The faith of a naturalist

I'm currently reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins for my systematic apologetics class at Asbury, and I'm enjoying it. Dawkins is a very eloquent writer, and he does have some important things to say with which I am in agreement. I am, however, getting a bit nauseated by how superficial many of his arguments and treatments are. One gets the sense - indeed I know - that there is far more to these issues than Dawkins is leading his readers to believe. He does not even address most of the strongest formulations of theistic arguments, and when he does hit on a good one like the fine-tuning argument, his counter-arguments are usually confused and unsatisfactory.

I want to comment on just one particular argument that stood out to me today. In discussing some of the seemingly superfluous phenomena in the natural world for which no plausible adaptive advantage has yet been found - such as the tendency for birds to bathe in ants - Dawkins affirmatively quotes Richard Lewontin: "...it is virtually impossible to do a better job than an organism is doing in its own environment." In other words, there must be some explanation out there, given that natural selection is the source of all biological complexity. There can be no waste, for natural selection ruthlessly diminishes it. Well of course that's true if you presuppose that Darwinism is true! Of course if there is no other game in town as far as naturalistic explanations go, you better be hoping against hope that there is some adaptive reason for everything, otherwise natural selection, the only naturalistic mechanism we know of to account for biological complexity, will fail to explain everything in the natural world. This can only be described as the faith of a naturalist! It goes something like this:

1. All features of the natural world must be explained by natural selection, the only mechanism we know of to account for biological complexity without a designer (naturalistically).

2. Some features of the natural world are still unexplained in terms of their adaptive advantage. They seem wasteful and pointless as far as Darwinism is concerned.

3. In the absence of any evidence, we will simply assume that there is some adaptive advantage to such features. Indeed there must be, or else we cannot explain it without some other naturalistic mechanism (of which there is currently none) or design (Gasp! We don't want to be irrational, do we?). Perhaps we will tell some "just so" story as for how it possibly could have happened, and that will satisfy scientific minds.

4. All along the way, we will never consider the possibility that there are other things acting on nature besides natural selection. That would be God of the gaps! But we are quite content with naturalism of the gaps.

When there is less than sufficient or complete evidence, we all have to exercise faith and hope that something is true. The naturalist is no different, and here Dawkins demonstrates the bold faith of a naturalist.

Atheism

The following are some of my current thoughts on atheism. Some are held more tentatively than others, and all are open to correction.

Atheism is a position. It is the knowledge claim that "God does not exist," and as such it needs some rational justification. Throughout the history of the interaction between atheism and theism (and Christian theism in particular), atheists have tried to offer arguments to show that God does not exist. Now, it is often asserted by popular Christian apologists and atheists alike that you cannot prove a negative. But contrary to this widely held belief, you actually can prove a negative in numerous ways. When it comes to a Being like God, there are many ways one could prove He does not exist. One can offer a deductive argument to the conclusion that God does not exist, like the following:

1. If God exists, pointless evil does not exist
2. Pointless evil does exist
3. Therefore, God does not exist

If the premises are true and the reasoning is valid, we have a sound and successful argument for the conclusion that God does not exist. One can also appeal to the notion of logical impossibility and show that there is something incoherent in the very concept of God (something atheists have indeed tried to do). Absolute certainty may not be available here, but that's a red herring anyway, since we can be absolutely certain about almost nothing. The bottom line is that one can indeed prove a negative, so the atheist's burden of proof is not impossible to bear.

The principle argument for atheism has been the argument from evil, often called the "problem of evil." It is asserted that the propositions, (1) A wholly good, omniscient, and omnipotent God exists, and (2) evil exists, are somehow incompatible. I will not take the reader through the battery of arguments offered by both sides at this point, but suffice it to say that at least in its logical form, most philosophers, be they theist or atheist, have agreed that the logical version of this problem as been solved decisively. That is to say, it has been shown that there is no logical incompatibility between these two propositions. Alvin Plantinga is usually credited with this achievement in his famous "Free Will Defense." It is widely available in philosophical literature if you want your mind to be blown by some of the most ruthlessly analytical stuff I have ever read. It's fun.

Other versions have also been offered, the most noteworthy being the probabilistic version of the argument from evil. This argument states that God's existence is improbable with respect to the kinds or amount of evil we find in our world. In the end, I am skeptical that this argument goes through as well, for it seems to me that atheists often assume far more than they could possibly know when they make this argument, given our limitations in time, space, and knowledge. At the end of the day, if God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting evil and suffering or even causing suffering in some instances, there is nothing incompatible between the existence of a perfectly good God and evil/suffering. It may be an existentially agonizing and emotionally taxing problem, but it is not a successful intellectual objection to theism or the Christian faith. But we will have to leave an extended treatment of this argument for another day as well.

The atheist must show us why there are good reasons for believing that God does not exist. He also has to refute all of the reasons theists offer for the belief that God does exist. Now at this point, the atheist might make one of several moves. He may say that the burden of proof is on the theist, for it is the theist who is postulating an additional metaphysical reality to the natural world in which we find ourselves. But this line of reasoning actually begs the question, for it presupposes (without argument) that atheism (and naturalism - the belief that the natural world is all there is) is true in its attempt to shirk the burden of proof onto the shoulders of theists. It is therefore actually presumptuous on the part of the atheist to presume with no argument that God does not exist without offering any reason for this belief, as if he stood in some "neutral," middle ground. The second move atheists often make is to claim that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." The idea here is that the claim that God exists is so weighty that it requires an extra amount of evidence before we are obligated to believe it. But what is this but a built-in and unjustified bias against the supernatural? Why must supernatural claims require "extra" evidence? Are they somehow metaphysically handicapped right out of the gate? Why? In the absence of a reason to be skeptical about the supernatural, this claim that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is really little more than a blatant bias against the supernatural, and as such it is also question begging (it presupposes atheism and naturalism). So if the atheist is going to carry his argument, he will need to offer positive reasons why we should believe that God does not exist, and he will need to overturn the reasons offered by theists that God does exist.

Detour into feelings

Ever feel like you have a hard time seeing and believing good things? That it's easier to be sad, to be despondent, to be cynical? I feel that way sometimes.

Knowledge claims

Before I write on atheism and then agnosticism, I want to post on knowledge claims, particularly knowledge claims about ultimate questions. It is often asserted by the non-religious (and the postmodern religious alike) that knowledge claims about ultimate matters are arrogant and presumptuous. One is tempted to ask why such people usually allow us to know things about other, less significant matters, but we will have to leave that question aside for now.

At the end of Bill Maher's entertaining but sorely wrongheaded movie "Religulous," Maher extols the virtues of doubt with respect to ultimate questions, claiming that this is a more humble position to take in light of numerous competing claims to truth. (It is worth noting that throughout the movie, Maher exemplifies anything but a humble attitude with various kinds of religious people. Even if religious believers like myself agree that some of the beliefs featured are ridiculous, one can ridicule a belief without ridiculing a person.) So what is it about knowledge claims with respect to ultimate questions that makes people think they are arrogant? Why is doubt, or the witholding of belief, a morally superior tack to take on this front?

I think the reason many people think claims to knowledge on ultimate questions are arrogant can be found in another statement by Maher in the same final diatribe in his movie (which also happens to be a rather astounding claim to knowledge, by the way): "Because I don't know, and you do not possess mental powers that I do not." Many people are convinced (ironically) that these matters are simply too weighty and too difficult to be resolved. They involve too much, the gravity is too great, the claims are so controverted and numerous that to claim to have the right one is arrogant and absurd.

But why? Does it follow from the fact that these matters are controverted that we cannot resolve them? I must confess that I don't see how that follows. Does it follow from the fact that they have eternal significance that we cannot know anything about them? Again, I don't see how. There really is no good reason I know of as to why we cannot come to knowledge about issues of ultimate human concern. I think we can, and indeed I testify that I do. But surely some knowledge claims are arrogant, aren't they? It is indeed arrogant to claim to know more than we do know or can know. Inflated knowledge claims are often a measure of arrogance, a way to puff up ourselves in front of others and find value in our intellectual abilities over against other people. Sometimes it is epistemically virtuous to withold belief until you are in the right circumstances to form that belief rationally. I don't doubt that many nonbelievers are in such a position in their active search for God and truth on these issues. But if God has given all people the gift of reason, and if God has built into us cognitive faculties that recognize God and His self-revelation as veracious when they are present before us, I don't see how it is arrogant to claim to know and know with assurance truths such as "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself."

Some people go even further than the claim that knowledge claims about ultimate questions are arrogant: they claim that such knowledge claims - at least claims that can be warranted or certain - are impossible. But no more than a moment's reflection is needed to see that this is itself quite a knowledge claim, namely, the claim that we cannot know anything about ultimate questions. Indeed, the claim is actually self-referentially incoherent, as in the course of the very same statement, it makes a knowledge claim about ultimate matters in order to deny the ability to make knowledge claims about them. This variety of agnosticism is untenable. One can, of course, be an agnostic in the sense of simply confessing ignorance on these matters - saying "I don't know" rather than "I cannot know." This is sometimes a reasonable position, although I do have a little to say about it in the near future.

So in the end I see no good reason why knowledge claims about ultimate questions are necessarily arrogant or impossible. And if that's true, the way is open for us to find out what the truth is on these matters.

Agnosticism or Atheism?

I haven't "asked the audience" in a little while, so here's one for all of you out there in the blogosphere: would you rather see a post on agnosticism or atheism next? If you want a post decrying apathy (I know one of you might), that would fall under agnosticism.

Regis Philbin: "Audience, vote now."

Grace, faith, and love

As regular readers of my blog probably notice, I blog a lot on the central biblical themes of grace, faith, and holiness (love). These concept have been (and still are) quite crucial to my own personal spiritual progress, and I believe a proper grasp of them is important for all people seeking God and salvation. This is not to say that we all must have a systematic theology worked out to be complete Christians, nor is it to say that our eternal destiny hangs on every detail; but it is to say that these issues are important enough to discuss, debate, and investigate vigorously and thoroughly. And the cumulative weight of error can indeed keep people from the gospel and its simple clarity. We are always better off believing the truth, either for our benefit or for the benefit of those to whom we minister.

What is grace? Christians talk a lot about grace, but few take the time to analyze this concept adequately. I can't give a full exposition of grace here, but I have a few observations I'd like to make. Most people will offer the definition "unmerited favor," and that does capture one essential dimension of grace, namely, that it is not earned or deserved. God gives us more than we could ever merit, and we call this grace. It is a sheer gift, something we receive. But grace has a second dimension to it, especially when we are talking about salvation from sin: enabling power or presence (which is also unmerited, of course). The Holy Spirit, the member of the Trinity most often associated with sanctification, is called the "Spirit of grace" in Hebrews 10:29. The main idea is that the presence of the Holy Spirit issues in real change in us, a change that requires the continual presence of the Spirit to sustain. There is a need for ongoing dependence upon God and His indwelling presence in order to take part in the life of God, the life that enables holy love. Human beings are not autonomous moral agents; they are beings who are meant to be God-sufficient. Unplugged and cut off from the life of God communicated by grace, we are described as "dead in our trespasses and sin" (Eph. 2:1). The human condition apart from sanctifying grace is pretty bleak, and our own personal histories, as well as the broader history of the world, shows us that in spades.

God's presence, received through faith, enables us to be free from sin's grip and to be free to love in a qualitatively distinct way from the world - in a wonderful, supernatural way (this is not to deny that there are natural loves - love for friends, family and so forth - that are possible without sanctifying grace, or that we can't be decent and compassionate to those in need at least to some degree). Even Jesus in His human nature needed to live and breathe in the grace of God. Human nature requires grace to be kept from perversion, to be kept holy. Following Christ's example of faith, we must abide in God, and let Him abide in us. We must feed more and more on His spiritual power, a power that is ever external to us and our natural resources. And this is why surrender, faith, and an end to our self-sufficiency is what effects salvation, for it finally looks to God and not ourselves for redemption. Grace and human achievement are mutually exclusive. What grace does, humans cannot do. That's the point.

Wesleyans like to speak of different kinds of grace: prevenient grace, justifying grace, sanctifying grace, and so forth. It's the same God who is exercising influence over us and acting graciously with us, but I do think it's helpful to differentiate between qualitatively distinct operations of grace. This is important, lest we ascribe too much or too little to human ability. Prevenient grace consists of several things: conscience, a measure of freedom to respond to grace, a knowledge of the moral law, and an ongoing ministry of conviction by the Holy Spirit. This grace applies the moral law to our guilty hearts, attempting to get us acknowledge the terrible truth about ourselves. It does not give us power to obey the law of love. Without sanctifying grace, we are in bondage to sin, and sin is anti-love. We may be able to live outwardly moral lives in some ways, but sin nevertheless dominates our personality, and when we are tempted, it breaks out of us and enslaves our wills. We find ourselves giving full reign to our evil with full throttle and even with delight. It is only sanctifying grace, received initially in regeneration and throughout our walk unto entire sanctification, that can actually make us holy and can enable us to avoid such willful evil. This means that the advice to give to people under the power of sin is not to start loving their neighbor as themselves. This is where conflating faith and holiness/love, and where failing to distinguish prevenient grace from sanctifying grace, can have the most disastrous consequences. Until regeneration occurs, it is impossible to be free from the grip of sin in our lives and to begin to love our neighbor as God commands and requires. Until we cast ourselves on nothing but the mercy and power of grace, we cannot love our neighbor in the other-directed way that we are called to. Telling those in bondage to sin to love their neighbor in their current state as a means to receiving salvation and grace is cruel counsel indeed, for it is telling them to do the impossible apart from sanctifying grace. It may even further feed their already pervasive desire to be holy and good on their own self-sufficient steam before God gives them the power to do it. No, we must tell them to go to the cross before they go to the soup kitchens (although going to the soup kitchens might convict them of their sin and bring them to the cross - this is how works of mercy can teach us our need for grace). Otherwise, we are telling them to clean themselves up before they come to Christ, to work up in themselves the power to love beyond their self-referenced and self-aggrandizing sinful nature. Being decent to people in need will not save you from your sin. Grace is received on our knees at the cross, not in doing what we are incapable of doing (works of love) without this downward movement of faith alone first.

Related to this is the question of whether or not grace is a "thing." Is grace, or sin for that matter, a substance? Well, it certainly isn't a material thing, but I think it is proper to speak of "states of grace" or "states of sin." Either sin dominates our life, or grace dominates our life. Either sinful passions control us, or the Spirit of grace and holiness controls us. Either there are still remnants of the old man left in the children of God, or grace has banished all sinful tempers from our hearts. Wherever grace is, sinfulness evaporates. It melts away. It is cleansed, mended, healed. This only further highlights how radically humans needs to depend upon God continually for spiritual power.

We have already touched on faith. But what is faith? What is the relationship between faith and works? What do we mean by "works" here? Let me offer what I think is a pretty good illustration of faith. Faith is the word the Bible uses to identify that central religious disposition that stretches out to God and looks to God for redemption and life. Faith does have feet to it. In one sense it does always include works as a necessary component, for faith is active in its search and striving for salvation. It looks feverishly for a way out and is willing to take a risk on the promises of a redeeming God. Meeting the condition of faith is not done in passivity but is rather done in great activity. Those who have the first inklings of faith begin to read scripture, go to church, and pray. They are looking for grace, stretching out for it, opening themselves up to receive it. Consecration takes great effort, but it is not the consecration that actually accomplishes the work of salvation. Eventually they will come to a place where they are willing to place their confidence in God's hands for salvation, an act of faith that requires radical abandonment to God. This is why faith is so often described as trust. At the end of the day, faith trusts God for redemption, it looks beyond itself, beyond the capacities and powers of human beings. Faith has no intrinsic power. It does not contain holiness or the power to love supernaturally. It is an empty hand stretched out by a powerless soul. It stands on the Rock, leans into Christ, and lets Him do His mighty saving work. It is God alone, after all, who saves. When it comes to salvation, the only condition we are called to meet - the only one we can meet - is faith. Faith actively feeds on Christ, walks into His promises, with the result that we grow in love. The greater the faith, the more into Christ we go, the more we will find ourselves with power to avoid evil and love our neighbor.

Thus it is very important not to confuse faith and its attendant activity unto salvation with the fruit and result of salvation, which is holy love. This is a pretty grave error that our Roman brothers and sisters tend to fall into, even some mistaken Protestants too. Saving faith enables love, but it is not to be identified with it, lest we think we can muster up the power to be holy before we receive grace - or lest we fall into a pattern of leaning on ourselves even after initial salvation, the central cause of sin in human beings. We are not saved by our love or by doing works of love. We are not saved by faithfulness. We are not saved by our works, neither the merit nor the achievement of them, period. The Bible is very clear on this. We are saved by faith so we can love. We are saved by faith so we can be faithful to God and others. Until we stand on Jesus, works of holy love are impossible. This also does not mean that salvation consists of one work of grace alone. But because God is the one who radically enters into our hearts, there are punctiliar moments of crisis, moments that highlight the fact that it is indeed the work of God and not the work of man that is truly accomplishing salvation. The Bible won't allow for an unremittingly gradualistic understanding of salvation. Our job is to put ourselves in those places and orient our lives in such ways that we may receive grace. Once redeemed, doing works of love may orient our lives more toward God, but as far as salvation goes, that is only a preparation to receive more grace. God's grace is not appropriated by doing works of love; it is appropriated by increased dependence upon God, which works of love may teach us we need. Faith teaches us that we must always be careful not to look to ourselves for renewal or power or redemption. It does not "boast in the flesh," but "boasts in Christ," as Paul reminds us in Galatians 6:13-14.

So where do works fit in? Clearly good works, holiness, and love are required of us. We will be judged by our works, and without holiness no one shall see the Lord. Works are the required fruit of salvation. Works are the goal of salvation, the telos of it, not the cause of it. Eph 2:8-10 gives a good balance. We are saved by faith, not works, in order that we might work. Through faith we are actually made righteous persons in addition to being reckoned righteous, and this, I take it, is James' point in Chapter 2 of his epistle. A faith that does not result in a transformed life of righteousness is not a faith that stands on Jesus, for a faith that stands on Jesus is a faith that exhibits results! When it comes to salvation, we are only in a position to receive and stand on the promises of God for redemption (have faith). When it comes to the obedience that salvation frees us to offer, we are in a position to go out into the world in love. We must enter Christ before we can come out of ourselves to love others. We must receive the work of God before we respond with our works. Humans are utterly unable to redeem themselves or love their neighbor as they ought without looking beyond themselves for both renewal and ongoing empowerment.

Grace is not something God gives to all people everywhere as He steps back and waits for them to come to Him. That would make grace far too much like a natural power of human beings, something we possess innately. Of course, every aspect of the image of God is in some sense a gracious gift of God, from our ability to do a math problem to our ability to kick a soccer ball. But this is not what the New Testament means by the grace that effects salvation from sin and enables us to love our neighbor as ourselves. It is not something we have by default, but something that we must continue to appropriate from beyond ourselves. Grace is God's ongoing and active work in human beings, and the more we are open to that influence - an influence that always depends upon God's continued activity - the more we will be transformed by it. This openness is called faith, and this transaction results in transformation, obedience, and love. Humans are meant to be God dependent, and our problem is that we have become self-dependent. It may be that God's prevenient grace is universal and unavoidable, but unredeemed humanity is still cut off from sanctifying grace, from the unique presence of God without which we are invariably perverted. In order to love as we ought, we now must look for that power that comes from beyond us and do all we can to appropriate it.

When you give yourself to the reality of Christ radically in faith, love necessarily results. Works of love complete your faith in a way, they show that you have truly allowed Christ to reign in your heart and are now willing and able to obey Him. So without works of love, your faith is a sham. A true Christian faith is one that receives and responds to God, one whose faith works by love. While it may be faith alone that sets us right with God, and while the self-surrender of faith may be all we are capable of as pertains to salvation (throughout our entire Christian life), instantly that faith is animated by the love of God that flows in and through you so long as you remain connected to the Vine. As I have said before, having faith is like throwing up a sail into the wind. There isn't a moment's hesitation before you begin to be moved by the power of the Holy Spirit to love. Love is the command, and faith is the means to obeying that command.

The Terrible Tenet of Calvinism: Why Calvinism is Necessarily False

In the perennial debate on Calvinism, much centers around the infamous TULIP, or "5 Points of Calvinism." Here they are:

Total Depravity
Unconditional election
Limited Atonement
Irresistible Grace
Perseverance of the Saints

There is a logical coherence to these points. The characteristically offensive Calvinistic points, however, are the "ULI." God chooses to save only the elect, provides atonement only for them, and consequently draws them irresistibly to Himself. Some modern Calvinists - and some argue, Calvin himself - deny Limited Atonement, certainly a queer and inconsistent move if there ever were one. I suspect that one motivation for this is the fact that it is quite frankly embarrassing to say that Jesus only died for some people. It is not only theologically absurd, but it is impossible to give a plausible rendering of the many unambiguously universal biblical passages to the tune of Limited Atonement. It just cannot be done without doing eggregious violence to the text. Many other theological traditions hold to strong doctrines of depravity, and still others hold to a form of "eternal security" in which the truly saved can never fall away to their eternal loss.

But what I want to focus on here is what I have heard called the "Terrible Tenet" (a.k.a. the Horrible Decree, the Dastardly Doctrine, the Pitiful Point...you get the idea). It goes something like this:

(1) On Calvinism, God unilaterally causes the misery of many of His creatures for all eternity in such a way that He could have unilaterally caused their happiness just as easily.

This is the irreducibly objectionable component of Calvinism. Remove this, and you have some variant of Arminianism. At the end of the day, it all boils down to this one outrageous and indefensible point. And it is at this point that I believe Calvinism is most conspicuously incoherent, for Calvinists typically affirm the following proposition as well:

(2) God is perfectly good to all people all the time.

The only way for Calvinism to have even a modicum of plausibility is for it to find some way to reconcile these two propositions. It is my contention that this is impossible, for:

(3) Necessarily, a perfectly good God would not unilaterally cause the misery of any of His creatures in such a way that He could have unilaterally caused their happiness just as easily.

Let me offer one more proposition that we'll need in a moment, one that most theists who aren't voluntarists affirm:

(4) Necessarily, God exists with the nature that He has.

Most Calvinists hold to a view of human freedom called compatibilism, which essentially teaches that an action is free as long as the agent is doing what he wants, even if what he wants is sufficiently determined by prior causes. If compatibilism is true (it isn't), God could indeed unilaterally determine all of His creatures to love Him and each other forever and thus to be happy eternally. Since He does not do this, it follows from (1), (3), and (4) that:

(5) Calvinism is necessarily false.

One cannot hold (1) and (2) consistently, for as I have shown, they are implicitly contradictory. I challenge any Calvinist to prove otherwise. Of course, it is always open to the Calvinist to indeed affirm voluntarism and reject premise (4), in which case Calvinism wouldn't be necessarily false, for God could arbitrarily choose anything at all to be good. But he is still shouldered with denying (3) and offering us some argument for why we must reject such a widespread and certain intuition (as well as the understanding of perfect goodness articulated in Scripture). And he is also burdened with the task of showing us that voluntarism is plausible or true. I am dubious that either of these monumental tasks could ever be done, and thus I conclude that Calvinism is necessarily false. What a delightful prospect!