the angel stood as an adversary for him. Later in that chapter, the angel of the Lord uses Satan in an active sense to say that he was opposing Balaam.

In 1 Samuel when David is among the Philistines, they are scared to go to battle with him in the ranks lest he turn Satan on them to win the favor of Israel. Oh, wait. The text says the same thing again. It says that he will turn into an adversary to them.

In 1 Kings 5, the reign of Solomon is peaceful because there was no Satan against him. Wait. There it is again. Adversary. Yet when Solomon turns against God, there are raised up several Satans, no, adversaries, in the form of leaders of armies to fight against him.

True, the term is used in Job and Zechariah to refer to a figure much more like the fallen angel that we know of today, but that does not occur in the historical literature at all. In all likelihood then, this is what is going on here as well.

This also explains why David would then have a census. If another army is coming up, David will count his fighting men then. That is a failure on his part to trust in the Lord.

Also, none of this means that there is no fallen angelic being known as Satan. It just means that that is not who is in reference here. In this case then, the text has the Lord putting David to the test by raising up an army against him, and David fails.

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

Book Plunge: In God We Doubt Part 12

Does Humphrys understand evil and morality? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

We’re on the final section of this book. Humphrys begins this with talking about evil, the card he seems to play most often. He talks about the case of a taxi driver  who murdered his wife with a baseball bat. Then he went upstairs, got one of his four small children and took her downstairs and murdered her. Then he did the rest with his other three children.

From here, Humphrys goes on to tell us about theodicies, which are said to be how to justify the ways of God to men, a term I don’t care for. It assumes that God needs to be justified. Still, it has been around a long time and if you mean an answer to the problem of evil, it is fine.

However, he says for those who take a less intellectual approach, the cries of a child resonate more than an elegant argument. This is a quite telling statement. At the start of this book. Humphrys said anyone with the mind of an inquisitive child can see the God arguments fail. Now at the end, he is saying those who do not go the intellectual route are more persuaded by the case of this murder.

Yet at the same time, if there is no God, then ultimately, what this taxi driver did doesn’t matter in the long run. If he was never caught, he got away with it. There will never be justice for the woman and her children. They will never enjoy life again. If there is a God, and especially the Christian God, there is no free pass for this man. He will face judgment. Even if he repents, the consequences of his action will carry over into eternity still.

Later, Humphrys will speak of the view of theists that atheists could develop a moral code, but without God, there is no way of knowing good from evil. Humphrys says that this is rubbish. How is that so many societies who didn’t know that this monotheistic God existed still produce a moral code very similar in many ways to what is had today?

Once again, Humphrys is someone who does not know what the argument is and if anything, his objection actually DEMONSTRATES the claim of theism. No one is saying you have to have knowledge of God to know right from wrong. Scripture even argues in Romans 2 that all men know this because God has placed it on their hearts in some way.

What the argument claims is that if God does not exist, there is no metaphysical basis for good or evil. (Actually, there’s no metaphysical basis for anything, but that’s another post.) Good and evil as ideas make no sense apart from God. As Dostoyevsky said, if there is no God, anything goes. One does not need to know of this God to know good from evil, but this God needs to be for the knowledge to be there.

Right now, I am also reading The Plague by Camus where he attempts to answer the claims of someone like Dostoyevsky by having a plague in a city killing multiple people and so the city is sealed off from the outside world. The hero is a doctor who does not believe in God, and yet he goes about trying to relieve the suffering of the people of the city. Therefore, God is not needed for morality.

The problem is this is still the world and in this world, good and evil still exist and you don’t have to be a theist to believe in those. However, giving a metaphysical basis is different. What is this good? Why should I think the doctor is the hero? Why should I see him as the good guy?

He also says in America, that some Christians are so convinced of the evils of abortion that some doctors fear their lives due to what has happened to their unfortunate colleagues. It is difficult for us to think of people who have been bombing abortion clinics. For me, just one name comes to mind. These are by and far the exception. Of course, Humphrys doesn’t really give a reason why abortion should be allowed and while I don’t agree with murder in response, I do agree that abortion is a great evil, one of the worst actually.

He also asks if theists can produce a moral code atheists can agree to. He thinks there are plenty of rules that we could all get along with, but then says that even Jimmy Carter said that he has lusted in his heart in an interview. He says this caused a stir in the Baptist community, but why should it? Does anyone really think they haven’t committed this sin, especially my fellow men? Besides this, a moral code should be something you strive to live up to. It should not be easy.

He then produces his own moral code that he says our more enlightened society should embrace to put to death the fundamentalist mindset. On top of the list is homosexuality is not a sin. If all he said was the temptation is not a sin, I would agree, but if he means the behavior, he needs to give me a reason why I should think this. We can talk all we want about how progressive and enlightened we are in society, but when you look at the rate of STDs and of broken families and fatherless children, does anyone think we are really better off?

What a shock that the next one is a woman should be allowed abortion as long as the rules of society are followed. Here we have a talk of enlightened society and what do you know? The first two rules are about sex. Why am I not surprised?

He also says there is hardly a soul alive he is sure who does not regret some sexual adventure. Humphrys must not know a lot of people. I could introduce him to several. Odds are, you can as well.

He then goes on to give a study of the trolley problem where atheists and theists by and large gave the same example and someone like Dawkins uses this to show you don’t need God to know right from wrong. What is missed is that as someone like Tom Holland has pointed out in Dominion, this is because also there is a background Christianity in us all. Would Dawkins be appalled by some of what he would see in ancient Greece and Rome? Quite likely. He and Humphrys make the same mistake again. They think that you have to be religious in order to have epistemology here, when the claim is not an epistemological one, but a metaphysical one. This is one of the most common mistakes in atheist argumentation that I see them making left and right.

They never learn.

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

 

 

Book Plunge: In God We Doubt Part 11

What are we to expect from religious rituals? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So in these chapters, and if you’re curious the book has 20 chapters and we’re on 15 and 16, Humphrys talks about the church experience and there is so much to say here. Humphrys says he’s fine with something like shaking hands a nod to someone he’s not nearby, but having to give hugs to show you’re brothers and sisters in Christ is too far. I really agree. My problem with a lot of so-called “manners” in today’s society from someone on the spectrum is that it seems fake.

You have a number of people that engage in small talk with you and ask how you’re doing that day, but then the rest of the week, they don’t reach out to you at all. They’re a no-show. It’s hard to think someone is truly your brother and sister in Christ when the only display you get from them is one that seems fake.

A big problem we have in many churches is we’re really all about joy, and joy is great, but many of us in the Christian life can also be miserable at times. I’m thankful that when I came to Tennessee again before living in New Orleans where I am now, I found a church that was connected with DivorceCare and I was allowed to be someone hurting there. One of the greatest gifts a Christian can give a fellow Christian who is struggling is to let them know it’s okay to hurt and be there when they are.

Another story in these chapters is one Humphrys received from a lady who had been brought up in the Church of England and thought when she got confirmed that something incredible would happen to her.

It didn’t.

Now for me, I would say that this is okay. Unfortunately, this has not been the experience in many churches. Go to your average church. Find out how much the emphasis is on how you feel about what is going on.

Do you feel God here today?

Do you feel the Spirit?

Can you feel the love tonight?

Oh. Sorry. Song lyric got in here. How did that happen?

Is our relationship with God supposed to give butterflies in the stomach like falling in love? (Which also isn’t a sign of real love anyway. That’s another problem we have. When the feeling fades, we think the love has faded. Of course, there can be no harm taking that to our walk with God.) No feeling lasts forever. Your walk with God will ebb and flow and if it’s dependent on your feelings, you’re going to be in for a hard time.

I can also add in people expect to hear the voice of God. Do you want to hear God speak? Go to Scripture. His word there is still just as valid as it was the day it was written.

Also, keep in mind that there are plenty of people in your church who are much more on the emotional side and they will understand the idea of feeling God. There are many who are not who will not. They are not deficient. It’s a shame that we live in a day and age in the church where being seen as an intellectual is seen as detracting from your walk with God.

This is one benefit also of reading non-Christian literature. You understand why they don’t accept us from their own words and you can be open to things in our approach that are wrong. The emphasis on experience is one. Sometimes grand things will happen. That’s fine. Sometimes they won’t. That’s fine too.

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

Magellan and the Moon

Did Ferdinand see the shadow on the moon? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Internet atheism is the gift that keeps on giving. I recently caught someone talking about how people used to believe the Earth was flat. After I asked who that was, I was told people today still believe that. Okay, but what about in the past? As it was getting late, I just talked some about the Greeks and said that the roundness of the Earth was established after that, only to be told that those people who believed in talking donkeys and virgins making babies (And I do affirm the virgin birth) thought otherwise. Then, came what was obviously meant to be the killing blow to me.

Oh my! Well, naturally, I hung my head in shame immediately and walked away in debate. Obviously, this quote shattered everything I hold dear about medieval history.

Not exactly.

You see, the problem with this quote is that it is unsourced entirely. I had read that it came from Ingersoll. Indeed, you can find it in the Works of Robert Ingersoll. This is a free resource on Google Books and you can search inside a book. I just did a search for Magellan.

To be fair, I also did a search for famous quotes by Magellan in a basic internet search. The problem with this quote is the words are never the same and also, it is never sourced. When you find a quote that the words are changed and they are not sourced, you should be suspicious. I, unfortunately, found no works of Magellan himself on Google Books. To be doubly sure I just searched Amazon and again, nothing. There are plenty of books about Magellan. There is nothing by him.

However, while I normally don’t trust wiki sources, wikiquotes does have something good on this:

  • The Church says that the Earth is flat, but I know that it is round. For I have seen the shadow of the earth on the moon and I have more faith in the Shadow than in the Church.

  • Variant: The Church says that the Earth is Flat, but I know that it is Round. For I have seen its Shadow on the Moon and I have more Faith in a Shadow than in the Church.

    • This quotation is often found on the internet attributed to Magellan, but never with a source, and is probably derived from an anecdote popularized by Robert Green Ingersoll in his essay “Individuality” (1873) where he writes:
It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions, — some one who had the grandeur to say his say. I believe it was Magellan who said, “The church says the earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the church.” On the prow of his ship were disobedience, defiance, scorn, and success.

Ingersoll was probably citing an earlier version of the anecdote which appeared on Page 451 of the History of the Intellectual Development of Europe (1863) by John William Draper:

In the whole history of human undertakings there is nothing that exceeds, if indeed there is any thing that equals, this voyage of Magellan’s. That of Columbus dwindles away in comparison. It is a display of superhuman courage, superhuman perseverance – a display of resolution not to be diverted from its purpose by any motive or any suffering, but inflexibly persisting to its end. Well might his despairing sailors come to the conclusion that they had entered on a trackless waste of waters, endless before them and hopeless in a return. “But, though the Church hath evermore from Holy Writ affirmed that the earth should be a wide-spread plain bordered by the waters, yet he comforted himself when he considered that in the eclipses of the moon the shadow cast of the earth is round; and as is the shadow, such, in like manner, is the substance.” It was a stout heart – a heart of triple brass – which could thus, against such authority, extract unyielding faith from a shadow.

The quotation marks are noteworthy, suggesting that Draper is citing an earlier work, but Draper’s work does not provide sources. Given that the quote is expressed in the third person, it is certainly possible that the statement was made by one of Magellan’s crew members or other associates. It is unlikely that Magellan would have made the statement, since Earth’s sphericity was well-established when Magellan’s voyage occurred, although Earth’s size was still debated.

Indeed, if you go to page 451, you can see it.

If you want to study the history of science and Christianity, two names you do not want to talk seriously are John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White. These are the ones who first started the myth of the warfare between science and religion and their works have been shredded by scholars in the area. Unfortunately, their works still reach on past them and too many people have bought into this myth.
The real problem here is that this quote could have easily been shown to be false in just a few minutes with some searching and looking matters up. Unfortunately, that was not done. No. It’s not just atheists who do this. I have pointed out that Christians and conservatives and sometimes both do it regularly. You can see that here, here, and here.
Why would I investigate my fellow Christians with these claims? Because I care about truth. I also say the same thing when Christians jump on archaeological discoveries just recently announced. My advice is to not share them yet. Give it a few years. Let the scholarly academics study this and debate it back and forth and then when matters are more established, then share it.
Too many of us look at something and say “If it agrees with us, it is 100% true.” Then we say, “If it disagrees with us, it must be proven 100%.” We might be better off if we reversed those to be more skeptical.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: In God We Doubt Part 10

How should non-believers respond to believers? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This chapter is rather refreshing in how it comes about as there are times in this book that Humphrys goes after the new atheists. In this, I want to highlight three points in this chapter that stands out to me. All of this comes after his interviews with the Archbishop, the rabbi, and the Muslim. (As far as we know, they sadly did not walk into a bar.)

The first is that Humphrys says like any complex work of history or philosophy, the Bible has to be interpreted for the ignorant, as well as for the informed. 100% correct. What new atheists do is think often that the Bible should just be read literalistically and that it should be immediately understandable to them. This is some of our consumeristic thinking at work. It’s also simply lazy.

Too many atheists and Christians both won’t bother reading something to help them understand the Bible. Even blog posts like this one I get pushback from atheists on as I will link something I have written on in reply and lo and behold, they won’t respond to anything in it. If you have a position that you do not want to read anything on the topic you claim to care about, whether to attack it or to build it up, you really don’t care about that topic.

He also says that too many times, atheists often because they don’t believe think themselves superior intellectually and morally. He does say he understands that as he went through the same, but it just isn’t so. This is a behavior that I see often in atheists I encounter and it really has the effect of convincing me they don’t care about truth as much as they think. They are brilliant by reason of being atheists and Christians are stupid by reason of being believers. I call it atheistic presuppositionalism.

It doesn’t hurt me at all, but it does great harm to an atheist wanting to spread their message. If you mock Christians for not studying and just believing everything and then do the same for anything you read, you’re no better. I still remember Victor Stenger on Unbelievable? saying that for his ideas on the Bible, he relies on Bart Ehrman. Yes. God forbid you read someone that disagrees with you at all. Even today I had someone give the quote to me that Magellan said of “I have seen the shadow of the earth upon the moon, and I have more confidence in the shadow than I have in the church.” Unfortunately, he never said this, but confirmation bias is just as real for an atheist as it can be for a Christian.

Finally, Humphrys writes about how the faith of believers has been a comfort to them and a benefit through struggles. He says that Dawkins and others can find that laughable and sneer, but they should be ashamed of themselves. He ends with saying believers should be treated with respect.

I agree entirely, and that sounds like a good note to end this on.

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

 

 

Will The Real Miss Netherlands Please Stand Up?

How do you demean women? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Too long, we have tried to say that men and women are not different. It has been said that to say women are deficient in any area in comparison to a man is something horrid to say. I still remember the time that a professor got in trouble for saying something along the lines of women not being as good at spatial reasoning as men. There were demands he apologize, which I think he did, but even though I don’t think I was studying apologetics or anything like that at the time, I still had one question.

Was it true?

If it is, then it’s true, and saying “I don’t like it!” doesn’t make it any less true. However, this does not mean that women are less valuable than human beings. There are many things women are superior at. Women tend to be more empathetic I find and compassionate. They tend to more naturally connect with children than men do.

The error many feminists made was to say that if two things are different, in this case, men and women, then that means that one of them must be overall superior and the other overall inferior. This doesn’t follow. All that follows is that the two are different, and yes, men and women are different. Thank God for that one.

Unfortunately, if you try to blur all the differences, then don’t be surprised if people take it to the next level. Most recently, this has happened with the transgender movement. The case in point here is going to be the Miss Netherlands beauty pageant.

For now, we’re going to put aside the morality of beauty pageants themselves. They happen. There’s an obvious reason they do. Women are beautiful. This is hardly breaking news. Sex sells and usually if you want something to sell, it’s not by having handsome men in your ad, but having beautiful women.

In the book of Genesis, when we hear that everything was good, that also includes beautiful. The last creation of God in the week is woman, who is the crown of beauty on God’s creation. Look up many of the noble women in the Bible and what is a common trait that they share? Beauty. Even the quick reference to the daughters of Job at the end of his book. No more beautiful women could be found in all the land than Job’s daughters.

It’s as if one of the most praiseworthy attributes a woman has is her beauty.

Now again, not talking about the morality of beauty pageants, imagine being a woman in the Netherlands and competing willfully in a contest to see if you are the most beautiful woman in the Netherlands. You have taken care of yourself all your life, practiced good hygiene and make-up, ate properly, exercised appropriately, and did all you could to reach this moment. This is going to be your chance to stand up among your fellow women.

Yet you are told that all that natural beauty that you possess emphasized perhaps by make-up (I really don’t care for it as I think it more often hides beauty) is said to not compare to the real winner of the contest. Who is that?

A man who says he’s a woman.

I really wish I was making this up, but I’m not.

What a great insult to a woman to tell her that her born feminine beauty cannot compare to what surgical operations do to the body of a man.

In cases where a woman loses to a woman, a woman can look and see what she can do to improve and do better next time. This applies to beauty pageants, but it also applies to sporting competitions. If she loses to a man who thinks he’s a woman, she cannot do that. She goes home and knows that she lost and there is nothing she can do about it.

Devastating.

What our world is doing to women is cruel. We are changing language to make sure we “include” less than 1% of the population all the while insulting and demeaning all the women out there. It’s not breastfeeding now. It’s chestfeeding. It’s birthing persons. It’s people who menstruate. It’s lady parts being referred to as bonus holes. It’s men being chosen to be promoters of women’s products.

For a society that says they want to fight the patriarchy, they sure don’t mind negating women.

Unfortunately, in the Netherlands, the real winner won’t be acknowledged. That’s the real woman, whoever she was, who should have won the pageant. Our women are being erased more and more in the name of inclusivity and “progress.” It’s honestly getting that if a man is competing in any women’s event, put your money on him. He’s likely to win, even if just because judges want to show how progressive they are.

May we all wake up soon.

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

Book Plunge: In God We Doubt Part 9

What is the core defense of Christianity? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So we’re back to Humphrys book again and at the start, he is going on the same old game that we always see. The idea of the evangelical is of course that with Jesus you can go to Heaven. Now I am a critic of this in that we treat Jesus as a means to an end, our own joy, without considering that we in response are to serve as well. We also then ignore what we are supposed to do on Earth. The purpose of Christianity is to get you to Heaven! End of story!

Humphrys does say the problem is no one can prove this. Well first off, we should take the idea of Near-Death Experiences seriously. We cannot veridically prove Heaven in some sense like that, but shouldn’t we consider that if people have these experiences, there might be something to them? I understand fully that this is not proof, of course, but it is still evidence.

Naturally, Humphrys says evangelical promises come without a shred of evidence, despite, you know, him referencing a William Lane Craig debate where he gave five pieces of evidence for belief in the existence of God and the only response was that none of it was true. Now some people could be believers on poor evidence, and I’m sure they are, but there are many intellectual people who are believers on grounds of solid evidence. Humphrys can say they’re wrong, but they’re still using evidence.

Then at the end of this chapter we’re covering, he says the core defense of Christians is that if they could prove it, it wouldn’t be faith. This is a horrid misunderstanding on many levels. For one thing, there is plenty in this world we accept as true that cannot be proven, such as scientific truths. These are inductive truths. They’re only known with greater degrees of probability.

Second, there is a great difference between not being able to prove something and having no evidence whatsoever for it. In a court of law, a prosecution is not told to prove that the defendant did the crime. They are to make a case that eliminates reasonable doubt. That doesn’t mean they get up and say “I can’t prove it, so it must be faith.”

A lawyer will produce his evidence, his opponent will reply, and then it is up to the jury to decide based on the evidence. It could be everyone agrees on the evidence presented, but the interpretation is different. This is something that you see regularly if you read mystery novels. There can be a lot of evidence that makes it look like X did the crime, but then when all is revealed, it turns out Y did it and you look back and say “Of course. Now it makes sense.” Despite that, the evidence NEVER changed. It’s the interpretation that did.

Finally, and obviously, Humphrys does not know what faith is, any more than the new atheists that he relies on knows what it is. I have written this article that I refer to time and time again. When Humphrys thinks he’s criticizing my position, he’s not. If this is what he thinks it is, I can see why he thinks the new atheists are so persuasive. Unfortunately, when you go against the real thing, it’s easy to see why they are not persuasive.

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

Book Plunge: In God We Doubt Part 8

What is the impact of bad sermons? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Most every speaker has had a bad presentation at times. They have had something happen where they didn’t know what to say or where they said something outright stupid. Unfortunately, when that happens in ministry, the results can be disastrous. Reviewing what I highlighted in chapter 11 where we start today, I saw one pop up immediately and as soon as I started it, I remembered how it ended because of how terrible it was.

Even worse, this took place at a funeral with the wife and kids right there. A funeral is worse not just because the people are grieving, but weddings and funerals are two of the times you are most likely going to have lost people in the church. Your average person who doesn’t want anything to do with a church can come to one of these out of deep respect, and personally, a funeral usually has the closest to a sermon.

So what does the vicar say here?

Terrible though it is to us, God grants the same freedom to cancer cells that he grants even to the most noble and virtuous of us.

Humphrys is right in pointing out that cancer cells are not intelligent agents that can move and make decisions. Of course, Christians need to be able to have a place in their worldview to explain cancer, but this is not a valid parallel at all. God does allow bad things to happen, including deaths from cancer, but are we going to put cancer cells on the same level as human beings?

Fortunately, Humphrys I don’t think sees all ministers like this, but too many will remember this. Sadly, we will have people easily remember the worst things we did to them. “Think of someone who hurt you.” Right now, most all of you have the image of someone in mind immediately.

Moving on from here, Humphrys asks about prayer. Isn’t it a pointless exercise? Isn’t the main emphasis asking for something? Well, no. The main emphasis should be worship and glorification, something I admit I need to work on as well. There is also thankfulness and the asking is not just health and material objects and items like that, but also forgiveness.

Humphrys also says in the Bible, God was performing miracles all the time. Hardly. You have an abundance of miracles in only three time periods, the Exodus and the conquest, the ministries of Elijah and Elisha, and the apostolic age starting with the ministry of Jesus. Miracles are recorded not because they are common, but because they are exceptional.

Getting back to prayer after all of this, Humphrys says God hears every prayer that is offered up, and yet doesn’t bother to intervene. I daresay Humphrys knows a lot of people who can speak of an answered prayer, yet will he say that is a coincidence? It seems that he has to.

What about something like Craig Keener’s works on miracles that show miracles specifically coming after prayer? Humphrys and others who do this have a unique method. If you pray for something and it doesn’t happen, that proves God doesn’t answer prayers. If you pray for something and it happens, that proves that coincidences take place.

Rabbi Sacks thankfully does deal with Humphrys well in an interview style saying that Humphrys seems to have this idea that the world ought to be just. This is ironically where C.S. Lewis began as well. Humphrys then says it needs to be like science where we test something again and again and it is proven and religion is asking the opposite.

Well, that’s just false. Having something happen again and again in science doesn’t mean “proof.” It means that it is incredibly likely, the same as in history. It can be so likely it would be nonsense to try to do some things again. If I stick my hand on a hot stove and I burn it, I’m not going to want to try it again. If I drop something and it falls repeatedly, I’m justified in thinking, contrary to Hume, that that is what will happen every time, all things being equal.

Sacks also rightly says that Humphrys buys into a sort of soft scientism where something should be scientifically established before it is acceptable. Much of our knowledge does not come about that way, such as our moral judgments and the rules of math and any number of other ideas we hold. Most of the claims we hold dearest are those that are NOT scientifically proven, such as that our loved ones love us, or that something is good to do, or that beauty is real.

Humphrys lists a lot of things he considers evils and said this would not happen in a just world. Well first off, who said the world is just right now? In a just world, the Son of God would not be crucified when He did no wrong. God promises justice, but He never promises a timeframe to it for us. Justice delayed is not justice denied.

Briefly, Humphrys talks about biblical interpretation with the idea that we are supposed to take the texts literally, though not stating what that means. I contend you should always take the text literally, but not literalistically. If something is written as a metaphor, taking it literally is reading it as a metaphor. If something is taken as a straight forward account, taking it literally is doing just that. Literalistic reading says there can be no inflection or change in language and no stylistic ideas of hyperbole, sarcasm, etc.

So ultimately as we conclude this part, it still looks like again all Humphrys really has is evil. This has just never really struck me as a strong objection to Christianity, especially since Christianity by necessity has an evil action right at the center, the crucifixion of Christ. Christianity is about dealing with the evil in part, so how is evil a defeater for it?

Beats me.

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

 

 

 

 

Book Plunge: In God We Doubt Part 7

What is Humphrys looking for? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

We’re moving ahead now to where Humphrys starts doing interviews. In this, he interacts with a Christian, a Jew, and a Muslim. To his credit, he brings on people who are informed about what they believe. WIll he find God doing this?

Doubtful, especially since at the start he says he doesn’t want to convert to Judaism any more than he wants to be a Muslim or recover his Christianity, but he would like to believe in God. But why? What benefit does he get from this? Is God just a means to an end? Will Humphrys feel better about himself if he has God?

If he finds the Christian God, for instance, that will mean repentance. That will mean humility. That will mean he has to accept that God has a good reason for allowing the evil that he complains about. If he accepts Islam, will he be willing to embrace all of the teachings and follow Muhammad as a prophet? Is he prepared to have his good and bad deeds weighed out on the scales? For Judaism, it will depend on the branch, but there’s not much emphasis from what I see usually on an afterdeath.

Humphrys gives no reason, though he admits it sounds pathetic.

But if you only want God as a means to an end for you, it’s not a shock if you don’t find Him. Why think He will let Himself be used?

One big issue he has for his interviewees is evil. This is Humphrys #1 argument against God. Now I have said before that I don’t understand what you gain from the problem of evil if you remove God. The problem is still there and you get rid of a solution of hope to the problem.

Humphrys says that most tyrants seem to die peacefully on their beds. Hitler could have had he not gone after Russia and just stayed in his own land. For Humphrys, this dispels the idea that virtue is its own reward and that God is merciful.

For the first, why would Humphrys want to be virtuous? It is not so he can please God obviously. Is he just wanting to please his fellow man? Does Humphrys do good purely because he benefits from it? These tyrants certainly didn’t care what anyone else thought of them, unless they wanted to kill them. What makes Humphrys different in the long run?

For the second, God is only merciful if He deals with evil on Humphrys timescale? Who says? If Christianity is true, God is merciful to all of us as we all deserve death right now. Of course, Humphrys would likely say he doesn’t deserve that as he’s generally a good person. What about all those evil people though?

Because it’s always someone else’s evil that needs to be dealt with. Whenever I hear atheists complain about evil, they are complaining about what other people do. They are not complaining about what they do.

Rowan Williams is shown in the interview of saying that with God, there is always hope. Of course, this is hard to explain to someone who doesn’t understand the concept of Heaven or especially of resurrection. If you think death is the end of the story, then obviously the story is terrible sometimes. Williams’s view is that it is not the end.

That doesn’t mean those words are always helpful to parents who have lost a child to cancer, but arguments aren’t the purpose of that. Charity is. This is when you come alongside and listen.

Humphrys also said that Abraham was presented with a choice that God said “If you believe in me, you must sacrifice your child.” We can question the premise, but even if we go with it, note something important. Isaac never died. It was just to show how much Abraham believed in the promise that through Isaac his covenant of offspring would be fulfilled. Abraham had to believe that either God would stop it or else He would raise Isaac from the dead.

Sacks, the rabbi, also tells Humphrys that if Humphrys didn’t have faith, he wouldn’t ask the question. I think faith is being misunderstood, but I get at what Sacks is asking. The question is asked because you expect there to be an answer. Why? If this was an atheistic universe, well, it’s just some people are going to get the short straw and tough luck it turned out to be you. You can be comforting and kind to someone suffering, but there’s really no meaning in their suffering nor any ultimate hope.

Humphrys says Sacks ultimately says that if it happened, there must be a reason why it happened and God will use it for good. Can you argue with that? Humphrys says no, which is the problem for the problem of evil. The one using it has to demonstrate that there is no good reason for God to allow evil XYZ. Quite a tall order. Not only that, he also has to deal with all the positive arguments for God’s existence, which thus far Humphrys never does.

Thus far then, color me unconvinced.

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

 

 

Book Plunge: In God We Doubt Part 6

Can materialism sustain a culture? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this chapter, there are only two things I really want to point out that I find interesting. Humphrys goes against the new atheist movement where he does suggest that the death of religion is not coming as quickly as some people think. If anything, it looks like the reverse is happening. There is still a growing desire for something beyond this world.

He points to an article called God Returns to Europe found in Prospect magazine and written by Eric Kaufmann. He says that it looks like religion is coming back and one reason is women who are religious tend to marry young and tend to have a lot of babies. This isn’t just Catholic women. This is also Protestant women.

I concur with this and think the same is due for America. Those on the left are busy killing their own children in abortion or rendering them sterile through transgenderism. There is a reason secular pro-life is growing here in America and I suspect it’s because they saw the impact of abortion on their generation and don’t want to see that going on anymore.

There are also more and more cases of people undergoing sex change operations and regretting it, many of them suing. I have said before that if you are going into law, this is a good field to jump into. There will be loads of lawsuits against doctors for performing these surgeries and enticing minors to go into them.

So in one case, either the population is dead, or in the second, they can’t have children anyway.

Those of us who are Christian do tend to believe that marriage is for life and that children are a good thing. We also want our children to be raised with our values and will instill them in them. Of course, the culture will get some of them, but as the cultural power wants, it returns back to the hands of the Christians.

The second is that Humphrys says we are more materialistic than we have ever been, and yet we want something more. Those of us who are Christians are not shocked at all at this finding. With material things, one usually always wants more and it is never enough and yet it is also the case of diminishing returns.

Man wants more than just hedonistic pleasure in this life and we usually look down on those who just live for that pleasure. We can enjoy the movies Hollywood puts out, but few of us would really want to be like the people in Hollywood.

We were promised Utopia and it didn’t deliver. If anything, as I pointed out recently, the breakdown of religion could have unleashed something atheists think is worse. Could it be that in the end, we will find those principles we abandoned turned out to be good ones? Could it be maybe the family really is what is important? Could it be that the pushback to Pride last month is starting to open the eyes of people?

None of this is a shock to us. We knew this wouldn’t work long-term. How many of us have enjoyed a day of great pleasures and in the end still said, “There has to be something more.” We are often like the children on Christmas day who open their gifts and wonder “Is there not anything more?”

No. None of this establishes theism, but it is a pointer to it. If a worldview can’t be lived out, there’s a problem with it. Are we opening our eyes at last to the bankruptcy of materialism?

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