In short, yes.
Where, for basic warrant, we may start here:
In scriptural/historical terms, I am increasingly moved by the power of Paul's defense of himself -- with his life on the line, AD 59, before Festus and Agrippa at Caesarea:
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| Paul before Festus and Agrippa (HT: Free Bible Images) |
Acts 26: 6 And now I stand here on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers, 7 to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship night and day. And for this hope I am accused by Jews, O king! 8 Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead? . . . .
24 And as he was saying these things in his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, “Paul, you are out of your mind; your great learning is driving you out of your mind.” 25 But Paul said, “I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking true and rational words. 26 For the king knows about these things, and to him I speak boldly. For I am persuaded that none of these things has escaped his notice, for this has not been done in a corner. 27 King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe.” 28 And Agrippa said to Paul, “In a short time would you persuade me to be a Christian?” 29 And Paul said, “Whether short or long, I would to God that not only you but also all who hear me this day might become such as I am—except for these chains.”
(But now, in a world of ever more worldviews and endless too often polarised arguments, we need more details. As, knowledge of and living by truth matters. Ultimately matters.)
For some of those "more details," let us now explore in steps, following.
(and that of The Indwelling Holy Spirit of God)
Inescapably, we are morally governed creatures, with a built in "candle" or "compass" that awakens us to duties to truth, to right reason, to warrant [given our error-proneness] and to wider prudence. We can summarise these as aspects of our branch on which we all sit (so, self-evident), Ciceronian first duties of responsible reason:
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| Our first duties of responsible reason |
Such first duties are pivotal, as they are first principles of the moral government of our rational, responsible freedom; they are central to our integrity and so to a life of honour and virtue. That becomes doubly important when we ponder some dirty secrets of our hearts (that is, of the subconscious wellsprings of our thought, speech and action). For, as the prophet Jeremiah warns, anticipating modern psychology by 2,400+ years:
Jer 17: 9 The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
10 “I the LORD search the heart and test the mind,
to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his deeds.”
Yes, there are subterranean, powerful influences of our feelings, perceptions, memories [true or distorted . . . or outright false!], attitudes, motives, lusts, rages, resentments, fears, hurts and more that have more to say about how we reason than we may be willing to admit. This is part of why the very first principle of discipleship in the Heb 6:1 - 2 six principles list, is, repentance, meta+noia, a profound change and right-about-turn of heart and mind in penitent surrender to God leading to a fresh way of life in growing trust and right relationship with God. The life-walk of faith in God, manifested in growing in the truth in love, holy power and godly purity. That is why Prov 4:18 teaches us that "the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day." Whilst, v. 19 warns, "[t]he way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know over what they stumble."
And, this is a key part of why Scripture is so pivotal in Christian foundations:
If you still doubt the fell power of such warping, crooked yardstick influences, kindly pause and consider how so prominent a public intellectual and leading "bright" atheist as Richard Dawkins could make such an own-goal as this -- which actually shows that evolutionary materialistic scientism is self-defeating by self-referentially discrediting the mind of even its own advocates:
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| Richard Dawkins' own-goal. His vision of the world is shaped by his evolutionary materialistic scientism as worldview. It leads him to perceive the world through materialistic glasses, undergirded by the prestige of science held captive to atheism in a lab coat. He then rejects design, regardless of evidence for it in the fine tuning of the cosmos or in the copious coded -- so, linguistic -- information in the heart of the cell,. He can therefore see no purpose; not realising that he has therefore eliminated any credible source for our minds to be free enough to be credible [computational substrates are garbage in, garbage out essentially mechanical entities that are no better than their organisation, programming and coding . . . and he has no credible programmer]. He then asserts nihilism, denying the reality of good and evil -- which by the way means he has no right to appeal to the problem of good vs evil in arguing for atheism. In short, is that a free, independent mind coming to responsible conclusions, or just a wetware computer spewing out whatever its programming by blind chance and/or mechanical necessity put in there? |
(And no, this is not a narrow focus on evolutionary materialism, it is just illustrating a telling case of how the subconscious shapes us.)
Now, of course, c 57 AD, the same Paul argued:
Rom 2:14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them . . . . 13: 8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Here, we see how the voice of conscience, enlightened by neighbour love, recognises the core duties to neighbour as love will cherish not harm or abuse neighbour.
Similarly, in Chapter 1 we see a powerful, but much rejected and objected-to claim:
Rom 1:19 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,7 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 they became 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.
Here, the apostle asserts that the world without and our interior life within jointly testify to us, compellingly, that God is real, the root-source and sustainer of our existence, and is the source of our moral government. So much so, that we owe him thanks as our First Neighbour and Host, leading to due acknowledgement and reasonable, responsible service by doing the good that accords with our evident, morally governed nature. However, too often -- and without excuse, we instead reject and suppress that testimony and put on the throne of our lives the creature rather than the creator. Sometimes, a statue in a temple, sometimes some ideology or other, sometimes wanton pleasures, sometimes money as a god, oftentimes, our own selves.
Predictably, leading to an Acts 27-like voyage of ruinous folly.
This points to some points raised by noted Christian thinker and philosopher, Alvin Plantinga, regarding how an inner awareness or testimony instigated by the Spirit or the voice of conscience invoked by experiences or even memory and perceptions or insights can be properly basic and warranted (even if others disagree and may think you are mistaken . . . sometimes, to the extent of sending you to the gallows).
Let us start with a scenario he suggested at some point.
You are accused of some serious wrongdoing or other (say, theft or worse), and unfortunately, you have no alibi or second party to be a witness in the face of circumstances that make it possible or even plausible to others that you are guilty. Others are now convinced that you are guilty, but you know yourself to be innocent. For, you are in your right mind, have a functioning memory and know directly and distinctly, that you did not do the deed; backed up by a clear conscience. You directly, and properly basically, know yourself to be innocent; even if you are the only one to know that in the face of a whole world that believes you guilty. Of course, that is one reason why we have courts of appeal staffed by the very best Jurists.
The inner witness of conscience and/or the voice of the Holy Spirit is something like that.
For,
a: once, this is indeed a world made and sustained by the good God andb: we are indeed created in his image with his built-in "candle within,"
c: the powerful truths of the reality and manifest presence of God, or of the forgiveness of sins by trusting Christ based on the gospel, or the self-authenticating truth of Scripture (especially the "sure word" of fulfilled centuries-long prophecies of Messiah), or God's miraculous answers to prayer, or God's stirring of our souls, or so much more, can all be duly stirred in us because of spiritual-intellectual-moral senses built into us and stirred by appropriate circumstances. So,
_________________________
d: even in the teeth of a world inclined to be skeptical or dismissive and to raise all sorts of objections (not to mention scoffing), by that transformational witness within we can be rightly and reliably confident of God's reality, divine nature, voice in Scripture and saving, healing, delivering action through the powerful promises of the gospel, etc.
Where, in fact -- despite many confident claims and seemingly impressive . . . but ultimately, fatally flawed . . . arguments, no atheist, rationalist, professor, hyperskeptical academic theologian, scientist, writer, documentary narrator, etc. has yet provided a sound, cogent case that God does not exist. Nor, is such a case even remotely in prospect.
As Plantinga outlines:
I’ll take Calvin as suggesting that there is a kind of faculty (like sight or hearing) or a cognitive mechanism — what he calls a “sensus divinitatis” or sense of divinity — which in a wide variety of circumstances produces in us beliefs about God.
[--> the Prov 20:27 "candle within," and/or voice of conscience and the testimony of the Spirit. Where, the snide suggestion of delusion, here, would lead to the issue of grand delusion, thus self defeat for the objector, too; not just the allegedly "ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked" Christian believer. ]
These circumstances trigger the disposition to form the beliefs in question; they form the occasion on which those beliefs arise. [--> i.e. they stir, they are not the root source or a proof in themselves] Under these circumstances we develop or form theistic beliefs. More exactly, these beliefs are formed in us in those circumstances; in the typical case we don’t consciously choose to have those beliefs. Instead, we find ourselves with them, just as we find ourselves with perceptual and memory beliefs. (You don’t and can’t simply decide to have this belief, thereby acquiring it. 5 ) These passages suggest that awareness of God is natural, widespread, and not easy to forget, ignore, or destroy. Seventy years of determined but unsuccessful Marxist efforts to uproot Christianity in the former Soviet Union tend to confirm this claim . . . .
Calvin’s idea is that the workings of the sensus divinitatis are triggered or occasioned by a wide variety of circumstances, including in particular some of the glories of nature: the marvelous, impressive beauty of the night sky; the timeless crash and roar of the surf that resonates deep within us; the majestic grandeur of the mountains (the North Cascades, say, as viewed from Whatcom Pass); the ancient, brooding presence of the Australian outback; the thunder of a great waterfall. But it isn’t only grandeur and majesty that counts; he would say the same for the subtle play of sunlight on a field in spring, or the dainty, articulate beauty of a tiny flower, or aspen leaves shimmering and dancing in the breeze: “there is no spot in the universe,” he says, “wherein you cannot discern at least some sparks of his glory.” Calvin could have added other sorts of circumstances: there is something like an awareness of divine disapproval upon having done what is wrong, or cheap, and something like a perception of divine forgiveness upon confession and repentance. People in grave danger instinctively turn to the Lord, asking for succor and support. (They say there are no atheists in foxholes.) On a beautiful spring morning (the birds singing, heaven and earth alight and alive with glory, the air fresh and cool, the treetops gleaming in the sun) a spontaneous hymn of thanks to the Lord — thanks for your circumstances and your very existence — may arise in your soul . . . .
It isn’t just that the believer in God is within her epistemic rights in accepting theistic belief in the basic way. That is indeed so; more than this, however, this belief can have warrant for the person in question, warrant which is often sufficient for knowledge.
The sensus divinitatis is a belief-producing faculty (or power, or mechanism) that under the right conditions produces belief that isn’t evidentially based on other beliefs. On this model, our cognitive faculties have been designed and created by God; the design plan, therefore, is a design plan in the literal and paradigmatic sense. It is a blueprint or plan for our ways of cognitive functioning, and it has been developed and instituted by a conscious, intelligent agent. The purpose of the sensus divinitatis is to enable us to have true beliefs about God; and when it functions properly, it ordinarily does produce true beliefs about God. These beliefs therefore can meet the conditions for warrant; when they do, if they are strong enough, then they constitute knowledge.
Finally, according to the A/C [= Aquinas/Calvin] model this natural knowledge of God has in many or most cases been compromised, weakened, reduced, smothered, overlaid, or impeded by sin and its consequences. [--> the dulling/ warping/ blinding issue] Due to sin, the knowledge of God provided by the sensus divinitatis, prior to faith and regeneration, is both narrowed in scope and partially suppressed. The faculty itself may be diseased and thus partly or wholly disabled. There is such a thing as cognitive disease; there is blindness, deafness, inability to tell right from wrong, insanity; and there are analogues of these conditions with respect to the operation of the sensus divinitatis. According to Marx and Marxists, as we saw, it is belief in God that is a result of cognitive disease, of dysfunction. From their perspective, belief in God is irrational; there is a failure of rational faculties to work as they should. But here the A/C model stands Freud and Marx on their heads; 8 according to the model, it is really the unbeliever who displays epistemic malfunction; failing to believe in God is a result of some kind of dysfunction of the sensus divinitatis. [Ch 3, Knowledge and Christian Belief (Eerdmans, 2015). Pardon extenso, and annotations as there is need for clarification.]
In short, the one who has had life-transforming encounter with the living God through the power of the gospel attested by scripture is not at the mercy of the man with a clever skeptical argument. Even, if s/he cannot answer that argument with a rebuttal acceptable to the objector.
Where, too, let us note how Plantinga moves from mere belief that one has a personal or collective subjective right to, to knowledge, by objective warrant:
warrant, [is that] property enough of which distinguishes knowledge from mere true belief [and also moves beyond merely justified, true belief], [that is,] a property or quantity had by a belief if and only if (so I say) that belief is produced by cognitive faculties functioning properly in a congenial epistemic environment according to a design plan [reliably and] successfully aimed at truth. [Where,] rationality (in the sense of proper function of rational powers) is included in warrant . . . [ch. 4]
And yes, this is a declaration of intellectual freedom and conscience-cleared independence.
and/or "mistranslations" objection,
As we can see from Paul's experience in the court room, c AD 59, this is an ancient claim. For epochal example in our time, let us clip from the widely notorious, wildly popular assertions promoted by Dan Brown in his The Da Vinci Code:
In first response, here is the apostle Peter, on the eve of his judicial murder c AD 67, on the manifestly false charge of treasonous arson against Rome:
2 Peter 1: 16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
17 For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son,9 with whom I am well pleased,” 18 we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. [--> eyewitnesses faithful unto death, speaking from memory]
19 And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed [--> the importance of prophecy of Messiah, cf. esp. Isa 53 & 1 Cor 15], to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.
[--> Scripture does not merely speak with man's voice and suspect notions, it was produced by God's power and he stirs our hearts to receive it today, with the inner testimony of the Spirit]
21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. [--> Inspiration of Scripture by God, so it bears his voice, character, authority and power]
There are all sorts of related objections that claim or imply grave error or fraud or delusion. A current one, implies that widely available, commonly used responsible translations -- I am not here trying to support things like the New World Translation, or the so-called Queen James Bible, etc! -- are readily dismissed "mistranslations." Similarly, many in the Caribbean are inclined to think that White Man write the Bible, so it is as suspect as that race from which came the slave traders and slave masters. And many more claims like this.
Such assertions are dangerous and pernicious, as the only credible access 99+% of Christians have to Scripture is in responsible translation, this holds for even many parsons with a course or two in Greek and Hebrew, and for those who use commonly available Bible research tools. So, immediately, we need to point out that there have been widely circulated responsible translations for over 2,000 years, starting with the Septuagint (which was freely used by the Apostles and other early church leaders). We can readily point to Jerome's Vulgate, then, a thousand years later the efforts of Wycliffe, Tyndale, Luther, the King James version and on down to many good translations today; all of which generally speaking faithfully render the scriptures as we may say, see for ourselves from sound interlinear versions that lay out the translation process before us. Of course, some white men did grave evils, but that does not prevent others from making sound translations. And so forth.
But, we notice and must not sideline the central importance of prophecy. Here, let us compare the AD 55 1 Cor 15 with the 700+ BC Isa 53, attested by C2 - 3 BC Dead Sea scrolls that confirm accuracy of transmission (as is also witnessed by the Septuagint translation from the same era):
1 Cor 15: 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received [as the reliable testimony of the college of apostles and witnesses, c. 35 AD]:
[I] that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,
[II] 4 that he was buried,
[III] that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and
[IV] that he appeared
to Cephas [--> the first legally acceptable witness in C1], then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
Isa 53 fleshes out the prophecy fulfillment "according to the scriptures":
Isa 53: 4 Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed. [--> foundation
of gospel theology]
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
9 And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
[--> Resurrection, and widespread impact of the gospel against all odds]
11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
Where, we need to ponder Frank Morison:
[N]ow the peculiar thing . . . is that not only did [belief in Jesus' resurrection as in part testified to by the empty tomb] spread to every member of the Party of Jesus of whom we have any trace, but they brought it to Jerusalem and carried it with inconceivable audacity into the most keenly intellectual centre of Judaea . . . and in the face of every impediment which a brilliant and highly organised camarilla could devise. And they won. Within twenty years the claim of these Galilean peasants had disrupted the Jewish Church and impressed itself upon every town on the Eastern littoral of the Mediterranean from Caesarea to Troas. In less than fifty years it had began to threaten the peace of the Roman Empire . . . .
Why did it win? . . . .
We have to account not only for the enthusiasm of its friends, but for the paralysis of its enemies and for the ever growing stream of new converts . . . When we remember what certain highly placed personages would almost certainly have given to have strangled this movement at its birth but could not - how one desperate expedient after another was adopted to silence the apostles, until that veritable bow of Ulysses, the Great Persecution, was tried and broke in pieces in their hands [the chief persecutor became the leading C1 Missionary/Apostle!] - we begin to realise that behind all these subterfuges and makeshifts there must have been a silent, unanswerable fact. [Who Moved the Stone, (Faber, 1971; nb. orig. pub. 1930), pp. 114 - 115.]
Food, for thought.
Yes, many hold other views and on their traditions, may see themselves as justified so to do. However, here, "the more sure word of prophecy" backed up by the four that facts and the unwavering witness of the 500, has energised the gospel witness that has led millions to meet and be transformed by God in the face of Jesus the Messiah. He, who came at the right time on the prophetic clock and by being "a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know [Ac 2:22]" and who, by unjust death became lamb of God and Saviour, who rose from the dead with 500 witnesses. And of course the 3,000 at Pentecost c AD 30 became the first-fruits of the successful spreading of the gospel, against all odds.
In this light, our attitude to scripture, rightly, becomes that of Jesus, the God-attested Risen One: "scripture cannot be broken [Jn 10:35]." We have warrant, not mere belief.
That changes the balance of power on comparative difficulties on factual adequacy, coherence and explanatory balance, across competing worldviews. So, now . . .
Notoriously, we live in a deeply polarised world, with many contending worldviews. This is not new, that was so in C1, where as Gibbon summarised, the common people thought the stories of the gods were equally true, the philosophers that they were equally false, and the politicians that they were equally useful. That is perhaps too broad-brush and overly cynical, but it makes the point.
A good place for us to begin, is with Plantinga's summary and critique of Freud's once all but all-conquering dismissive characterisation of faith in God as infantile wish-fulfillment, not least as it draws together much of the above about the subterranean wellsprings of the heart in another telling real world case -- but in the end, not as Freud imagined:
[Pref:] A third suggestion, owing to Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and Karl Marx (1818-1883), is that Christian belief isn’t reality oriented: the belief-producing processes or faculties that cause such belief aren’t aimed at the production of true belief, but at the production of belief with some other property — perhaps the ability to carry on in the cold, cruel, heartless world (Freud) that we human beings find ourselves in. I’ll argue that this is the most sensible construal of the objection we are considering. I’ll also argue that this version of the objection is really the claim that Christian belief doesn’t have warrant, the property or quantity that distinguishes knowledge from mere [accidentally] true belief . . . . [Ch. 2:] Thus according to Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), we puny human beings find ourselves in this cold, cruel world, and we can make life endurable only by projecting into the heavens a father who really does care for us (and is a lot more powerful than our human father). But such belief is irrational . . . . [Ch. 3:] And how would Freud or a follower establish that in fact the mechanism whereby human beings come to believe in God (come to believe that there is such a person as God) is not in fact aimed at the truth? This is really the crux of the matter. Freud offers no arguments or reasons here at all. As far as I can see, he simply takes it for granted that there is no God and theistic belief is false; he then casts about for some kind of explanation of this widespread phenomenon of mistaken belief. He hits on wish-fulfillment and apparently assumes it is obvious that this mechanism is not “reality oriented,” i.e., is not aimed at the production of true belief, and hence lacks warrant. As we have seen, this is a safe assumption if in fact theism i s false. But then Freud’s version of the de jure criticism really depends upon his atheism: it isn’t an independent criticism at all, and it won’t (or shouldn’t) have any force for anyone who doesn’t share that atheism.
See, how a deep, prior assumption acts as a yardstick that then leads to rejecting what does not match? But, what if the yardstick is crooked? Would not that crooked yardstick, taken as reference standard, then lead us to reject what is genuinely straight, accurate and upright? Precisely, because it fails to match the prior -- crooked -- standard?
Sadly, yes.
And here is Jesus' response, a chilling wisdom-teaching we should all hear and ponder carefully:
John 8: 39 They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, 40 but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. 41 You are doing the works your father did.” They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father—even God.” 42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.
43 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. 44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character [NIV: his native language], for he is a liar and the father of lies.
45 But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.
46 Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? 47 Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”
It is possible to be under the delusion that because we are from a certain prestigious tradition and have the "right" yardsticks (it matters not if it is being of Abraham's seed, or of a school of philosophy, or that we wear the Holy Lab Coat, or whatever else tickles our itching ears), we have therefore cornered the market on truth. But instead, one of the key genuine first truths is just how prone we are to darkness within, thus to reject the true light when it comes to us; so, we need to be humbled enough to be open to repentance, the true start-point of a right relationship with God.
As Jesus put it in the Sermon on the Mount, echoing Plato's parables of the Cave and of the Mutinous Ship of State:
Matt 6: 22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
This, of course, brings us to the structure of our worldviews and the pivotal role of our yardstick "first plausibles," the well-springs of our reasoning, thinking, perceiving, attitudes and motives:
Here, we see how ever so much of how we think, argue, perceive and act is shaped by deep, yardstick first plausibles; which, too often, are crooked. Thus, Solomon aptly warns us, "[guard] your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. [Prov 4:23.]"
This is, of course, where Freud, Marx and ever so many others went wrong.
Thus too, it surfaces a key issue on worldviews: they all bristle with difficulties, even as we struggle with being finite, fallible, morally struggling, being too often angry, stubborn and ill-willed. This is why comparative difficulties analysis is vital to sound philosophy, and it is why we must be sensitive to the voice of sound conscience, so open to repentance. Where, we assess the difficulties of worldviews on a comparative basis, across factual adequacy, coherence and balanced explanatory power (neither simplistic nor an ill-tailored ad hoc patchwork). Where, a key coherence issue is that sooner or later, hard basic questions become self-referential, so we have to be particularly careful not to argue in question-begging circles or to lead to self-defeating self-contradictions. After all, a very good definition of philosophy is that it is the department of hard basic questions; hard, precisely because they have no easy answers.
We have already seen, through Dawkins' own-goal blunder, how evolutionary materialistic scientism -- atheism in a lab coat -- fails. We need to look at other, wider, deeper options, the X-theisms (including philosophical atheism).
A good place to begin is, why is there something (a world) rather than nothing (utter non-being).
This leads to the concept, a possible world (which needs not be actual, but could be). We can roughly define this as, a set of propositions that sufficiently identify a way this or some other world was or may have been, or is or might be, or will be or might be. We specifically include the abstract logic-model worlds of mathematics, modelling theory and related computer simulations. Not, the machines on which the simulations run as collections of bits or the like [which obviously must exist in an actualised world], but the imagined possibilities that play out in the software.
Once we have this, we can see possibilities for being/non-being and states of affairs that could be the case. For, some suggested entities or states of affairs -- think, a Euclidean plane square circle -- are impossible of being in any possible world as they would require manifestation of a self-contradiction. Other things would exist in at least one possible world, possible beings. Some, contingent beings, exist in only some possible worlds; these are causally dependent. Other, necessary beings, exist in every possible world, as part of the fabric for a world to actually exist or have potential to exist; such necessary beings do not begin nor can they end, they are eternal. And yes, that means that as a world is, something always was, the root of reality. As, were utter non-being ever the case, as such has no power to cause or sustain being, such would forever obtain . . . there would be no world, no reality.
For example, distinct identity is embedded in any possible world W as different from a near neighbour W' as W = {W'|A}, A being the distinct factor. As a result, two-ness, thus structure and quantity are embedded in every possible world. This is why the core Mathematical sets NZQRCR* etc and their properties are universal, hence the general power of Mathematics in answer to Wigner's wondering.
We may tabulate:
One consequence of this, is that for a serious candidate necessary being, S -- flying pink elephants and spaghetti monsters (being composites built from prior things) need not apply, it is either impossible of being or else it exists in every possible or actual world. That is:
[S => {A AND ~A} = 0] OR ELSE [For any possible/actual world W, S exists]
To see this more clearly, try to imagine a specific, distinct possible world, W where two-ness does not exist, or begins to exist, or may cease from existing. Of course, already, just to have a distinct world W, twoness is already present in that distinction from some close neighbour W` as, W = W`|A}, or else it is not at all distinct from it (other than, perhaps having a different label, e.g. Venus as Morning and as Evening stars). Which, as noted, brings with it the power of core mathematics.
As one result, those who argue for or entertain atheism and/or agnosticism, need a good argument that either God is not a serious candidate, or else is impossible of being. They have none, and none is in prospect. God is the most serious candidate, and (especially after Plantinga's free will defence) there is no good reason to think God is impossible of being.
What of the vexed problem of evil?
Already, just the formulation is inadequate. Yes, just as thorny bushes draw our attention, evil's painful, repulsive, hard to eliminate nature tends to fix our attention. But the full issue is actually the problem of good and evil, not just evil. And that then surfaces the issue that evil is evidently secondary and parasitical: the frustration, truncation, twisting out of line of the good from its due end and fulfillment. For example, lying cannot work unless communication is predominantly truthful, and if it spreads like an epidemic, community life breaks down, frustrating human thriving. So, the root challenge is the issue of the good and its root, thus too, the bridging of the is-ought gap, itself a facet of the problem of the one and the many in a whole evidently unified, ordered world, a cosmos (as opposed to an utterly disordered, unpredictable, destructive chaos, in which evil and -- for that matter -- good would not even be viable concepts).
As Dembski notes,
In his Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius states the following paradox: “If God exists, whence evil? But whence good, if God does not exist?” . . .
 |
| A thorny thicket |
This leads to the Free Will Defence, where is becomes evident that there are possible circumstances where the existence of God and the reality of evil (thus, good and evil) are mutually consistent. For example, the freedom to love, be virtuous and have a credible mind cannot be one-sided, so twisting things out of line with or blocking them from their due end -- evil -- is possible. So, God can have a good reason for creating a world with love, truth, virtue and credible minds, but such a world is one in which evil is automatically possible. Of course, that leaves the thorns effect on the table, the incidence and objectionable nature of evil lead some to argue that God is not plausible in a world so full of evil. That is, the so-called inductive form of the problem of evil is intertwined with the existential/pastoral form, making it hard to deal with without seeming to be a cold-hearted apologist for evil and seemingly needless pain etc.
It seems, the best answer, is to pull back the zoom, and recognise that the problem is good and evil, not just evil. On those terms, though there are any number of extreme cases of evil, even the good that prizes careful thinking and a world where love and virtue are possible, must acknowledge the need for freedom, which means that freedom can be abused, leading to evil. The existential pain of evil and its impact, then lead to the need for counselling, pastoral care and healing of the wounded heart. Where, the Christian contention is that, through redemption and a second chance, God is dealing with evil in his own time, himself paying the price of redemption.
We can thus turn to other X-theisms, for example:
In a multi-polar, globally connected, increasingly polarised world, we now need greater familiarity with once exotic views. These include not only pantheism but also panentheism and dualism, thus also issues tied to the one and the many: how do we have unity, diversity, varied views, good vs evil and credible responsible, rational freedom in our common world?
While panentheism offers an increasingly popular alternative to classical theism, both panentheism and classical theistic systems affirm divine transcendence and immanence. But, classical theistic systems by prioritizing the difference between God and the world reject any influence by the world upon God while panentheism affirms the world’s influence upon God. On the other hand, while pantheism emphasizes God’s identity with the world, panentheism maintains the identity and significance of the non-divine.
(This also shows how hyperskeptical, radical theological schools of thought feed into such exchanges and how here, Chopra distracts from the balance on comparative difficulties by trying to push Koukl on the backfoot by tossing some bouncers. He clearly disdains Koukl's well founded corrections (notice, his facial expressions), and would go on to publish two later books with the same errors Koukl aptly corrected. Sad. [Cf. here for a wider discussion.])
1 Cor 1: 18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written,“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
Col 1: 15 He [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
Also,
Job 38: 1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:
2 “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
3 Dress for action1 like a man;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.
4 “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
5 Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
6 On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone,
7 when the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
8 “Or who shut in the sea with doors
when it burst out from the womb,
9 when I made clouds its garment
and thick darkness its swaddling band,
10 and prescribed limits for it
and set bars and doors,
11 and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?
12 “Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
and caused the dawn to know its place,
13 that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth,
and the wicked be shaken out of it?
14 It is changed like clay under the seal,
and its features stand out like a garment.
15 From the wicked their light is withheld,
and their uplifted arm is broken.
16 “Have you entered into the springs of the sea,
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
17 Have the gates of death been revealed to you,
or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?
18 Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?
Declare, if you know all this.
And then:
Prov 1: 1 The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel:
2 To know wisdom and instruction,
to understand words of insight,
3 to receive instruction in wise dealing,
in righteousness, justice, and equity;
4 to give prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the youth—
5 Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
and the one who understands obtain guidance,
6 to understand a proverb and a saying,
the words of the wise and their riddles.
7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Amen,
WORK (YET) IN PROGRESS . . .
