God. Real. Right.

Warning: this post contains dangerously opiatic speculation about truth and intelligence. It is an effort to clarify for myself what I see as a misguided feature of some hermeneutics, some apologetics, and much if not most skepticism. But it simply will not be interesting to people with real lives!
Intelligence can mean many different things: for example, the mental ability to comprehend things, the essential element of a purposive existence, and the ability to perform computer functions. This explanation uses the first definition, the mental ability to comprehend. So the level of intelligence refers to the capacity of a given person to comprehend something at a given time. The given time is important because it is beyond doubt that mental capacity is variable within a person over time. (For instance, the more a person memorizes, the greater becomes that person’s ability to memorize.)
Truth can also be defined many different ways, only one of which has any real meaning. So while authors can define truth as (more…)

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When Hurricanes strike, as Gustav is doing right now, age-old questions are raised again. Some are about how to react and why. But some are more basic, about the source of all kinds of problems persistently faced by man. This post is about that question: from where comes evil?
The first eight and a half lines of Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” describe the immediate source (or proximate cause, using Descartes’ language) of problems:

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
And spills the (more…)

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The teleological argument is also called the argument from design. It goes like this:

• Things that are designed have a designer.
• The universe is designed (as appearances reveal).
• Therefore, the universe has a designer (what we call God).

David Hume points out a major problem with that argument in this way: Sometimes it is not so apparent that the world is well-designed. A night sky is fine, but what about spiders that eat their mates, or children who starve to death? The response of Christians is generally eschatological in nature–that is, it appeals to a future, perfected state. “Of course things don’t appear perfectly designed right now, but that’s because of the fall. Once Adam sinned, the design became marred or obscured by evil.” But then Hume’s point hits home. “You want me to believe an argument based on the appearance of design yet claim that the design actually is not apparent, but will be at some point in the future. That kind of argument appeals not to reason but to a leap of faith into invisible data. It’s not rational; it’s purely religious.”
The interesting thing is that evolution can do exactly the same thing. Consider (more…)

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Here is Laurent Laveder’s explanation of this photograph from “Astronomy Picture of the Day”:

Explanation: The Moon’s measured diameter is around 3,476 kilometers (2,160 miles). But apparent angular size, or the angle covered by an object, can also be important to Moon enthusiasts. Angular size depends on distance, the farther away an object is, the smaller an angle it covers. Since the Moon is 400,000 kilometers away, its angular size is only about 1/2 degree, a span easily covered by the tip of your finger held at arms length, or a measuring tape held in the distance by a friend. Of course the Sun is much larger than the Moon, 400 times larger in fact, but today the New Moon will just cover the Sun. The total solar eclipse can be seen along a track across northern Canada, the Arctic, Siberia, and northern China. (A partial eclipse is visible from a broader region). Solar eclipses illustrate the happy coincidence that while the Sun is 400 times the diameter of the Moon, it is also 400 times farther away giving the Sun and Moon exactly the same angular size.

Note the phrase “happy coincidence” in the last sentence. A happy coincidence is what causes naturalists to shrug a “that’s weird” or even momentarily question their belief that everything is a product of blind, natural forces. On the other hand, a happy coincidence is what reminds theists to be thankful for the untold number of items which indicate that the universe was planned from the beginning with man’s perspective in mind.
Not proof, mind you, not by a longshot. Just a reminder.

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The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life recently released results of another huge survey of American religious views. One of the more reported features of the survey (it’s on page three–five, as they number it–of the eighteen page summary) involves the claim that some twenty-one percent of those who call themselves atheists also say they believe in God! What’s more, about forty percent of agnostics say they are certain there is a God!
The Secular Coalition for America, a group which mistakenly associates secularism with freedom and which claims to promote the interests of atheists, agnostics, and humanists, tries to make the case that these odd statistics along with some converse statistics indicating that seven percent of protestants do not believe in God are evidence of how difficult it is for an atheist to “come out of the closet.” Clearly, the data is not in support of their claim. In fact, quite to the contrary (more…)

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A good friend from San Angelo cut a cross-section of bell pepper and sent out a picture of it. There it is, randomly appearing from completely unrelated circumstances–the shape of Texas! She only sent the picture out for fun. But…
What could this astonishing concomitance of events mean? Oddly, there is a reason to ask that otherwise ridiculous question.
There are two common errors related to interpreting such circumstances, each derived from an extreme position.
The first error is the one that leads people to line up around the block to see the image of Mary in a window pane or to bid thousands of dollars for a piece of toast with “The Last Supper” etched into it. Whether it is good (like a sign from heaven), bad (like an ominous shadow in a dark room), or contrived (like laser-engraving an image in bread), people commonly intend significance on mundane objects. Some see that tendency as evidence that faith is absurd. They are wrong. (more…)

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In one of his famous letters to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson makes the case that when arguing for the existence of God the teleological argument is better than the cosmological argument. His reasoning is straightforward and dependent on the rise of science’s authority in the world of his day.
The cosmological argument traditionally claims that the universe must be caused by something, and the thing that causes it is God. (A very brief but better form of the argument is here.) But Jefferson objects with a foundational principle of the scientific worldview, the law of parsimony (Occam’s Razor). If a scientifically minded person must choose between (more…)

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This post is intended to point to and explain the significance of the page “on God.”
There are strong, rational arguments in favor of God’s existence. However, the cause for which people do not believe in God (or do not commit to Him, as is more often the case) is not at its root rational. Rather, it is volitional. That is, whether a person’s mind tells him to believe in God is not the biggest question for his faith. It is, instead, whether he is willing to believe in God which is primary.
That said, the grounds, reasoning, and evidence for believing in God are still hugely important. It is arguably impossible (more…)

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A few very bright students in one of my classes put together this response to a very popular atheistic video on youtube. Much of the humor hangs on imitation of the original video, but it is worth seeing in its own right as well.
Solid!

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So, can God make a rock He can’t lift? Atheists, agnostics, and those who simply enjoy seeing theists squirm use this question to deny the possibility of God’s existence. Most theists avoid squirming by avoiding the question. Others just squirm. But there is another option. There is a simple way to answer the question. In fact, I believe adamantly that God can make a rock He can’t lift. Why?

Here’s the dilemma posed by the antagonist: If God can make that rock then He can’t lift it. If He can lift it, then He can’t make a rock He can’t lift. Either way, God is no longer omnipotent, and so no longer God.

So why would I claim that He can make such a rock? It’s very simple. Because I am a theist (more specifically, a Christian) I believe God is ultimate. (In fact, I believe the ontological argument leaves every person willing to be clear-headed about it with the the fact that there is a God and that He is ultimate–but that’s an issue for another day.) He is not subject to anything at all. So any time I have to choose between God and something else, I choose God. So how does this dilemma leave me with a choice between God and something else? It sounds like I am being given a choice between God and God. But I am not.

Here is the real choice, my reason for saying what I do, and the real issue: Whenever I am posed with the statement, “Can God X?” I answer, “Yes.” Certainly, some will say “X” must be something in order for the question to mean anything, and in this case “X” is no more something than in the case of “X” being “a round square,” or a “four sided triangle.” But such an answer will not do. The point of God’s omnipotence is not that He can do all things that are rational, or that He can do anything that can be done, but that He can do anything. In fact, it seems necessarily significant to me that God can do what is “impossible” to man, not just regarding salvation (as in Luke 18:27), but regarding anything at all.

So whether I think X is something or not, I still choose to believe God can do it. Where does that leave me? It leaves me saying God can make a rock He can’t lift. But doesn’t that statement leave me having to say that God can’t lift the rock He so made? Not at all. I also believe God can lift the rock. And there’s the rub for some, but the key for me. If I say God cannot make such a rock, I contradict God’s power. If I say God cannot lift it, I contradict God’s power. But if I say God can make it so that He cannot lift it, and that He can lift it, then I make statements which contradict each other, but neither of which contradicts God’s power. I am making statements that contradict reason, but not God. Does this mean I believe God and rationality are inconsistent? Not at all. But only one thing can be ultimate. And if I have not learned anything else in my years as a Christian and a student of the Word, I have learned that if I have to choose between what seems rational to me and God, I’d better always pick God.

So where does that leave God and rationality? Right where they ought to be: God first, reason subordinate. After all, God does say to those who are “not my people,” “you are my people.” God never contradicts Himself. God is not irrational; He is the author of reason. But He often does what reason says cannot be done. Reason works fine when it is seen in subjection to God. But it is nothing less than an assault (though feeble, of course) on God’s nature when it replaces God in the minds of its users. In that case, we find ourselves violating the idea behind passages like Isaiah 40:28: “there is no searching of His understanding.”

(I have not addressed the moral side of this question, but the answer “reasonably follows” this one! Neither have I dealt with the fact that my view of the supremacy of God is also why I believe libertarian free will is a viable concept. Subjects for other notes…)

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