For someone who claims to have ended a conversation, Johnny P, keeps attempting to up the ante. Well at least there are more facepalms to go around. Again my responses are in red. Sweet bejesus, you are incredible and not in a good way. Your first two paragraphs show why I do not further want to deal with your points about my original post. If you can't understand the format of the logical argument, still, then it really does show you don't have a clue.
It's not the format of logical argument that I have a problem with. It's your inability to correctly represent what Christians believe. You prefer straw men that are easy to beat up.
Look, we don't have to agree on perfect since the argument has nothing to do with my beliefs. I don't believe that God exists at all, so what form his perfection is, is irrelevant to me. Because it's not about me. It is about the classical theistic position that God is perfect.
Oh but you are "critiquing" my worldview. The term of "perfection" and what that means happens to be important. If you are going to make an argument based on what God's "perfection" means, you should be prepared to define and defend on why your premises are correct. You have to show that you understand what the classical theistic positions are. And you haven't.
All we need to know is that the Christian believes that God is perfect. From here, it follows that his creation must be perfect too (whatever that is).
That is exactly what you have ran away from.
It later follows that tsunamis etc must be events and soforth which are ingredients for a perfect world.
Again where does the Bible tells us that the world in its current state is perfect? What do you mean when you say "prefect"? You seem to be either unable or unwilling to deal with this. This is why I can't take you seriously.
The fact that you fail to grasp this, shift the burden of proof and produce red herring after red herring shows quite clearly that you are out of your depth.
You won't even get deep but keep playing inland. I keep asking you direct questions and you keep pretending that they don't matter. That is the reason why this discussion does not been more fruitful.
OK, on to science:
And the hilarity continues....
You claim this:
“When God first made earth, there was no earthquakes and it was not part of the prefect design or earthquakes are a consequence of the fall. I don't know but both of these possibilities fit the Christian worldview and does not not conflict with science”
OK. 1) earthquakes were not originally part of the perfect design (are you now finally admitting to the premises of my argument?!). How did they then become part of the actualised design without God realising they would actualise.
I think you either have a reading comprehension problem, selective amnesia, or stupidity. You claimed that earthquakes were part of the original perfect design. I'm saying that earthquakes in which people die and evil in general were not part of the design when God looked upon His creation and said that it was GOOD.. I never said that God did no know what would happen? He did. Why do you think God told Adam not to disobey Him? Of course God knew. He chose to do this the way it has. Again re-read Romans 8 if you wanna know why,.
You imply this imperfects the design and yet God would not have known about it in advance!
No, I DID NO SUCH THING,. Now you are just being dishonest.
Either it happened naturalistically, or supernaturally. Either way, the design and passive allowance of it to happen is clearly the behest of God. And therefore, since it was in this wordly actualisation, it must be part of the design. If I design a machine and infallibly know that smoke will billow out of the third hole on the right, then this is part of the design in the same way that knowing the widget will tap the sprocket to make the gasket work. He either knew earthquakes would come from the natural parameters he set out, or that they would come from the other parameters he set.
Finally something that actually makes since. I agree. God did know deadly earthquakes would come about by allowing humanity to bring sin into being and not obliterating us. Do your conclusions follow from this? In a word: no. God did this because He loves us and has a purpose in everything that has happened, happens, and will happen. It is not about us. It's all about Him.
2) earthquakes are the consequence of the fall. This is where you apply ridiculous unscientific reasoning since it assumes:
a) plate tectonics appeared after man. Empirically disprovable.
Then do so...with some empirical data.
b) naturalistic events of material causality can be caused by abstract ideas (which by philosophical definition are causally inert).
So you admit that there is such a thing as sin and that you stand condemned as a sinner deserving of hell fire. If so then you should repent and return to Christ. However, if you agree that the Bible is right about sin being real, then you need to consider what the Bible says is caused by sin. All of creation has been subjected to decay because of our sin. (See Romans 8 again). The Christian worldview is against your very conclusion here. You don't deal with this. You just assume it. Rather sloppy.
c) Adam and Eve existed as the first humans. If you don’t bury your head in the sand, you would know this is empirically disprovable through human geography, palaeontology, anthropology and genetics.
You do realize that there are not 100% agreement on that conclusion among professional scientists right?
You defy science (or philosophy) on all of the above points.
Says you, falsely.
This is cherry-picking. This is why I claim you live a life of hypocrisy. Accepting science (and thus the scientific method) that agrees with your worldview, and rejecting any science which doesn’t. If you can’t see this, then you are wearing blinkers.
You have failed to show this. But I have shown how you live inconsistently by claiming to be a philosopher but refusing to back up your epistemology.
As for universalism and YEC, of course I know what they are. Sheesh. (I have written about them both in my last book).
And what is the title of that book? Who publishes it? And aside from agreeing with John Loftus that atheism is the correct worldview what qualifies you determine who can and cannot discuss these matter? Where did you go to school and how many degrees do you have? I hope you know that Universalism is not the classical Christian perspective, right? Therefore my comment should have made sense even to you, in context. And the YEC comment was important because uninformed people like you seem to think that the Bible says that the earth is only 6000 years-old. Here's a clue: it doesn't.. Some people only interpret it that way.
And the use of your quote “I'm suggesting that God created everything and placed you in the best possible place at the best possible time with all the life experiences that would best lead you to God.”
…simply illustrated an implicit acceptance of my argument.
Um no. I don't think you understood what Paul was saying at all. Re-read Acts 17 (or in your probable case, reading it for real). You'll like it. Paul was a brilliant philosopher, only he does it correctly in the case or presenting Christian truth claims. In this case, Paul is not talking about the world being "perfect". He's actually referring to how people get the opportunity to find Jesus and live for God - in other words. This is how people become born-again Christians.
You will slag me off with ad homs and silly naïve jibes. Fair enough, it shows the defensive tactics you need to blind people to the fact you have been ‘outclassed’. I too have ad hommed, but out of sheer disbelief that what should be an intelligent human can arrive at such erroneous conclusions.
I've given you reasoned arguments and you continue dodging. You can claim to have outclassed me all you like - whatever helps you sleep better at night. However you have been far from classy.
My logical argument was so simple at the beginning and you failed to critique it in any kind of logical manner.
"Logical argument"? Are you trying to make me laugh? Your arguments fail to represent the Christian worldview correctly - meaning you have it wrong.
Oh, and I apologise as I said I wouldn't post anything else. So this is going back on my word.
You did that on the first comment already, so why not continue?
It was just that I was listening to a fellow believer of yours, Dr Phil Fernandes (Ph.D. in Philosophy of Religion degree from Greenwich University, Master of Arts in Religion degree from Liberty University, Bachelor of Theology Degree from Columbia Evangelical Seminary.), in a debate with Lowder (in which he got trounced).
I thought these quotes from the lips of someone who you have previously respected and agreed with in several of your posts. Moreover, you have dedicated posts just to him:
Yes, indeed. Dr Fernandez is a much better philosopher than you. Point-taken. I don't agree with Dr Fernandez on everything. He's very anti-Calvinistic and I think he goes a tad far in that direction, but that doesn't mean he's wrong about everything and I think he's a great scholar. Much better than some people I won't mention.
"As a classical theist, I believe God created the world perfect."
Where have I disagreed with that. You are arguing that the world is perfect now. That is not what Christians believe and not what Dr. Fernandez was saying. Your inability to grasp that may explain why you think Dr Fernandez lost the debate.
"A theist ... would have to argue that this is the greatest possible way to achieve the greatest possible world... God often uses evil and human suffering to draw people to himself. Now God's ways and thoughts are far above our understanding and even the Scriptures state that. At best atheistic arguments show that limited minds can't fully understand why God allows so much evil..."
So even he agrees with my argument in principle.
Huh? How does that quote agree with anything you said?
If this is the greatest possible set of parameters to create the world, and given we empirically know that plate tectonics preceded humanity (even you admit the movements wrt pangea etc.), then these evils brought on by things existent before human free will are clearly designed in by God. Since it was a perfect creation, these must be ingredients in that perfect creation.
When God told Adam that he would surely die if he disobeyed, do you think Adam had to worry about being killed in an Earthquake? The Christian Worldview holds that if Adam and Eve had not disobeyed, they would have never died. Earthquakes are not evil. What makes them natural disasters is that people sometimes die in them. I've lived in California my entire life. We have a vast number of earthquakes all the time and in my 36 years you can count the number of deadly earthquakes on one hand. Before the first major one in my lifetime when I was 14, I thought that they were fun and did not respect them like I should have, especially that I knew that people do sometimes die in Earthquakes. I'd wager that if there were no sin, we wouldn't have people dying in earthquakes - not necessarily that there would be no earthquakes.Was the earth and the universe perfect when God first made it? Yes. Is it perfect now? No. And God never said it was.
This was brought up in several guises in said debate and Fernandes simply appealed to the omniscience escape clause. Incidentally, cherry picking of science would be to accept the history and timeline of geological movements, such as pangea, but not to accept the evolution and journey of man in favour of Adam and Eve. THAT is DOUBLE STANDARDS.
I don't think the evidence completely support your conclusions concerning Adam and Eve. And what about your double standard saying you don't need to explain your terms and epistemology but claim you are using the correct standards for philosophical argumentation. "Take the beam out of thine own eye."
You, however, fail to grasp the argument as others do.
Make a cogent argument that I can grasp before claiming my failure to do so. Y'know one that is based on a correct understanding of what the Bible says Christians should believe.
So all your rhetoric about me can be aimed at Fernandes, who seems to understand the issue at hand, even if he just appeals to the 'knowledge of the gaps' argument of divine omniscience as to why these things are necessary for a perfect world.
Again, I doubt your understanding of "prefect" is the same as his or mine. But you refuse to clarify, so it seems we'll never know.
I would be critical of Dr. Fernandez if he is saying the same thing as you. I don't think he is.
I have had the time to write this in watching the All Blacks stuff the Wallabies in the first half of the RWC semi-final. The RWC is certainly time well spent.
And this helps your argument how?
Oh, and like Columbo, one more thing...
I teach plate tectonics (albeit to a basic level), so I have a fair grasp, thank you very much.
You teach where? You still haven't explained or provided any evidence of how I've said anything about plate tectonics that is incorrect. By the way, no matter what the majority of scholarship says - it's subject to change as new data becomes available. I'd be very careful if I were you of trying to fix a geological timeline. There is still much research being done. Oh well, I guess I'm just a little more open-minded than you. No biggie. IT happens.
Johnny P, from the way you endlessly reference this debate between Dr Phil Fernandez and Jeffery Jay Lowder.I was thinking that you were talking about a recent debate. You mean the one from September 26, 1999!!!? Well since, you haven't provided a link. Here is the only debate between the two I could find and it matches what you said they covered.
Any one who's interested watch it and I will be responding to it in a future post. And if you want to hear another debate with Phil Fernandez about Calvinism you should see this recent one:
And listen to Dr. James White's response on his web cast at these links.
What had happen' was.....: FacePalm of th Day #135 - Responding to Johnny P World and does God have Free Will? Part 4
“Oh but you are "critiquing" my worldview. The term of "perfection" and what that means happens to be important. If you are going to make an argument based on what God's "perfection" means, you should be prepared to define and defend on why your premises are correct. You have to show that you understand what the classical theistic positions are. And you haven't.”
ReplyDeleteI am critiquing your wqorldview, yes. As a result, I do not have to establish my beliefs as you demand. For example, I do not believe in God. How can I agree on a conept of God with you when my concept is non-existent? So you requiring me to define the perfection of God is stupid. I do not claim God is perfect. Theists do. Therefore, my idea of perfection is entirely irrelevant. Let me analogise so you can understand this highly subtle and obviously evasive point.
Jimmy claims that everything Scrwfcvb does is hilarious. Scrwfcvb ate a sandwich. Therefore, Jimmy must agree, under his claim, that from his point of view, Scrwfcvb’s eating of the sandwich was hilarious.
This is the logic used. Theists claim God is perfect. God created the universe. Therefore, the creation must be perfect.
Now, either you agree that God is perfect or not, definitions aside. I have yet to meet w theist who claims God is imperfect, or not perfect. From this premise, the rest logically follows.
Getting me to define for you what perfect means is totally unnecessary. It is like refuting the argument of Jimmy based on the fact that you find the definition of hilarious totally different to Jimmy. That is irrelevant, since the argument is applying to the viewpoint and belief of Jimmy, not the belief of you or anyone else. As long as Jimmy agrees with the premise, then FOR JIMMY, the conclusion follows.
I don’t believe in God, so the premise ‘God is perfect’ is COMPLETELY MEANINGLESS. Therefore, asking me to define perfection makes no sense since the argument does not apply to me (I am not arguing it in the affirmative) and the first premise is meaningless TO ME.
However, it is not meaningless to theists. For example, I gave you empirical evidence that a fellow theist whom you admire believes this premise to be true, as do all other theist that I know.
Incidentally, I attended the William Lane Craig debate last night in London. He admitted this logical argument by appealing to the omniscience escape clause. JUST AS I SET OUT! Argue with Fernandes or Craig, take your pick. But your pretty naïve attempted refutations of my points are fairly schoolboy.
“All we need to know is that the Christian believes that God is perfect. From here, it follows that his creation must be perfect too (whatever that is).
ReplyDeleteThat is exactly what you have ran away from.”
As mentioned too many times to count now. I am not arguing the first premise in the affirmative, theists are. Therefore, there is entirely no burden of proof upon me to prove the premise or define the terms. The premise IS A CHRISTIAN PREMISE. The perfection of Christ, for example, was argued by everyone from Irenaeus to Aquinas and Calvin. As for God, Descartes argued for his perfection, as did Anselm, Leibniz as God having all perfections, and Plantinga argues in his ontological argument that God is perfectly good, which is synonymous with perfect for the sake of this logical argument (since it is the POE we are dealing with). In Charles Hartshorne’s ‘The Logic of Perfection’, he argues that by definition, God is perfect. Etc etc bloody etc.
So no, I have no need to argue about what perfection means. I only need to point out that Christians believe it of God. All of them as far as I can see. And IF THEY BELIEVE THAT, then the conclusion follows.
Do you now understand how a logical argument follows and where the burden of proof lies?
Again where does the Bible tells us that the world in its current state is perfect? What do you mean when you say "prefect"? You seem to be either unable or unwilling to deal with this. This is why I can't take you seriously.
You have to establish that all imperfection comes as a result of humanity (and even this does not get you off the hook since God has foreknowledge and could have created any other world with any other outcome and yet chose this one).
Kranendonk, V.; Martin, J. (2011). "Onset of Plate Tectonics". Science 333 (6041): 413–414, forf example, amongst thousands of other publications, will tell you that plate tectonics started on earth three billion years ago. You admit to the existence of Pangea. We know it formed over a lengthy period around 300 million years ago. However, it was formed from earlier supercontinents. Nuna, for example, formed around 2 billion years ago. The first humans kicked about around 200,000 years ago. Of course, diseases in other hominids and animals, as well as the necessity to kill other animals rather than simply photosynthesise pre-existed this.
This is a profound fail for you argument.
“OK, on to science:
ReplyDeleteAnd the hilarity continues.... “
Blah blah blah, attempted deflection to the fact that you cannot refute the argument.
You claim this:
“When God first made earth, there was no earthquakes and it was not part of the prefect design or earthquakes are a consequence of the fall. I don't know but both of these possibilities fit the Christian worldview and does not not conflict with science”
OK. 1) earthquakes were not originally part of the perfect design (are you now finally admitting to the premises of my argument?!). How did they then become part of the actualised design without God realising they would actualise.
I think you either have a reading comprehension problem, selective amnesia, or stupidity. You claimed that earthquakes were part of the original perfect design. I'm saying that earthquakes in which people die and evil in general were not part of the design when God looked upon His creation and said that it was GOOD.. I never said that God did no know what would happen? He did. Why do you think God told Adam not to disobey Him? Of course God knew. He chose to do this the way it has. Again re-read Romans 8 if you wanna know why,.
They are only evil when people die? So animals mean nothing to you? Other hominids who became man? The MECHANISM PREXISTED THE FIRST HUMANS. This means that God designed them into the system. He knew what plate tectonics would do. He knew what humans would do, thus implying WE COULD NOT DO OTHERWISE, or else he would not have had this suffering-inducing mechanism in place already.
All of which is irrelevant to the logical discussion. It is, yes, another red herring. God is perfect, his design must be perfect, he had death-inducing plate tectonics, diseases and carnivorousness designed into the system billions of years before humans came along. Would you like me to calculate the billions of animals that suffered terribly over these billions of years?
“b) naturalistic events of material causality can be caused by abstract ideas (which by philosophical definition are causally inert).
ReplyDeleteSo you admit that there is such a thing as sin and that you stand condemned as a sinner deserving of hell fire. If so then you should repent and return to Christ. However, if you agree that the Bible is right about sin being real, then you need to consider what the Bible says is caused by sin. All of creation has been subjected to decay because of our sin. (See Romans 8 again). The Christian worldview is against your very conclusion here. You don't deal with this. You just assume it. Rather sloppy. “
WTF, I mean, WTF? How the sodding hell did you derive that I believe in sin from the claim that YOU infer that abstracts can cause material events, which is philosophically unsupported? This is your most stupid moment yet. It is utterly fallacious. Have you misread what I wrote. Let us compare these two sentence that you think are synonymous:
naturalistic events of material causality can be caused by abstract ideas (which by philosophical definition are causally inert).
There is such a thing as sin and I stand condemned as a sinner deserving of hell fire.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. You are mental.
c) Adam and Eve existed as the first humans. If you don’t bury your head in the sand, you would know this is empirically disprovable through human geography, palaeontology, anthropology and genetics.
You do realize that there are not 100% agreement on that conclusion among professional scientists right?
Tell me one scientist, peer-reviewed and published in the relevant fields, who believes (based on empirical evidence) that Adam and Eve were the first humans and that humanity was derived from them, denying evolution, genetic ancestry, anthropology, palaeontology and so on. You have sunk to new lows.
OK, imagine you dug up a couple of crackpots. Should I believe, if I am not an expert in the field, the theories of ‘scientists’ that would account for a statistical null in the relevant field? You have a bizarre and rather cherry-picking take on epistemology and plausibility.
“This is cherry-picking. This is why I claim you live a life of hypocrisy. Accepting science (and thus the scientific method) that agrees with your worldview, and rejecting any science which doesn’t. If you can’t see this, then you are wearing blinkers.
You have failed to show this. But I have shown how you live inconsistently by claiming to be a philosopher but refusing to back up your epistemology. “
That’s just horseshit. It really is. I have shown to you, since I am not establishing the premise, that this is not only unnecessary, but clouds the argument as a red herring. I have also shown how you, proven by your responses, cherry pick your science. Therefore, my point entirely stands, and yours falls like all your other empty comments.
“I hope you know that Universalism is not the classical Christian perspective, right? Therefore my comment should have made sense even to you, in context. And the YEC comment was important because uninformed people like you seem to think that the Bible says that the earth is only 6000 years-old. Here's a clue: it doesn't.. Some people only interpret it that way. “
ReplyDeleteOf course I do, you dolt. You’re the one trying to put words in my mouth like some massive straw man factory. YEC, OEC whatever shade you fancy, you need to start with the evidence and work TO the bible. Don’t start FROM the bible and go looking for evidence. Rudimentary epistemological and methodological mistake. And don’t go asking for my qualifications, you moron. I could tell you I have three higher education qualifications from three different universities ranging from philosophy to education. I could tell you I am a department leader in Geography. Whatever. So what? It has no bearing on the content of what I, and more importantly what YOU say.
“"A theist ... would have to argue that this is the greatest possible way to achieve the greatest possible world... God often uses evil and human suffering to draw people to himself. Now God's ways and thoughts are far above our understanding and even the Scriptures state that. At best atheistic arguments show that limited minds can't fully understand why God allows so much evil..."
So even he agrees with my argument in principle.
Huh? How does that quote agree with anything you said?”
This is great. This is pretty much my entire argument. If you listen to the debate, you will understand that he is answering Lowder on exactly the points I have been making. All Fernandes does is appeal to the omniscience escape clause. And yes, it is the 1999 debate. What is your point? That logic has changed in 13 years? That Calvin was wrong because he wrote all those years ago?
The sum of you argument:
The special pleading that:
Plate tectonics only took effect after Adam and Eve
Or
Plate tectonics would not have killed humans if Adam and Eve did not undergo the Fall.
That all animal suffering and death is either irrelevant or as a result of human sin, even billions of years before God existed.
Etc etc assertion assertion.
Even this, on the original logical argument, must have been necessary since, as I keep bloody repeating and you ignore:
God could have chosen any other world BY OUTCOME or PARAMETER or BOTH and chose this one, knowing of the Fall (which I find inherently logically flawed anyway) and all the resulting suffering. Since God is perfect, this must have been the perfect choice.
And it also implicitly accepts the punishment of anything, animal or otherwise, for the sine of others as being perfect.
But in order to establish ANY OF YOUR ‘ARGUMENTS’ as valid, anyway, the burden of proof is on you to:
Establish the veracity of the Adam and Eve myth
Establish the veracity AND logical coherence of Original Sin / The Fall.
After all, to collectively punish with corrupted natures, pain, suffering, and death all subsequent human beings and animals for an action such as eating a piece of fruit that they had been told not to (whilst having the mitigation of being tempted by the more wily and intelligent serpent) is to me the most improbable action of all for an all-loving god. Does the punishment fit the crime? Only for the deluded.
Oh, and WLC's tuppence:
ReplyDelete"The most common answer given by Christians is that the pain and suffering of animals is explained by the sin of human creatures, most notably the Fall of Adam. After all, Romans 8:19-22 seems to imply that the suffering we find in the natural world is part of the “groaning of creation”--a creation which cries out for redemption from the crippling effects of Adam’s sin. Isaiah 24:2-6 directly states that (at least much of) the natural evil in the world derives the fact that the peoples of the earth “disobey the laws,” “violate the statutes,” and “break the covenants.”
However, given the very powerful evidence that animals (and their pain, suffering, death, and predation) pre-existed the first human beings, that view seems incomplete. If the pain and suffering of animals predates Adam’s existence, it is hard to see how his (or our) sin could fully explain it."
Of course, you also prove my point entirely by your theorising. This is how, I think, your scenario would work:
ReplyDelete1) God knew Adam and Eve would sin through his divine foreknowledge
2) God could have created any other world, but chose to create this one in his perfect knowledge and omnibenevolence
3) God created a system whereby animals would die through carnivorousness and natural evil (plate tectonics) (These animals died and suffered before Adam and Eve existed)
4) These evils were substitutive sacrifices for the sins of Adam and Eve (man) (paid for in advance, during and after this sin)
5) God designed such punishments into the system in the knowledge that he would need such punishments at a later date for the infallible knowledge that humanity, that he created and knew would sin, would sin.
6) Therefore, natural evils are a necessary product (in payment for sin, and serving a greater good) for the creation of this world, the perfect choice of a perfect God.
This is essentially exactly the same argument as my original argument.
Response at http://mmcelhaney.blogspot.com/2011/10/facepalm-of-th-day-137-responding-to.html
ReplyDelete