The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.

So says the Catechism of the Catholic Church (Part 1, Section 2, Chapter 3, Article 9, Paragraph 3, Sub-paragraph 841, if I understand the organization of the catechism correctly—it seems rather long and complicated considering it’s such an important document).

Let’s make an argument!

1. Muslims and Catholics together adore the one God
2. Muslims adore Allah
3. Therefore, Allah is the one God
4. Therefore, Catholics adore Allah

Yeap, it holds water

I’ve seen Catholics respond to this by saying that the argument doesn’t follow, because Muslims deny certain truths about God, like that he is manifest in Jesus. So, to draw an analogy, you might adore Batman and yet believe that he is not Bruce Wayne; so you can adore God and yet believe that he is not Jesus. But there’s an obvious problem with that comeback, because neither my argument nor the catechism is couched in terms of denial, but rather of affirmation. So we can construct a valid parallel argument from the perspective of Selina Kyle, who knows Batman’s secret identity, in regards to Vicki Vale, who does not:

1. Vicki and Selina together adore Batman (because…)
2. Vicki adores Bruce
3. And Bruce is Batman
4. So of course Selina also adores Bruce

You’ll notice the argument isn’t trying to prove anything new—rather, it’s retracing the steps of reasoning used to get to Rome’s conclusion (premise [1]) in the first place. My conclusion, premise [4], is simply an entailment of Rome’s original line of reasoning.

The premises follow exactly because the argument is framed from the perspective of someone claiming greater knowledge than the parties whom the arguments are about. Catholics say Muslims adore God—and Selina says Vicki adores Batman—not because the epistemically impoverished Muslims believe that Allah is God—or the epistemically impoverished Vicki believes that Bruce is Batman—but because the epistemically gifted Catholics (and Selina) claim to know it.

But if Allah is God like Bruce Wayne is Batman, then Catholics, who adore God and know about his “secret identity”, automatically adore Allah too. Just like someone who adores Batman, and knows his secret identity as Bruce Wayne, must adore Bruce too. They adore them both because they know they’re one and the same person.

The upshot

Well, it’s obvious enough, innit? Catholics explicitly identify Allah with God. Since Christians explicitly deny that Allah is God—he is just another false idol—it follows that Catholics are not Christians, but rather some kind of “enlightened Muslims”. It’s nice to have it confirmed by Rome that Roman Catholicism is not a Christian denomination, but rather a sect of Islam.

In the comment thread of ‘What happens to those who haven’t heard the gospel?’, I told a commenter, Elizabeth, that God does not love sinners in hell. Stuart disagreed, saying:

I disagree with Bnonn on the idea that God does not love those he has to punish. The wrath and hatred of God is reserved only for sin, and humans are caught up and are complicit in it, for which they suffer the consequence on the merit of their own choices. Therfore, God may still love the people in hell.

This is a pretty important topic, because it has huge consequences for what we tell unbelievers in apologetics and evangelism—so I want to bring it out of the comments and respond in a new post.

1. “God hates the sin but loves the sinner”

This is the popular refrain Stuart seems to be echoing. But I don’t really understand what it means to claim that the wrath and hatred of God is reserved only for sin. There are only three options I can see:

1. “Sin” is some kind of object or property with which God is exclusively angry. But that doesn’t sound very biblical. Not to mention that it’s irrational to get angry at an object or property. One hates and gets angry at people, not things. So this option doesn’t seem feasible.
2. “Sin” is just a shorthand way of describing what sinners do. Their actions. This seems biblical. But to say that the wrath and hatred of God is reserved only for people’s actions doesn’t make sense either, because actions are not independent things from the people who perform them. If I go out and steal my neighbor’s plasma TV, God isn’t angry at the physical process of a given human being removing a particular piece of hardware. He is angry at me.
3. “Sin” is a shorthand way of talking about sinners in the context of their actions. Following on from [2] above, this is the only option that makes sense. To say that God hates sin is really just a quick way of saying that God hates people for doing evil things. In other words, to say that God’s wrath and hatred is reserved only for sin is actually to say that God’s wrath and hatred is reserved only for sinners.

Let’s double-check that against the Bible, though, just to make sure:

What the Bible says

The boastful shall not stand before your eyes;
you hate all evildoers. (Psalm 5:5)

The Lord tests the righteous,
but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence. (Psalm 11:5)

So, God hates evildoers and the wicked. That is, God hates sinners. Thus, even if it makes sense to speak of God hating the sin itself, he also hates the sinner. The Bible says so plainly. And these aren’t the only two places:

There are six things that the Lord hates,
seven that are an abomination to him:
haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that make haste to run to evil,
a false witness who breathes out lies,
and one who sows discord among brothers. (Proverbs 6:16-19)

Lemme take a moment to point out that what God is hating here is not eyes and tongues and hearts—these are metaphors for specific kinds of sinners. The point of the proverb is to use representative examples of sinners to show that God hates all sinners. One more:

Every evil of theirs is in Gilgal;
there I began to hate them.
Because of the wickedness of their deeds
I will drive them out of my house.
I will love them no more;
all their princes are rebels. (Hosea 9:15)

God began to hate people because of their sin, and promises to love them no more. Notice he doesn’t say he began to hate their sin. He hated them, and explicitly promises to stop loving them.

“But wait—isn’t God love?

That’s what the Bible says, innit—”God is love”, 1 John 4:8. And doesn’t he love the whole world—John 3:16? And isn’t it true that he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust—Matthew 5:45? Yes. But God being love means at least two things:

Firstly, it means he desires what is best for everyone. For all sinners. That is part of what it means to be loving: to want the best even for one’s enemies. And make no mistake: sinners are God’s enemies (James 4:4 for example). So God’s grace extends to all people for a time. They have generally good lives, they appreciate beauty, enjoy pleasure and so on.

But this can’t last, because, secondly, that God is love means that God desires what is right. His love is a holy love; not a wicked love. He doesn’t love evil, but good. “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts,” cried the seraphim in Isaiah 6:2. “The whole earth is full of his glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And Isaiah said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

So while God sends his blessings on the whole world for a while, in order that those he has called to everlasting love may repent and be saved, these blessings won’t last forever. His general loving benevolence towards all people who are made in his image does not mitigate his greater love for what is holy. Put another way, his general loving benevolence towards all people does not mitigate his hatred for them as evildoers who have irreparably corrupted the imago Dei.

This is what the Bible tells us: that God is not a God of Wuv. He is a God of Love. Aslan is a not a tame lion. Hebrews 10:31: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

When people talk of great spiritual leaders, Gandhi and Jesus are often mentioned in the same breath. Jesus was a great man with great teachings, whose values and actions positively influenced Western civilization. Gandhi was a great man with great teachings, whose values and actions positively influenced Eastern civilization—particularly in India.

Christians have long disagreed. Jesus was not merely a man, and Gandhi was not really a great man. Indeed, when you consider the state of India—where Hinduism and Islam have made it home to one third of the world’s poor, where until recently over half of its citizens lived below the poverty line, and where many of its citizens are considered so unclean that their mere touch can contaminate a member of a higher caste—it would be surprising if a Hindu man from this place were not as depraved and inhumane as his religion.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal confirms that Gandhi was not the saint Westerners have assumed. This image arose largely because of his “martyrdom”, followed by Martin Luther King Jr’s ignorant adoption of him as a role model—and fueled by the fact that Gandhi prohibited journalists from publishing anything about him that he had not first extensively vetted and edited.

The article goes into some detail, listing many of Gandhi’s morally questionable actions and attitudes. I’d encourage you to read the whole thing, but here’s a sampling:

• Although credited with leading India to independence from Britain, Gandhi actually undermined this effort. Between 1900 and 1922, he ­suspended his civil disobedience at least three times, even though more than 15,000 supporters were in jail for the cause. (When Britain finally did withdraw from India, it was largely motivated by their anti-imperialist Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, and the fact that Britain was nearly bankrupt from the war.)
• Gandhi was dangerously politically incompetent. He ­advised the Jews to adopt nonviolence toward the Nazis, and wrote a letter to ­Hitler starting with the words “My friend”. He also advised the Jews of Palestine to “rely on the goodwill of the Arabs”. Fortunately for their existence, the Jews ignored him.
• As well as calling Hitler his friend, Gandhi and Mussolini got on well when they met in December 1931. Gandhi praised Mussolini’s “service to the poor, his opposition to super-urbanization, his efforts to bring about a coordination between Capital and ­Labour, his passionate love for his people.”
• Gandhi was outstandingly racist, describing “the raw Kaffir” as someone “whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a number of cattle to buy a wife, and then pass his life in indolence and ­nakedness,” and saying of white Afrikaaners, “We believe as much in the purity of races as we think they do.”
• He was also a hypocrite on many levels. He prevented his son marrying a Muslim despite publicly promoting Muslim-Hindu unity. He denounced lawyers, railways and parliamentary politics, yet he was a professional lawyer who constantly used railways to get to meetings to argue that India ­deserved its own parliament. And although he is known for his hunger strikes, his official position was that these were “the worst form of coercion, which militates against the fundamental principles of non-violence” (in which he believed).
• His views on nakedness and sexual chastity were also belied by his depraved behavior: when he was in his 70s he encouraged his ­17-year-old great-niece, Manu, to be naked during her “nightly cuddles” with him. After sacking several long-standing and loyal members of his 100-strong ­personal entourage who might disapprove of this part of his ‘spiritual quest’, he began sleeping naked with Manu and other young women also.
• Despite being thought of as a peaceful man, he was vicious and callous. “There will be no tears but only joy if tomorrow I get the news that all three of you were killed,” he once told some of his workers. To a Hindu he once said, “I do not mind if each and every one of the 500 families in your area is done to death.” And he forced Manu, his niece (remember the “nightly cuddles”), to walk through a jungle known for harboring rapists—just so she could retrieve a pumice stone he liked to use on his feet. When she returned in tears, he “cackled” with laughter and said: “If some ruffian had carried you off and you had met your death courageously, my heart would have danced with joy.”
• In 1908 he left his wife for a German man named Hermann Kallenbach. “Your portrait (the only one) stands on my mantelpiece in my bedroom,” he wrote to Kallenbach. “The mantelpiece is opposite to the bed.” Gandhi nicknamed himself “Upper House” and Kallenbach “Lower House.” The two pledged “more love, and yet more love—such love as they hope the world has not yet seen.”

That’s enough to prove the point. Like Mother Theresa, Gandhi was not a great spiritual leader and humanitarian. He was a cynical and morally corrupt person, just like the rest of us—only given more opportunity to reveal his true nature because of the position and culture he lived in.

“Do you have free will?” a recent article in the New York Times asks. “Yes, it’s the only choice.” So begins a fitful confrontation with the dilemma of free will in a world comprised only of the physical universe.

Although it never says it directly, the article appears to assume that the universe is deterministic. Everything happens as an unavoidable consequence of the events before; our choices are not free; and we are not morally responsible.

At the same time, it notes that “there seems to be a fairly universal gut belief in [free will] starting at a young age. When children age 3 to 5 see a ball rolling into a box, they say that the ball couldn’t have done anything else. But when they see an experimenter put her hand in the box, they insist that she could have done something else. That belief seems to persist no matter where people grow up”.

The article concludes that, “At an abstract level, people seem to be what philosophers call incompatibilists: those who believe free will is incompatible with determinism. If everything that happens is determined by what happened before, it can seem only logical to conclude you can’t be morally responsible for your next action.” Yet in our hearts, it says, we’re compatibilists who consider free will compatible with determinism. We believe that we do make choices, even though these choices are determined by previous events and influences. In fact, we must believe this to function properly, both at an individual level, and a societal one. Thus, “it’s the only choice”.

But this seems like a strange, even tendentious conclusion to draw. Did everyone surveyed actually believe the universe is deterministic? Or is that merely what the people in charge would like for these people to believe? The article speaks only of the subjects reasoning about a hypothetical universe. It doesn’t indicate that they conceded the universe really is deterministic. That belief is only clearly held by the philosophers who ran the tests, and the author of the article.

Do “average” people think the universe is deterministic in this way? That there is only physical matter/energy interacting according to invariable laws—and that, being part of it, we only act as these physical laws, and the prior states of the universe dictate?

I don’t think so. Most people do agree that in a deterministic universe no one would have free will. But they also, as the article points out, believe that we do have free will. The reasonable conclusion to draw is not that people are conflicted, believing both, but rather that they are consistent, rejecting determinism and affirming free will.

For example, people readily agree that we choose based on what we believe or what we feel. If you believe that buying a new car is like throwing money away, then you will buy a second hand car instead. Or if I feel that chocolate will be more delicious right now than cheese, then I will choose chocolate. I don’t take the chocolate simply because prior states of the universe acted according to physical laws, inexorably causing the atoms in my body to move in such a way that the part called my hand came into proximity with the object called chocolate and then moved again to bring it into proximity with the part of my body called my mouth, and so on. Yet this is what physical determinism says. I only ate the chocolate, and you only bought the second hand car, because of certain prior states of the universe and the operation of certain physical laws.

What this implies is not that physical determinism is true and yet we also have free will (because “there is no other choice”). On the contrary, what it implies to anyone who can think clearly is that physical determinism is false. The only obviously confused people are the philosophers who conducted the studies, and the journalist who penned the article.

The evident falsehood of physical determinism raises interesting questions. For example, when we say that we make choices based on beliefs and feelings, what exactly do we mean by “we”? Beliefs and feelings are not physical things. They certainly manifest physically in the brain, but a brain state is not a belief. A belief has properties like “aboutness” and “truth”, and is witnessed from the first person. A brain state has properties like “duration” and “location”, and is witnessed from the third person. This certainly seems to suggest that there’s more to us than just the physical. Usually we call it “soul” or “spirit”—but call it what you like, that is where the evidence leads. That’s where logic and common sense point us.

Oddly, it is scientists who are the least inclined to accept this. Some are notably acidic in their disgust, contempt, even hatred for such “delusional” views. But aren’t scientists, of all people, supposed to follow the evidence, regardless of personal belief?

This New York Times article demonstrates well how the Christian worldview makes more sense of the universe than the secular scientific one. If physical determinism is false, then we may indeed make choices based on beliefs and feelings. But if it is true, then even the scientific enterprise itself is just a sequence of inexorably caused physical events, with no correlation to “truth”. Similarly, if we are made in the image of God, then we should expect to be spiritual beings as well as physical ones, able to choose, and accountable to God for our choices. But if we are made by purely physical processes, then we are ultimately no more than complex arrangements of chemical reactions, reacting as the universe’s laws dictate.

You’ve said on more than one occasion that the Catholic Church mentioned in the Nicene Creed is not the Roman Catholic Church. I have disagreed with you, pointing out that being in communion with the Pope, who is bishop of Rome, makes one part of the Catholic Church. I’ve come across on line an extract from a book which studies this question. I’m not talking about whether the Church went off the rails, just pointing out that when the Fathers at the Council of Nicea talked about the Catholic Church, they meant those who were in communion with Rome. I think the extract is worth reading, just to get a balanced picture.

You can click here to view the extract if you’re interested. Like most Catholic literature I found it interminably dull, and I don’t intend to interact with it specifically here. I just want to point out, more generally, a few problems with taking catholicity in the Nicene Creed to imply communion with Rome:

1. Anachronism

Consider these two statements:

• C: “In the fourth century, the term catholic church referred to the body of churches in communion with the bishop of Rome.”
• R: “In the fourth century, the term catholic church referred to the Roman Catholic Church.”

How does R follow from C? Can you spot the fallacy here? It begins with an “a” and ends with “nachronism”. Here’s an example in case it’s not clear:

• C*: “In the book of Exodus, the term law referred to the body of religious principles and practices administrated by the priesthood.”
• R*: “In the book of Exodus, the term law referred to the body of religious principles and practices administrated by the Sanhedrin.”

2. You can’t eat your cake and have it, too

In the same vein: say, arguendo, that the framers of the creed took it as given that Rome was the head of an authentic Christian institution, and that “catholicity” therefore entailed communion with Rome. Can we reasonably imagine that these same framers expected their definition to extend to any church claiming to be the Roman Church—provided it was located in the right place and claimed succession from the church they knew? That certainly seems like a stretch.

It seems more reasonable to think that, in the event that Rome apostatized, the framers would have dropped communion with Rome as an element of catholicity.

Put another way, you can’t eat your cake and have it too: if in the fourth century the term “catholic” implied a group of churches in communion with the Roman Church, then in the 21st century the same term must imply a group of churches in the same kind of communion with the same Roman Church. If the kind of communion is not the same, and/or the Roman Church is not the same, then the term cannot be consistently applied in the 21st century. And of course, it goes without saying that the nature of communion was different (see point 4); and I’ve given ample defense in the past for my contention that the Roman Church in the 21st century is not a Christian church at all—let alone the same church as that of the fourth century.

3. Essential versus incidental elements to catholicity

In light of the above, if (again, arguendo) we cannot consistently apply the term “catholic” in the Nicene Creed to our situation in the 21st century, what should we do? Obviously there are two options: Firstly, we can accept that the creed itself is faulty since it contains a definition of the church we can’t apply today (and this would be equally true for Roman Catholics as it would be for Protestants). In this case I think it would do violence to the creed to use it at all. We should simply discard it. Or secondly, we can accept that the creed’s framers took the term “catholic” to imply more than we do because they lived in a different time and a different situation, for which there is no modern corollary.

In other words, in the fourth century communion with Rome was taken as a given in the definition of catholicity—but this was an incidental element of the definition, and not an essential one. It was an element which was assumed because it was the nature of the church at the time; but as such, it was not an eternal truth about the church; nor even necessarily an authentic truth. If you take the creed as pointing to essentially spiritual truths, then the church’s catholicity is a spiritual matter (ie, a universal body of believers united in Christ), which may or may not be reflected in its physical structure (ie, a given hierarchy instituted by Christ). You could hold to some mistaken notions of the church’s physical structure, yet still get the spiritual structure right. You might even hold to those mistaken notions precisely because your accurate understanding of the spiritual truths combined with your intuitions to suggest a certain structure.

So it doesn’t seem problematic to me for 21st century Protestants to recite the Nicene Creed and take “Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church” to refer to a spiritual unity and authenticity, rather than to some culturally-bound, historical fact about how the church’s structure once was, but cannot be now. In fact, that seems to be the right and appropriate way to understand the creed. The other way around is ass-backwards and nonsensical in modern Christendom.

4. “Communion” doesn’t mean what Catholics like to say it means

All this said, I’m not remotely convinced that communion with Rome was regarded as a given in the definition of catholicity. Or, put another way, if “communion” was regarded as a given, then I’m not remotely convinced it meant “submission” or “oversight by” or “complete unity with” or any such concept that Roman Catholics would anachronistically require. It’s simply untenable to think that Rome was guiding Christendom in the same way it guides the Catholic Church today; or even that it had anything resembling the kind of authority it assumes for itself today.

For example, writing of a dispute in Irenaeus’ day, and another that became prominent shortly afterward, the Catholic scholar Klaus Schatz commented: “Rome did not succeed in maintaining its position against the contrary opinion and praxis of a significant portion of the Church. The two most important controversies of this type were the disputes over the feast of Easter and heretical baptism. Each marks a stage in Rome’s sense of authority and at the same time reveals the initial resistance of other churches to the Roman claim.” (Papal Primacy [Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1996], p. 11) Similarly, in the late second century Polycrates applied the principle of Acts 5:29 to his dispute with the Roman bishop Victor (Eusebius, Church History, 5:24:7). Tertullian criticized the bishop of Rome for an inconsistent response to Montanism (Against Praxeas, 1). The author of a work commonly attributed to Hippolytus refers to the Roman bishop Zephyrinus as “an uninformed and shamefully corrupt man”.

Note that even if Catholics try to say that, in principle, Rome in the fourth century had the same kind of authority as it does in the 21st century—even though in practice this wasn’t yet a fully developed or recognized doctrine—this doesn’t salvage the word “catholic” for them. Because if the kind of communion taken as implicit in the creed is only the kind of communion which was understood and practiced in the fourth century, then it isn’t modern Roman Catholic “communion”. It’s just a general notion of Rome’s importance, and of the need for churches to be in fellowship with one another.

You can read all about it in ‘Is “biblical Christianity” the only rational worldview? (And is atheism wicked?)’ and pick up the pieces from there.

But what I particularly want to do here is call out Randal to answer three questions I’ve already put to him, and which he has summarily ignored.

The story so far

Hoping to illustrate how unbelief cannot be necessarily sinful, Randal formulated a story about “Dr Z” (presumably a different fellow to the rather callous fellow in Borderlands) who loses his faith after seeing a great deal of atrocity. He asked what we should say to this fellow given his situation and his new agnosticism. I thought to myself, “Hrmm, sounds like Job was in a worse situation than Dr Z. After all, his whole family was brutally slaughtered. So what did he say?” Thus I replied:

Randal, in your contrived scenario with Dr Z, I believe a sinless and correct response would be:

“You speak as one of the foolish men would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” [cf Job 2:10 —DBT]

But perhaps you don’t believe that the fool says in his heart, “There is no God”? [cf Psalm 14:1 —DTB]

I think this is a reasonable response. After all, Job’s wife wasn’t even suggesting that Job deny God’s existence; only that he deny his goodness. That seems like a lesser denial to me, though of course both are pretty bad. But Job rebukes her as foolish, rightly noting that God is free to give and take as he pleases.

But here’s what Randal has to say:

My jaw dropped to the floor when I read that one. This guy makes Job’s comforters look like rank amateurs. Dr. Z, his shirt still soaked with the blood of the eight year old he labored to save, is a foolish man?

Well, yeah. I’m not impressed by the attempt to divert attention from the actual issue by appealing to the emotion of the situation, because I dare say Job was in a more wretched emotional state—yet managed to “not sin with his lips”. If God is the grounds for all goodness and rationality, then of course denying him—in any situation—is foolish. (Maybe Randal denies that God must be the grounds for all goodness and rationality, but that seems a patently anti-Christian position for a so-called Christian to take.)

However, Randal proved very evasive about his position, so it’s hard to know for sure. To try to clarify where he stands, I asked him:

My questions

1. Do you deny that we have an obligation to believe in God? For example, do you deny that the gospel is a command as well as an invitation; that disobeying God’s commands is sinful; or that God will judge unbelief as sin?

2. Do you deny that it is “the fool” who says in his heart, “There is no God”?

3. Do you deny that a considered disbelief in God is immoral and irrational?

You seem to be saying that provided one has what he thinks is a good excuse for rejecting the source of goodness and rationality, one is not rejecting goodness and rationality (ie, one is not being evil and irrational). That seems like an obvious contradiction. If God is indeed the source of these things, how could there even be a good reason for rejecting him?

So far, no reply. Randal has made some comments on my tone; but not on my content. Curiously, while condemning the tone of his interlocutors, he likened one of them to Edward Norton in American History X—ie, a Nazi skinhead who brutally kills blacks. Nice one Randal. Irenic of you.

Still, you have the chance to set the record straight. You’re welcome to reply here, or of course to create a new post on your own blog.

I am genuinely puzzled by your statement that neither the Orthodox nor Catholic Churches are Christian, but false churches … I really would like to know the answer: when were these false churches established? Who were the Christians up to the time of the Reformation?

To my mind, this question seems calculated to embarrass away my view of Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. It implies the following about my position, and its consequences:

1. The Roman and Eastern Orthodox Churches became (“were established” as) false churches at discrete and measurable points in time;
2. These points must have been prior to the Reformation;
3. Therefore, for some time before the Reformation, there was no genuine Christian Church;
4. Therefore, for some time before the Reformation, there were no genuine Christians;
5. This is untenable and should not be believed (presumably because of Jesus’s promise in Matthew 16:18).

Lemme take a crack at these.

1. The Roman and Eastern Orthodox Churches became false churches at discrete, measurable points in time

I’m not a historical theologian, so frankly I can’t comment. Perhaps there are specific points in time at which both the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches accreted so much false doctrine that they ceased to be genuine Christian institutions. But who could say? Perhaps there is a discrete point in time at which the grains of sand I keep dropping on the ground become a pile. But why does it matter that I can identify that point? Once a certain amount of sand has accumulated, it’s indisputable that there is a pile. And once a certain number of false teachings about the doctrine of justification are accumulated (for example), it’s indisputable that there is no gospel any longer. A church without the biblical doctrine of justification is preaching a false gospel (Galatians 1:6-9; 2:16,21; 3:1-3).

2. These points of apostasy must have been prior to the Reformation

I tend to agree. I’m not very familiar with Eastern Orthodoxy, but it seems to me that both the Roman and Eastern Orthodox Churches had fully vacated the gospel of grace by the time of the Reformation, teaching instead a gospel of works.

3. Therefore, for some time before the Reformation, there was no genuine Christian Church

This seems to presuppose a rather tendentious view of ecclesiology. I don’t grant that “the Church” is contiguous with a monolithic religious institution. The Bible doesn’t use the word that way. It mostly speaks of individual churches.

I think individual churches could be genuinely Christian, even if technically under the authority of a non-Christian ecclesiastical institution. Of course, I also think it’s not particularly likely that they would be.

On the other hand, if we take “the Church” to be a spiritual entity rather than a physical one, (3) is obviously false. Inasmuch as there were still Christians prior to the Reformation (see below), there was still an invisible church comprising all those believers—even if it never met together.

4. Therefore, for some time before the Reformation, there were no genuine Christians

This premise, of course, only highlights how false the Catholic gospel is. Unless I’m much mistaken, I glimpse the hidden assumption that salvation is through the sacraments, and so without a “true church” to belong to, you can’t be saved.

But of course, salvation is not through the sacraments; it’s through faith in God’s promise that your sins are dealt with by the atoning work of Christ. And that promise is something not particularly hard to come by, even in the most hopelessly lost church. You can accumulate an awful lot of useless baggage in your beliefs, but still be counted among the sheep if you’re trusting exclusively in the work of Christ for your salvation.

Now, it goes without saying that most adherents to Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy are not trusting exclusively in the work of Christ. That would have been especially so among the laity of the middle ages and Renaissance, who had no access to the Bible, and who therefore had to simply trust what their priests told them about the means of salvation—which of course was that they had to perform certain works.

To a large extent, that situation continues. From the evidence I’ve seen, Catholicism has not improved since then (again, I know little of Eastern Orthodoxy). Its adherents, especially in countries like Italy, Spain and the Latin Americas, are highly indoctrinated in all manner of superstitions and practices by which they hope to be saved. In fairness, much of this is not directly from the Church. But in equal fairness it’s the natural extension of what the Church teaches; and the Church certainly does nothing to discourage or correct it. It makes my blood boil just to think on it, that Roman Catholicism is actively encouraging such rank idolatry and “Christianized” paganism, leading these poor ignorant, lost souls straight into hell.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Be that as it may, I don’t think there were no genuine Christians prior to the Reformation. I have no doubt that God continued to gather his elect, even out of the grim sludge of false doctrine that would, without his grace, have drowned them.

The above premises are untenable and should not be believed

I actually do think it’s untenable to claim there were no Christians for some time prior to the Reformation. But I don’t think it’s untenable to believe that the number of those whom God saved during the middle ages dwindled because the gospel was largely obviated by an increasingly apostate and politically-motivated “church”. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. But the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

“As for your two moral objections, the first is an objection to the doctrine of original sin. But once more, that doctrine is not universally affirmed by Christians and is not essential to the Christian faith. So don’t let that be a stumbling block for you.” —William Lane Craig

This is why, contrary to the objections of some, William Lane Craig is not the world’s foremost apologist. The first duty of apologetics is to the truth. Not to unbelieving presuppositions. You can’t have good apologetics without good theology.

A number of people then proceeded to disagree with me and defend Craig. (Here’s the context for Craig’s quote.) That debate has been well and truly hashed out, but to summarize, my contention is threefold:

1. Craig illicitly consigns the doctrine of original guilt to the status of a non-essential doctrine;
2. Craig indicates that if a doctrine is non-essential, you’re not obliged to believe it;
3. Per (1) and (2), Craig deflects the issue the wrong way: if he had wanted to avoid being sidetracked with this doctrine, he should have simply stated that whatever the Bible teaches on the matter must be believed; but instead he suggests that it isn’t necessary to believe anything.

This debate blossomed into an online conflagration between Steve Hays (who originally posted the quote that I then lifted to Facebook), Patrick Chan, myself, Glenn Peoples, and Matt & Maddy Flannagan. Here’s all the respective verbiage, in chronological order:

1. Steve: Bible-optional Christianity (Dec 28; the post that started it all)
2. Bnonn: Facebook wall post (Dec 29)
3. Steve: How mere is “mere Christianity”? (Dec 30)
4. Glenn: In Defence of William Lane Craig on Original Sin (Dec 31)
5. Matt & Maddy: William Lane Craig, Original Sin and Original Guilt (Dec 31)
6. Steve: Charity for me, but not for thee! (Dec 31)
7. Glenn: (un)Friendly fire (Jan 1)
8. Steve: Separated at birth (Jan 2)
9. Steve: I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! (Jan 2)
10. Patrick: Any steeples in Peoples? (Jan 3)
11. Steve: Every dog has its day (Jan 3)
12. Glenn: Deal Breakers and Christian Essentials (Jan 4)
13. Steve: Words of light and life (Jan 4)
14. Patrick: Self-serving Peoples (Jan 4)
15. Steve: Hansel & Gretel apologetics (Jan 5)

A lot of ink has been spilt. I’m loth to add to it. But some things need to be clarified for the sake of continued dialog and cooperation:

1. Craig’s bad apologetic method hasn’t been addressed

My original claim that William Lane Craig was wrong to demote the status of original guilt has received much criticism. That’s fine. But let me point out that my second and third claims, which deal more with his apologetic method, seem to have passed like ships in the night.

Remember, I said that Craig is essentially absolving the unbeliever of the obligation to believe what the Bible teaches about original sin (whatever that may be). As Steve has pointed out, this seems to be part of an overall apologetic strategy that draws the unbeliever in with some minimum facts about Christianity, and then tries to “trap” him by the regenerative work of the Spirit so that he’ll later come to accept doctrines which he currently finds objectionable. No doubt Craig would describe it differently, but that seems to be basically how the method plays out.

I think it’s important to distance ourselves as apologists from this kind of approach, and from any tactic of sidestepping a question that even implies that the unbeliever isn’t required to believe the words of Scripture. Because he is. Regardless of whether Craig is right to call original guilt a non-essential doctrine, his willingness to remove it as a stumbling block in this particular manner, so as to expedite his apologetic, is simply wrong.

2. Contrary to popular belief, I’m not shocked about anything

Glenn implied that I was shocked that earnest Christians could disagree with me on a matter such as original sin, and that this is because I’m insular, partisan, sheltered and so on. Now, I don’t grant his contention that Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics are generally Christians. In fact, I think it’s plain that both these institutions are false churches, and it worries me that neither Glenn nor Matt see this.

But be that as it may, I’m not shocked at disagreement among Christians. In fact, that seems like a very strange thing to think, given that I tend to be pretty vocal about disagreeing with other Christians a lot of the time. It’s also odd given how shocked Glenn, Matt, and especially Maddy have acted at various points in the past couple of weeks. If I’m shocked because I’m insular, sheltered and partisan, what are their reasons? Or could it be that they’re actually not shocked, but I’m just misunderstanding—in which case why don’t I get the benefit of the doubt too?

3. I don’t think I’ve used the terms “liberal” and “evangelical” unfairly

Matt asked me on Facebook if I agree with Triablogue’s comments that Glenn is a liberal. I responded that since Glenn denies both hell and inerrancy, as they’re traditionally defined, it seems fair to use that label. I’d add that Triablogue have also observed that Glenn denies the historicity of Adam and Eve.

Glenn considers labeling him a theological liberal “below the belt”. I disagree. That’s certainly not how I meant it; I was just giving a brief and simple answer to Matt’s question. In my opinion, Glenn is theologically liberal. I’m a conservative Calvinist; I hold to a conservative view of what evangelicalism is. Traditionally, you’ll find that both hell and inerrancy have been doctrines affirmed in evangelicanism; and equally, doctrines which have been denied in liberalism. I think Donald Carson has written well on this (Jason Kumar, his Biggest Fan, could tell you for sure). Now, perhaps the term “evangelical” has become used so broadly in more recent times that it can include people who deny these doctrines; but in that case all that’s happened is that its meaning has expanded to be more…yeah, more liberal!

Simply put, since Triablogue and myself define liberalism in part by denials of eternal punishment, plenary inspiration, and a historical Adam, it’s not unfair for us to consider people who deny these doctrines liberals.

Notice that I never said Glenn is completely liberal, or a thoroughgoing liberal, or a liberal in every sense of the word. Obviously he’s not. As he himself has pointed out, he’s done much work in defending conservative views with which he agrees from liberal ones with which he does not. But I gotta point out, he’s also done a lot of work defending annihilationism from traditionalists—something that most traditionalists would consider a liberal thing to do! Simply put, if the shoe fits in this case, why try to deny it?

4. I’m not obliged to get into a protracted discussion on the merits of my opinion just because I told you what it was

Matt and Glenn were both upset with me because, when I answered Matt’s query about whether I agree if Glenn is a liberal, I then declined to defend that opinion on Facebook. Sorry guys, merely answering a question about what I think doesn’t oblige me to then get into a debate about it. You can treat it as an assertion on my part—that’s fine. Obviously without further argumentation it is. But you asked me for it. I gave it; but I never agreed to explaining it further (even though I did elaborate on my basic reasons for holding it) or defending it at length.

I find it strange that you seem very unwilling to accept this as my opinion, or accept that I have what I believe are good reasons for holding it. Your responses suggest that you think I’m being deliberately unfair and divisive. But how is that a charitable interpretation of my words? And let me point out that it takes two people sticking to their guns to make a division. Why do you get to be the good guys? Presumably we all think we have good reasons for our beliefs. So what’s the differentiating factor?

5. I don’t see any “wounded party” here

Matt, Maddy and Glenn have all made some show of how unfair and offensive the attacks on them have been. Matt and Maddy have claimed the parties opposing them are violating the principles of Matthew 18. Glenn has demanded that Steve repent of calling him a liberal.

Frankly—and excuse me for sounding a little uncharitable here but the apostle Paul was never afraid of saying it how it is, so who am I to differ?—this is a lot of two-faced ballyhooing. I mean, come on, are you eight? You don’t get to call people insular, sheltered and ignorant, would-be apologists, living in a bubble, partisans with unfair attitudes who fail to read patiently, carefully and fairly; and come in with a condescending attitude talking about how people can’t read in context, follow an argument, how you’re going to have to walk them through it, mocking their Alexa ranking (of all things) etc—and then turn around and put on airs, complaining about the conduct of others. That’s nothing but shrill hypocrisy, and I don’t mind pointing it out. If you’re going to demand a certain kind of conduct from others, it behooves you to set an example of it yourself. Especially when you’re citing Scripture as your justification.

If you don’t think the other party is responding appropriately or fairly, why don’t you just walk away? It takes two, as they say, to exacerbate a situation.

6. I don’t want to overblow these issues to the point that they obscure others

You’ll notice I walked away from the Facebook discussion on January 2. That’s because I didn’t think further dispute was going to be of any benefit to anyone—and especially not to the cause of our working together in the future. Trying to continue the debate seemed likely to cause only more division and offense. I don’t want that. I’d rather just disagree quietly in these particular ways than let them be a barrier to us working together in others.

My only reason for starting the Facebook thread was to draw attention to an obvious error made by Craig, which I think reflects a larger problem that seems to be almost lauded in apologetics: namely, philosophy directs theology, rather than vice versa. A lot of people got very worked up after that. I suppose if they want to do that, it’s their choice. But for the record, I’m not worked up. I’m actually pretty calm; though surprised that there was such a furore. I think maybe it’s time to let it go and move on to more productive things.

For the record: I’m not trying to burn any bridges. I’m not trying to put anyone down. I’m not implying any kind of refusal to cooperate with them in a general sense. Triablogue does not speak for me. And I think it’s fair to point out that I’ve said relatively little about the comments made by them. I didn’t start, and neither did I add to, the attack. My sole concern when I posted on Facebook was an error on the part of Craig; not anyone else. And I only stated my opinion regarding Glenn’s doctrinal position after I was asked.

I’d like it if we could all treat each other charitably, forgive each other if we feel we’ve been wronged, and move on to better things.

This is a continuation of the discussion started with Stuart McEwing in his article ‘Openness Theology (Part 2)’. I realize it’ll go over the heads of some, and I apologize for that—but I think these issues are interesting and important enough to warrant bringing them to the front page. Interesting because, for more philosophically-inclined Christians, they raise questions about our own natures and our relationship to God; important because the answers to these questions have a lot of ramifications for not just our theology, but also our apologetics.

For example, a fairly standard line of attack for skeptics is to draw out the inconsistencies between holding to both God’s definite foreknowledge (DFK) and libertarian free will—which many Christians do. As a skeptic of LFW, though a believer in DFK, I took this line of attack in the comments thread of Stuart’s article:

P = “God knows that an agent S will choose A rather than ¬A”
Q = “S will choose A rather than ¬A”
[A] = the principle of accidental necessity (PAN)
[L] = the principle of logical necessity

1. [A]P
2. [L](P → Q)
3. [A]Q

This precludes the possibility of S’s choosing ¬A. Since LFW typically relies on the principle of alternative possibility (PAP), this argument suffices to disprove the standard libertarian view.

Stuart, however, resolves the difficulty by rejecting the principle of alternate possibility while still holding to libertarian freedom: namely, that our choices are causally unrestrained. To justify rejecting PAP, he cites a hypothetical scenario where it seems that PAP is false, but agent S still has free will. This kind of scenario was first proposed by a philosopher named Harry Frankfurt, and is so called a Frankfurt Counterexample.

At this point, I’m gonna start talking to Stuart directly:

Continuing the discussion…

Stu: I think it’s interesting that you object to PAP using a Frankfurt Counterexample. Frankfurt being a compatibilist and all (: But I take it you’re adopting the Molinist position, ala William Lane Craig.

I think that’s problematic, because ultimately it collapses into a pure Reformed theology. PAP is necessary to liberterian free will (LFW), because without it there’s no obvious distinction between incompatibilism and compatibilism; and without that, there’s no reason to believe in LFW and be a Molinist!

For example, imagine a choice between A and ¬A, where God foreknows the outcome A. Compatibilists, who hold to theological determinism, believe something like the following:

1. Principle of Volition (PV): Agent S can consciously contemplate A or ¬A and choose one
2. Principle of Accidental Necessity (PAN): S cannot choose ¬A because his choice of A is accidentally necessary
3. Principle of Compatibilistic Free Will (CFW): S freely chooses A

But what’s the difference between these beliefs, taken together, and what a libertarian would believe sans PAP? Perhaps you’d say (2) is incomplete, and that completing it creates the relevant distinction:

2C: S cannot choose ¬A because his choice of A is accidentally necessary AND causally restrained
2L: S cannot choose ¬A because his choice of A is accidentally necessary though NOT causally restrained

But the difference being suggested here only gains its force by trading on an equivocation in the concept of causality. (2L) cannot be true as a blanket statement under traditional Christianity. And (2C) need not be true, depending on what kind of causation you have in view.

If any kind of causation is in view, then presumably the libertarian and the compatibilist would both agree that (2C) must be true, and together reject (2L)—because the mechanics of God’s creative act necessitate at least three causal restraints on contingent choices:

CR1. Prior to creation, God surveyed all possible worlds and chose to create this one (call it W1)
CR2. God initially instantiated W1 in reality by speaking it into being
CR3. God continually upholds the instantiation of W1 in reality moment to moment

Any Christian must believe all three of these propositions, and all three of them constitute causal restraints on our choices.

A bit of explanation re these three causal restraints Christianity implies

Statement (CR1) entails a causal restraint on our choices, because God’s ability to know true facts about choices in worlds which have not been instantiated logically entails that his knowledge is not grounded on any choices’ actually obtaining. But if his knowledge is not grounded on the choices’ obtaining, yet he still has definite foreknowledge of their outcomes, it follows they must be causally determined. Were they not—were they indeterminate—then by definition he could not know their outcomes.

Statement (CR2) entails a causal restraint on human choices, since S’s choice of A is conditioned on God’s instantiation of W1. Indeed, every choice made in W1 occurs inevitably as God determined when he chose to instantiate W1.

Statement (CR3) entails a causal restraint on human choices, because we know that God alone instantiates things in reality. This instantiative power is a kind of causation, though not a natural causation (aka secondary causation). It’s an existential or primary causation. By definition, only God has this power; it’s sui generis, and a non-communicable attribute. Were God not exercising this power continually, the universe would simply fail to exist. Thus we know that whenever something is real, God alone instantiates it in reality; and since S’s choice to A is real, God alone therefore instantiates it in reality. It’s arguable whether this is merely a restatement of (CR2) or not; I don’t have a considered opinion on that.

The upshot (which is threefold):

Firstly, we must be careful when, in (2C) and (2L) above, we talk about S’s choice being “causally restrained”. Do we mean that it’s restrained in a natural sense, in an existential sense, or both? Any Christian must, of necessity, acknowledge that our choices are existentially causally restrained. But then there is no disagreement between the libertarian and the compatibilist, and their views appear to be the same. On the other hand, if we’re only talking about natural causal restraint, the compatibilist need not (to my knowledge) affirm that our choices are restrained at all; ie, he may agree with the libertarian that the only causally relevant factor in S’s choice is the action of S’s own will.

Secondly, because libertarianism without PAP implies a closed future, and acknowledges God’s definite foreknowledge even of non-instantiated worlds, it therefore necessarily entails theistic determinism:

TD. Theistic determinism is true just in case for an agent (S) choosing whether A, the outcome A or ¬A is actualized inevitably because of a prior action on the part of God.

Thirdly, libertarianism with PAP necessarily entails the opposite: ie, it implies an open future, which in turn requires a denial of God’s definite foreknowledge, since there is literally nothing for him to know about human choices logically prior to their obtaining.

Make a choice: Calvinism or Open Theism

This is why an Arminian theology will either collapse into a Reformed theology or an Open theology when you push its premises to be consistent with one another. Once you’ve discarded PAP you’re most of the way there, since you’re essentially adopting a compatibilist view already—making theological determinism a lot easier to swallow.

On the other hand, if your intuitions were to refuse to let you discard PAP—as I’ve seen be the case for many Arminians, despite the PAP counterexample God conveniently provided for us right in the Bible itself (Exodus 7ff)—then if you want to align all your beliefs to be consistent you have to let go of God’s definite foreknowledge.

I look forward to your thoughts (:

Anyway, I did some digging online today, and discovered I was wrong about how many men would commit rape if there were no consequences.

It’s not one in four men. It’s one in two. Here’s what I found:

In a study at UCLA, an account of rape was read to male subjects (without the word “rape” included). 53% said there was some likelihood that they would behave in the same fashion as the man described in the story—if they could be sure of getting away with it. (Without this assurance, only 17% said they might emulate the rapist’s behavior.)

In another study, 356 men were asked: “If you could be assured that no one would know and that you could in no way be punished for engaging in the following acts, how likely, if at all, would you be to commit such acts?” Among the sexual acts listed were “forcing a female to do something she really didn’t want to do” and “rape”. 60% of the sample indicated that under the right circumstances, there was some likelihood that they would rape, use force, or do both.

Other interesting facts:

• In a study of high school males, 50% of those interviewed believed it acceptable “for a guy to hold a girl down and force her to have sexual intercourse in instances such as when ‘she gets him sexually excited’ or ‘she says she’s going to have sex with him and then changes her mind’”.
• The self-reported likelihood of raping is correlated with physiological sexual arousal by rape depictions. So it’s not just that these subjects think it’s okay or they’re saying they’d do it; they actually are physiologically wired for it. Male students who say they might rape a woman if they could get away with it are significantly more likely than other male students to be sexually aroused by portrayals of rape. In fact, they were more sexually aroused by depictions of rape than by depictions of mutually consenting sex.
• About 10% of men surveyed were sexually aroused by”very extreme violence” with “a great deal of blood and gore” that “has very little of the sexual element”.
• About 20% to 30% showed substantial sexual arousal by depictions of rape in which the woman never shows signs of arousal, only abhorrence.
• About 50% to 60% showed some degree of sexual arousal by a rape depiction in which the victim is portrayed as becoming sexually aroused at the end.

These figures are comparable to another finding that 44% of a sample of 930 adult women reported having been the victim of one or more rapes or attempted rapes over the course of their lives. This is all from a book published in the eighties called Pornography as a Cause of Rape, by Diana Russell, PhD. It draws on several prior studies in the US and Canada. You can read the whole thing online in a format that will make your eyes bleed. But there are more recent statistics from One in Four USA:

• One in four American college women report being the victims of rape or attempted rape since their fourteenth birthdays.
• One in five, according to another survey across 100 colleges, has actually been raped at some point in her life.
• Another study indicates that one in five female high school students has also been raped.
• More than one in five men report “becoming so sexually aroused that they could not stop themselves from having sex, even though the woman did not consent.”
• Of those rapes reported to the police (which is between one third and one sixth of the total number), only 16% result in prison sentences. Therefore, approximately 2.5–5% of the time, a man who rapes ends up in prison; 95–97.5% of the time he does not.
• These statistics seem to be relatively similar worldwide, though there are discrepancies (for example, in South Africa one in four men admit to rape, presumably because of beliefs about AIDS).

In summary, I realize that this is hardly a robust defense of the doctrine of total depravity. However, it lends a great deal of credence—in a straightforwardly shocking way—to the Christian claim that men are sinners by nature; that the desires of their hearts are inclined toward evil continually, and that only the grace of God restrains them from gross wickedness (in this life). I’ll get around to proving the same about women some other time.