For those who aren’t familiar with the term BSOD, you’re not even close to geekdom. For those who have, you’ll know that it stands for “Blue Screen of Death.” Anyone who doesn’t know what that mean is even further from Geekdom. Either that, or you’ve never used Microsoft Windows.

Thanks Dee Dee Warren, for bringing this classic video clip to my attention. This was just prior to the release of Windows 98:
It’s not the only such public moment for Mr Gates, as Conan O’Brian found out (thanks $cirisme):

EDIT: You’re not gonna believe this. Well OK, you are. Right after I finished this blog entry, my wife was reading through it, and guess what happened? BSOD, that’s what!

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Recently, a seminary student that I know claimed that the Cosmological argument is not just wrong, but stupid, because it entails that God is caused. After all, as everyone knows, so the objection went, here’s what the cosmological argument says:

1) Everything that exists has a cause of its existence.

2) Nature/the Universe exists (obviously).

3) Therefore the Universe has a cause.

And since people who use the cosmological argument affirm that “God exists,” they must say that God had a cause of His existence, due to 1). What a stupid argument!

Stupid indeed. Here’s the first clue that you’re probably misconstruing it. If the cosmological argument consisted of 1-3 as given above, then it would take a young and ignorant person or a complete moron to embrace it. Thomas Aquinas, as an example of one who used the argument, however wrong he might have been, was not a complete moron. It’s far more likely, Mr Lutheran student, that you’re getting the argument wrong.
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First things first: I like Ben Witherington. As a general rule, I think his work – especially on the subject of the historical Jesus and Christian origins – is about as good as it gets. But this was brought to my attention recently. It’s a short piece by James White, in which he notes that Witherington recently took issue with a forthcoming book by Thomas Schreiner. Schreiner made what sounds like me to a fairly innocuous claim, the claim that what we see in the New Testament is “God magnifying himself through Jesus Christ by means of the Holy Spirit.” Witherington, says White, reacted with a “very Arminian-originated” reply to this claim.

OK, I thought. James White is a Calvinist, and one of the more vociferous Calvinists out there today. He’s good at what he does, I mused, but sometimes he reacts a little strongly to his brethren who are not Calvinists. Maybe this was just White ragging on an Arminian scholar.

Boy, was I ever wrong. I read Witherington’s piece, which is here. It’s not a rant against Calvinism per se, it reads more like a rant against any view wherein God seeks His own glory – and I mean, it really is a rant. Witherington starts by describing the view that in salvation as described in the New Testament, God is ultimately manginfying His own glorify, and concludes that if this were so, John 3:16 should read “for God so loved Himself…” He rattles off a whole list of verses, re-written as equally bizarre parodies of themselves, and then explodes in a plume of rhetorical colour:

I suppose we should not be surprised that in a culture and age of narcissism, we would recreate God in our own self-centered image, but it is surprising when we find orthodox Christians, and even careful scholars doing this.

You have to be kidding, Ben! What kind of absurd attempt at cultural reductionism is this? What button hath been pressed here? And how exactly would the Amonite version of Dr Witherington have reacted to Israelite culture?

I suppose we should not be surprised that in an age of powerful kings demanding our worship and a love of monarchy, we should not be surprised that we find ourselves wanting to worship a god who is just like them, demanding that worship and glory go to no other…

I’ll tell you what we shouldn’t be surprised at, Dr Witherington. We should not be surprised that in our age of asinine psychoanalysis and social reductionism, we find scholars writing of other people’s position on the grounds of some babble about cultural osmosis!

And on the theological side of things, here’s what’s wrong with the above analysis. If a person is self centred, self adoring, self loving and aggrandizing and so forth, we think it is wrong, not because love or glory are bad things, but because these attitudes do not rightly reflect the facts! A person should not think himself better than everyone else because he is not better than everyone else. A man like me should not seek his own glory above all others because I do not deserve glory above all others. Are we really prepared to demand that God abstain from such demands for the same reason?

Witherington protests that actually the greatest story in Scripture is that of the love of God. The two ideas, however, as John Piper explained, are not unrelated. “God’s exaltation of his own glory is not narcissistic but loving, because it directs our attention away from ourselves to the one glorious reality that can satisfy our souls forever.” Have a look through a longer piece by Piper on the subject, two of which are linked at the bottom of that response at Piper’s site. The idea that a God (the one and only God who created heaven and earth) should seek the glory that He deserves should not seem foreign to Christian ears. In saving human beings, no less, the end result is the greater glory of God, as spelt out pretty unambiguously by the Apostle Paul (and this is the case regardless of whether or not one accepts a Calvinist view of the references to predestination, as I do), in Ephesians 1:3-14.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

(English Standard version, © Crossway)

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This was on the news tonight, so I looked it up and found this news story.

Apparently scientists have developed the technology to create stem cells from skin cells. On the plus side, this means there’s no longer any reason to use human embryos, destroying them to get stem cells. But a key developer of this technology, Professor Ian Wilmut, says that this is irrelevant, and the procedure is not better on ethical grounds. He explains: “To me it’s always been ethically acceptable to think that if you could use cells from a human embryo to develop a treatment for a disease like motor neurone disease, for which there is no treatment at present, then that is an acceptable thing to do.”

OK, I think he’s dead wrong because he arbitrarily assumes that embryos have little or no moral status, but here’s what needs to be pointed out: The use of embryonic stem cells have never successfully been used in such treatments! As is pointed out here by the Coalition for American Research Ethics, no less than 73 treatments have been made possible via the use of adult stem cells, while embryonic stem cells have had no positive successful applications in treating serious conditions.

If no real scientific need could be offered for the destruction of embryos before this new technology was available, should we think that people will stop doing it now… when there’s still no need?

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If you’re not a Calvinist, fine. If you think it’s not true or unbiblical, fine. I think you’re probably wrong, but fine. Even if you don’t believe it, and you haven’t really looked into the issue, fine. But what’s not fine is to substitute pointless and biased comparisons for intelligent reflection. Take this for example. Here’s a sample:

Pursuant to research I am doing for a project I was reading the Koran & found a striking similarity between Islam & Calvinism in the area of predestination and fatalism. The two theological systems have an almost identical view of God [emphasis added], which is clearly at odds with the Arminian & Judaic views. Muslims believe nothing happens unless God wills it — including sinful choices by humans (a mirror image of Calvin’s POV).

Obviously Calvinism is a system couched in Christianity & of course Islam is not. However, I find the similarities striking & noteworthy. I’m interested to hear the Calvinist perspective on this similarity.

For now – never mind the claim that Calvinism differs with Judaism (in particular, the Old Testament of the Christian Bible) on the issue of sovereignty. He’s wrong, but let’s ignore that for now. What the heck is the point of noting a similarity between Islam and Calvinism (assuming for now that there is one). Is it so that Christians will say “oooo, Calvinism is like Islam, that’s bad. Calvinism is bad”? The bias and transparently selective nature of this kind of pointless activity makes it intellectually worthless in my opinion. Here’s a beautiful example: You’ve all heard or read advocates of Open Theism say that other views – especially [spooky voice]Calvinism[/spooky voice] are just too influenced by “pagan Greek” philosophy, right? But those same people just don’t care that the same syngergism and openness is duplicated in the pagan Greek and Roman myths.

Never mind the fact that Mormonism and the Jehovah’s witnesses, along with plenty of non-Christian religions, are synergistic like Arminianism.

Hey, don’t debate – associate!

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I think a lot of libertarians don’t really care about libertarianism, they simply care about their own pet morality, and libertarianism – so they think – provides a blunt weapon with which to cudgel those who do not share that morality. Here’s an example: In recent history I encountered a particularly nasty piece of work (who shall remain nameless, other than to say he’s an individual whose re-entry to NZ has been denied because of his uncovered history of promoting “man boy love”) who was adamant that no real classical liberal or libertarian could possibly be a person who thought that same-sex marriage was immoral, because libertarians and classical liberals are tolerant people who don’t make such bigoted moral judgements.

He was wrong. Classical liberalism has nothing at all to say about whether or not a person will or should find himself agreeing with certain traditional moral mores like those about homosexuality. Read that again: Classical liberalism, and libertarianism for that matter, has absolutely nothing to say about whether or not a person should agree with moral judgements about homosexuality, or any number of other moral issues associated with dreaded “conservatism.” Edward Feser explains why here, and it’s worth a read. Just a note – he uses the term “fusionism” and “libertarian conservatism” in roughly the same way that I use the term “Classical Liberalism.”

Here’s a sneak peek at what he says:

If I had to sum up the common moral vision of libertarians and conservatives, I would say it is a commitment to the idea of the dignity of man.  On this vision, a human being is not a mere animal, but a rational being with the power of free moral choice, a person – a creature made, as religious conservatives would put it, in the image of God.  And because he is this, he (a) cannot legitimately be used as a resource for others, a source of labor and property which may be appropriated by the state for its purposes without his consent, and (b) is subject to the demands of a moral law which require him to live in a way which accords with his unique dignity, rather than in thrall to his every fleeting inclination.  Libertarians stress (a) and conservatives (b), but both are united in their insistence that a man ought not to be a slave, either to another’s desires or to his own.  And it is this insistence that separates them from the Left, which in its various factions tends to portray human beings in dehumanizing terms, as little more than clever animals, or as cogs in a vast social machine, helpless victims of forces beyond their control – and thus neither fit to rule themselves nor capable of living up to any morality that would require putting chains on their appetites.

Well put!

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Some time ago (good grief, it was over a year ago now) I announced that I had completed my PhD thesis in philosophy.

WELL… it has been a bit of a saga since then, and I haven’t wanted to say too much until it was all out of the way. First there were delays in having it submitted properly, and then most importantly I ended up having to make all sorts of revisions to the thesis. It was a longer and more demanding process than I had hoped. BUT, after much hand wringing and anticipation, I received word today that all three of my PhD examiners have agreed that the thesis should pass, and that I should receive the degree of PhD in philosophy.

I’m not Dr yet, and I won’t be until graduation, but now at least I can say that there IS a graduation in the near future! Many prayers have been answered.

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Many readers will be familiar with the term “liberal democracy.” John Rawls, Gerald Gaus, Stephen Macedo, Robert Audi and other names come to mind when we think of political scientists and philosophers who defend the ideal of a liberal democracy. One of those ideals, we are often told, is the absence of religious convictions from our political reasoning – or at very least the absence of religious convictions as the sole basis of any of our political reasoning. Religious values, we are told, are private things, whereas political and public reason must be grounded in public reason (whatever that is, which is a long story).

Imagine the horror (or confusion, perhaps) of a good political liberal of these stripes encountering the claim that we should actually be pursuing a liberal theocracy! How can those words even be put together? But the fact is, liberalism of the type described above is not all there is to liberalism. You could be forgiven for thinking – based on what some contemporary defenders of political liberalism say – that political liberalism has nothing to do with religious values, and in liberalism the values that the state enshrines are secular secular secular, and that is that, or it’s not liberalism. It’s a bit like a congregation of King James only Baptists in Alabama who sing hymns about the fact that they are the only true Christians in the world.

I’m about half way through writing an article called “The Liberal Theocracy,” noting that contemporary Rawlsian liberalism is only one idiosyncratic species of liberalism, and that there is a proper sense of the term liberal democracy that is quite compatible with at least some proper sense of the term theocracy. Sound intriguing? I’ll post the article online when it’s done, see what you think.

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I’ve been prompted by a recurring experience to write a very boring post about a basic distinction. Here it is: Definitions are not exactly the same thing as descriptions.

At first glance that sounds pretty simple, and brief reflection shows that it’s obviously correct. Why am I pointing out such a trivial thing? Here’s why: I hold to a view of eternal punishment called annihilationism. That’s the view that instead of being tormented forever, those who do not find favour with God will die finally and forever. They will, in simple terms, permanently cease to exist one day. I have a friend who holds to a more traditional view of hell, in which eternal punishment consists of eternal torment. This friend – and this person is not alone, there are many sincere (but mistaken) people who make this same error – has claimed several times that not only do I hold a different view of hell, but I actually do not believe in hell at all. When I explain that in fact I do believe in hell, but I do not believe that it consists of eternal torment, here is (my paraphrase of) the reply I got:

“Well, I define hell as something involving eternal torment, therefore you’re radically re-defining hell, which is the same as denying its existence altogether, because you might say that hell exists, but that word carries a different definition when you’re using it than when I’m using it.”

What has happened here is that people who think this are confusing descriptions with definitions. Perhaps a few hypothetical examples of this exact same tactic in other situations will make if clear why this is a confused way to reason:

Jim: There’s a mustang convertible in that closed garage over there.

Bob: No, actually there’s a Volkswagen Beetle in that closed garage over there.

Jim: Oh, so you don’t believe there’ s a car in that garage, huh?

Bob: Of course I do. I just think the car is a Volkswagen Beetle and not a Mustang Convertible.

Jim: Oh Bob, don’t be so slippery. I define the car in the garage as a Mustang convertible! Therefore you’re radically re-defining the car in that garage, which is the same as denying its existence altogether, because you might say that a car exists in the garage, but that word carries a different definition when you’re using it than when I’m using it.

Is Jim correct? Of course not! Jim is mistaking his description of the car (a Mustang convertible) for the very definition of a car. In a way, he’s screening out any possibility of debate over what type of car might be in the garage, because he will assume that “car” in and of itself just means what he thinks the car is like. Here’s another example of two people from different periods of history who just entered a time warp and ended up together:

Herb: I think the President of the USA is John Adams

Fossy: No, I think the President of the USA is Teddy Roosevelt

Herb: Oh? So you think there’s no President of the USA?

Fossy: What? I just said there was a President of the USA, namely Teddy Roosevelt!

Herb: But Fossy, I define the President of the USA as a John Adams! Therefore you’re radically re-defining the President of the USA, which is the same as denying its existence altogether, because you might say that a President of the USA exists, but that term carries a different definition when you’re using it than when I’m using it.

Is Herb right? Of course not! Both of these absurd arguments – about cars and Presidents – have one mistake in common. They are confusing specific possible manifestations of a thing with what that thing is by definition. The car in the garage might be a number of things – a Dodge, a Ford, a Toyota etc. But it is not defined in terms of any one of those particular things. It is defined much more basically than that, otherwise there could literally not even be a disagreement about what type of car is int he garage, unless at least one of the participants is hopelessly ignorant and has never heard of a car at all. Likewise, the President of the USA could be any number of people. But it is not any one person by definition, otherwise there could not be a succession of presidents, since the next person to come into office would be a different person and hence not the actual president!

In short, the people who make the glaringly obvious errors in the above hypothetical scenarios do so because they confuse a particular description of what something might be like with the very definition of that thing. The exact same error occurs when somebody says that an annihilationist doesn’t believe in hell. “Hell” here just means the afterlife – the postmortem fate – of those who ultimately do not find favour with God. There is, and has been for some time now, a debate raging over the nature of hell. A book featuring several views on what hell is like was called Four Views on Hell. One of those views was that hell will consist of eternal torment for those people (actually two of the views both expressed slightly different versions of that view). But just imagine how absurd it would have been if the book began by saying “Hell means a place of eternal torment. Now here are four view on hell, some of which deny eternal torment.” Eternal torment is, as in the arguments about cars and presidents, a candidate among views of what hell is like. To say that hell just means “eternal torment” is to brush away all possibility of debate about “hell” by saying “The word hell means eternal torment. The word hell is in the Bible. Therefore eternal torment is in the Bible. Game over.”

This lesson in linguistic basics 101 was brought to you by your friendly neighbourhood annihilationist.

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I’ve just come across a booklet called Whose Delusion? It’s a brief, but actually rather good, response to Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. It’s published by Grove Books, who regularly publish such short works on a range of theological, ethical and social issues from a Christian point of view. Check them out here.

Here’s a brief summary of just part of the (already brief) book. It starts out with a brief introduction to Dawkins, and announces that the intention is to “encourage Christians not to feel daunted by The God Delusion, but to see it as a God-given opportunity for conversations about faith with friends, neighbours and colleagues.” Then, the author outlines some areas of agreement with the book. Yes, much intolerance and violence has been done in the name of theism (although Dawkins does not add that the same is true of what has been done in the name of atheism). True, a faith or lifestyle should not be given undue respect just because it is religious. True, religious beliefs are sometimes silly and wrong-headed (as are plenty of non religious beliefs). Yes, the Bible contains violence, sometimes done in God’s name (although “Dawkins does not give any context for this, simply using it to bolster his questionable claim that all religion tends towards violence”). The author grants, with Dawkins, that the so-called “classical” proofs for God’s existence are not convincing. I beg to differ in some cases. I find the moral argument and the cosmological argument, for example, to be convincing. But the author says that Christians already agree with Dawkins here, which is why they no longer use such arguments. This claim is also not true, as is readily apparent in contemporary philosophy of religion. The author does note, however, that Dawkins never interacts with other arguments for theism, or for Christianity, such as the arguments in favour of the resurrection of Jesus. And lastly, the author agrees that the “God-of-the-gaps” approach is intellectually weak. But, he notes, most theologians and Christians who are scientists would agree already with this.
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