Aside from being just an honestly bizarre objection, given that Romans 3:28 says that “one is justified by faith apart from works of the law”, it’s pretty simple to work out that justification must be by faith alone. The reasoning looks something like this:

1. Sin is the transgression of God’s law, by definition.
2. To be justified is to be without sin before God, through means of having kept the whole law, since “to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due” (Romans 4:4); whereas conversely “whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it” (James 2:10).
3. Therefore, any person who transgresses the law is not justified by his own actions.
4. Any person who transgresses the law is not justified by his own actions, as per (3).
5. Every person has transgressed the law, since “none is righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10).
6. Therefore, every person is not justified by his own actions.
7. Every person is not justified by his own actions, as per (6).
8. Some people are justified, since “we have been justified” (Romans 5:1).
9. Therefore, those people who are justified are not justified by their own actions.
10. Faith is the only means given by which we may be justified, as per Romans 3:28 and the lack of any other provision in Scripture.
11. Our own actions are excluded as either necessary or sufficient to our justification, as per Romans 4:5 and (9) above.
12. Therefore, justification is by faith alone.

The argument can really stop at conclusion (3), but the further inference is useful for drawing out and explaining sola fide. What it shows is that, because of the very nature of sin, Scripture’s teaching that we are justified by faith is necessarily exclusive. It does not permit the notion that we are justified by faith and our works, because it cannot permit this. Once we have transgressed the law, we could work forever obeying every statute from then on, but never become less guilty of sin. This is why hell is eternal. We can never justify ourselves once we have sinned. To obey the law flawlessly is only to do what is required (Luke 17:10); it does not gain us any actual merit.

Therefore, although there is prima facie a possibility in some passages that faith may not be the only condition for justification (though the implication is otherwise), further consideration shows that this possibility must be precluded. The whole point of all these passages which speak of being right before God is that it’s only possible through God’s own actions, because our works cannot make us less sinful. They cannot make us more righteous—let alone sinless. Thus, a foreign righteousness which is not our own must be given to us. This is the righteousness of Christ, appropriated through faith.

This simple doctrine is the essence of the gospel—anyone who has not grasped it has not grasped the gospel itself. He has not grasped what sin is, nor the solution to it. Therefore, having not grasped the solution, he is certainly not able to apply that solution—which is Paul’s point in Galatians 1:6–9, 2:15–16, and 3:1ff.

(For those of you wondering how James 2:24 fits into this argument, refer to part 5 of my series ‘Who are the Christians?’, which discusses salvation and works.)

The parable works on several levels, but one is how the prophecy of Isaiah [25:6–10] is fulfilled now, with Jesus the Bridegroom coming as the Bread of Life, and in the future, at the end of time, when the heavenly wedding feast takes place, as portrayed in Revelation 19:7–10.

Needless to say this correspondent is a Roman Catholic. He continues:

A curious detail in the story in Matthew is that of the wedding guest who had no wedding garment and was kicked out. I would be interested to know what your interpretation of this is.

Although I’m not much of an expositor, I always find it enjoyable to study and unravel the parables of Jesus, since they are so very rich in theological content. Close examination of one parable invariably reveals linkages with others which weren’t obvious at first sight, and which weave it into a larger tapestry in illuminating and gratifying ways. So let me break away from my more typical philosophical theology, and offer an exposition of the parable of the wedding feast.

The larger context

Matthew 22:1–14 comes at the end of a number of previous parables and events which demonstrate and commentate upon the apostasy of the Jews; that is, their rejection of the kingdom of heaven which was their rightful inheritance as God’s chosen people:

Matthew 20

In Matthew 20:1–16 the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a vineyard who hires laborers at various times throughout the day, but pays them all the same amount at sundown. Here is demonstrated firstly the generosity of God toward those who formerly were not his people, and secondly the ungracious and foolish presumption of the Jews in believing their own perseverance and works to be meritorious. In verses 17–19, Jesus foretells his death at the hands of the Jews, laying a contextual foundation for the parables to come. Then in verses 20–28 the mother of the sons of Zebedee asks him that her sons may sit beside him in his kingdom—an event which culminates in the re-emphasizing of this contextual foundation as Jesus declares his purpose in coming to give his life as a ransom for many. All of these parables and events serve to highlight the theme that the first will be made last, and the last will be made first—a principle exemplified in Jesus himself. Finally, he heals two blind men, leading into his triumphal entry into Jerusalem in Matthew 21:1–11.

Matthew 21

The triumphal entry poignantly re-emphasizes the fact that Jesus himself is not excluded from the repeated statement that the first shall be last, but rather is its ultimate exemplar. Entering Jerusalem, he is regarded as the first among a people who are themselves regarded as the first before God. Yet later he was to be handed over by them for execution as the lowest criminal among a people regarded as the lowest criminals before God.

To lay the narrative foundation for this, Matthew turns in chapter 21 to emphasizing particularly the apostasy of the Jews. Verses 12–17 detail how the temple has become “a den of robbers”; verses 18–22 recall the cursing of the fig tree for failing to bear fruit, just as Israel will be made to spiritually wither for the same reason; and verses 23–27 describe the unbelief and malice of Israel’s spiritual leaders toward the authority of God.

This leads into three parables which build upon each other. The first is of the two sons. Jesus uses it to explain to the Scribes and Pharisees that they are less righteous than the worst sinners, because they did not do what they ought to have done by believing God’s message proclaimed through John the Baptist. Here is emphasized their rejection of God’s authority as represented in his prophets. The second parable is of the murderous tenants, where the rejection of God’s authority in the prophets is built upon to emphasize the rejection of his own son—the most recent and despicable of Israel’s acts of unbelief and disobedience. Therefore, Jesus tells them, “the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. And the one who falls on this stone [that is Jesus] will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him” (vv 43–44).

The parable of the wedding feast

This all finally leads into chapter 22:1–14: the parable of the wedding feast. In this, Jesus expands on what he has said about the kingdom being taken away from the Jews and given to a people producing fruits. Israel’s apostasy is again described, but now the emphasis shifts from what was required of them, and toward what God will give to others:

Verses 1–3

And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, 2“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, 3and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come.”

The motif of a feast is common in Scripture as a metaphor for God’s provision and delight in his people, and for their reciprocal delight in him. Isaiah 25:6 is a good example. The metaphor is a natural one, since human kings and patrons would show their graciousness to their subjects by holding feasts in this way. Here in Matthew, Jesus also alludes to the scriptural metaphor of Israel as God’s bride, such as appears in Ezekiel 16. Most importantly, he names the wedding as being for the king’s son—thus explicitly identifying himself as God, who is king over Israel.

This marriage feast metaphor is used again in Revelation 19:6–10 to describe the glorified church rejoicing in its savior. Here in Matthew 22, however, the context is not glory in the intermediate (or final) state, but rather the kingdom of heaven firstly as a past and future temporal reality (verses 3–6 and 7–10 respectively); and extending secondly into an eternal state within which God’s people remain—or not—following the final judgment (verses 11–14).

Verses 4–6

Again he sent other servants, saying, “Tell those who are invited, ‘See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.’” 5But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, 6while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them.

Preparing a feast in biblical times was not as exact a science as it is today. There were no industrialized meat or vegetable farms, no combine harvesters or abattoirs, no packing plants or storage facilities, no trucks or trains, no supermarkets or cornershops, no cars or vans, and no fridges or freezers. Subsequently, when a patron wished to organize a feast or a banquet, he would send out an invitation well in advance informing those invited of the intended time for the event. Then, when the food was actually prepared and the banquet finally set, a second invitation was sent so that the waiting guests could come immediately (cf Luke 14:17). Jesus uses this custom to allude to the repetition with which God has called the Jews through the prophets. Yet despite these repeated invitations, the Jews chose the world over the kingdom of heaven, while some even persecuted and murdered the messengers God sent. Thus they not merely ignored God’s invitation; they actively despised it. As he says in another place, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.”

Now, unlike today, a person could not reasonably refuse an invitation like the one in this parable. Attendance at a feast was a serious social obligation—especially for the invited dependents of a patron, and most especially for the invited subjects of a king. It was highly incumbent upon such guests that they come punctually when summoned. Conversely, refusal to attend constituted a deliberate insult to the dignity and grace of the host. Thus, a unanimous refusal such as the one in this parable implies a conspiratorial effort on the part of the guests to greatly shame and insult their king. In return, he would be socially obliged to save face by avenging his honor and executing justice. Even in a far more mundane situation, this would typically entail severe punishment for those who had refused to attend; while the graciousness of the invitation had to be upheld by extending it to prior non-invitees. Here, the extreme, concerted actions of the guests in refusing in toto to attend, and in further murdering the king’s messengers, would have constituted nothing less than treason. Capital punishment would have been the only appropriate response.

Verse 7

The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

The king appropriately sends his army to slay the treasonous guests. This certainly alludes to historical occasions on which God had punished Israel’s disobedience by subjecting them to military conquest. Isaiah again comes to mind, where in 10:5–6 the armies of Assyria are prophesied to bring God’s wrath upon Israel:

Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger; the staff in their hands is my fury! Against a godless nation I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

However, while these historical judgments are certainly in view, they in turn merely foreshadow the final judgment wherein God rejects the Jews utterly forever, and gives their inheritance to others. This is particularly the focus of the parable, and thus Jesus does not merely recall what God has done, but also prophesies what God will do. Rome was shortly to destroy the temple and put the Jews to the sword, scattering them abroad and preventing them gathering in the presence of God, as his people, ever again. There is a comparison here to Luke 14:16–24, which also emphasizes that “none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet” (verse 24).

Verses 8–10

Then he said to his servants, “The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.” 10And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.

Here is where the parable turns from what was commanded by God to what will be given by God. Jesus expands on his previous comment in Matthew 21:43: that, having taken his kingdom from the Jews, he will give it to a people producing fruits. Thus he alludes to the spread of God’s kingdom throughout the world as prophesied in Genesis 18:18, wherein “the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed’” (Galatians 3:8). This coming grafting of the Gentiles into God’s people is progressively revealed in Psalm 22:27, Micah 4:1–4, Isaiah 49:6, Hosea 2:23, and many other places—and fulfilled in Luke 24:47, John 4:22, Acts 17:30, and Matthew 28:19, where Jesus says: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.

The servants of God—that is, in the church age, ourselves—go out into the world as instructed, and gather as many as we find: “both bad and good” (verse 10). So we indiscriminately preach the gospel, drawing into our number those of sincere faith; but also those who harbor unbelief in their hearts despite professing as we do. We know that in the visible body of Christ there are many who are outwardly Christians, but who have not inwardly clothed themselves with the righteousness of Jesus. But we are commanded to invite all without exception, even if some who come are insincere.

Verses 11–13

But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. 12And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. 13Then the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

When our King arrives, on that final day, “the angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous” (Matthew 13:49). So God will take these wolves in sheep’s clothing and demand an account from them. But “every mouth will be stopped” (Romans 3:19), and he will cast them out, for

Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” And then will I declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” (Matthew 7:21–23)

Normally, guests at a wedding were expected to attend in fresh and clean clothes in honor of the occasion. Wearing the same clothes one had been working in all day was to insult the host by demeaning the value of the event, rather than extending the honor deserved. Thus, the wedding garments in the parable at least refer to unsoiled, clean clothes. However, given that the guests were gathered from the highways, it’s reasonable to infer that they had no such clothes on them. Subsequently, wedding garments must have been provided for them when they entered. Here, then, is an allusion to righteousness unto salvation. Our own garments are as polluted menstrual cloths (Isaiah 64:6)—wearing them to the wedding feast, the kingdom of heaven, is to bring upon ourselves the wrath of our host the King. Without clean garments he will throw us out into the darkness. However, because we have no such garments, he has graciously provided them for us; as in Isaiah 61:10—

I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

Or Ephesians 2:4–9—

God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Professing Christians who presume upon God’s grace while remaining inwardly unconverted, even though they may appear in every way very pious, will be thrown into hell along with all those who rejected God openly. “For we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ” (Galatians 2:16); so even the holiest of people, performing all outward observances and good deeds and acts of contrition, will never be saved by these, but by faith—”for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). Only those who have, by faith, put on the foreign righteousness of Christ are actually justified (Romans 5:1); so only they will remain in the kingdom of heaven after the final judgment. Of the others, God will ask, “How did you get here?” A man without a wedding garment must not have come in through the front door; and “he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way—that man is a thief and a robber” (John 10:1).

Verse 14

For many are called, but few are chosen.

Finally, Jesus appends a brief summation—an explanation of God’s purposes in redemption. Many are called by the gospel, but few are chosen to receive it. So the gospel is extended to all, even though all are not elect. Yet as many as are appointed to eternal life will believe (cf Acts 13:48), for “he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him” (Ephesians 1:4; cf 2 Thessalonians 13–14). In this way, the parable is drawn to a close with a summary affirmation of all that it teaches: that God, the sovereign king of salvation, freely chooses to whom he will give it, and from whom he will withhold it.

Every now and again, some atheist will claim that Christianity is falsified by Occam’s Razor. Occam’s Razor is the principle of parsimony, which states that entities should not be multiplied needlessly. Basically, the Razor claims that the simplest explanation is the best. The argument forwarded by atheists is generally along the lines either that (i) God is unnecessary to explain the world as we know it, and therefore is unlikely to exist; or, more strongly, that (ii) since God is infinitely complex, the Christian explanation of reality is thus infinitely more complex than a non-theistic one, and so should be rejected by default. (This second argument I find more interesting—it’s what got me thinking about Occam’s Razor to begin with, after Steve Zarbi posited it following our debate.)

It intrigues me that atheists use this as a foundation for “disproving” Christianity. Several obvious problems suggest themselves:

Question-begging

Firstly, how does (i) not beg the question against the Christian? If, in fact, the Christian is correct in asserting that God is not just necessary to explain reality, but is a necessary precondition for reality, then (i) is obviously false and doesn’t constitute an argument at all. Since the Christian has plenty of good arguments of his own which seek to prove his position, these should be evaluated on their own merits rather than dismissed on the dubious basis of parsimony.

Less obviously, (ii) also begs the question. Even if the Christian explanation is infinitely more complex by merit of entertaining an infinitely complex being, perhaps it is the case that, in this particular instance, such a being is a requirement of any rigorous and adequate explanation of reality. The atheist needs to make an argument which shows this is not the case, rather than merely asserting it.

Furthermore, what does the atheist mean by “infinitely complex being”, in reference to God? The term “infinite” is used very freely with relation to God, but is generally a qualitative term rather than a quantitative one. That is, when we say that God is “infinite”, we tend to be referring to some superlative characteristic of his, rather than to any actual number of things which inhere in him. So the atheist needs to clarify and argue for his view that God is infinitely complex.

On top of this, even if that argument is successful, he has still not shown that an infinitely complex God entails an infinitely complex explanation. In what sense is the quantitative infinity of God being imputed to the Christian’s explanation of reality? Again, clarification and argument, rather than mere assertion, are required to prove the point.

Complexity is better than simplicity

Secondly, and along similar lines to the question-begging problem, it is self-evidently the case that we can have such a thing as an explanation which is too simple, but not necessarily an explanation which is too complex. Imagine, for example, a detective trying to find an explanation for the death of a man who died from blunt trauma in a factory. It’s obvious to us that an explanation which includes a murderer is more complex than an explanation which doesn’t. According to Occam’s Razor, the detective should favor any explanation which does not needlessly multiply entities. If the death can be explained by an unfortunate mechanical accident, then there isn’t any reason to postulate a murderer. A murderer becomes a needless entity, and so the detective assumes that it was indeed an accident. That’s fair.

However, two obvious things need to be noted: firstly, an explanation which fails to include a necessary entity is too simple, and therefore is necessarily false. Imagine the dead man was 90 years old and had a heart condition. Ordinarily, natural causes would be the simplest and most likely cause of death. But there is evidence of blunt trauma; so if the detective posits a natural heart attack as the explanation for the man’s death, his explanation is obviously too simple—and thus must be wrong. A blunt object is a necessary entity in the explanation.

Secondly, and on the other hand, a murderer could have killed the man in such a way as to make the death appear accidental. So the fact that the explanation without a murderer is more simple does not guarantee its truth; and the fact that the explanation with a murderer is more complex does not guarantee its falsehood. In fact, we can imagine a fantastic and highly unlikely explanation for the man’s death, involving any number of entities that the detective would never think of, which was nonetheless true.

So an over-simple theory must be wrong, but an “over”-complex theory might be right. There are plenty of good arguments to show that a non-theistic explanation of reality is over-simple in such a way that it must be false. I hope to discuss more of these in the Philosophy section of Thinking Matters Talk as time goes on.

Occam’s Razor has no grounds in a non-theistic worldview

The last and most convincingly troublesome problem for the atheist is that Occam’s Razor itself, on which his objection is based, really has no grounds whatsoever in a non-theistic worldview. The atheist wants to say that we should not multiply entities needlessly. A Christian may well agree with him, because he knows from revelation (both special and general) that God typically does not act in a needlessly complicated way. He has designed the universe to act consistently, and in a way which is fairly straightforward, even in its complexity. He has also designed our senses and intellects in such a way that we can apprehend the way the world works, and discover things about it. Most importantly, he has built into us certain expectations about the world, such that our intuitions generally match up to reality. Thus we have grounds for affirming Occam’s Razor.

But an atheist has no such grounds. In a non-rational universe, whether mechanistic or probabilistic, what possible reason could he have for asserting that simpler explanations are better? Why should they be? As a rule of thumb, at least fifty percent of the time we should expect the more complex explanations to true. There isn’t any physical law of parsimony such that the universe must operate in such a way that simpler explanations are better, is there? So on what basis does the atheist assert Occam’s Razor at all?

He could say that, historically, the simpler explanations have been true. And maybe this is so. But then why does he think that this will continue to be the case? After all, we know very little of the universe, and we haven’t been around very long in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps our history is an aberration, and in fact it is a general rule that the likelihood of an explanation being true tends to rise with its complexity. How can he know this isn’t the case?

In truth, he affirms Occam’s Razor because his God-given intuitions suggest very strongly to him that it’s true. Unfortunately, because his intuitions are indeed God-given, he is most certainly misapplying them in using them as a basis for objecting to God’s existence.

The following people should now consider themselves tagged:

1. Darryl Burling
2. Jono Mac
3. Timothy
4. Drew Lewis
5. Damian Peterson

One day, Juan is walking down the street when he meets a Protestant handing out tracts. They get to talking, and Juan is surprised to learn that the Protestant thinks that Catholics aren’t saved. Juan tries to reassure the fellow that Catholics are Christians too—in fact, they are the true Christians who submit to the true Church of Christ. Protestants, to be honest, are the ones who are at a great disadvantage, having neither doctrinal purity nor the pure sacraments; especially the sacrificial Eucharist.

To Juan’s surprise, though, the Protestant rebuffs him. “We can’t both be Christians,” he says. “If what I believe is true, then we’re saved by faith alone, and your gospel of faith and works is no gospel at all. But if what you believe is true, then Pope Boniface VIII was correct when he infallibly said that that no one at all can be saved without being in subjection to the Roman Pontiff. As for your Eucharist, the doctrine of transubstantiation is, quite frankly, an abomination. How can a piece of bread literally become Jesus’s body, to be physically eaten by an entire congregation?”

Juan goes away bemused. He has talked often with his priest, and they’ve discussed Protestantism a few times. The Catholic Church is the one true Church instituted by Christ—so Protestants are missing out on a lot by failing to submit to it. They’re deprived of much true doctrine, and of the proper means of grace in the sacraments. A Protestant communion service is deeply impoverished compared to a Catholic Eucharistic mass. But Protestants still sincerely believe that Jesus is the Son of God who died for their sins; they’re still Christians—and anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. In fact, even Muslims can be saved, or pagans in unevangelized countries, as long as they do their best to seek God with what little light of natural revelation they have.

As for the Eucharist being an abomination—well, you’d expect that from a Protestant! Jesus’s words were spirit and life; how could someone who hadn’t received these through the wonderful gift of the Eucharist understand them?

Thinking about it on his way home, Juan becomes more confident. Sure, that Protestant had rattled him a bit, but what could he know about Catholic teachings, after all? Juan determines to prove him wrong. When he gets home, he fires up his computer and does a search on Pope Boniface VIII. Soon he finds what the Protestant chap looks to have been referring to: a document called Unam Sanctam. By most accounts not an infallible declaration…except for the last line. It reads:

we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.

Juan stares at this sentence for a long time. It’s hard to imagine a plainer, more explicit, more all-encompassing or hard-nosed statement about salvation. For every human creature, it is absolutely necessary to be subject to the Roman Pontiff in order to obtain salvation. There’s no room for wiggling. It’s not most human creatures; not a bit necessary; not sort of subject. This is in infallible and exclusive statement about how salvation may be appropriated, and it clearly says that no one who is not subject to the Pope can be saved. Was his priest wrong? If Boniface VIII was really speaking infallibly, then Muslims cannot be saved; ignorant pagans cannot be saved; Protestants who reject the authority of Rome cannot be saved (though of course, this statement was made in the 1300s, well before the Reformation). From the looks of things, even Eastern Orthodox Christians can’t be saved—and that can’t be right!

Juan decides to research the matter more deeply. He wants to familiarize himself with all the important Catholic pronouncements in this area, so he looks further afield. He finds that Boniface VIII was by no means aberrant in his conclusions; he seemed to have been reflecting a well-established, historical teaching. Pope Innocent III before him, at the Fourth Lateran Council, had said that “there is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside of which no one at all can be saved”; and Eugene IV, after him, had declared most magnificently in Cantate Domino that

The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes, and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgiving, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved, unless he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church.

Not Jews? Then certainly not Muslims, Juan muses. Not schismatics? Then certainly not Eastern Orthodox Christians. Not heretics? Then certainly not Protestants. And not pagans? Then certainly not the unevangelized. That doesn’t line up with what he has been told at all. But the further he digs, the more statements like this he finds. From Clement of Rome to Augustine to Gregory the Great, and afterwards to Trent, then into the nineteenth century (with Pius IX being particularly vocal about the matter), there is an unbroken tradition of teaching: extra Ecclesiam nulla salus—outside of the church there is no salvation! This is Church Tradition. His priest must have been wrong. That Protestant chap was right. The Catholic Church really does teach that only Catholics can be saved.

Juan is prepared to accept this. The Church is infallible; his priest is not. Perhaps he made a mistake. Certainly there isn’t any doubt about the clarity or pedigree of this tradition. He makes a mental note to mention this to his priest the next time they meet; he should know about his mistake.

By this stage Juan has gotten up to the major statements of the twentieth century, and is reading through the principal documents of Vatican II. (He’s a quick reader.) Scanning through Lumen Gentium, his eye catches a statement that just flabbergasts him:

the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohamedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind. [...] Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience.

He re-reads this three or four times, but the words don’t change. How can this be? As the Protestant fellow had said, Unam Sanctam, and the whole Catholic Tradition, clearly teaches that no one outside the Catholic Church, no one who does not submit to Rome, can be saved. But Lumen Gentium is saying that not only does a person not have to submit to Rome; not only does he not have to be a Christian by any standard; not only does he not have to claim the same religion as Abraham regardless of how wrong and heretical he is; in fact, he can be a rank pagan and be saved! Either the Church was wrong until Vatican II, which of course it wasn’t…or Vatican II was wrong. They can’t both be right.

Juan is confused, and he decides to sleep on it. The next morning he re-reads Unam Sanctam and Lumen Gentium, hoping that with a fresh start and a fresh eye, he will gain a fresh perspective. Perhaps these two documents really can be reconciled easily. Perhaps he just missed something obvious last night. He was pretty tired after all that reading.

Sadly, the two declarations remain steadfastly opposed. So Juan prints them out, re-reads them over lunch, and then hurries down to his church, conveniently situated a block over. His priest (with whom, of course, he is in frequent consultation so as to avoid error, and so as to submit himself to the proper authority delegated by the Magisterium) ushers him into his office. He’s anxious to help Juan with whatever theological question has arisen this time.

Juan explains his problem. Church Tradition says one thing up until 1964…then it completely changes its mind and contradicts itself!

His priest reads over the pertinent statements which Juan has printed out. He’s read them before, of course, but he wants to refresh his memory. After a moment’s thought, he assures Juan that Vatican II was not in error; that Lumen Gentium and Unam Sanctam are both teaching the truth. Rome has never contradicted itself, and neither has God’s plan of salvation changed in the past six centuries. The problem is not with the documents, but with Juan’s understanding. He rifles through some files, and pulls out a dog-eared collection of papers, stapled together at one corner. “This is Dominus Iesus,” he says, “which clarifies what is meant in Lumen Gentium.” He hands it to Juan, tapping his finger against a section of text marked with a yellow highlighter:

Salvation in Christ is accessible by virtue of a grace which, while having a mysterious relationship to the Church, does not make them formally part of the Church, but enlightens them in a way which is accommodated to their spiritual and material situation.

“In other words, salvation is only ever found within the Catholic Church—but that doesn’t mean that everyone who’s saved is visibly or explicitly part of the Church. You can be an implicit member.”

Juan needs to think this over. He thanks his priest, but he goes away still deeply troubled. He knows what Unam Sanctam says. He knows that it’s absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff. He can’t understand how a Protestant who explicitly rejects the authority of the Roman Pontiff, and who willingly refuses to be in subjection to him, can be “implicitly” in such subjection all the same. It doesn’t make the least bit of sense. He can understand, perhaps, how someone who doesn’t know about the Pontiff could implicitly be subject to Rome by joining himself to the body of Christ through earnestly seeking God. If such a person did come to learn about Catholicism, he would willingly and gladly subject himself explicitly. But in the case of Protestants and Muslims and Eastern Orthodox and whatnot, they explicitly refuse to be in subjection. So it’s a contradiction in terms to say that they are implicitly subject.

More importantly, Cantate Domino specifically named pagans and schismatics and heretics and Jews as being outside of the Church, and unable to receive salvation. Even if implicit membership is all that’s needed for salvation, all these people are unequivocally said to be unsaved; so they must be excluded from any kind of membership. But that plainly contradicts Lumen Gentium as read through the lens of Dominus Iesus. The answer his priest had given him seemed promising at first, but as he thinks about it on his way home, it becomes increasingly obvious that it isn’t an answer at all. It isn’t possible to reconcile all these declarations.

Juan spends a lot of time researching this. He learns that some Catholics, called Sedevacantists, reject Vatican II because it has contradicted prior teaching. He can sympathize. But Sedevacantists aren’t infallible; and Rome is. So they must have misinterpreted either Vatican II, or the earlier Tradition, or both. He can’t take the word of schismatics over the word of the Magisterium. In fact, he muses, Sedevacantists have done exactly what Protestants do, by exercising their private judgment instead of submitting to Rome. They have presumed to take upon themselves the authority of interpreting Rome’s teachings and deciding what they must mean, instead of letting Rome speak for itself. That’s ironically anti-Catholic, he thinks. He isn’t going to make that mistake.

But then what is he to do? He can’t see a way to reconcile his understanding of the various teaching documents. But he recognizes that he’s fallible; and that he must be understanding them wrongly if they appear to contradict each other. The plain meaning of Lumen Gentium is that non-Catholics can be saved. The plain meaning of Unam Sanctam is that they can’t. But…on what authority is he to decide which interpretation he’s mucked up? He knows that he must have misunderstood at least one of them. Or maybe both. How can he be sure?

After much consideration, Juan is forced to conclude that he simply isn’t able to discern the real meaning of the Church’s teaching documents in this matter. This at least is comforting in its consistency, since the Bible (the “original teaching document”) also plainly appears to teach in Romans that “no one seeks after God; no not one”. But obviously the implication of Lumen Gentium is that some people do sincerely seek after God. This apparent discrepancy just reinforces Juan’s conclusion that Catholic laypeople are not gifted with the ability to discern the real meaning in either Scripture or the Church’s later teaching documents. They just aren’t qualified. They lack some special knowledge which is needed to put everything together. To the layman, the meaning of the words in one document appears to contradict the meaning of the words in another; and the meaning of the words in a third, which are supposed to reconcile the two, don’t make any sense. So to know what Catholicism teaches, he really can’t consult its teaching documents. He has to ask his priest, who can explain them to him. After all, he has received the sacrament of ordination; he has special grace granted for his special office. Surely that explains why things are clearer to him.

Juan has to conclude that Catholic laymen simply do not have the special grace which must be required to fit everything together. Some kind of cypher is needed; a cypher which only the Roman Magisterium, in its priests and bishops and archbishops and, finally, the pope, has access to.

But why would the Magisterium encode their teaching documents in this way, he wonders. After all, they aren’t teaching documents at all if it isn’t possible to learn anything from them. He can’t answer that question, but then it isn’t his place to question the Infallible Church of Christ any more than it’s his place to question Christ himself. So he forces himself to be content with putting down his books, and working with the small doctrinal snippets that he gets from the pulpit every day in Mass (he goes every day because he needs all the grace he can get, and he’s hoping to store up some merit for himself by taking communion more frequently than other Catholics). He knows the major doctrines that he has to believe to be saved. He knows about praying to saints, and about how Mary’s body did not perish, and about transubstantiation, for example. He doesn’t really know anything about his faith except that which can be summarized in brief statements like “Mary was assumed bodily into heaven” or “the host turns into the real body of Christ”. But that seems to be how it must be for the laity, since further doctrinal knowledge is impossible; so he accepts it.

But then he’s pondering these doctrinal soundbites one night, in the hope of at least being a good Catholic by understanding the doctrines which he has been told about; and he starts to see some real problems. He’s meant to believe that, at the consecration, the host turns literally into the body of Christ. Each host miraculously becomes the true body of Jesus himself. This is integral to his faith. If he doesn’t believe this, he isn’t a Catholic. But what does it mean to believe this? He knows that Catholics believe the words, in a semantic sense; they affirm that the proposition “The host becomes the real body of Christ” is true. But that might be no different, he realizes, from affirming that “The law of noncontradiction is false”. Saying it, and saying it’s true, doesn’t actually mean that it’s possible, or that it’s possible to actually believe. It doesn’t mean that it can be true. It just means that someone affirming the proposition doesn’t really understand its content; he just believes its content is true. So if the content is unintelligible or unbelievable, that person isn’t really affirming anything of import whatsoever. He’s just making a fool of himself.

Juan ponders the meaning of the proposition “The host becomes the real body of Christ”. He reads the available literature (though of course it is either not infallible, or not possible to be understood by a layman since he doesn’t have the Magisterial Cypher). He finds that the doctrine of transubstantiation teaches that the secondary properties of the host (being the appearance of bread of a certain size, shape, taste, etc) remain, but the primary properties (that of being bread) are replaced with the real body of Christ. Put another way, the primary properties of the real body of Christ take on the secondary properties of the host. So there is no connection between the essence of the host, following transubstantiation, and its sensible properties. The essence is actually Jesus’ body; not the host at all. Some kind of illusion is going on. Once it’s consecrated, the host’s secondary properties don’t identify its primary properties at all.

More importantly, its primary properties are the real body of Christ. The host is actually the body of Christ. But Juan has a pretty good familiarity with human bodies, and he knows that they are a certain size and constitution; they are a bit under 2 meters tall, comprised of skin and hair and bones and organs and lots of icky stuff that it’s hard to see being particularly beneficial to eat. Yet apparently this is precisely what he is eating. How is this possible, he wonders. Can it be that a man can swallow whole another man? Clearly not. (He is reminded of Nicodemus’ jejune question, “Can a man go back into his mother to be born a second time?” It creates an uneasy feeling in his tummy.) Yet this is what transubstantiation teaches: that swallowing the host is an illusion, and that what is actually happening is that he is swallowing Jesus himself. Brain, blood, heart, icky genitalia and intestines and things…so, in essence—even if not in appearance—he is doing something which is actually physically impossible; not to mention kind of wrong. It isn’t as if Christ is somehow “processed”, like an Essence of Jesus patty. It’s not as if he’s eating just a part of his savior. It’s his whole body. Not only is this physically impossible, but in essence he is actually engaging in cannibalism; it’s just concealed by the illusion of the host.

Other difficult questions arise. When a hundred hosts are consecrated, is each one a separate Jesus? Does that mean that there is no longer a Trinity, but a God comprised of a Father, a Holy Spirit, and a hundred Sons? How can Jesus have a hundred bodies but still be one person? That seems to violate the law of identity. And how can each host be a living Jesus? Does Jesus watch as he is ingested, and goes through the digestive tract of every Catholic who receives him at communion? That’s really unsettling. And if he watches, what eyes does he use, since he appears to be a host? Or maybe he isn’t alive in the hosts; but then, what’s the point of eating a dead Jesus body? Isn’t the importance of the Eucharist in the receiving of the living Savior?

At this stage Juan doesn’t know what to think. It’s obviously better not to even contemplate those doctrines he has been told about by his priest. Not only can he not understand the Catholic teaching documents, but he can’t understand Catholic doctrine in general! He can’t actually believe transubstantiation once he’s considered it carefully, because to believe something requires it be able to be stated in a sensible way that can be grasped by the mind. But it’s not possible to grasp transubstantiation with the mind, because its claims are self-contradictory. One human body can’t wholly contain another; that is just a constraint of the material universe. No doubt God could have created the universe so that matter can occupy the same space as other matter simultaneously; but he didn’t. It’s possible to believe in miracles where natural laws are suspended, but not in miracles where the very properties of the physical universe are contradicted. And not only this, but the whole thing is just grossing him out.

So he can’t believe the pithy soundbite of transubstantiation in any meaningful sense because he can’t interpret it in a non-ridiculous way. Neither can he do any study as an amateur theologian, because he can’t interpret the teaching documents of the Church in a non-ridiculous way; they seem to contradict each other and cannot be reconciled, but he is assured that they do not. He must be missing some kind of cypher which is needed to decode the apparent meaning of the words and reveal their real meaning. So what is he left with? To be a Catholic and be saved he has to at least believe in transubstantiation. He can’t believe it in a considered, propositional sense; so he is left with simply saying that he believes the words “the host becomes the real body of Christ”, and hoping to God that there is some rational, non-ridiculous meaning behind them. He doesn’t know what they mean; he just trusts that there is a meaning. So he is forced into a mindless, meaningless affirmation of doctrinal statements.

By this stage he’s too afraid to even try to interpret what the bodily assumption of Mary is, or any of the other myriad doctrines of which he is vaguely aware. He just mouths the words and takes communion and goes to confession and hopes that by doing so he is somehow saved. In truth, he doesn’t believe anything meaningfully; but he is comforted by some discussions with friends of his in the parish. One of them tells him, “we are not saved by intelligence, but by faith”. Juan supposes this could be right. He doesn’t understand the doctrines, but he has faith that they must be true. If there is any real understanding to be had, it is apparently only accessible to a select few authoritative Catholics. The laity rely on faith: they do what they are told they must do to be saved. Another friend tells him, “salvation requires obedience, not understanding.” That sounds right. The laity are saved by performing certain rituals. They trust in the rituals, and in the authority which instituted them. That’s the extent of their Christian faith.

That must be right. That’s how Roman Catholicism has always been. Peasants can’t be expected to have spiritual insight; they are just simple sheep. They need to be shepherded; told what to do. These things don’t change just because social standards and education have. Juan may work in IT, but to Rome he is still a peasant.

I’m sure you are busy these days, but I’ve been reading your book, The Wisdom of God. In the process I have been engaged in a 3 month long debate with Dawson Bethrick over at www.bahnsenburner.blogspot.com

He has challenged my founding worldview proposition—”The Bible is the Word of God”—on several grounds.

I was hoping if you had time, you could offer advice on where to look for responses etc. I will include the substantive portion of his comment below:

Dawson Bethrick said

Well, for one thing, your founding affirmation assumes the truth of mine [he is a Randian objectivist—his founding proposition is "existence exists"]; mine would have to be true before you could chance to propose yours. See for instance my blog Theism and Its Piggyback Starting Point. Also, in tandem with my previous point, the affirmation you propose as your founding truth is not conceptually irreducible, which means that it assumes prior truths which would need to be identified and explored for any prior assumptions they make. Also, the statement “the Bible is the Word of God” does not identify a perceptually self-evident fact. Even if we accept it as true, it would have to be the conclusion of prior inference, which itself would ultimately need to be rooted in the perceptually self-evident. We could spend days and weeks exploring why one might accept it as truth, where as ‘existence exists’ identifies a fact which is perceptually self-evident, undeniable, inescapable. Another concern is that it is not undeniable: I can deny the assertion that “the Bible is the Word of God” and I am in no way undercutting truths which I do affirm or contradicting facts which I accept as facts. Another problem (and I’ll stop with this), is: what exactly is it referring to? It certainly does not have the scope of reference that ‘existence exists’ has (since ‘existence’ is the widest of all concepts, it includes everything which exists), and seems to be irrelevant to pretty much everything. Its applicability is wholly artificial, forced as it is as an interpretative filter on a reality which has no need for such notions. To justify the claim that it has relevance in our world, the one affirming this claim would probably resort to the claim that the universe and everything within it were created by said “God.” But this again is not perceptually self-evident; that the universe was created by an act of consciousness (e.g., “God spoke the universe into existence”) is a claim for which I have certainly seen no good evidence whatsoever.

I respond briefly as follows:

I must confess I don’t really understand Dawson’s argument. He seems to be assuming that any first principle which implicitly presupposes some other self-evident proposition must then defer to that prior proposition. But why? This doesn’t seem different, in principle, to the oft-repeated objection leveled by empiricists: they will say that, since we Christians must first be able to read the Bible before we can formulate the proposition that it is the word of God, we are actually presupposing empiricism to be able to affirm revelational foundationalism. Well, even if this were true, it remains that empiricism does not constitute a viable worldview. Maybe it is true in itself (I don’t think it is since I deny that knowledge comes directly through the senses; I draw a careful distinction between physical and non-physical events in terms of causation); but it doesn’t provide us grounds for believing that it is true in itself, nor for believing pretty much anything. So, at best it is merely part of a larger body of truth, and must be incorporated into that body of truth by way of some overarching, governing principle (like the proposition “the Bible is the word of God”). The same is true of the proposition “existence exists”. That’s a pretty bally meaningless first principle. What useful propositions can be deduced from it without relying on unjustified subjective beliefs or perceptions?

Of course, a Christian certainly believes that existence exists. He incorporates this into his worldview by way of his governing principle. In fact, from this first principle, he is able to discover a far more sublime and useful variant on that proposition, as revealed in Exodus 3:14: “I AM WHO I AM”. That is necessarily presupposed in the proposition “the Bible is the word of God”. But it is not in itself useful for building a framework of epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics. That is why we take the whole Bible as our starting point; not merely some proposition therein. We need far more than an existential affirmation to build a worldview. We need a great deal of information about existence: including its origin, its essential nature, and our relationship to it. And that is information which can only truthfully and certainly be gleaned from the revelation of God.

It sounds like Dawson wants to require of you that you take only self-evident or properly basic propositions as foundational. I suspect that traditional foundationalism might require this, though I haven’t a clue why (I haven’t read widely on it I’m afraid). I can’t see any non-arbitrary reason for this stipulation; and it’s also obviously self-refuting since no such proposition (or combination thereof) can be used to deduce enough of a worldview to justify the stipulation itself. Remember that first principles must contain enough information to deduce themselves and their context, as well as the rest of the worldview. The whole point of them is to bootstrap our grounds for knowledge. So not only is there no good reason to require first principles to be self-evident or properly basic, but there is very good reason to require that they not be.

An even better reason can also be given: we can trivially show that the only sure justification for knowledge in toto must be based on the revelation of a personal God, because without this we are forced to ground universals in our particular experience. This is formally fallacious, and thus useless for justifying anything. We can therefore exclude any other kind of proposition as a useful foundation for an entire worldview—so on what basis is he making the sorts of claims you quote him making? (Cf The Wisdom of God, 2.4 & 2.5.)

To summarize, I think Dawson is confusing the chronological priority of propositions (what must be true to even formulate the biblical worldview?) with logical priority (how do we logically justify these chronologically prior propositions?) The whole point of revelational foundationalism is that there are a lot of things which are obviously true (”existence exists”; “an external world exists”; “events we perceive are correlated to events in the external world”; etc), but which we cannot rationally justify or give account for without reference to God’s objective revelation. Revelational foundationalism works backward by first assuming these truths, so as to find justification for them; then justifying them with reference to Scripture.

I recently wrote on the question ‘Is intelligent design scientific?’ responding to some comments by Dale Campbell, attached to kiwi atheist Ken Perrott’s article ‘A new science bashing campaign?’ This generated a lot of feedback, and Ken has now posted a follow-up article titled, ‘Redefining science by inference’. I’d encourage you to read this before reading my response below. I’ll structure this response according to the headings Ken has used.

The arrogance of science-bashers

Firstly, I think it needs to be pointed out how Ken is framing this issue. He’s couching the question in terms of “science-bashing”, so that anyone who promotes ID is not only mistaken, but actually an anti-science zealot with an agenda to proselytize. Now, to a certain extent his defensive attitude is understandable. In my own opinion, many ID advocates have made a poor name for themselves in the public square precisely because of this sort of tactic. I tend to agree with Ken’s criticism that this is hypocritical, and with his concern that ID tends to be about tearing down evolution rather than building up any useful positive arguments of its own.

However, the push-back from the scientific community is no less prejudicial and no less ideologically-motivated. Since Ken is responding specifically to my own comments, I find his couching the matter in terms of “science-bashing” to be disappointing. I am not anti-science. True, my philosophical views about science hold it in a lower regard than most scientists would like. I hold the propositional revelation of God above the procedural revelation of his creation, and as the lens through which to interpret it. Science is not a means toward discovering ultimate truths. It is a tool for interacting with and manipulating the world. But by merit of this fact, I obviously do not deny its usefulness (on the contrary, I affirm it), and I am not shrilly paranoid about its ability to advance our understanding of the world in many ways. I am realistic about its shortcomings and limitations (such as its philosophical commitment to naturalism), and about how these will color and affect its conclusions and theories. But I am not anti-science.

It also needs to be said that Ken’s analogy is really poor. He likens ID advocates to people who criticize the methodology or philosophy of their plumbers and motor mechanics. But plumbers and motor mechanics fix relatively simple systems which have been designed. This is markedly different from scientists, who try to develop systematic explanations for highly complex systems which supposedly have not been designed. (Dentists, the third example, can at least be said to fix relatively simple systems, even if the origin of these is a matter of dispute.) The analogy might seem superficially persuasive, but in Ken’s own words there is an “abrupt discontinuity” between it and the reality it’s supposed to represent. It’s just not an equitable comparison.

Playing with words

Getting into the meat of the objections Ken raises, the accusation that proponents of ID “play with words” or try to “redefine science” is pretty common. In my view, the accusation says more about the ignorance or misunderstandings which scientists have of the philosophy behind their own discipline than about the intentions of those arguing for intelligent design. If ID proponents are arrogant, scientists have a certain superciliousness of their own as regards the relationship between science and philosophy. This is pretty well indicated in Ken’s post, when he talks about “the honest scientific process” as compared to the “word play” of ID supporters; one which has clear facts behind it, and one which clouds and confuses those facts.

The truth of the matter is that the process of science is not detached from the philosophy of science; yet the scientists themselves are detached from not only the philosophy of their field, but also its history. Perhaps this is understandable, but it’s still unfortunate, because it leads to a great deal of prejudice against any questions which can’t be tested in the lab (so to speak). ID is pretty much exclusively a philosophical issue—but it’s a philosophical issue regardless of which side you stand on. Scientists seem blind to this fact, however, because they hold to the side which asserts a naturalistic explanation. Since naturalistic explanations are scientific, they fail to notice that this one is still philosophically grounded. When you try to point this out, they treat it as “word play”.

Here’s what I mean. Consider the following inference which most scientists make:

1. The commonly-recognized appearance of design in the universe is best explained by naturalistic, non-intelligent phenomena.

Making inference respectable

According to people like Ken, this is a perfectly acceptable scientific inference. Most scientists would probably take it for granted; they’d assume it implicitly—but an unstated inference is still an inference. Why is it so intrinsically acceptable that most scientists would take it for granted? Because science is concerned with natural causes, effects, and explanations. A natural explanation is a scientific explanation; and so the thesis that the appearance of design can be naturally explained seems, to the philosophically untrained, like a valid scientific conclusion. But then, consider its antithesis:

2. The commonly-recognized appearance of design in the universe is best explained by the universe being designed by an intelligent agent.

Notice how this is exactly the same question—only with a different answer. Indeed, prima facie this is the better abductive inference, as opposed to (1). This doesn’t mean that it’s correct, necessarily, but it does seem intuitively better.

Is the question scientific at all?

Now, perhaps the question “What is the best explanation for the appearance of design in the universe?” is itself unscientific. Perhaps it’s something which scientists cannot answer, and so one for which any answer will be unscientific. I don’t think most scientists would agree with this, but if they did, then why are so many of them insisting on a naturalistic answer? Is it perhaps because they assume that naturalistic explanations should be accepted by default? Why? The fact that science, as a method of investigating reality, is naturalistic does not in any way imply that every explanation must be naturalistic. Scientists are conditioned to look for natural explanations—and that’s fair enough, because that is what science is all about. But that doesn’t mean that:

• when we’re presented with the appearance of design, we should automatically exclude non-naturalistic explanations;
• a naturalistic explanation is “scientific” by definition, while a non-naturalistic one isn’t. If the question itself is unscientific, then any answer to it will be unscientific as well;
• if a non-naturalistic explanation is not scientific, it is therefore false. Being unable to investigate something scientifically does not imply its falsehood.

However, if the question is scientific, then—

Poverty of inference

If answer (1) is scientific, then answer (2) is as well

Notice how (1) and (2) above are addressing the exact same question. Yet (1) is dismissed as unscientific and even anti-scientific; while (2) is not. Why? Is it harder to falsify the thesis that the universe was designed than its antithesis, that it was not? I don’t see that it is. How might a scientist go about testing the assumption that the universe wasn’t designed? Probably in a similar way that he’d go about testing the assumption that it was. Yet the very complaint which scientists level at ID advocates is that we have not provided any falsifiable predictions to test. Okay, maybe that’s so—but why is the onus purely on us to falsify ID? Why is it not equally on secular scientists to falsify the antithesis? Isn’t that how honest scientists work? Once a question is raised, like, “Is the universe designed?” honest scientists don’t try to enforce a particular answer. They try to find one.

Conversely, if answer (2) is unscientific, then so is (1)

Most importantly, if intelligent design, as an explanation, is disqualified as unscientific, then its antithesis is disqualified as well, because they would both be falsified in the same way. The same test which could falsify intelligent design could (one would expect) falsify its denial. If we can make some prediction about some phenomenon which would occur if the universe is designed, and if we then test for that phenomenon, finding it would suggest that ID is right, while not finding it would suggest that ID is wrong. Similarly, if we can make some prediction about what we’d find if the universe is not designed, finding it would tend to prove ID wrong, while not finding it would tend to prove ID right.

In conclusion

Scientists don’t have to regard the question of intelligent design as important. They may not care one way or the other. Or they might be agnostic about it because they think it can’t be falsified one way or the other. That would be appropriately scientific. But if secular scientists want to say that the question of whether the universe was designed or not is nonsense; if they want to say that intelligent design, as a thesis for explaining the appearance of design, is unscientific; if they want to say that we should reject non-naturalistic explanations by default, then I must ask them to explain themselves:

Do they think that the thesis that the universe was not designed is falsifiable? If so, how so? But if not, then why are they championing it as scientific, over and against the thesis of intelligent design?

Is it on the basis of philosophical naturalism—the view that the natural world is all that exists? If so, can philosophical naturalism be falsified? No? But then it is unscientific—so why do they use it as a basis for decrying ID so loudly? Are they hypocrites?

Or is it on the basis of some other evidence? If so, what is it, and why should we find it compelling?

In the comment stream of a recent post by Ken Perrott, ‘A new science-bashing campaign?’, some discussion has been taking place about whether intelligent design (ID) can be considered scientific. Typically, secular scientists are vocal in their assertion that ID is a philosophical idea, and not a scientific one. It’s inappropriate to treat ID as if it were a scientific theory, or as if there is real evidence to support it, they say. And there is the vocal minority of ID supporters who push back and say the opposite.

In the comments on Ken’s article, the editor of Christian News New Zealand cited an article on Opposing Views by Jay W Richards, titled ‘Is Intelligent Design Science?’. I encourage you to read this article; it argues simply, yet I think persuasively, that it is not unreasonable to consider ID science—and that wherever you stand on the issue, you’d be naive to dismiss ID as unscientific by trying to define science in such a way as to preclude it.

In response to this article, Christian blogger Dale Campbell, who is an evolutionist, said:

What Jay Richards and others need to realise is that ‘ID’ is a philosophical inference which attempts to be scientifically informed. It starts with an inference, and then tries to find/match it with science - or (re)interpret science to try and match it up with the inference. The inference is not scientific, but philosophical.

Now, I don’t think Dale is opposing ID per se; rather, he is expressing his view that it’s a philosophical, rather than scientific position. As a Christian, I’m sure he does believe in ID; and as a Christian, certainly ID is a philosophical position. But does this preclude it from being scientific as well?

I don’t believe it does. Firstly, ID does not necessarily start with the inference of design, and then look for data in support of it. In fact, I think manifestly the fact that ID is not a specifically religious view demonstrates that it is quite possible and reasonable for it to be an a postiori rather than an a priori inference. Certainly for the Christian it must be treated as a priori: we come to the study of science with the presupposition that the universe was designed and created by God. But ID is not confined to Christianity, nor to religion at all. ID is simply the thesis that the universe, or some part thereof, was designed. A non-religious scientist could come to this conclusion quite reasonably by studying empirical data, and deciding that the facts at his disposal are best explained by a designer.

Is this an unscientific conclusion? Is it merely philosophical? This question raises another in turn: What is the difference between a “philosophical” as opposed to a “scientific” inference? For my own part, I’m not sure I see a clear distinction between them. Scientific inferences have two defining characteristics that I can see: (i) they start from empirical data; (ii) they are by nature abductive (and/or inductive; but abduction really is what defines them). Abduction, however, is itself a philosophical process; so I don’t see how we can deny that scientific inference itself is intrinsically philosophical. It is simply a kind of philosophical inference. All inference is philosophical in one way or another; and abduction is arguably more influenced by philosophical concerns than straightforward deduction.

But if scientific inference is characterized by these two principal factors, then how is ID not a scientific inference? Empiricism and abduction seem to describe the inference of ID just as well as any uncontroversial scientific inference which comes to mind.

Typically, I’d expect a scientist to say that I’ve omitted a third factor: scientific inferences need to be falsifiable. But there are two obvious objections to this: (a) falsifiability is a relatively modern notion in the history of science, and as such can’t be used to define science qua science. But more importantly, (b) it’s transparently evident that not all scientific inferences—indeed, perhaps not even most scientific inferences—are falsifiable. It’s not inferences which scientists generally require to be falsifiable, but theories. But even then, a theory is just the conclusion of a number of inferences (ie, it is itself an inference), many of which might not be themselves falsifiable; so the demand of falsifiability seems rather arbitrary.

Whether or not ID is true, and whether or not anyone can or has come up with falsifiable hypotheses about it, it does seem to me that Jay Richards is correct in his evaluation that it is not intrinsically unscientific. As he explains, we can’t validly keyhole science to fit certain preconceived philosophical notions about the world. In fact, the attempt to define ID out of science is openly prejudiced and hypocritical, being the attempt to exclude philosophical views of the world from science, on the basis of a philosophical view of the world. The definition of science really is not as fixed, narrow, or agreed upon as anti-ID scientists and philosophers would like to say it is.

Although Catholics claim that it’s necessary for the Church to be able to teach infallibly, lest it fall into error and apostasy, it’s my contention that the distinction between the Catholic and the Protestant positions is far hazier than it might at first appear. Firstly, ex hypothesi, the infallible Magisterium of Rome has not actually prevented the very thing which Catholics claim it is needed to prevent—namely error and apostasy in the form of Protestantism. Secondly, there is actually no clear difference, in principle, between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Both appeal to an infallible teaching authority: Catholics appeal to the Church; Protestants appeal to the Bible.

No infallible teaching authority prevents the teaching of error

Although any infallible authority does not, itself, teach error, nonetheless its infallible teaching must be interpreted, understood, and internalized by individual church elders in order to be taught to the laity. Elders are not themselves infallible, and so will inevitably err in various ways. Thus, in a practical sense, the teaching of error is not mitigated by having elders who submit to the infallible teaching authority of a Magisterium any more than by having elders who submit to the infallible teaching authority of Scripture. This is obviously validated by the numerous disagreements between professional Catholic theologians, just as between professional Protestant ones.

No infallible teaching authority prevents the believing of error

Moreover, even if an elder never errs, even if he counsels his congregation infallibly, the individual members of that congregation will inevitably err in their own interpretation, understanding, and internalizing of his counsel. Thus, the believing of error by the laity is not mitigated by having an infallible teaching authority represented in a Magisterium any more than by having such an authority represented in Scripture. I’d suggest that you validate this for yourself, whether you’re a Catholic or a Protestant, by repeating back to your priest or pastor everything you understood him to be saying during his sermon the next time you’re in church. If, after a couple of Sundays, he hasn’t had to correct you once, you might as well stop going since you are obviously falling asleep before the homily.

In light of the above two facts, which demonstrate that the Roman Catholic Magisterium conveys no obvious epistemic advantages to its believers over and against Protestantism, a major claim of Catholics about the superiority of their church is falsified. But I can go further, and show that Catholicism actually suffers from at least two major disadvantages:

The disadvantage of added complexity

The teachings of Catholicism are very, very complex. Not all Catholics may be aware of this, but compared to Protestantism an enormous extra layer of complexity is added. Now, I’m not a subscriber to Occam’s Razor, but it remains that the Magisterium’s infallible teachings are vastly more complicated and extensive than those of Scripture, and therefore require vastly more specialized knowledge to accurately exegete or even understand. Therefore, the probability of Catholic believers, who subject themselves as best they can to all the teachings of Rome, being in error is actually much higher than for Protestants who subject themselves as best they can to the teachings of Scripture. Moreover, a Catholic has nothing to fall back on if he wants to make sure that his interpretation of some Magisterial teaching is accurate, and so again Rome confers no advantage over Protestantism.

The disadvantage of distance from Scripture

Lastly, Catholicism is more removed from Scripture. The baseline belief of both Catholicism and Protestantism is that the Bible is the inspired and infallible word of God. Catholicism, however, adds an additional fundamental assumption: that the Church is the infallible interpreter of the Bible. This is assumed as a first principle, and so cannot be easily tested by the Catholic himself.

The problem here is that various organizations claim the same thing; and if the Catholic claim is false, then a Catholic is unable to discern which Magisterial teachings are false, or even that any are false, because practicably speaking the Magisterium is taken as a more fundamental authority than Scripture. As I argued in ‘The keys of the kingdom’, Catholics are unable to perform genuine exegesis on Scripture, because the meaning of any given passage must be conformed to presupposed doctrines, rather than being discovered from the text itself. Thus, Catholics are incapable of testing doctrine against Scripture as Scripture itself commands (they cannot even recognize that Scripture commands this). They are entirely reliant on their church for all matters of faith and doctrine; and if that church is wrong they cannot know it. Thus, instead of relying on God’s word, they are relying on man’s word. This is a far less appealing position to be in, because there is not the same guarantee of truth behind it. Of course Catholicism claims that its Tradition is implemented and guaranteed by Christ—but this claim itself rests on Catholic Tradition, and thus is underwritten only by the word of man.

The wager

Therefore, I suggest that regardless of whether Roman Catholicism is the “one true church”, it is better to be a Protestant than a Catholic. If Roman Catholicism is false, then Catholics are damned to hell while Protestants will be saved. If, on the other hand, Roman Catholicism is true, then according to Vatican II Protestants are merely doctrinally impoverished Christians, and will still be saved. Either way, Protestants will be saved whereas Catholics may not be. So a sort of wager can be set up wherein it is pragmatically preferable to be a Protestant than a Catholic—barring some infallible proof that Rome is the one true church.

In summarizing his concerns, Jim says,

I don’t know Bnonn, the simplest solution here seems to be a high degree of human autonomy. And if one does not accept that then this is what we end up with—confusion. Like I said most of God’s stated goals in scripture do not come with tags—so how would we know which ones He intends to carry out and which ones are mere desires? If that does not induce confusion and insecurity into the Christian mind, then I don’t know what would. Perhaps He only desires (not intends) to save the elect.

This question ties in nicely with another Jim asked me some time ago, regarding to Matthew 23:37. In this passage, Jesus laments,

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!

As Jim observed to me in an email, “if Christ wanted to gather them, why didn’t he? But if He said He wanted to gather them but really didn’t want to then He stated a falsehood.” I’d like to look at all of this: (I) what is my solution to Matthew 23:37 in view of my previous argument from divine purpose? (II) does this solution lead to confusion, or undermine our confidence in God’s word, either specifically or in a more general sense? (III) is the proposed counter-solution, of a high degree of human autonomy, any better in these regards?

Jim, let me answer as follows—

I. What is my solution?

I’m going to couch this discussion largely in terms of Matthew 23:37, since it gives us a good practical, scriptural example to grapple with. Jesus laments over Jerusalem, saying how often he would have gathered her children—but she refused. The lament suffixes his famous seven curses upon the Scribes and Pharisees. It seems to me that it’s a kind of summation and reflection upon the woes he prescribed, as he is still speaking to the religious leaders present. “Jerusalem” refers to these leaders representatively, and specifically to the Sanhedrin which was responsible for the rejection of the prophets. This being the case, the “children” of Jerusalem are best identified as the nation of Israel in general, represented by the crowd in Matthew 23 in particular.

A brief exegesis

Now it must be acknowledged, and not downplayed, that Jesus is evidencing a sincere and heartfelt lament. As Matthew Henry puts it, “the repetition is emphatical, and bespeaks abundance of commiseration”. So we can’t accept your second option, that Jesus didn’t really want to gather Israel, despite saying that he did. That would be a plain falsehood, and God cannot lie. It must be the case that our Lord genuinely did want what he said he wanted.

There is, however, a complicating factor: he is speaking as a man who had already visited Jerusalem on several occasions, and whose ministry had been repeatedly undermined by the religious authorities there. Thus, many commentators take the view that he’s speaking as a human being, rather than as God: describing a real human desire which was evidenced at certain times in his human life on the occasion of his visiting the capital of God’s chosen nation. This seems to me a reasonable interpretation, but I am very skeptical about limiting the sensus plenior of Jesus’ words strictly to his human experience. It’s hard to read this passage and not get the impression of a larger, redemptive view—especially in light of his follow-on comment in verse 38: “See, your house is left to you desolate.” Surely this is referring to God’s final rejection of national Israel as his chosen people, at the dawn of the new covenant era. And this rejection was not a sudden event caused solely by Israel’s own rejection of the Messiah. That was the culmination, certainly; but it was a very long time coming: as God says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.” So I think it’s a little difficult to read Jesus’ comment, “how often would I have gathered your children”, as referring only to those times when he visited Jerusalem. I think a broader historical sweep is in view.

Your question appraised

Now the question at hand, as you phrase it, is “if Christ wanted to gather them, why didn’t he?” (Recall that it’s the children of Jerusalem, being the nation of Israel, whom Christ wished to gather.) The reason Jesus gives that he didn’t gather Israel is: because their religious leaders “would not”. He doesn’t elaborate on this, but it seems pretty safe to say that he has in mind the “blindness” for which he has just repeatedly criticized these teachers in the preceding verses. That is, through their exchanging of the pure law of God for manmade ones, and through their teaching of these to the people, they had made void the word of God, thereby shutting the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces (verse 13), so that their proselytes were even twice as much children of hell as they themselves (verse 15).

This follows necessarily. Doctrinal failure of such a spectacular kind is no better than unbelief in the final analysis. One might as well have been a pagan as try to attain salvation through the statutes laid down by the Pharisees. There was no salvation to be found in the legalistic and works-based righteousness which they taught. And when Jesus speaks of “gathering” the children of Israel, he’s at least referring to bringing them under both his temporal and his eternal protection. How is this to happen except through the teaching of sound doctrine? Is this not why we preach the gospel today—so that God may gather people to himself through that gospel? And if the gospel is preached wrongly, then this end is thwarted to a lesser or greater degree. God is prevented from gathering people to himself if we stifle the means of that gathering, whether actively or passively. Although then God gathered mostly from Israel, while now he gathers from the whole world, the analogy seems to hold. If God genuinely desires the salvation of all people in some sense—if he genuinely wishes to gather them under his wing—then certainly this would have been equally true of the children of Jerusalem. Perhaps more so, since Israel was his chosen nation under the old covenant. And if stifling the gospel today prevents God gathering people as he desires, then certainly the doctrinal error of the Pharisees, taught to Israel, would have prevented him gathering them to him also.

Since we’re talking about people thwarting God’s desires, it’s important to notice how the context of the preventative power frames the situation. When Jesus says that he was prevented because the religious leaders “would not”, he is pitching the natural power of the Sanhedrin against the natural means which God ordained to gather Israel. It can’t be that the Sanhedrin was able to thwart God’s supernatural power with the merely natural power of its members. The means and the prevention must correspond: so if Jesus says that man can thwart God’s desire, then it must be that God is only using natural means in his attempt to achieve that desire. So supernatural means are not in view. After all, we both agree that, regardless of how much freedom people have, God does indeed have the power to gather everyone to him whom he desires. The question isn’t whether he could do this, but why he does not.

My answer given

My answer to that question, as I argued in my previous article, is that he has genuine moral attitudes which are nonetheless contingent upon the very circumstances which he has established toward the end of an opposing desire. I think this argument is very strong; and I think that Matthew 23:37 is typical of the sort of situation it describes. God’s moral attitudes are sincere and genuine by definition. He genuinely does desire the salvation of the lost. So Jesus’ heartfelt lament is indeed heartfelt: he truly did wish to gather the children of Jerusalem. Yet, on my view, I propose that the very action of being prevented from doing so was part of his larger plan. Had he intended to gather those people to himself, he would have, for “he will accomplish all that he purposes”. The Pharisees could not have prevented him doing so; if he could turn the heart of the king of Assyria, he could turn theirs. Or he could strike them down and raise up new teachers from the very rocks. Surely neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate God from those whom he loves.

Therefore, I conclude that God previously determined not to gather the children of Jerusalem, so as to fulfill his plan in creation—specifically, the death of the Messiah and the grafting in of the gentiles to the covenant community. Yet in so doing, he brought about the very circumstances wherein he ardently desired to gather those whom, out of necessity, were to be lost. That is my solution.

II. Does my solution lead to confusion or doubt?

It’s true that understanding a consistently Calvinistic view of God’s intentions can be hard work. Grappling with the “two wills” of God is something which often takes a considerable investment of thought. But I don’t think this is because in principle there is something very complicated or confusing about it; whether it’s couched in classic “two wills” terms, or in terms of desires of intention versus desires of attitude. In fact, I think the opposite is true: it’s really quite simple to see that God may have an overarching desire for one thing, and that to bring about that overarching desire, he must cause a situation in which he also has a desire for some other thing which will go unfulfilled. This is not what is hard to understand about God’s intentions. What is frequently hard is the specific instances where we find this happening. We find God grieving something that he himself caused (for example, Genesis 6:6). Or we find him lamenting something which, in the final analysis, he could have changed (for example, Matthew 23:37). In cases like this, regardless of what we know, we feel like something is amiss. Our intuitive grasp of the situation is out of step with our intellectual understanding of how God’s desires all relate to each other. We are inclined to ask: Why are you lamenting something which you caused?! On a basic level, we doubt God’s sincerity when he expresses grief or anger over something which was totally within his control.

The cause of the confusion

I’ve already given sound reasons and arguments which show that our intuitive sense must be flawed. If we really are to understand God, we can’t rely on our intuitions; we must rely on what he has revealed. As I’ve argued on more than one occasion, we must conform our intuitions to revelation; not vice versa. That is a process which can be uncomfortable, and which can certainly feel confusing; but it’s not as if revelation itself has confused us, nor as if what it reveals is intrinsically hard to understand. Ssometimes it is, but I don’t think this is one of those times. The problem is with us; not with Scripture or with God. The problem is that our intuitive reaction to passages like Matthew 23:37 is at odds with our reasoned reaction, and so a sense of confusion naturally arises from this dissonance.

Is God’s word undermined?

Now, although we have no reason to doubt the sincerity of God’s desires of attitude—even when they oppose his desires of intention—you do raise the question of how we can know which is which. If we doubt that God’s stated desires are really desires of intention, then certainly our confidence in them being realized is undermined—however sincere they may be. How can we tell, when he expresses his desire to save all of his elect for example, that he is expressing a real intention, rather than a mere moral attitude?

I think this objection would be a strong one if Scripture only revealed God’s desires about the elect in ambiguous language. If it was limp-wristed and said merely that God wishes to save all his elect, then we would definitely have cause to wonder if this desire will be realized. But that isn’t what Scripture says, and so your concern is put to rest very simply. The Bible doesn’t couch God’s desire in this matter as a mere attitude, or leave any uncertainty as to whether he ultimately intends to save his elect. On the contrary: it couches the matter as a certainty (John 6:35–40); as something guaranteed and absolutely inevitable (Ephesians 1:13–14) because it has been determined before even the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:3–12). So in the case of this specific example, your concern is certainly unfounded.

In a more general sense, naturally we must acknowledge that we have only as much certainty regarding any given divine desire as Scripture warrants. But isn’t this as it should be? God has revealed many of his desires to us; some of them as promises, and some of them not. The promises we know he shall keep; but as regards the others, “the secret things belong to the Lord”. So the answer I give here is that there are certainly cases where it may be unclear whether God will bring about some stated desire; but in matters of importance, such as the salvation of his people, no such uncertainty exists. Where God wishes us to be certain, he has revealed certainly; where he does not, he has not. Surely this is a most orthodox answer to the question, and hardly one which grants leave for insecurity.

III. Is the proposed counter-solution, of a high degree of human autonomy, better at avoiding confusion and doubt?

I think most people would agree that Matthew 23:37, by teaching that human beings are able to resist the will of God, prima facie implies libertarian free will. This is just how our minds work. If we naively assume that everything we need to know about the relationship between our wills and God’s is contained in that single verse, it’s easy to think that it’s teaching a sort of one-to-one correspondence between their respective powers. I would say that returning the passage to the larger context of Scripture as a whole results in a very different, and more nuanced view. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume that libertarian free will is on the table as a possible solution to the problem. Let’s further assume that it doesn’t run aground on the argument I made previously from Isaiah 46:9–11; or on the sizable list of passages which emphasize God’s sovereignty over the human will, such as those I cite in part 3 of my correspondence with Rhett Snell on the mechanics of salvation. It goes without saying that a libertarian view really needs to offer some kind of convincing harmonization between these passages and its philosophical ideas about the will; otherwise it can’t get off the ground, regardless of how appealing it appears as a solution to why God’s desires are sometimes thwarted. However, ignoring this for now, does it actually offer a useful solution in that regard anyway?

Regarding confusion

Considering in particular Matthew 23:37, I don’t see what difference it would make if the Pharisees’ wills were free in the libertarian sense or not. It was not the people of Israel themselves who refused to be gathered underneath God’s wing, but the Pharisees who prevented it by false teaching. We know that God could have removed them, and raised up teachers of sound doctrine in their place. But suppose that he had done this, and that the people themselves then refused to be gathered. If they were libertarianly free they certainly could have. That much is not confusing. The intuitive unease we feel at the Calvinistic view is relieved, because it makes perfect sense to us that Jesus would lament his chosen nation rejecting him of their own free will. If he did everything he could, and they still refused to be gathered, then his lament makes intuitive sense.

But whereas, on the Calvinistic view, we feel an intuitive dissonance but an intellectual harmony with Scripture and reason, on the libertarian view we feel an intuitive satisfaction but an intellectual dissonance. The Calvinistic view uses reason to solve the tension we intuitively feel; but the libertarian view dispels the intuitive tension by avoiding the real difficulty behind it. This remains for the discerning mind to discover. The difficulty is this: if God is the first mover, then he had full knowledge, when he created the world, of everything that would happen in it. That knowledge necessarily included the knowledge of Israel’s refusal to be gathered. Of all the possible worlds which God created, he chose to create this one. There is a possible world in which Israel freely chose the opposite; where they did not refuse to be gathered. There’s no logical reason such a world could not exist; nor that God could not instantiate it. Yet he did not choose to create that world. He chose to create this one.

On what basis, then, can he lament that which he ultimately caused? You see, the libertarian view conceals the difficulty of God’s sovereignty, but it doesn’t solve it. It pushes the problem back a step, out of view, without actually providing an answer. The libertarian and the Calvinist must both answer this question: they must both address the fact that God is the ultimate cause of everything, whether in a somewhat deistic sense, or in a more micro-management sense—and they must both then give a reasonable explanation for how God can lament events which would never have happened had he not acted to bring them about in the first place. Under both the libertarian and the Calvinistic views, God is the necessary, but not the sufficient cause for those things which he laments. So if the libertarian believes the Calvinist has a problem, then whether or not he realizes it, he himself has a problem also. The two views are not as different as he may think.

If he proposes that God has some good reason for bringing about the things he laments, and that he can still express a genuine desire to their contrary despite considering them necessary, then he has offered the exact same solution that the Calvinist has. He’s just taken a more circuitous route. Why then accept libertarianism at all, given all of its other problems? Calvinism, despite initial appearances, is actually the simpler and less confusing option. It also has the overwhelming support of Scripture, in contradistinction to the totally unsupported notion of libertarian free will.

Regarding doubt

But if he can’t accept that God could lament events which he ultimately caused, and if perhaps he believes on philosophical grounds that God could not have known everything which would happen when he created the world if people are genuinely free, then he becomes an open theist or something similar. And aside from being a rank heretic in that regard, he falls victim to your second concern: of undermining our confidence in God’s stated intentions.

That is to say, if God genuinely does not know the outcome of free choices, then even if he has promised to save his elect, he cannot guarantee that this will actually happen, because it isn’t his to decide. How can he know that all of his elect will choose to be saved? Under the Arminian view, at least, God’s promise is predicated on his perfect definite foreknowledge of who will so choose (what that foreknowledge is predicated on, of course, is anyone’s guess)—but under an open view of God’s omniscience no such foreknowledge exists, and God’s “promises” collapse into mere wishful thinking. In fact, the open view plainly contradicts passages like John 6:35–40, since under its own presuppositions, Jesus could not possibly have actually meant what he was saying. There can be no truth in it; whatever certainty the passage appears to convey cannot actually exist. Thus, any confidence whatsoever in God’s word is undermined, and we have no security at all in even those desires which he has plainly stated will be realized.

Conclusion

To summarize my thoughts, then: a consistent and rigorous Calvinistic theology, though it is intuitively difficult for us, establishes a clear, consistent, and unconfusing view of God’s intentions. In fact, despite the intuitive uneasiness it can cause, it is actually a necessary view if we are to harmonize God’s actions in all of Scripture, and satisfy ourselves that he really is sincere and just. It is also a necessary view if we are to avoid undermining Scripture in some way; whether it be in terms of doing harm to its clear meaning, or in terms of undoing the security we have in God’s promises.

The libertarian view, on the other hand, may be intuitively satisfying for us, but it ultimately runs afoul of the exact same question that Calvinism answers. Thus, a libertarian must either be inconsistent in his criticism of Calvinism, or he must be consistent in applying libertarian free will so as to limit God’s omniscience. In the former case, your concerns about Calvinism causing confusion are either unjustified, or they work equally against your proposed counter-solution; in the latter case, your concerns about Calvinism undermining our confidence in God’s word are far more powerfully applied to that counter-solution, since such a high view of libertarian freedom totally precludes any guarantee that God will infallibly and inevitably save a people to himself. Given this, Calvinism clearly stands as a reasonable and accurate reflection of God’s word; libertarianism does not.