Posts by: David

Aristotle On Becoming Virtuous

“Many, however, fail to do good actions but, taking refuge in theory, think that by philosophizing they will become virtuous. They act like the sick who listen carefully to the doctor but do nothing he prescribes.” -Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics 1105b12-18

I think many philosophers fall into this trap. I know I have a couple times. There are times we think we somehow have an edge of the good life because we’re the ones who have sat there and thought about it. We think we have an edge over that little old lady down the street who helps the homeless because we’ve thought long and hard about the virtuous and how to correctly apply them. If we sit at home and not do anything, we’re no more good than a cat that licks itself all day. Part of being a Christian philosopher is not only to to contemplate the good life and virtuous actions under the headship of Christ, but it’s to go out and do the right thing. It’s to go out and pursue the good life in deed. It’s to leave the ivory tower and join the rest of humanity and do works of charity and goodness just as Christ commanded us to. It’s sad that this very thing that Aristotle speaks of is found throughout the philosophical community.

Liberal Professors Discriminate Against Conservatives

When I read this article, the first thing I said to myself was, “I’m not surprised.” I have to deal with this everyday on campus. I’m fortunate, however, to be in a department where a few of the liberal philosophy professors are kind to me and take my work seriously and do not discriminate against my views even though they think I’m mistaken. But it’s sad that things have to be this way. Here I am. A conservative philosophy undergraduate who has to hide his political views, carefully tread when writing papers, and bow to the knee of liberalism. What happened to the market of ideas? What happened to throwing out all our cards on the table and having a rational dialogue about it? What happened to let the opoosing side have their chance to give their best case? It disgusts me that things have to be this way.

But personally, I’m not going to care. The only way we can win this is to be open. Case in point: I’m working on a research paper where I criticize Obama’s contraception mandate. No, the paper is not about Obama per se, but it’s about his mandate. Given that I’m giving a critique of one of his policies, I really don’t think my paper will have that high of a chance of getting published in a journal. I personally think it’s well written and polished. I’ve been working on this research since around December of last year. I think I’ve laid out a good case and really covered my ground well. I’ve ran it through a few friends of mine (all philosophy majors and brilliant guys) and so far they’ve told me it looks good. But my fear is that it will be pushed aside because it’s a paper that comes from a conservative. It’s a paper that criticizes a liberal policy. But here I am ready to step out and get my paper out there. My good friend Tim has sent some very excellent papers on same-sex marriage to journals. Did he get accepted? No. But here you get some philistine who writes a paper on why infanticide is morally permissible, and he gets in immediately. What’s wrong here? Lots. Sadly, I’m not surprised.

Barry Miller on Theistic Personalism and Classical Theism

Thus understood, God’s properties are merely human ones, albeit extended to the maximum degree possible. As conceived of by perfect-being theologians, therefore, God turns out to be simply the greatest thing around, some kind of super-being that would be quite capable of evoking admiration and wonder, but who could scarcely be described as being absolutely transcendent, or as being worthy of worship. [...] The Anselmians’ God is therefore anything but ineffable, for not only can we talk about him, we can do so in precisely the same terms as those we use in talking about humans. Such a view succeeds in presenting God in terms that are comfortingly familiar, but only at the price of being discomfortingly anthropomorphic. [...] Negative theologians and Anselmians have now presented us with two radically opposed notions of God and his attributes. On the one hand, there is a God so lacking in plurality as to be marked by no internal distinctions whatever; on the other hand, a God so riven with distinctions, so characterized by plurality, as not to be identical with all his attributes, nor they with each other. On the one hand, a God so far from being anthropomorphic as to be shrouded in the negations of human properties; on the other hand, a God so anthropomorphic as to be describable by predicates which remain basically human ones, even when qualified by the likes of ‘maximally’ as in ‘maximally wise’ or ‘omni) as in ‘omniscient’ or ‘unsurpassably’ as in ‘unsurpassably generous.’- Barry Miller in A Most Unlikely God: A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Nature of God

 

I think Barry Miller’s remarks accurately portray the contrasting views of God (personalistic vs classic) today. Aside from my studies on ethics, I’ve been picking up my studies on philosophy of religion, with a particular look at the doctrine of divine simplicity and the two big contrasting views of God that I mentioned earlier: theistic personalism and classical theism. What turns me away from Theistic personalism is how anthropomorphic God is made out to be and how similar he is to us. Also, proponents of the DDS argue that theistic personalist’s denial of the DDS forces them to accept that God must be dependent on his attributes for his existence. What attracts me at the moment about DDS is how much of a rich understanding it gives to the fact that God is an uncaused first cause. That, and the fact that anthropomorphism is avoided entirely (some see this as a weakness in that God seems to be this distant abstract object).

My Thoughts on the Apologetics Enterprise

I just wanted to bring something to the table here and discuss how we go about doing apologetics. This blog post is born out of a Facebook post I made in an apologetics group. As I’ve immersed myself in philosophical study and as I look at how some do apologetics (just in general), I’m slightly uneasy about how some go about it.

I think a lot of times many tend to take all the arguments from different philosophers and strip them, unknowingly, from their philosophical implications and just kinda mash them all together and use them alongside one another. I see this a lot with just general apologetics. I think the picture above highlights my view on apologetics: Who cares whether this argument leads to something heretical, wrong, inconsistent, or something true and correct? Let’s just present this argument and see if you agree so I can convince you.

For instance, if you follow some of craig’s arguments, you have to accept some of his metaphysical underpinnings that may be inconsistent with, say, an argument from another philosopher that has a different metaphysical underpinning. It’s like mixing all the different foods on your plate into one big mess.

A more concrete example would be when some try to employ some of Aquinas’s 5 ways, while simultaneously using ID arguments for God’s existence. Philosophers like Edward Feser and Ric Machuga have argued that the metaphysics is inconsistent. Basically, if people employ some of the 5 ways of Aquinas, which is heavily rooted in AT metaphysics, it’s inconsistent to then appeal to ID arguments for God as well since the 5 ways and ID arguments are operating out of entirely different metaphysical systems that almost cancel each other out. Here is Feser explaining it:
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/04/intelligent-design-theory-and-mechanism.html

I don’t hate on ID. I was a huge fan of the project and I am still sort of sympathetic towards what they’re doing. But because of metaphysical commitments, I’m not as accepting as I once was.

Another example that I’ve seen is some people have used explicitly natural law arguments against homosexual acts, but then when it came to contraception, the argument was rejected. It just seemed a bit inconsistent in how one went about defending the faith.

 This is an example that I’ve seen a couple times from people I know that have apologetics degrees (and once again, I’m not bashing on those with apologetics degrees or who do apologetics). I’ve seen people use theodicies or defenses of God with regard to evil that seem to fit best in a theistic personalist perspective. For instance, some have argued that God allows some evil because he brings about a greater good. Aside from the major qualms I have with this reasoning (that it’s consequentialist), the main problem that this entails is that God is made out to be too anthropomorphic. He’s brought down to the level of a person and then he is made out to be a consequentialist. Then, this same apologist will turn around and use arguments, such as the First Cause argument, to argue for God’s existence when this argument fits more at home with a classical/traditional theistic view (which I’m inclined to think is the more Christian view).

I think that many times the metaphysical/philosophical underpinnings are ignored and they can have some interesting implications on God and our views without us even knowing. I guess my worry is that if we accept  argument X, it has implication Y and implication Y may not be the best way to go. Doesn’t necessarily mean argument X is wrong or bad, but it may be if implication Y does get us away from tradition or from scripture.

See this post as well: http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2009/11/greek-atomists-and-god-of-paley.html

Now, one person tried to defend himself against my observation by simply saying that he isn’t interested in working out all the different distinctions, and that he can leave that up to the philosophers to argue in their ivory tower. He continues in saying that basically his job is just to lead people to a designer or creator. To lead people and give them a general idea. While I admire this approach very much, and I think it’s good that we try to lead people, I don’t think it’s, what’s the right word, fully intellectually honest, or rather, it seems almost intellectually lazy to not think out the implications of different arguments, and to just superficially accept them and dish them out. What happens when people use these different arguments for God’s existence? Well, it shapes and molds their view of God. They may pick up some views here and some there that are almost entirely incompatible, and because it leads them to a general designer, it’s ok. If we can do this in apologetics, why not in theology? Why not in philosophy? Let’s just string together all the arguments we can and throw them into the mix and ignore distinctions as long as it gets us to where we want.

So what? What’s my point? Simply, I’m all for having arguments for God’s existence, strengthening the believer, and giving reasons. I’m just a bit bothered by the lack of consistency and the fact that it just looks like we’re trying to score points. I think we should go about apologetics a bit more systematically and think a bit better about it. One friend of mine put it this way, “We should present Christianity in the context of an integral, coherent worldview. Muddling a bunch of conflicting arguments doesn’t do justice to the truthfulness of Christianity.” And with this I definitely agree. I feel like we really aren’t doing justice to Christianity when we go about doing pop apologetics and throwing 53,000 different arguments at people when some of them are inconsistent and conflicting with one another. I think this is where Christians must employ the virtue of temperance, as well as being assisted by the Holy Spirit, in engaging in apologetics and employing arguments. If we’re going to defend the faith, let’s not be intellectually lazy, but let’s be intellectually honest and present a rigorous and coherent case for Christianity.

J. Budziszewski On the Meaning and Purpose of Sex

Here is an excerpt from Budziszewski’s recent book On the Meaning of Sex (OMS). OMS was an excellent, albeit short, book that I would recommend to anyone interested in natural law sexual ethics. I have a book review that will be featured on Apologetics 315 on July 7th. So stay tuned for that! But here are a couple of things Budziszewski has to say that’s taken straight from his book:

What then are the natural meanings and purposes of the sexual powers? One is procreation—the bringing about and nurture of new life, the formation of families in which children have moms and dads. The other is union—the mutual and total self-giving and accepting of two polar, complementary selves in their entirety, soul and body.  These two meanings are so tightly stitched that we can start with either one and follow the threads to the other. (24)

With regard to the unitive meaning, he writes:

We join ourselves by doing what? By an act which is intrinsically open to the possibility of new life. In other words, whenever I give myself sexually, I am doing something that cannot help but mean that happy chance […] Now for two persons to give themselves to each other totally is to give what they are wholly; what they are wholly includes their bodies; and into these bodies is written the potentiality to bring a third person into being. […] Mutual and totally self-giving, strong feelings of attachment, intense pleasure, and the procreation of new life are linked by human nature in a single complex of meaning and purpose. For this reason, if we try to split them apart, we split ourselves. (27-29)

The purposes of unity and procreation cannot be separated, and this is the kind of separation we see in same-sex marriage (I believe Budziszewski briefly points that out, and if I am mistaken that he does mention that, my apologies).

Read Along: The Last Superstition Part 5

I finally got some motivation to finish up doing the Read Along for Feser’s The Last Superstition. That motivation is the fact that I started reading another book that I really wanted to share commentary on. So, I’m going to do what I should have done a long, long time ago: finish up with Feser’s book. In the last post, I covered his chapter “Scholastic Aptitude.” Now, we’re moving on to chapter 5 “The Descent of the Modernists.”

In this chapte, Feser gives us a brief tour of modern philosophy and he highlights some of the problems that came out of the modern period of philosophy. Feser’s first stop is a discussion of John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham. Feser claims that while these two would be classified more as medieval writers, they led to “the undoing of the Scholastic tradition” (167). Feser comments on Ockhams razor, his nominalism, and his conception of God and how they rejected how we could come to know God the way Aquinas postulated.

There was one thing that did catch my attention though. Feser notes the following, “Ockham’s pulverization of all reality into a collection of unrelated individuals also has a tendency to turn God into merely one individual among others (albeit a grand and remote one)” (170). God, in other words, is made more anthropomorphic and thus we see the beginnings of what today is called Theistic Personalism (This is one topic that I really want to discuss in the new book I’m reading!).

Feser now turns to discussing the relationship between modern philosophy and modern science. One point he makes is that many modern scientists will say that science has utterly done away with Aristotelianism since his science was shown to be proven wrong. Thus, his metaphysics was wrong too. I’ve heard this in countless classes and it’s no wonder a lot of people in philosophy classes today just end up ignoring Aristotle and all the other ancients, while they gravitate towards Hume and all the other modern dolts. But what Feser notes is that Aristotle’s metaphysical views are independent of his scientific theories. As a case in point, Feser lists “the distinction between actuality and potentiality, the doctrine of the four causes, [and] hylomorphism” (172). These metaphysical ideas are still as relevant today as ever before.

One of the trademarks of modern science is that it’s based on the modern philosophical assumption that the world is mechanical. Feser points out that the denial of final and formal causes comes with this territory. There are a few “famous” objections that Feser covers in this little section. One is a joke that makes fun of the explanatory power of final and formal causes. Basically, the joke is that a doctor explains that opium causes sleep because it has “dormitive power” that is, it has the power to cause sleep. The objection is basically that the explanation if tautologous since all the doctor was saying is “opium causes sleep because it has the power to cause sleep” (180). But this isn’t a tautology, as Feser points out, whereas to say “opium causes sleep because it causes sleep” would be one (180).

The statement that “opium causes sleep because it has the power to cause sleep” actually does say a lot. Feser articulates the point that this statement is saying that the ability to cause sleep is inherent in the nature of the opium and is not just some accidental feature that this opium just happened to have as opposed to some other pile of opium over there (180). This is just one example of the few objections by moderns that Feser deals with.

The next section “Inventing the mind-body problem” is probably one of my favorites. Feser notes that much of modern philosophy’s views started with Descartes. The first big modern “tendency”, as Feser likes to call it, started with the intro of subjectivism as postulated by Descartes, which is the idea that “all that we can know directly and with certainty are the contents of our own minds” (Feser’s emphasis 186). Another distinction that adds to this is the idea of primary and secondary qualities. These ideas contribute to a mind-body dualism in which the body is part of the mechanical world, and all these qualities of redness, hotness, etc. exist in the mind of the observer in some immaterial sense.

But at the same time, modern science has been trying to reduce everything, even the mind, to simply materialistic terms. The biggest problem, however, is that the denial of final causes is surely a problem for this project. As Feser notes, “The human mind manifests final causality more obviously than anything else. It intends or plans actions and outcomes that do not yet exist and may never exist, but remain directed towards those actions and outcomes all the same” (194). Moreover, because Descartes denies aristotelian-thomistic metaphysics and thus the form-matter relationship of the soul, the problem of the mind interacting with the body emerges since the interaction is no longer described as formal causation but efficient causation (196). Hand in hand with this is that given Descartes’ view of the mind/soul and the mechanistic conception of the world, Feser also contends that this opens up the problem of the gap between the mind and the external world.

But those are but a few of the problems opened up by the modernist philosophy. Feser goes on to list some more of this “universal acid.” One is the problem of skepticism, which the A-T conception of the soul helps by way of how the intellect grasps the forms of objects and the same form is abstracted in the mind. The problem of induction which comes from the denial of formal and final causes. The issue of personal identity also comes from the abandonment of formal causes, i.e., a man being a composite of form and matter (soul + body). With the discussion on free-will, Feser discusses how the intellect and will operate as “parts of the realm of formal and final causes” (209). Thus, when formal and final causes are denied, as we see in modern philosophy with the mechanistic view of the world, free-will becomes an even greater problem. Natural rights is another problem that Feser highlights as having arisen out of the denial of formal and final causality. Closely tied with natural rights is the idea of property, and Feser analyzes Locke’s view of property and how a denial of teleology in nature makes his conception harder to accept. Lastly, Feser discusses morality and spends his time criticizing Hume, Hobbes, and Kant. “The bottom line,” Feser writes, “is that by abandoning formal and final causes, modern philosophy necessarily denied itself any objective basis for morality. If nothing is objectively for anything — if nothing has any inherent goal, end, or purpose — then reason is not objectively “for” anything either, including the pursuit of the good. Hence there cannot possibly be any way of grounding morality rationally” (219-220). Feser blames much of the degradation of morality on this very denial of final and formal causes.

Feser does go into detail about how the problem came as a result of abandoning A-T metaphysics, and he explains how A-T solves it. My aim here was not to give a comprehensive summary, but a brief sketch of the topics he touches on. This chapter was a very fine treatment of how Modern philosophy is the cause of so many of the philosophical “problems” we see today. I did my best to just highlight the main sections of the chapter so you can get an idea of what he spoke about. The final chapter of the book will be covered in my next post, and that chapter is “Aristotle’s Revenge.” From what it looks like, Feser will be giving one last defense of the A-T model and we’ll see it in action in the last chapter.

My Current Position on Contraceptives: A Natural Law Approach

Guest Post by Adrian Urias. This is a note that was posted by my friend, Adrian, on his Facebook page. He granted me the permission to go ahead and post it here. I felt he did a great job of outlining his own position on the matter, and his journey is pretty much the same one I had on the issue, except mine started with the acceptance of Natural Law. I was planning on doing a post on this anyways, but since Adrian beat me to it (and wrote it much better), I decided to have it here as a guest post. I’ll maybe provide my own post some time in the future where I make the connection to natural law a little more explicit. You can find his website here. 

 

I have been engaged in many conversations lately about contraception. I think I’ve thought through it enough to actually throw it out on Facebook (I have tests I make ideas go through before I adopt it personally with full confidence and conviction, and putting it up on Facebook is one of those last stages. I’m weird, I know). So here is how I came to these conclusions.

It started with marriage. As some of you may know, I wrote an article for knowitstrue.com attempting to defend traditional marriage. At the time of my writing this, it is currently the article with the most comments on the website. So I thought to myself, how can I go about making such an argument? I read around, looked at some articles, some in books, some in magazines, and some online. I took what I thought were good points and meshed them into what is now that article. I also considered criticisms and I constructed my article with those in mind to sidestep some pitfalls. So what you see was that product of all that. Looking back, I would reconstruct the argument differently to make it stronger (I never stopped studying), but basically, what I came up with was this, and this is important:

 

1. All married couples have sex.

This seems obvious. First, marriage is complete when you consummate it, that is, at the first act of sex. Secondly, failure to consummate is grounds for void marriage. Not divorce. If a partner refuses to have the first act of sex in a marriage, the other partner can completely nullify the marriage. It wasn’t even valid to begin with, so it’s different from a divorce. Thirdly, marriage is a comprehensive union. Everything needs to be shared. This includes bodies. That means sex. Fourthly, if there was not a union of sex, then a divorce on grounds of infidelity would be no grounds at all. But it is grounds for divorce, therefore, there is an understanding of sexual exclusivity in marriage. But that implies marriages are sexual, hence, they have sex.

 

2. No same-sex couple can have sex.

This gets into the nature of sex. What is sex? In order for there to be sex, there needs to be sex organs. No sex organs, no sex. The sex organs for humans are the male penis and the female vagina. These sex organs have a proper function. There is a right way to use them. The proper function for these sex organs is to meet. If they do not meet, then it isn’t sex proper. I like quoting Francis Beckwith who said, “You can eat an ashtray, but that wouldn’t make it food.” What he is saying is that you can do many things with your sex organs, but that wouldn’t make it sex. There is still a right way to use your sex organs. Now, in the case of same-sex couples, there is no proper function for two-penises and two vaginas. There is just no right way to use two of them. They can stimulate each other, but that wouldn’t make it sex. Therefore, no same-sex couple can have sex with each other.

 

3. Therefore, no same-sex couple can be married.

This logically follows from the first two premises.

Now, buried somewhere in this argument against same-sex marriage is also an argument against contraceptives. The formulated argument was worded thus to avoid as much religious language as possible so to convince even the non-believer. Since it is secular reasoning, it appeals to everyone, regardless of religion stance. So, in my second premise, I say sex has a nature. But included in that nature, is a teleology. That is, an end. Sex has a design. That end is children. In my article, I mention this, but I didn’t make the divide in argument so clear. That is one of the things I would change in that article. Anywho, sex is not like any other physical act because it has the ability to produce children. Imagine if sex did not produce children. Sex would just be a rubbing up against someone. It would be like a massage or even a leaning on someone on a crowded bus. At worst, it would be like poking your finger into someone’s ear. In this light, it would be difficult to see what exactly is wrong with rape, if really you aren’t doing anything worse than giving someone a wet-willy. The ability to procreate through sex is one of, if not THE biggest reasons why rape is so wrong. But I digress. So, it isn’t just some weird coincidence that when we have sex, we have children. No one has sex, then has a child, and say, JESUS, MARY AND JOSEPH! WHERE DID THAT COME FROM!? We understand that children happen that way. So, the teleology of sex is children.

But Adrian, where does contraception come into all this?

Well, lets begin by taking a look at condoms, perhaps the most common form of contraceptives. What is a condom? It’s a piece of rubber that acts as a barrier between the man and the woman. If sex is supposed to be a union of man and woman, and a condom literally prevents that union, can we say that sex with a condom is really sex? No, we can’t. It would be like trying to bite into an apple with a rubber covering over it. Also, if you used a condom on your first night of marriage, then you didn’t actually consummate the marriage that night since consummation requires union. Are we starting to see the problems?

I was really encouraged to hear my atheist philosophy professor blast condoms as being one of the stupidest things he’s heard of. “Why would you want to reduce such a wonderful feeling?!” He said to me. I mention this to point out that this has been reasoned to without any Biblical reference. Through logic and reasoning, we can see why contraceptives are wrong. But here is where some of the force might be lost if we continue to reason without Scripture, for the non-believer can simply say, “Ok, using contraceptives is against human nature. So what?” We can still push the argument successfully through, but it loses some persuasive power at this point against the non-believer. So, since most of my conversations about contraceptives have been with believers, I now take a theological approach from here.

Now, most of what I have said so far is just very Biblically obvious. Of course men and women are supposed to be together. Of course marriage is only between men and women. Of course sex leads to children. Of course parents are supposed to raise their children. Of course homosexuality is not in human nature. Of course! But now, when we get into contraceptives, suddenly, this is not so obvious. Why? I’m not sure, but a few months ago when I started wrestling with this, my friend Stephen Weltz, said that up until 1930’s, every church was against contraceptives. It’s just the Catholic church for the most part (he is Catholic, and so is Beckwith and Robert P George from whom I got the core of argument against same-sex marriage from, so interesting correlation there). So fun fact there.

So what does the Bible have to say about marriage? Marriage is a covenant. It is not a contract. A contract involves an exchange of property, whereas a covenant involves an exchange of persons. Jesus dying on the cross is symbolic of the marriage covenant. Jesus is married to the church. But how does a marriage covenant work? It is a blood covenant. When the male enters the female, there is blood because she is a virgin. The blood traditionally signifies the first marital act. In the same way, Jesus being married to the church, also gives a blood covenant, and it’s his blood on the cross that creates the new covenant. So Jesus on the cross actually represents something more feminine than masculine, the submissive one who sheds blood. But anywho, it’s a marriage covenant. There is the exchange of persons.

Now, we have to understand how important marriage is to God. God has said that he hates divorce. That’s strong. But we understand how much God longs for marriage when we look at the history of covenants. The covenant with Adam was marriage, Noah was the household, Abraham was the Tribe, Moses was twelve tribes, David was Israel as a nation, and then God COMES BACK to marriage when Jesus marries the church of not just Jews, but Gentiles as well (notice the increase of people as history goes on). I suspect God came back to marriage because that is the covenant before the entrance of sin. So God does a marriage covenant AGAIN! The church as his Bride.

Every covenant has an act where that covenant is renewed. For Jesus and the church, the renewing of that covenant is communion. When we take the body and blood, we are taking part of that act where Jesus officially married the church. When we partake in communion, what happens? We have new life. In basically the exact same way, when we renew the marital covenant with our spouse through sex, we have the chance for…new life! Otherwise known as children! Therefore, taking contraception to avoid new life is the equivalent of taking communion and spitting it on the ground!

I mentioned that marriage was the covenant before the entrance of sin. This takes us way back into Genesis, an incredibly difficult book to interpret. But hey, lets give it a shot. Since marriage involves people and now apparently God, we realize there is a much deeper connection between the man and God. For Christians, we know that God is a Trinity. This is sometimes known as the Divine Family: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yet there are not three Gods, but one God. In the same way, when a man and his wife are one flesh in the marital act, there is one being, but two persons. But, lets say in sex, a child is conceived. In this case of one flesh, how many persons are present? Three. Three persons, one being, just like the Trinity! In this way, we reflect the image of God, in complete unity.

Another bit about Genesis, and I’ll move on. One of the first things we learn about God is that God is a creator. That like the first sentence of the Bible. Is it a coincidence then that the first command God gives us humans is to create life? In this way again, we reflect God, by creating life.

 

Isn’t contraception then a smearing of God’s image?

Now, let me get this straight with many of you. I am not too happy about my discoveries about this. And I’m not even sure I can call them discoveries. I’m just recovering certain theological positions that everyone agreed with 100 years ago, and just siding with what the Catholic church has been saying for a long time in those 100 years. Contraception goes against God’s plan. But like I was saying, I’m not thrilled about this. I mean, I’m thrilled I’m learning about who God is (Trinity), who we are (reflections of the Trinity), and what marriage is (the complete self-giving love of the persons in the Trinity). I’m excited about that! But honestly, I would like to have sex with my wife as much as I can without the chance of children. I would like to use contraceptives, but it doesn’t seem Biblically permissible. I mean, that means, when I get married, I must be open to the possibility of children on the very first night! That’s a lot to ask for!

It seems like I’m wrestling with God. I mean, Jesus is Lord, but does that mean he has to be Lord of my body? My wife’s fertility? The timing of my children? Then you run into passages like 1st Corinthians 6:19-20 and Romans 12:1-2, which reads, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body” and “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

That last part. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world. That’s it, isn’t it? We are so brainwashed by society that tells we can decide when we have children, and we can decide what we do with our own bodies. Do you see how when right teaching is taught, when there are no teachers professing what God wants from us, when we don’t have knowledgeable preachers preaching, do we see how Satan gets a foothold into our lives, and we don’t even recognize it? He has surrounded us for so long, we drowned him out. And we accept it. But enough of my preaching.

Each person of the Trinity gives themselves fully to each other. In the same way, a wife should give herself fully to her husband, and he to her. Contraception is you holding back. To my future wife, whomever you are, wherever you may be, I love you so much, and it’s possible that we might not have even met yet, but I’m already thinking about us. This is for you! Let’s not hold back.

The Degradation of Morality: SSM and Beastiality

The degradation of morality is going further and further down the well of irrationality. Posted this article on my Facebook page and I’ve been having a very interesting dialogue on there ever since. I, along with many others, knew this would happen. We knew that once marriage was redefined, the flood gates to allow these immoral practices to count as marriage would be opened.

Love the Lord With All Your Heart, Mind, and Strength

Luke 10:27 reads, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to flourish as a human, and, more specifically, as a Christian. I want to divide the areas of the Christian life into three:

  1. Intellectual
  2. Spiritual
  3. Physical

The basic premise I want to begin with is this: everything that we do, do it unto the Lord. From this premise, I want to show how the above three areas follow and how this can relate to a flourishing Christian.

1. Intellectual

As a budding Christian philosopher, I tend to spend more time in this area than the average Christian. But I think this is an area that every Christian is called to maintain, albeit not to the level of a philosopher (I don’t expect the average person in the pew to read through a metaphysics book, but I think it’s important to know some of the issues raised in metaphysics e.g., free will.).

How do Christians go about fulfilling the mandate to love God with all their minds? How do they flourish in the intellectual area of Christian life? Going back to the basic premise of “everything we do, do it unto the Lord,” from there we can apply it to your intellectual interests. But first, the Christian should develop their intellectual interest by being educated. Do you have to attend college to be educated? No, although it can be a good thing. But one of the main ways to get educated is to do what you’re doing right now: reading. Read lots of books, academic journals (if you’d like), and educational material. I think it’s important that every Christian have at least basic training in logic and critical thinking. I love my fellow Christian brethren, but when I sometimes hear them make very fallacious arguments or claims, I sometimes shudder. I think this is an area that’s most neglected in a lot of people’s lives. But who can blame people? People have jobs, maintain a family, and have lots of responsibilities. My advice here for those busy people is to take a book wherever you go. That’s what I do. When I’m waiting with family to be seated at a restaurant, I’m reading my book. When I’m in the parking lot waiting for my girlfriend, I’m reading my book. Before I go to bed, I take some time to read my book. Everywhere I go I try to use whatever useless downtime I have to pick up on some reading.

Once the Christian has begun educating herself and tending a reading habit, the Christian will soon find a subject matter she likes. Be it history, science, philosophy, or politics, apply the basic premise of “everything we do, do it unto the Lord,” here. Study the issue, and use it to glorify God. Educate yourself on the topic, go deeper, and look at its application to the Christian life and worldview. Ask questions like “How does this fit into the Christian worldview?” or “In what ways does this challenge my beliefs?” Seek truth and always do what you do unto the Lord.

Like I said, you don’t have to be a philosopher that reads 24/7 like me, but you can educate yourself with the basic, find the topic you like, and do your best to master the material. Enjoy it and use it to glorify God.

2. Spiritual

Now, this is probably the biggest area, but not to the extent where the other areas should be neglected. Because this area is so crucial, many people tend to over emphasize the spiritual at the cost of leaving the intellectual and physical aside. I want to propose that to flourish as a Christian, all three areas must be maintained. Now the spiritual area of our life will be mostly concerned with spiritual formation. Disciplining ourselves by reading scripture, fasting, praying, and fellowshipping and witnessing to others. Fostering good habits and acting righteous before the Lord and others so as to be a testimony of God’s power in our lives. Fellow blogger and friend Gil Sanders actually wrote an excellent article that touches on the area of spiritual discipline. There are so many books on this topic and I think other more qualified individuals have said what I wanna say better. So, I’ll leave that to them.

So, spiritual formation and spiritual discipline will eventually carry over to the moral realm of our acts of goodness. God imparts into us the theological virtues of hope, love, and faith, and from these we are empowered to nurture the other virtues in our lives. So, it’s through discipline and God’s transforming power that we are made righteous before God and men. God changes us and makes even better. That’s not to say we cannot be good on our own, or atheists cannot be good, or that we’re perfect. Do not misconstrue my point. What I’m saying is that we cannot actualize our full potential on our own, and we need Christ’s power in order to be a full testimony.

Inevitably, the maintenance of the spiritual area will spill over to issues of our relationships, our values, and our well-being (emotions, soul, etc.) Taking care of this area fulfills the mandate of loving God with all our heart and soul.

3. Physical

Now, I want to take this last little area into a totally different spin, and this is as a result of recent changes in my life. But I think it can fit in nicely with everything. Loving God with all our strength can be taken to mean with the entirety of our will or with everything we have. But the direction I want to go in, in addition to the common interpretations of this, is to honor God in keeping our bodies healthy. Yeah, that one was random wasn’t it? I’ll explain why after I give a bit of my personal view on this. Since I’ve started weight training, cardio, and eating healthy (all my vitamins and nutrients, weighed portion sizes, etc.) I’ve been focusing on trying to be healthy so that my body can perform well and so I can lose some extra pounds I’ve gained. I’m not going to lie I also want to feel better about myself and look fit. But being healthy and exercising can have so many spiritual connections (spiritual in the sense that we can view it in light of a Christian view.). Take for instance the following scriptures:

2 Timothy 4:7: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

Philippians 3:14: I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

For instance, when I do my cardio right after my 1-1.5 hour workout, I tend to be beat. I’m tired; I’m exhausted. My body begins to ache. There are times where I’m nearing the end of the run and I’m ready to just throw in the towel and go home to my protein shake. But I remind myself of these verses, and they get me through the run. Then afterwards, I reflect on the spiritual ramifications. Our Christian walk is a lot like that cardio after a rough workout. You get beat, you’re exhausted, and there are times you really just want to take a break and stop. But you know that in the end, after all the sweat, and tears, it will be worth it. You know after you get through that run, you feel better. You’re healthier. Likewise, at the end of our race on this earth, it will all be worth it. These may be small points, but they do reflect on profound scriptural truths.

Moreover, eating healthy and exercising takes discipline. Resisting those Oreo’s and chocolates in the cabinet is like resisting sin; it can be difficult (at least for me it is. I have a bit of a sweet tooth. Ok, I have a big sweet tooth). You have to discipline yourself to daily get up and get active. You have to constantly watch your intake and keep yourself in check. So much of the healthy lifestyle can be analogous to the Christian walk, and it can help to keep you reflecting on spiritual things. Now, I haven’t even gotten to the point I want to make about being healthy. So many Christians neglect this part. First, you should exercise and eat right for your health. At least for that sake. The second reason is that a lot of the traits and virtues you nurture in exercising and keeping a healthy lifestyle can be utilized in your spiritual formation. For example you learn patience and you learn how to endure and persevere. These types of virtues are marks that Christians themselves need in their daily walk when battling with trials and/or temptations. With a disciplined mindset and the Holy spirit, a Christian can have success.

Thirdly, the idea of creaturely flourishing and the natural law. When you’re healthy, as opposed to being unhealthy, and obese, you’re not sluggish, you’re mental faculties are spot on, and overall your body is functioning the way it ought to. You’re able to better fulfill the ends of your nature, and hence you’re able to better follow the natural law. All these three points are wedded close together by simply keeping healthy. There are so many pluses to it, and yet, a recent study shows that church people are among the biggest out there.

This is is quite alarming and sad. IF anything, we should be taking care of the bodies God gave us. We belong to God, and we ought to honor our bodies by keeping it in good shape.

Closing Thoughts

As mentioned earlier, I believe that to flourish as a Christian, all three areas must be maintained. But if I had to choose the most important, it would have to be number two. Some may retort, “Well, I guess I don’t need the other two!” This is the kind of attitude that I’m against. Just because number two is the most significant doesn’t mean the other two are not important as well. All three of these issues are connected together, and if each area of life is taken under the headship of Christ (remember that basic premise!), one will be able to flourish as a Christian as one follows the commandment in loving God with all that way have and in all that we do.

A Defense of Natural Theology: A Response to Tony Arsenal

Tony Arsenal wrote a very interesting and thought-provoking article over at the Theological Arsenal (I love the pun in his blog name). Basically he argues that natural theology fails mainly because of the fact that the fall affected our reasoning capabilities.

Tony points out that many of those who hold to two books of revelation–that is, that God has revealed himself through nature and His creation and through Scripture–cite Romans 1:20 as a proof text of general revelation. Romans 1:18-25 reads:

“18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,[g] in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but theybecame futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.”

Tony notes three problems:

(1) Nature (creation) is fallen.

(2) Human reasoning is fallen.

(3) Sola Scriptura is knocked off its rightful throne.

I am symphathetic to Tony’s view since we both do share a common belief in original sin and the fall (I would hope all Christians share that belief!). One could read Tony’s article to get his full argumentation. I’m merely going to respond to his points and show that they simply do not work against natural theology.

I. Nature is fallen

The points made in this section work mainly against the Fine Tuning Argument, which is an argument I personally don’t like too much (it’s just me). There are plenty more sophisticated arguments, and even better versions of the fine-tuning argument. So, I think it’s wrongheaded to disqualify Natural theology on the grounds of arguing that nature is fallen, thus because the Fine Tuning argument doesn’t work, all of natural theology must fail too. But Tony did give reasons in his comments as to why he chose this argument and its form. I still think that should have been noted in the section itself. As someone who is for natural theology, that doesn’t mean I agree with every argument used in the enterprise. I think some arguments even fail and are bad, given my own metaphysical assumptions. I don’t have much else to say here.

II. Human Reasoning is Fallen

Now, this is where it really takes the cake. Tony writes, “ Even if Nature were able to accurately and conclusively reveal details about God, we are so screwed up that we couldn’t get to those truths.” He then proceeds to quote a number of Scriptures that highlight the fact that we are indeed fallen, wicked people. He concludes, “If there is never a point in our lives in which our hearts and thoughts do not deceive us, and there is no one who is exempt from this estate… then how could we ever trust our fallen reasoning to approach a fallen creation to tell us about a transcendent and wholly other God?” Where to begin….Ok, here goes. This is extremely problematic. I mean if we can never trust reason, why should I trust your argument? Why should you trust mine? So let’s lay out a charitable argument for Tony’s case.

1. The fall affected our reasoning capabilities to the point that we cannot apprehend the truths of nature (Even if Nature were able to accurately and conclusively reveal details about God, we are so screwed up that we couldn’t get to those truths)

Ok, so far so good. Now suppose this is true. Suppose that our minds are such that they’re affected to the point of not apprehend the truths of nature. Wouldn’t this apply to reality as well? Sure. Our minds are so affected by the fall that we cannot trust our reason to apprehend reality. 2+2 could equal five for all we know. This all sounds very Kantian to me (the fact that we cannot know reality in-itself) I would hope Tony Arsenal is not a Kantian.

But why stop at natural theology? Why not apply Tony’s analysis to theology too? If we cannot rely on reason, which is corrupted, to approach a corrupted book of nature, how is it that our corrupted minds can approach the holy book and study it? Our minds are so screwed up that we cannot apprehend the truths of scripture with our own minds. Now, one could just appeal to God and say God makes it so we can apprehend His truths. But, then why can’t we say that God makes it so that people are able to apprehend the truths of nature? Doesn’t this fit in with the fact the scripture itself teaches that men are without excuse since “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them”? It seems like Tony’s own argument undercuts his own enterprise of theology. No surprise there. So, let me formalize my argument using Tony’s own premise.

1. The fall affected our reasoning capabilities to the point that we cannot apprehend the truths of nature (Even if Nature were able to accurately and conclusively reveal details about God, we are so screwed up that we couldn’t get to those truths)

2. If the fall affected our reasoning capabilities to the point that we cannot apprehend the truths of nature, then it seems that we cannot trust our reasoning capabilities for anything.

3. Thus, we cannot trust our reasoning capabilities for anything. [1, 2 modus ponens]

4. If we cannot trust our reasoning capabilities, then we cannot trust this argument or any argument.

5. But we can trust this argument or any argument for that matter.

6. So, it is false that we cannot trust our reasoning capabilities. [4, 5 modus tollens]

7.  Therefore it is false that the fall affected our reasoning capabilities to the point that we cannot apprehend the truths of nature. [2, 6 modus tollens]

QED.

Note that my conclusion isn’t that the fall hasn’t affected our reasoning capabilities at all. It’s that it hasn’t affected it to the point of not apprehending any truths of nature. Surely, people apprehend moral truths, and this is based on a natural law conception. Surely, people apprehend mathematical truths. Unless you want to go as far as deny those. So, Tony’s second reason just utterly fails on all grounds. I mean I could go further and talk about moral truths and responsibility. But I think quoting Maverick Philosopher will suffice. He writes,

“Objection: ’You are ignoring the deleterious noetic consequences of original sin. Because our faculties have been corrupted by it, we fail to find evident what is in itself evident, namely, that the world is a divine artifact.  And it is because of this original sin that unbelief is inexcusable.’

This response raises its own difficulties.  First, how can one be morally responsible for a sin that one has not oneself committed but has somehow inherited? Second, if our faculties have been so corrupted by original sin that we can no longer reliably distinguish between the evident and the non-evident, then this corruption will extend to all our cognitive operations including Paul’s theological reasoning, which we therefore should not trust either.”

He brilliantly sums up the argument I just made in this entire section. If Tony wants to say that our reasoning faculties are that bad, then be my guest. If so, he just undermined theology and everything else with it.

III. Natural Theology usurps Sola Scriptura 

Now, I spotted something that bugs me a little. Perhaps I’m reading into it or not. You be the judge. Tony writes, “For example, philosopher William Lane Craig holds to a so-called Molinist understanding of God’s foreknowledge. Without getting into a lot of details, this means that God has exhaustive knowledge of not only what is, but also what could logically be. However, this system requires God to be bound by what is logically possible” (emphasis mine). So, is Tony implying that God is not bound by logic? So, then, God is not bound by the fact that something cannot be and not be at the same time in the same sense? So, if God is not bound by what is logically possible, then I guess God can exist and not exist at the same time in the same sense. I mean, why can’t God create himself too? Like I said, perhaps this is not what Tony was getting at, but it’s there and it stuck out to me.

Tony also comments on Craig’s remarks of molinism saying, “All of this, based on a philosophical system constructed by fallen creatures, with fallen logic, observing a fallen creation.” See my critique of his argument about reason. Now, am I implying that reasoning is somehow infallible and that we are infallible interpreters and reasoners? Of course not! That’s nonsense. We’re human, we’re finite, we’re limited, and fallible. I think we can trust reason as far as it goes. But to throw reason completely out the window is just, well, nonsense! To what degree our minds are affected by the fall is another question which I don’t look to answer here.

Tony goes on to say that “God has given us the Scriptures as a sufficient revelation for all things concerning faith and salvation. This includes all of Theology. To affirm Natural Theology is to say that God has also given us another source of revelation that is sufficient concerning faith and salvation, and often times is to say that there are aspects of God’s very nature or salvation that he has not revealed to us in scripture.”

I beg to differ with regard to the point that affirming natural theology means God has given us another source of revelation concerning faith and salvation. I don’t think that’s the case. I think God has given us tools to think deeply and evaluate these issues, i.e., reasoning and logic, but I in no way think that it serves as another piece of revelation. God tells us things in scripture but he doesn’t break it down in the nitty gritty. Philosophy comes in and assists with theology in this, e.g., looking at issues of freewill and sovereignty. In no way is natural theology elevated above scripture, or even general revelation for that matter. I see general revelation as complimentary and a little below special revelation. I don’t think anyone would affirm the claim that “To affirm Natural Theology is to say that God has also given us another source of revelation that is sufficient concerning faith and salvation.” I don’t think natural theology is sufficient. It gives us a starting point and gets us far, but it doesn’t get us the whole enchilada.

But I mean there’s a lot that isn’t really in scripture but is assumed in scripture. Such as language, the fact that we can understand language, logic, reasoning capabilities, and the fact that we can approach scripture and reason about it, unless, of course, you think we cannot trust our reasoning. Then we have a problem. But all these assumptions are used to approach scripture and theology to try and understand God. As I said before, I don’t think we’re infallible and I don’t think our reason is impeccable. I do think our will and intellects have been disordered by the fall and they need to be restored by God’s grace. How fallen they are and how much help we need is another question that I am not going to look at right now.

I hope this post didn’t come off as brash. I was just alarmed at some of the points raised in Tony’s post and I wanted to shed out some arguments as to why I think his reasons do not work.

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