$10,000 if you can Disprove this Proof of God!

There's some idiot Christian, named Troy, who writes in a muddled fashion but claims to have proved God exists in four easy steps. He had offered $10,000 to the first person to show him wrong, Here. [You will have to register and do a search for the 4 step proof for God offer].

So I thought to myself, why not give it a try and see what happens. I did so and I got banned off his website! I cannot even read what he said in response to what I had written! I go to that website and all I can read is this:

You have been banned for the following reason:
Petty arguments against 4 Step Proof

Date the ban will be lifted: Never

What a liar, but then I never really expected to get the money anyway. What a joke. Below, in part, is what I wrote (picking up at step 3):

Step 3 – To the question "Why can't God have a creator?" You say, “Because, by definition that no longer makes God uncreated." By definition, God IS and is uncreated (as proven in Step 1 and Step 2). You cannot make the argument that someone or something created God since then you would no longer be speaking about God, but perhaps a god or idol or something in your imagination.

My response:
This question and your reply are a mischaracterization of your opponent’s views, and this I can show very easily. They do not intend to ask whether or not God (who by definition is the creator) has a creator. They are simply asking you to explain how it is possible for a fully complete eternally existing Triune (3 in 1?) immaterial spiritual being who has all knowledge (because he never has learned anything), all power (but who doesn’t use it like we would if we saw a child suffering horribly), and who is present everywhere at the same time (even though if God acts in this universe, time is a function of bodily placement and velocity of movement) can exist? You never answered this question, and I dare say you cannot prove it either.

So, in order to prove God exists in 4 easy steps, you show the universe must have had a beginning, and then you move on to say that since it had a beginning, God must have created it. This in no way proves God created the universe unless you can sufficiently answer the real question atheists asked in step 3.

As far as we know there isn’t a satisfactory reasonable answer to why this universe exists. And I argue that the reason is because this universe happened by the strangeness of chance. When we look back on a chance happening, a fortuitous event, a lucky guess, or a lottery winner we cannot explain it if we were to seek a cause for it. If we sought a logical explanation for it happening we would not find one, precisely because a chance event cannot be figured out hindsight. So, if I were to judge between the possibility of your God existing for all eternity with the possibility of an uncaused existence of this universe, I would choose the uncaused existence of the universe. Chance can give rise to the perception of order, like we find in our universe. We have no such conception of a fully formed completely ordered thing or being that has always existed without a cause for its existence.

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Step 4 – The atheist will say "ok, so a lesser god created, so why can't he have a creator, and a creator create that creator?" This is not possible either. Why? It is because this presupposes an eternity of the past of creating gods and things and materials in causal relationships, one following after the other.

My response:
But step 4 is a further mischaracterization of step 3. There is not an eternal regress of causes for either the universe or for God.

Here then our our choices: Either the universe popped into existence out of nothing, or there is such a God that has always existed and will forever exist withut change. Both answers seem impossible based upon the assumption that logic can figure it all out. But since chance events cannot be figured out, the universe probably popped into existence out of nothing.

You argue against the universe coming into existence out of nothing, but then you posit an equally "impossible" answer, that such a God as you believe exists, without showing how such a being can exist--the real atheist question. I could equally argue that since I have no conception of an eternally existing being, because everything I know has a beginning and an end to it, that therefore your God doesn't exist. And once eliminating this "impossibility" I could go on to posit the main alternative, that the universe popped into existence out of nothing, without attempting to show how this is possible, just as you did with regard to the possibility of your God's existence.

Far from proving that your God exists, we are at an impasse between "impossibilities." Surely if you agree that we are at an impasse, you will also have to say your case is not proved. But even if this didn’t happen as I think, you are far away from having proved that the God of the Bible exists. For in addition to your definition of God spoken of earlier, you also believe that this God revealed himself to us in the Bible, that he became incarnate in Jesus, and that he atoned for our sins. No one yet has made sense of the incarnation or in how Jesus’ death atoned for our sins, and you certainly didn’t even try.

Even if your argument leads one to consider believing in God (and that’s all it can possibly do, much less prove God exists), then you also have not proven that your specific God exists instead of the Jewish God of the O.T., or the Muslim God Allah.

Nice try Troy. But your argument fails as a proof.

Do I have to win this argument with you before you write me a check? I'm waiting for your response then.

Dr. Bill Craig, Frank Walton, and me.

Frank Walton criticized me for basically name-dropping on his site.

I noticed Frank doesn't allow for any comments on his blog, like I have allowed him on mine. I'm not opposed to differing opinions. They help us to think and they make us grow. So I've decided to publish what he said and try to offer a response. I did eliminate one reference to Dr. Craig though, okay? :)

Some thoughts:

I'm not sure what he means when he says Carrier and Barker are trying to make a name off of Christians. Such a claim doesn't really make sense to me. They just want to debunk Christianity, like I do.

The accusation of name-dropping isn't so bad if that's the best charge he can make against me, now is it? And while he misaccuses me of some ad hominem argument, he should focus on the substance of what I put on my blog, even if I'm merely providing links to other arguments.

Take for example Richard Carrier's few paragraphs copied in my previous post, below. Frank, try dealing with that next time, okay?

I'll be updating my blog/links listings from time to time, depending on the content of those blogs. Don't be surprised if I delete yours if that's the best you can do. I want reasonable links and/or blogs, and it may take me a while to find the best ones--ones which don't resort to ridicule and contain a higher level of thinking. I'm looking for suggestions to make this blog a pretty damn good one.

Frank Walton:
What Loftus is saying in effect is this, "I know that Dr. Craig is one of the greatest modern Christian thinkers. I was even a student of his! But guess what, I'm not a Christian anymore. Which goes to show how unconvincing Dr. Craig is!"

Actually, what I'm saying is that the arguments just aren't there, period, no matter who the defender of Christianity happens to be. If it's true of Dr. Craig's arguments, then it should be true of most all other apologists, although, I know I'm just speaking for myself.

By telling you I was his former student I got your attention, didn't I? What's wrong with that? People usually want to know of our credentials. Isn't that something you'd like to know? If you were a former student of his, I'm sure we'd hear about it too.

In a way, I would like to pressure Bill into debating me. I had initially asked him if he would want to co-author a book as a dialogue between a professor and former student, but he declined, saying "that would give me no joy."

I will say this though, it took a major crisis in my life plus nearly six intense years of thinking and soul-searching to break free from the arguments I had once defended. The last two beliefs of mine I rejected were the resurrection of Jesus and then later the belief in God. These two beliefs of mine were so well ingrained within me, especially as the result of Dr. Craig's teaching and writing, that they were the last ones I rejected. For me, his arguments were very tough to break free of, but in the end, I did break free of them. Not because of rebellion against God or him, but just as the result of the logical educated process of thought.

Another thing. I like Bill very much. I recently told him that I have nothing personal against him, and that I was sorry if I am an embarrassment to him. But the arguments just were not there, period. I have to follow what I believe to be the truth. That's all I can do.

And since I don't believe in Christianity, I want to help others break free from it's narrow-minded, superstitious, guilt producing, and pre-scientific thinking.

Prayer, Healing, and the God of the Gaps

Christians will assert that the “God of the gaps” epistemology doesn’t adequately describe their knowledge about God and his activity, since God is not just known in the gaps of our knowledge. But consider how science has filled in the gaps when it comes to prayer and healing.

When ancient people prayed for their “daily bread,” they did so because crops could sometimes fail in their local area, or a hunter may fail to bag a deer. Such disasters as these things could produce hunger, and possible starvation. Do Christians today have the same fervor when they pray for their “daily bread” as ancient Christians did? Many Christians in the industrialized West don't even pray before every meal, especially when they eat at a McDonald's. Many if not most all of the Christians in the industrialized West, take their food pretty much for granted.

When Christians are very sick, they will take a prescribed pill from the doctor and be confident they'll get better, even if they do pray. But in the ancient times when someone got very sick they could die. Christians in the ancient past had no choice but to depend almost completely upon God's help here. Are Christians saying they wrestle with God over sickness in prayer like the Christian people of old did? Or is their confidence more in the results of science and medicine, than in God? I know the answer. They just haven't admitted it yet.

As science helps Christians with their daily meals and with healing, they believe in prayer and in God’s help less and less, and they believe in science more and more. Say it isn’t so!

Four Cosmological Displacements

There have been Four Cosmological Displacements:

1) The Copernican theory of the heliocentric universe defended by Galileo. (1600’s). Man was no longer the center of the universe.

2) The discovery that our solar system is not central to the Milky Way galaxy, but located on the periphery; out on a spiral arm. (c. 1900). Man was not even central in his own galaxy.

3) The discovery that our galaxy is only one of a billion galaxies. (c. 1930’s). Man isn’t even central to the universe as a whole.

4) The possibility that there are an infinite number of universes, called a multiverse. Man is insignificant and God is no longer needed.

Science, Religion and Biblical Christianity

I do not believe there is any mutually agreed upon scientific experiment that can either prove or disprove God's existence. So we'll be stuck with religious believers until humanity on planet earth is extinguished by the ever expanding sun. However, science makes some kinds of religious beliefs implausible.

Because modern science is objective in its results, religious people have been trying to harmonize their faith with scientific facts since the days of Galileo.

So this process leaves believers always trying to catch up to objective scientific facts, and it's here where I find several things in the Bible are outmoded, like a six day creation; the fall of a single pair of human beings in the Garden of Eden; that God sends hurricanes, tornado's, floods and fires because of human sins; that some people will be punished in an everlasting hell in the bowels of the earth, while others will have an eternal reward in the sky located just above the moon. Also outmoded is demon possession as an explanation for epilepsy, the practice of slavery, the inferior status of women, the supposed sacrificial atonement of Jesus, along with Biblical miracles, including, but not limited to, an incarnate God born of a virgin, a resurrection from the dead, an ascension into heaven (again located just above the moon), and a physical return from that same heaven.

Modern science makes implausible that kind of Biblical faith. No wonder Bishop John Shelby Spong wrote a book calling on Christianity to change or die! But the watered down version of Spong doesn't inspire many people, and it is so at odds with early Christianity that it surprises me he still wants to call his faith "Christian."

Dr. Craig's Inner Witness of the Holy Spirit.

Let me add to what Michael Martin wrote on “Craig’s Holy Spirit Epistemology,” Here.

Dr. William Lane Craig argues that Christians should start with faith in the Christian God. Why? “We know Christianity to be true by the self authenticating witness of God’s Holy Spirit.” What does he mean by that? “I mean that the witness, or testimony, of the Holy Spirit is its own proof; it is unmistakable; it does not need other proofs to back it up; it is self-evident and attests to its own truth.” Hitchhiking on the philosophical work of Alvin Plantinga’s defense of the a properly basic belief in God, and citing the Bible (Gal. 3:26; 4:6; Rom. 8:15-16; I John 2:20, 26-27; 3:24; 5:7-10), Craig writes: “I would agree that belief in the God of the Bible is a properly basic belief, and emphasize that it is the ministry of the Holy Spirit that supplies the circumstance for its proper basically. And because this belief is from God, it is not merely rational, but definitely true.” [Apologetics, (pp. 18-22)].

Does Dr. Craig mean to say that he cannot be wrong? I think so. He knows Christianity is true. With this understanding he has insulated himself from any and all objections to the contrary. Dr. Craig knows he’s right because he knows he’s right, and that’s the end of the matter. Since he knows he’s right, Christianity is true.

But consider first the content to this inner self-authenticating witness. Does his inner witness of the Holy Spirit lead him to believe that all of the traditional Christian doctrines are true, as he understands them? Does this entail he has the correct understanding of things like God’s foreknowledge, predestination, eschatology, and Calvinism? Are his specific views on the Deity of Christ, baptism, the atonement, the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the grave, and his second coming all the correct ones? What is the particular content of this self-authentication from the Spirit? There must be some content to the witness of the Spirit that gives him assurance he’s right, and where does he learn this content? At what point does it stop and he’s left on his own to work things out from reading the Bible? Furthermore, does this inner witness tell him that his views on the self-authenticating testimony of the Holy Spirit are true?

So what is the actual content of this God experience? Where did this content come from, and how coherent is this content? That’s what I want to know, and I believe Craig will have no real satisfying answer to these questions, at least not to third person outsiders like myself.

And what about the coherence of the inner witness of the Holy Spirit of the things he has led Bill Craig to believe? An eternally uncreated Triune being (3 in 1?) who has always existed as he is (with no growth, for he was always perfect), with all power (but doesn't use it like we would if we saw a burning child), all knowledge (since he never learned anything), and who is present everywhere (a non-embodied being?) is just is too complex of an entity to believe in. And in the New Testament (which surely forms the content of this witness, and not the witness of the Spirit itself) we find an Incarnate Son of God who atoned for our sins (even though no one has yet made any reasonable sense of either an incarnate God or how his death atoned for our sins). Those who disbelieve go to hell (however conceived), making the problem of evil for a good omnipotent God impossible to solve (even though without a belief in hell it's insoluble anyway).

The Logic of Jesus and Paul is Flawed

Look at how Jesus argued on behalf of the resurrection: “And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spoke unto him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?’ He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err.” (Mark 12:26-27)

How this argument of Jesus’ is suppose to lead to the belief that the dead do in fact arise, is convoluted to say the least. This OT text, taken in its original context, is merely identifying the God that was speaking to Moses from out of the so-called burning bush. No one today, using our own contextual understandings, would ever conclude that God was proclaiming anything about a resurrection from the dead, even if Jesus and his contemporaries may have thought so.

Look at how Paul argued on behalf of the general resurrection of the dead:

If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. Christ has been raised. Therefore, there is a resurrection of the dead. (I Cor. 15:13).

Why does it follow merely from the fact that Christ arose that there shall be a general resurrection of the dead? There seems to be nothing in the belief that Jesus arose that would lead me to think that there is a general resurrection. It just might be the case that Jesus arose because he’s special and that’s it.

The answer for Paul is that Christ is the head of those who believe, just like Adam is the head of humanity (vs. 21-22). And what is true of the head will likewise be true of his followers. But this kind of inferential argument makes no sense in today’s world, no matter what Christian scholars say people believed in the past. Paul’s logic is flawed here. It could equally be argued by this same logic that since Jesus ascended into heaven, so also will all believers, since what is true of the head will likewise be true of his followers. But of course that logic doesn’t work because even in Paul’s day some Christians had already died and didn’t ascend into heaven as Jesus purportedly did from Mt. Olivet.

My position is that these ancient standards of reasoning are laughable in comparison to today's standards. So to continue believing what they tell us, when we know this about their standards, is utter foolishness. Furthermore, if we can determine from logic that the doctrines that result from their inadequate reasoning are incoherent, completely far-fetched, or even inconsistent, then their historical conclusions should be rejected.

Now here’s the rub. If I misapplied an OT text, or misquoted it to make a point, or if I used pesher, midrash, typological or allegorical methods today to understand the OT, or the Bible as a whole, Christians today would be the first ones to jump down my throat based upon the grammatical historical method.

Christians would say I do not have the authority to do what they did. Jesus could do it because he was God incarnate, and Matthew and Paul could do it because Jesus authorized them to do so. But I cannot, and neither can any other Christian today.

I simply argue that if the logic of NT people is so flawed, then we should not believe them when they go on to claim Jesus was an incarnate God who arose from the dead. If one is flawed, then so is the other. Both stem from a faulty and inadequate way of understanding the world and of assessing the evidence for or against any historical claim, much less a miraculous one.

To my argument here, James Patrick Holding, a self-proclaimed internet apologist, said: “What happened is that they knew from fact and history that Jesus was born of a virgin, etc, and then, to normalize it for those who respected the OT as Scripture, they sought out passages that could be read typologically to verify that such events were kosher. Events called out the texts, not vice versa.”

But this is the very question I’m asking; that is, how do we know “events called out the texts, not vice versa?” Based on the reasoning skills of these early founders of Christianity, and the whole lack of a historical consciousness, it is much more likely that OT texts called out the events that were to be told, not vice versa.

The NT writers made Jesus' life fit the details of their flawed understanding of the OT, and they arbitrarily used the OT to argue for their superstitious beliefs about Jesus.

The Christian Illusion of Moral Superiority

Many Christians will maintain they have a superior foundation for knowing and for choosing to do what is good. They claim to have objective ethical standards for being good, based in a morally good creator God, and that the atheist has no ultimate justification for being moral.

Consider what Dr. William Lane Craig wrote: “If life ends at the grave, then it makes no difference whether one has lived as a Stalin or as a saint.…” “Who is to judge that the values of Adolf Hitler are inferior to those of a saint? “The world was horrified when it learned that at camps like Dachau the Nazis had used prisoners for medical experiments on living humans. But why not? If God does not exist, there can be no objection to using people as human guinea pigs.” [Apologetics: An Introduction, pp. 37-51].

The Christian claims to have absolute and objective ethical standards for knowing right from wrong, which is something they claim atheists don’t have. The Christian standards are grounded in the commands of a good creator God, and these commands come from God’s very nature and revealed to them in the Bible. There is a philosophical foundation for this claim, and then there is the case Christians present that the Bible reveals God’s ethical commands. Both are illusions of superiority. It is an illusion that the Christian moral theory is superior, and it is an illusion that Christians know any better than others how they should morally behave in our world.

There are two bases for grounding Christian ethical standards. The first is known as the Divine Command Theory. I’ll deal with this theory first. The second basis is Natural Law Theory, which I will dispense with briefly later. I will show that neither of these bases for Christian ethics offers believers a special access to moral truth that unbelievers don’t also share. Christian moral foundations are not superior ones.

The Divine Command Theory goes like this: Morality is based upon what God commands. No other reasons are needed but that God so commanded it. If God commanded it, then it is right. If God forbids it, then it is wrong. Of this theory Socrates asked a fundamental question: “Is conduct right because the gods command it, or do gods command it because it is right?” [in Plato’s Euthyphro]

Ever since Socrates asked this question every philosopher who has dealt with Christian ethics has commented on it. But most all commentators will admit that this theory has some huge intellectual problems to overcome. If we say, on the one hand, that something is right because God commands it, then the only reason why we should do something is that God commands it. It makes God’s commands arbitrary, because there is no reason why God commanded something other than the fact that he did. If this is the case, God could’ve commanded something else, or even something contrary, or something horribly evil and simply declared it good. If God is the creator of morality like he’s purportedly the creator of the universe, then he could have simply declared any act good, and there would be no moral reason to distinguish such a God from the Devil. This presents us with the “seemingly absurd position that even the greatest atrocities might be not only acceptable but morally required if God were to command them.” [John Arthur, “Morality Without God” in Garry Brodsky, et al., eds,. Contemporary Readings in Social and Political Ethics (Prometheus Books, 1984)].

Furthermore, this makes the whole concept of the goodness of God meaningless. If we think that the commands of God are good merely because he commands them, then his commands are….well….just his commands. We cannot call them good, for to call them good we’d have to have a standard above them to proclaim that they are indeed good commands. But on this theory they are just God’s commands. God doesn’t command us to do good things, he just commands us to do things. “All that could mean is that God wants us to do what he wants us to do.” [John Arthur, “Morality Without God”). And God isn’t a good God either, he is just God. For there would be no standard above God for us to be able to proclaim that God is good. He is just God.

So if God were to tell us he’s good, then that only means that he labels his character with the word “good.” The word “good” here is merely a word God uses to apply to himself without any real definitional content, apart from the fact that God says this word applies to himself—see the circularity? The bottom line here is that if there is no moral standard for us to appeal to when we’re assessing the claim that God is good, and all we have to go on is the fact that God said he was good, then we cannot asses whether or not God is good. We still haven’t been given as answer to what he means by the word good.

If we say, on the other hand, that God commands what is right because it is right, then we must ask about this higher standard of morality that is being appealed to. If this is so, then we are advocating some higher standard above God that is independent of God that makes his commands good. Rather than declaring what is good, now God recognizes what is good and commands us to do likewise. If we ask why God commands it, the answer would have to be found in some higher standard than God himself. But where did this standard come from that is purportedly higher than God? God is supposed to be the creator of the laws of nature and the moral laws we must live by.

The Divine Command theory is in such disrepute in today’s philosophical circles that only modified Divine Command theories are being discussed today. Christian apologist J.P. Moreland actually claims, “I’m not a divine command theorist…this view implies that morality is merely grounded in God’s will as opposed to His nature. That’s not my view. I think God’s will is ultimately expressed in keeping with his nature. Morality is ultimately grounded in the nature of God, not independently of God.” [in Does God Exist: The Great Debate, with Kai Nielsen (Thomas Nelson, 1990), pp. 130-131; and also in Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianity (Baker, 1987). After stating this, he refers to Robert M. Adam’s “Moral Arguments for Theistic Belief,” in Rationality and Religious Belief, ed., C.F. Delaney (Notre Dame Press, 1979)].

I’ll take a look at Robert M. Adams’ view next. But think of what Moreland is saying here. He’s saying that morality is grounded in God’s nature, not in his commands. But this is a difference that makes no difference. It does no good to step back behind the commands of God to God’s purported nature at all. For we’d still want to know whether or not God’s nature is good. God cannot be known to be good here either, without a standard of goodness that shows he is good. For unless there is standard that shows God is good beyond the mere fact that God declares that his nature is good, we still don’t know whether God is good. Again, God is….well….just God.

Furthermore, we usually call someone good when they make good choices. So an additional question here is whether or not God has ever made any good choices. To choose means there were alternatives to choose from. Did God at any point in the past ever choose his supposedly good nature? Christians will say he has always been good. Then when did he ever make a choice for this particular nature, which he calls “good” over-against, a different nature? At no time in the past do we ever see him doing this. But if he did choose his moral nature, then it stands to reason that the nature he chose is, by definition, good. God’s nature would subsequently be called good by him no matter what nature he chose, if he ever did choose a particular moral nature. Again, all we can say is that God is….well….God, and his commands are….well….his commands.

Robert M. Adams’ “A Modified Divine Command Theory of Ethical Wrongness,” in Gene Outka and John P. Reeder, ed., Religion and Morality: A Collection of Essays (Anchor, 1973), along with Philip Quinn’s, Divine Commands and Moral Requirements (Oxford University Press, 1978), are the best alternatives when discussing Modified Divine Command theories. The modified Divine Command theory of Robert M. Adams claims that God must properly command what is loving, or consistent with that which is loving, because that is his very nature. God is love. Therefore God’s commands flow from his loving nature. God can only command what is good and loving.

The basic criticism of Adams’ view has been stated adequately enough by the late Louis P. Pojman: “If we prefer the modified divine command theory to the divine command theory, then we must say that the divine command theory is false, and the modified divine command theory becomes equivalent to the autonomy thesis: the Good (or right) is not good (or right) simply because God commands it. Furthermore, if this is correct, then we can discover our ethical duties through reason, independent of God’s command. For what is good for his creatures is so objectively. We do not need God to tell us that it is bad to cause unnecessary suffering or that it is good to ameliorate suffering; reason can do that. It begins to look like the true version of ethics is what we called ‘secular ethics.’” [Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong 5th ed. (Wadsworth, 2006), pp. 255-56]. “If Adams wants to claim that it is goodness plus God’s command that determines what is right,” Pojman rightly asked, “what does God add to rightness that is not there simply with goodness…If love or goodness prescribes act A, what does A gain by being commanded by God? Materially, nothing at all.” It is at this point where both a modified divine command ethic and a secular ethic share the exact same grounding. Why? Because then with Pojman, we must ask what difference it makes whether or not the same ethical principles come from “a special personal authority (God) or from the authority of reason?” (p. 256). For this reason Kai Nieslen argues that the Divine Command Theory in its modified forms “does not meet secular ethics head on,” and consequently, “does not challenge…secular ethics.” [in Does God Exist: The Great Debate, (p. 99); For a further critique of Divine Command Theory see Michael Martin’s The Case Against Christianity (Temple Univ. Press, 1991), pp. 229-251].

Steve Lovell also defends this position that God’s commands are rooted in His essential nature (known as the “Divine Nature Theory” or DNT), in “C.S. Lewis and the Euthyphro Dilemma” (July 14, 2002) found at, http://www.theism.net/article/29. Lovell tries to explain something about the inherent circularity of this position. “The point is that any explicit justification of my belief that God is good will be circular. But that point can be happily conceded. Circularity need not be vicious, and the kind of circularity involved here is not in any way peculiar to my position. Indeed, any theory that posits objective values will face the same problem, which is essentially a skeptical one. A fair skeptical challenge is one that does not fault a position for not answering questions that no position could be expected to answer. But no position could help us to provide explicit non-circular justifications for all of our moral beliefs, and DNT is no exception here.”

But I have two questions here. One question remains to be answered is whether he’s correct that any theory that posits “objective values” will face “the same problem.” If by the term “objective values” Lovell means “ultimate objective values,” or “values objectively grounded in a divine being,” then he is indicting his own theory all over again, and so his accusation here is true by his own concession. It would also mean Lovell is not offering a fair alternative to his own theory for comparison, since there are alternative non-ultimate objective ethical systems which do not face an infinite regress of moral standards.

The second question is whether or not the circularity that is inherent in defending the DNT reveals something metaphysical about the nature of God’s existence? I personally think the inherent circularity in trying to defend the DNT points to the non-existence of God.

In an explanation to me Lovell points to an analogous case: “It might be helpful to consider the similarities of a non-moral case: trusting our senses. One theory of why we should trust our senses is that natural selection would have eliminated species whose senses weren't reliable. But why should we accept this theory? Because it's confirmed by scientific data? But that data comes to us through our senses! The justification is circular.”

But is this really an analogous case for our moral faculties? We are able to justify our senses pragmatically, but that’s all. They seem to help us live and work and play in our world. Can we trust our senses to tell us what is real? No. Reality is filtered through our human senses. With the senses of a dog, a porpoise, a snake, or a bird, reality would look and feel different to us. There is so much light and so much sound that we cannot see and hear it’s amazing. We know there is much more to see than what we can see, and we know there is much more to hear than what we can hear. But if we saw and heard it all, it might be likened to "white noise." About the only thing we can trust our senses to tell us is that we have them and that we sense something, and therefore we conclude that something is there. So in a like manner our moral faculties merely help us live and work and play in a pragmatic sense in this world. But what Lovell needs to explain is whether or not we can trust them to tell us something about God, just like I wonder whether our five senses can be trusted to tell us what is truly real.

The second philosophical basis for grounding Christian Ethics is Natural Law Theory. This is the ethical system of Aristotle as adopted by Thomas Aquinas, and it has been the dominant one in the history of the church. It’s an antiquated view of morals today, in that it presupposes the world has values built into it by God, such that moral rules can be derived from nature. [Modern virtue ethics are more interesting because these theories are distancing themselves from the older Thomistic view that moral rules can be derived from nature itself]. But if Natural Law theories are true, then, according to James Rachels, “This means that the religious believer has no special access to moral truth. The believer and the nonbeliever are in exactly the same position. God has made all people rational, not just believers; and so for believer and nonbeliever alike, making a responsible moral judgment is a matter of listening to reason and following its directives.” [The Elements of Moral Philosophy (McGraw-Hill, 1993), p. 53].

And this is exactly my point. The foundations of Christian morality are not superior ones to atheistic morality, based upon Christian assumptions. Neither of these two bases for Christian ethics offers believers a special access to moral truth that unbelievers don’t share, unless Christians are willing to grant that God could command us to do evil if he had wanted to, a conclusion that infringes on the whole notion of the goodness of God. Christian moral foundations are simply not superior ones.

Besides, there are several ethical systems of thought that do not require a prior belief in God, like Social Contract Theories, Utilitarianism, Virtue Ethics, Kantianism, and John Rawls’ theory of justice. Ethical Relativism isn’t the boogey man that some Christians make it out to be either, since relativism “is compatible with complete agreement on all ethical matters,” whereas “ethical absolutism is compatible with wide-spread disagreement.” [Michael Martin, Atheism: A Philosophical Justification (Temple, 1990), p. 9].

Even Christian philosopher Thomas V. Morris admits that, “It has…been argued in various ways over the past century that the evolutionary process somehow provides a framework of moral reference. Basic human instincts could be cited as loci for the moral constraints needed in society. The physical, survival, functional needs of men in society or community could act as moral matrices for the guiding of moral motions…there are many possible bases or explanations for moral motions in an impersonal universe. They could easily have arisen from evolutionary or community survival needs, for example, and consequently, when identified as a human ‘aspiration,’ the practice of making moral distinctions could be said to be ‘fulfilled’ when it is successfully functional within those contexts.” [Thomas V. Morris’ in Francis Schaeffer’s Apologetics: A Critique (Moody Press, 1976, pp. 69].

Even if Christians did have objective moral standards, they cannot be objectively certain that they know them, or that they know how they apply to specific real life cases! Just look at Christianity’s past and you’ll see what I mean. Believers will still disagree with each other on a multifaceted number of ethical issues, whether they start with the Bible as God’s revelation, or the morality gleaned from a Natural Law Theory. Just take a brief tour of Church history, or read a book like J. Philip Wogman’s Christian Ethics: A Historical Introduction (Westminister, 1993), to see for yourself. Willard M. Swartley’s book, Slavery, Sabbath, War & Women: Case Issues in Biblical Interpretation (Herald Press, 1983) reveals how people who share the same views of the Bible can vehemently disagree with what God wants them to do.

Since Dr. Craig earlier mentioned Hitler, Auschwitz, and Dachau in his apologetics book, consider this response: Germany was a Christian nation—the heart of the Lutheran Protestant Reformation! How could a Christian people allow these evil deeds to happen and even be his willing executioners? How? The Holocaust and the horrible things done to millions of Jews and various minorities is more a problem for the Christian ethic, because it was a more or less Christian nation that did these horrible deeds.

The fact is that Christian religious moralists are largely in the same boat as atheists. Kai Nielsen: “The religious moralist…doesn’t have any better or any worse objectivity. Because, suppose he says, ‘We should love God,’ and then further suppose we ask the religious moralist, ‘Why Love God…Why obey his commandments?’ He basically would have to say, ‘Because God is the perfect good, and God with his perfect goodness reveals to us the great value of self-respect for people. He shows that people are of infinite precious worth.’ But even if you accept this, you could go on to ask, ‘Why should you care? What difference does it make anyway whether people are of infinite precious worth?’ Faced with such questioning, you will finally be pushed into a corner, where you say that ‘It is important to me that people be regarded as being infinite worth because I just happen to care about people. It means to me that people should be treated with respect. So the religious moralist as well has to rely finally on his considered convictions. So if that too is subjective ground, then both the religious person and the secular person are in the same boat.” [Kai Nielsen (with J.P. Moreland) Does God Exist: The Great Debate (Thomas Nelson, 1990), pp. 107-108].
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What I wrote above reflects some additional thoughts from the responses below.

The Christian Illusion of Rational Superiority

Many Christians assume a certain kind of rational superiority over any other system of belief and thought, especially atheism. According to them, their beliefs are rationally superior in the sense that Christianity wins hands down in the marketplace of ideas. They claim that a compelling case can be made for believing in Christianity over any other system of belief and thought.

This way of thinking about the Christian faith is due to what my friend and Christian scholar, Dr. James Sennett calls, “The Illusion of Rational Superiority,” in his forthcoming book: This Much I Know: A Postmodern Apologetic.

Dr. James Sennett argues against the idea that people who reject Christianity do so because they are either “ignorant,” “stupid” or “dishonest with the facts.” That is, he argues against the idea that a “fully rational rejection of Christianity is impossible.” Dr. Sennett calls this objection the Christian “Illusion of Rational Superiority." It's simply an illusion, he claims. [Although, as a Christian philosopher he argues it is an unnecessary illusion due to the fact that even though he has a reasonable faith, it is “not rationally compelling to all.”]

As an example of this illusion, Sennett quotes from Bill Bright, the late founder and president of Campus Crusade for Christ, who wrote: “During my fifty-five years of sharing the good news of the Savior … I have met very few individuals who have honestly considered the evidence and yet deny that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of men. To me, the evidence confirming the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ is overwhelmingly conclusive to any honest, objective seeker after truth.”

As another milder example of this illusion, I want you to consider Os Guinness’s book, titled: In Two Minds: The Dilemma of Doubt and How to Resolve It (IVP, 1976) Guinness discusses the main reasons why people, including Christians themselves, have doubts about Christianity: there is doubt from a faulty view of God; doubt from weak (intellectual) foundations; doubt from a lack of commitment; doubt from lack of growth; doubt from unruly emotions; doubt from fearing to believe; doubt from insistent inquisitiveness; and doubt from impatience or giving up.

Since Guinness was arguing on behalf of his Christian faith, he doesn’t mention one other reason to doubt: doubt from a lack of adequate reasons. And he fails to note that in the above list of reasons to doubt one could just as well reverse them: believing from the need to be grateful to someone; believing from the need for a God; believing from weak (intellectual) foundations; believing from the need to be committed; believing in hopes of personal growth; believing because of unruly emotions; believing because of the fear of doubting; believing from not being inquisitive enough; and believing from giving up too soon. While Guiness isn’t as blatant as others about this, we still find it here with him. There are some very solid reasons to believe, we’re told, so if you doubt, it’s because of some fault within you.

But Sennett argues that the Christian cannot overlook “one simple but powerful fact: most of the truly brilliant, deepest thinking, most profoundly influential movers and shakers of the last two hundred years have not been Christians. Neither Albert Einstein nor Bertrand Russell nor Sigmund Freud nor Stephen Hawking nor Karl Marx professed Jesus as lord. And the list goes on. To suggest that these people failed to believe because of ignorance or some rational defect is ludicrous.” [Of course, the illusion runs both ways, Sennett claims. There is no rational superiority for unbelief, either. Atheist Thomas Nagel is quoted as saying he was made uneasy “by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers.”]

Sennett informs us that “if there is one lesson that modern epistemology has taught us, it is that almost nothing is as rationally certain as 'the illusion' claims Christianity to be. In other words, almost nothing is so obvious that one could never rationally reject it.” Furthermore, it seems possible that “one could rationally deny almost any claim, even if that claim is true.” There are plenty of philosophical reasons for Sennett’s argument, and many historical examples. The fact is, many scholars have indeed examined the historical evidence for Christianity and they regard that evidence as flawed.

This Blog will present a strong case against this illusion. It’s simply an illusion that Christians have a rationally superior faith. I hope to further demonstrate that Christianity is actually the opposite. It is rationally inferior.