The Lord of Non-Contradiction

/ Apologetics, Philosophy / 75 Comments

Philosophia Christi has kindly permitted me to post on my website a preprint of “The Lord of Non-Contradiction: An Argument for God from Logic”, which I co-authored with Greg Welty. I wrote the first version of the paper, but Greg did all the heavy lifting; the argument is indebted to the ideas he developed in his DPhil dissertation on theistic conceptual realism.

Logic

Here’s the abstract:

In this paper we offer a new argument for the existence of God. We contend that the laws of logic are metaphysically dependent on the existence of God, understood as a necessarily existent, personal, spiritual being; thus anyone who grants that there are laws of logic should also accept that there is a God. We argue that if our most natural intuitions about them are correct, and if they’re to play the role in our intellectual activities that we take them to play, then the laws of logic are best construed as necessarily existent thoughts — more specifically, as divine thoughts about divine thoughts. We conclude by highlighting some implications for both theistic arguments and antitheistic arguments.

While we don’t discuss Van Til or presuppositional apologetics in the paper, those so inclined will recognize this as a more robust exposition of a common presuppositionalist argument and they’ll also appreciate (I hope) the concluding remarks.

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Dawkins is Disgusted

/ Apologetics, Ethics / 12 Comments

The Guardian has provided Richard Dawkins with a platform to explain why he won’t share a platform with Christian apologist William Lane Craig. Dawkins plays what he thinks is a trump card: the real reason he won’t publicly debate Craig is because — drumroll, please — Craig has defended the “genocides ordered by the God of the Old Testament.” It ought to be apparent to anyone who has compared Dawkins’ past debate performances with Craig’s (never mind their respective writings on the rationality of theism) that this explanation is, at best, a feeble rationalization. But that’s not the point I want to make in this post.

Dawkins, Disgusted

Dawkins’ piece reflects his trademark rhetorical devices — condescension, mockery, faux outrage, and a dash or two of genuine wit — but what stuck me most was the complete absence of any moral categories in his criticism of Craig and his views. Dawkins regards Craig’s views as ‘horrific’, ‘revolting’, ‘shocking’, and ‘deplorable’. But none of these descriptors function as objective moral evaluations of Craig or Craig’s God. In reality, they reflect little more than Dawkins’ feelings about Craig and Craig’s God (and the feelings of those who share Dawkins’ jaundiced outlook on the world).

I suppose this shouldn’t be surprising, given Dawkins’ published views on the nature of morality. For example, in The God Delusion he rejected and ridiculed the notion that there are moral absolutes. But if there are no moral absolutes, then there are no moral principles that absolutely rule out genocide. According to Dawkins’ moral outlook, then, genocide could be morally justified in some circumstances — just as late-term abortion is morally justified in some circumstances (as Dawkins apparently believes). Isn’t it therefore an open question whether the Old Testament ‘genocides’ were morally justified given the circumstances? Given Dawkins’ own premises, isn’t that question at least worthy of… debate? (I should state for the record that I don’t believe the destruction of the Canaanites was an instance of genocide; I’m just granting Dawkins’ characterization for the sake of argument.)

In the end, all Dawkins has really told us is that he won’t debate Craig because he finds Craig’s views personally offensive. It’s not that Craig’s views are unethical; it’s not that they’re immoral; it’s certainly not that they’re wicked or evil. It’s just that Dawkins finds them extremely distasteful. Dawkins is disgusted — and that’s all there is to it. Even if that were the real reason for his refusal to debate Craig, it would hardly be a compelling one. The only virtue of Dawkins’ dubious explanation, if it can be called a virtue, is its consistency with his moral nihilism.

Update: Here are some entertaining commentaries on Dawkins’ piece:

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Pomo Marriage

/ Culture, Philosophy / 6 Comments

Consultations have been launched, first in Scotland and now in England and Wales, to consider whether the definition of marriage should be changed to include same-sex partnerships. Some opponents have argued, on various grounds, that marriage shouldn’t be redefined. Commendable as this response may seem to most Christians, it concedes far too much, for it misleadingly implies that marriage is the sort of thing that could in principle be redefined. (If you don’t see this point, just reflect on the difference between “You shouldn’t drive faster than the speed limit” and “You shouldn’t drive faster than the speed of light”.)

To grant that marriage could be redefined is to capitulate to a postmodernist anti-realism according to which all social structures and institutions are mere human conventions and there is really no such thing as human nature, understood in traditional metaphysical terms. We must insist that marriage is not something that can be defined and redefined as we see fit. Marriage is a divine institution, not a human social construction like chess or money that we invented for our own purposes. There wasn’t a point in time at which humans ‘defined’ marriage in the way that, say, a foot was once defined as 12 inches. Marriage was bestowed upon us, not created by us.

If the traditional view of marriage is correct then the idea that we could redefine marriage to include same-sex partnerships is on a par with the idea that we could redefine elephants to include hippopotamuses. Only the most deluded postmodernist would say that elephants were defined by humans. (Don’t make the mistake here of confusing elephants with the English word ‘elephant’. Words don’t have trunks and tusks.) But of course, we humans didn’t define humans any more than we defined elephants. To think otherwise would be to put the cart before… well, the cart. And if marriage is grounded in the very nature of human beings, as the traditional view maintains, then we humans didn’t define marriage any more than we defined ourselves. Nor are we in any position whatsoever to redefine marriage. It simply can’t be done — and Christians, along with other traditionalists, should be quick to point out the presumption and absurdity of claims to the contrary.

The very fact that these consultations have been launched in the first place, never mind their final outcomes, reveals just how deeply Western culture has sunk into the mire of postmodernism.

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Analytic Theology: New Essays in the Philosophy of Religion

/ Philosophy, Reviews, Theology / 5 Comments

Ars Disputandi has just published my review of Analytic Theology: New Essays in the Philosophy of Religion, edited by Oliver Crisp and Michael Rea.

Apologies to Randal Rauser, whose first name I managed to misspell. (It was an ‘L’ of a mistake to make!) I’m told the error will be corrected the next time the AD site is updated.

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Christless Christianity: Dutch Style

/ Culture, Theology / 1 Comment

H. Richard Niebuhr famously skewered the liberal Protestantism of his day with this distillation of its message:

A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.

Seven decades later, some Dutch clergy are taking it to the next logical level: a God without existence brings men without beliefs into a kingdom without hope through the ministrations of a Christ without a life.

What would have functioned as a parody of liberalism a generation or two ago is now a tragic, pathetic reality. Abraham Kuyper must be spinning in his grave.

Thankfully there are still many thousands in the Netherlands who have not bowed the knee. Pray for them — and for revival in their homeland.

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Free Will, Moral Responsibility, and Reformed Theology

/ Philosophy, Theology / 5 Comments

There’s considerable confusion today, even among Reformed Christians, about the implications of Reformed theology for human free will and moral responsibility. A large part of the problem is that often those who are well read in historical Reformed theology are not so well read in contemporary philosophy, and vice versa. Paul Manata is an exception and he has done us all a service by writing an excellent primer on the relationship between confessional Reformed theology and contemporary theories of human freedom and responsibility. Check it out and pass it on.

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The Deliberate Protestant

/ Apologetics, Theology / 8 Comments

A family friend asked me to comment on an article entitled “The Accidental Catholic”, which was recently posted on the Called to Communion blog (run by converts to Roman Catholicism from Reformed churches). Below are my comments (edited and slightly expanded).

The author’s basic argument can be summarized simply as follows:

  1. If Sola Scriptura were correct and the Protestant churches were led by the Holy Spirit, there wouldn’t be many doctrinal disagreements between Protestant churches.
  2. But there are many doctrinal disagreements between Protestant churches.
  3. Therefore, it can’t be the case that Sola Scriptura is correct and the Protestant churches are led by the Holy Spirit.

The most serious problem with the argument is that there’s no good reason to accept the first premise.  Here are some reasons why, along with some other related comments:

…

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