Can We Choose Our Beliefs?

Lately on YT and TWeb I've been dealing with a fundy atheist. Andrew Smith, who argues that humans can't "choose" their beliefs, and he uses this as an excuse for why God's punishments are unjust. I asked Nick Peters to take a TNT bomb to this idea, so he'll be the guest poster today.

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Can we choose our beliefs?

Andrew Smith says, no, we can’t. He says we can make choices, but we can’t choose to believe something.

Supposing this was true, it would be interesting to see what difference it would make to the truth of Christianity. It could be that Jesus rose from the dead and those who believe in it are those who have to believe in it, kind of an ultra-Calvinist viewpoint.

Of course, Smith is right if he means that we can’t just change our beliefs willy-nilly. I can’t just suddenly believe that I have $1,000,000 in my banking account, as much as I’d like that to be true. He is right that to change our beliefs, our beliefs should be challenged by new claims that have sufficient evidence.

Let’s look at a statement he makes.

“If in order to change your beliefs it is required that new information comes to you and convinces you that your beliefs are false, that is not choice.”

Yes. It is a requirement that you have new information come to your mind that convinces you, but the seeking out of new information is a choice. It is a choice when I go to the library to get books and it is a choice what books I get. I can get books that are in line with my beliefs, which is fine to do at times, or I can choose books that disagree with what I believe.

When I do the latter, I can also seek to choose what kind of mindset I will approach them from. I can choose to approach them assuming I am always right, to which nothing will be convincing because it does not agree with me, or I could take the approach that I am someone who is to be humble and learn from others and realize I could be wrong, in which case I could be more convinced.

If an argument is rational, contains no logical fallacies, and is based on sound evidence, then I am obligated to believe in it. Of course, that could mean I want some time to mull over the argument and examine the premises and such, but if in the end I find nothing wrong with the argument, then I believe it. The reality for most of us is that we’ve all had times like this. Many of us have eliminated beliefs from our system that we once deeply cherished simply because of new evidence.

Smith goes on to say

“You do not get to choose what convinces you and what doesn't, otherwise you could convince yourself of anything.”

But this doesn’t follow. This assumes that all arguments are equally convincing. Consider the classic syllogism.

All men are mortal.

Socrates is a man.

Socrates is mortal.

The only way someone could really doubt this is to question that all men are mortal. We have strong evidence of this though in that all men thus far have died, aside from biblically Enoch and Elijah. If that was a problem, let’s go to another one.

All cats are felines.

Mittens is a cat.

Mittens is a feline.

This should be convincing to anyone. Now let’s make another syllogism.

All birds can fly.

Rover is a dog.

Therefore, fundy atheists are dumb.

Now this conclusion is certainly true, although fundy atheists will disagree with it, but it is a bad argument. Not even the most conservative Christian would find it convincing. Thus, to say you can convince yourself of anything would imply that there is an equal argument to believe anything. If that is the case though, there is just as good an argument to convince yourself that you can choose your beliefs as there is that you can’t choose them. (By the way, why is Smith trying to give us an argument to choose the belief that we can’t choose our beliefs?)

“And, since your beliefs are entirely contingent upon what you find convincing, you do not choose them.”

This is true, but irrelevant. We can be convinced of things we don’t want to be convinced of. It happens regularly. People become convinced that a loved one has died when they see them lying in the casket. Is it because these people want to be convinced their loved one is dead? No. It is because they face evidence that they cannot refute. Most of us have had times of denial where we’ve had irrefutable evidence for a position and tried to emotionally push it away. It doesn’t last long.

We conclude that Smith’s case is not well thought-out and is simply a way to try to avoid having blame for the position that he holds with regards to Christianity. Yet even if his position was true, it would not refute the Christian faith at all. Perhaps the problem could really lie with Smith himself?

A Bogus Dostovesky Quote

"He who desires to see the living God face to face should not seek Him in the empty firmament of his mind, but in human love."

                                                             -Feodor Dostoevsky

This past weekend a reader sent me an email asking about the validity of this quote. It's being repeated in a lot of books on marriage and relationships, and is often used in the context of suggesting that we should use our brain when it comes to knowing God.

Dostovesky adds a lot of weight to that in some people's minds, though he was hardly an expert in things like the social world of the Bible. The bad news is that while it's an overall genuine quote, it wasn't Dostovesky who said it.

I traced people using it as a Dostovesky quote in the early 70s, but far earlier than that -- in 1913 -- it was used by an author named Romain Rolland, in a novel series with the title character Jean-Chrisophe. As used there, it is clearly Rolland's own words, and it reads slightly differently:

  If any man would see the living God face to face, he must seek Him, not in the empty firmament of his own brain, but in the love of men.

Now Rolland was by no means a slouch. He won a Nobel Prize for literature. But he was also not a Christian, as Dostovesky was. So by no means should Christian author think this quote has any bearing on what Dostovesky believed as a Christian -- and for all who use it, it ought to have a lot less "star power".

Well, that was fun. Here's a screen capture from one of Rolland's works to verify.

   

Book Snap:Chad Meister and James Dew's "God and Evil"

For this one we turn the reins over to Nick Peters again, as it's his specialty subject and not mine.

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I’ll state something important right at the start. I’ve never really been frustrated by the problem of evil. It is true that suffering has bothered me in the past and will in the future. It is true that I know this is something that needs to be explained. It’s just that I have never seen this as a defeater for the faith. As long as we have the resurrection of Jesus I think Christianity is true. With that, evil is an anomaly, but we have the essential question answered in the resurrection. Why trade an essential for a peripheral?

            Also, this is not because I am unfamiliar with suffering. Right before I turned sixteen, I had scoliosis surgery to correct a curvature in my spine. While other boys were working on driving, I was working on walking. I spent a year in great pain recovering. I also have Asperger’s and went through a time of great depression and anxiety with panic attacks. Today, I am unemployed as I write this. My wife, also with Asperger’s, struggles with a number of other conditions. Therefore, I am not a stranger to suffering.

            Despite this, I know other people are. I have often told people that I teach in apologetics that if you are ever a pastor and a young mother comes to you crying because her son just died in a car accident, you’d better not be an apologist at that moment. What she needs then is a pastor/counselor. There will be time to discuss the questions later, but for now, let her work through the emotional pain. 

            A lot of people unfortunately hold on to such emotional pain and that is one reason the problem of evil is so gripping. All of us have this sense that something is not right with the world. For some people, like myself, this creates a drive to seek to go out and make the world a better place. For others, this blocks them from fully getting to experience their life and in such a case, the problem of evil needs to be answered.

            Enter God and Evil (G&E from now on) edited by Chad Meister and James K. Dew Jr. Readers of this book will be pleased to see a number of known people in the field commenting such as Greg Ganssle, Paul Copan, William Lane Craig, Gary Habermas, William Dembski, and Francis Collins. Some names will surprise such readers. We might wonder why the natural sciences are getting involved, except for the fact that evolution is part of this as well. Does it answer the problem of evil or is it a problem that needs to be explained?

            That’s another benefit of this book. Which side does it take in the question of evolution? Both. There is an essay by Dembski first critiquing the views of someone like Karl Giberson in thinking that evolution is an answer to the problem of natural evil and bad design. Then, the next essay you read is Giberson himself writing with Francis Collins. Thus, the book does not just have one view, but speaks with several views so that anyone reading can find something.

            There are essays on most every aspect of the problem of evil. An essay like Gary Habermas’s is an excellent one for pastoral situations. People who have followed his ministry closely know plenty about his usage of cognitive-behavioral therapy in helping people overcome emotional doubt. In my opinion, if this essay could be grasped, then most of the other essays would not be needed.

            Paul Copan’s essays give an excellent look at biblical material, including passages that make it look like God is the source of evil. He also does not rehash what he did in “Is God A Moral Monster?” Copan’s essays in G&E instead take a look at original sin and how Christians have interpreted it and what the relationship is between God and evil.

            Greg Ganssle has an excellent essay on evil as evidence for Christianity. As he points out, it is hard to see how the problem of evil could be a problem for Christianity when Christianity itself assumes that there is great evil. Evil is so much of a problem that it takes the death of the Son of God in order to make things right in the world. This will be one of the most helpful essays to read.

            Some essays I didn’t think really delivered. Surprisingly, I had a major disappointment with Bill Craig’s essay. In it, he dealt with universalism and the problem of hell using his molinistic theory. Now I have a problem with the theory as well seeing as I think it doesn’t work to say every person who would not believe was born where they would not hear, particularly since what each person is in part also depends on their parents, but the biggest problem I had with this one was that there were no footnotes. I have no references to the universalists that Craig is dealing with or the works of philosophers who will support his beliefs. I realize Craig’s is a big name in apologetics, but I would hope it is not so big that we are reaching the point where it is just Craig’s say so on a matter. In this, I mean no disrespect to Craig. I am pleased he is on our side and I think he’s an excellent debater. It is just the statement that I wish I knew his sources on this material.

            I thought a chapter on Hell that left room open for post-mortem evangelism was problematic as well seeing as not once was Hebrews 9:27 discussed that I can remember. Some readers who hold to a view of post-mortem evangelism might think that they have an answer to that. If so, that’s fine, but if you are presenting a paper to convince someone of your position, it doesn’t help to ignore a verse that most people would strongly think mitigates against your view.

            While I would be more prone to side with Dembski in his argument, I found his essay less convincing than Giberson and Collins’s. Yet in their essay, I found the problem that they thought there would be no proof either way on the debate over the existence of God. I think Dembski has a great point that is shown in his book “The End of Christianity”, but I also think that Giberson and Collins have an interesting argument on how if theistic evolution is true, it does help deal with the problem of natural evil.

            Readers will also be pleased that in the end of this book is a transcript of a debate between Bill Craig and Michael Tooley. I believe Craig did quite well in the debate, but that might not be saying much since Tooley did so terribly, including lack of study in biblical arguments. It boils down to “God does stuff I don’t like, therefore He’s wrong.” There is no looking at the Amalekite culture, or the fact that the Egyptians were enslaving Israel, or could it be that Jesus did not mean what Tooley thinks he meant by his second coming? (Note, he never calls it the second coming. As an orthodox Preterist, I see it as something different) Note also Tooley kept saying that the majority of people would go to Hell. I do not find any biblical basis for this.

            One criticism I have with G&E is that as in too many other books, good and evil I did not see defined. It is treated as if we know what they are instinctively, and yet nowadays when I debate evil and morality with non-Christians, I always try to start us off with defining what goodness is. If we can do that, and I do so with a good Thomistic metaphysic, it can really deal with a lot of objections, including the joke one Tooley uses of Stephen Law’s “evil god” argument. 

            Despite that criticism, my overall response to the book is quite positive. There is much in here for someone to learn and I believe much of it is accessible to the layman. G&E will help to prepare the Christian for the discussion of the problem of evil, but let us hope that more than that, that Christians who read this will go out and deal with the problem of evil directly, starting with the evil in their own selves by modeling good Christlikeness.

            Therefore, I conclude that this book is one for those interested in this topic to put on their list. There are a number of highly educated minds who have shared much for you to learn from.

Geisler Masters the Non Sequitur

I have a USDA conference this week, so I'm pleased to host Nick Peters' latest report on the latest Geisler shenanigans. The Ticker will return next week otherwise.

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Norman Geisler has done it again. He still seems under the impression that since he is commenting on something and he is the evangelical pope, then his word is authoritative, without stopping to realize how that statement will look to people in the field who study it.

An example from the apologetics field we can often see can be found in objections to the Trinity. Jews, Muslims, and Jehovah’s Witnesses have all asked me, “If Jesus is God, was He praying to Himself?” I could understand someone being taught the Trinity for the first time wondering about that, but if someone wants to argue against the idea, such a claim does not show real in-depth study of the topic, but complete ignorance of the topic.

In his latest rant against Mike Licona, who for all we know might have been snoring too loudly at night this time around, Geisler has sought the authority of the early church fathers (ECF). It is a wonder that more authority is needed besides all the (cough) scholars (cough) of the ICBI (International Council on Biblical Inerrancy), but this is Geisler’s main game. A great man has spoken. All be silent!

In Geisler’s rant, one will never come across a discussion of Mike’s arguments. Geisler is banking on the fact that his readers will never bother interacting with them. I recall a discussion with a Geislerite one time where he told me I needed to read Geisler’s Systematic Theologies and Inerrancy that he edited and then get back to me. I told him I had already read them (which is true) and was ready to discuss. I never got a reply. I have no doubt this person never bothered to read Mike’s book and never will.

Geisler will keep going and pointing out all of his arguments without responding to his critics, all the while expecting his critics to respond to him or, if they do, like myself, JPH, Max Andrews, etc., then ignore them and hope that they go away, kind of like what happened with the Ergun Caner debacle. The authoritarian tactics are all we see.

For now, I am going to be dealing with just one part of Geisler’s rant. I can assure the reader that there will be soon (I am having someone fact-checking one) on my blog a fuller response. A link to my blog can be found below and my readers can know that this is a blog that JPH would recommend that you follow. For all interested, one can do a web search for Mike Licona (and in the interest of fairness, for all who don’t know, I will state what could be seen as bias upfront in saying that he is my father-in-law) and read the arguments I have up on my blog, arguments Geisler has never responded to.

What is it that Geisler has said that will be dealt with? The following:

Further, it is highly unlikely that a resurrection story would be influenced by a Greco-Roman genre source (which Licona embraces) since the Greeks did not believe in the resurrection of the body (cf. Acts 17:32).  In fact, bodily resurrection was contrary to their dominant belief that deliverance from the body, not a resurrection in the body, was of the essence of salvation.  Homer said death is final and resurrection does not occur (Iliad 24.549-551).  Hans-Josef Klauck declared, “There is nowhere anything like the idea of Christian resurrection in the Greco-Roman world” (The Religious Context of Early Christianity. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000, p. 151)

It is hard to know where to begin with a statement like this. It would certainly be news to scholars like N.T. Wright, Richard Bauckham, Richard Burridge, and others. Geisler must think he has discovered something that Licona does not know or any other NT scholars. Are they unaware that the Greeks did not believe in resurrection? (Interesting, since N.T. Wright says the Greeks were quite clear on that point in The Resurrection of the Son of God.)

In Volume 6, Number 1, of the Christian Apologetics Journal, Thomas Howe, who was one of Geisler’s students and is a professor at Southern Evangelical Seminary, wrote a piece called “Does Genre Determine Meaning?” His conclusion is that it does not. Instead, it enhances meaning. We agree with this. Normally, one would think Geisler would, yet this idea seems to go against it. It cannot be a Greco-Roman genre, because it has a resurrection in it.

Geisler is saying it could not be influenced by a Greco-Roman source. Why not? Are we to say the Christians lived in this culture entirely yet none of their writing or thinking was influenced by their surrounding culture? In a sense of course, we are not to think like the culture, but we do often speak the way the culture speaks and write the way the culture writes. If we want to express ourselves to a culture, we need to speak in a way the culture understands. It does no good to go to people who speak only Arabic and give the gospel in English.

Furthermore, Geisler should know that the terminology of the early church was influenced by Greek philosophical ideas. Who would doubt that Justin Martyr was influenced by Plato? Tertullian, the very one who said “What has Jerusalem to do with Athens?” was influenced by the Latin rhetorical style of his day. Augustine was heavily influenced by Neo-Platonism. Aquinas was heavily influenced by Aristotle. The Jesuits said that the Greek philosophers were gifts to the church and we should take what is true from their thought and use it to spread the gospel.

Yet none of these thinkers were determined by what influenced them. Plato held to a concept of reincarnation as a likely idea in Phaedo yet Augustine certainly did not hold to this. Aristotle said that there was no after-life, yet Aquinas certainly denied this. Instead, Augustine and Aquinas both took a style of thinking and methodology for uncovering truth and used them in the service of the gospel.

In the same way, the gospel writers used a style of writing that was known to their writers and adapted their writing to fit into that. It would be a way that the audience would understand and keep in mind, most likely the audience would not read what they wrote. Instead, most of them would hear what was written and the story would be told by someone skilled in the art who would add the necessary nuances and such to his delivery to make sure the point came across. This would be expected in a high-context society.

What Geisler is doing is saying, “If the genre style is Greco-Roman, all the beliefs must be Greco-Roman.” Genre styles do not have beliefs. Authors do. Authors express themselves through different styles and the genre is not a straitjacket. The style is just that.

It does not matter if the Greeks disbelieved in resurrection. If every Greek believed in a resurrection, that does not mean that the way they wrote or their genres would have changed. That could change the content, but it would not change the means of communication. One can find many places in the ancient world where there is wisdom literature, but that does not mean that Proverbs cannot be wisdom literature since it has a different basis. There are many creation accounts in the ancient world, but that does not mean Genesis is not one since it has different beliefs in it.

Comments like this indicate that Geisler is out of touch with the NT field. In fact, it is news to him that so many scholars believe this about the NT. Unfortunately, his ignorance of the field is also affecting those who follow him and will unfortunately get them in a retreat mode from the scholarship. For the sake of argument, it could be correct that the Gospels are not Greco-Roman biographies. Some people see Luke as different for instance. There could be further evidence to change our minds that comes out in the future. We should always be open to that.

The mistake of Geisler is using a simplistic objection much like the one against the Trinity. It is absurd to think that no NT scholar has realized that Greeks do not believe this and Geisler presents it as if it is a devastating critique. If Geisler wants to argue against the possibility he needs to look at the opposing arguments and not just his own. Does he think Burridge is wrong? Then read Burridge and come back and say why he is wrong. Present a scholarly argument where his positions are stated and his arguments stated and then dealt with. Then, accept JPH’s challenge on the genre of the Gospels. (Link below)

We can expect neither of these will be done. There is no need after all. A great man has spoken. Who cares about the evidence? Let all be silent in submission.

Nick's blog

Challenge to Geisler

Where's the Apology from Horn and Putnam?

We're now three weeks into 2013, and a month past the date when, so any number of strange people said, we'd see the beginning of the end of the world. Some months ago we documented how two of those strange people -- Thomas Horn and Cris Putnam -- made an especially loud (but especially weak) case for 2012 being the Year of Heading for the Hills. Horn in particular seemed intent upon the idea that it was the year that the old pagan deities like Quetzalcoatl would gallop in through the stargates and start using us humans as Purina God Chow.

So anyway, now I have a question: 

Where's their apology and retraction?

You won't find one on their websites. Putnam's blog so far this year has entries plugging the duo’s new tome of lunacy, which claims that the Vatican is preparing us to accept aliens as saviors, plus a couple of entries about other issues. But as for the 2012 blunder, it may as well be that we skipped from 2011 right to 2013.

Horn has a presence on more than one website, but the two most prominent -- a news website, and his "survivalist" supply website -- don't offer a clue that the basis upon which Horn sold surfers his wares has passed without so much as a whimper. One of them is also plugging the same nutty new book about aliens, as well as announcing a new prophecy conference for 2013. One wonders when they planned this one – if they did so before the end of the last year, what would that say about what they really believed?

Obviously I'm being facetious to make a point. It took Harold Camping decades to man up and make an apology for his blunders, though he had the advantage of multiple dates he could hang his hat on in order to kick the can; Horn and Putnam don't. Edgar Whisenant was able to extend his warnings a year, strain them even more -- but did he apologize, much less issue a refund to everyone who bought his 88 Reason tome? Perish the thought. John Hagee kept shifting the goalposts when his setups failed. So does Hal Lindsey. And yet the church keeps supporting them with book sales and television time.

What ranks as most pathetic here is that no doubt there were many who became Christians on the strength of alleged "end of it all" predictions. It certainly happened with Whisenant and Camping; perhaps it happened less so with Horn and Putnam -- for after all, they were more clearly loony than those past names. Even so, you don't need imagination to follow the potential paths: Disillusion, cognitive dissonance, perhaps even apostasy, and the perpetuating cycle that also involves.

Once again, if you ever wonder why I'm so hard on these sort of people...once again, you know.

 

Update  November 2020:

No apology as yet. In 2019, Horn issued a book titled, "The Wormwood Prophecy: NASA, Donald Trump, and a Cosmic Cover-up of End-Time Proportion."Putnam died in 2017.