Making Sense of Apparent New Testament Inconsistencies

I plan on updating this post regularly as I find cases.

1.  Did the rooster crow once or twice?  

Sentence 1: “I’ll meet you before the buzzer sounds.” 
Sentence 2: “I’ll meet you before the 4th buzzer sounds.”  

The two statements are ambiguous and given such ambiguity they can refer to the same buzz.  The importance of the 4th buzzer allows the first three to be omitted for simplicity’s sake--it’s meaning as the fourth and last is implicit.  Strictly speaking, sentence 2 is accurate.  But if sentence 1 is taken ambiguously, it’s meaning can be the same as sentence 2.  No contradiction here. 

2.  Where did the ascension occur?  And were the apostles to stay in Jerusalem or go to Galilee?

Luke seems to clearly state that it occurs on the Mt. of Olives (Acts 1:12), while Matthew seems to imply that it happens in Galilee. (Matt 28:16)

But Matthew doesn’t state that the ascension occurs in Matt. 28:16. Matthew omits any mention of the ascension at all.   But this does highlight what appears to be a problem: After the resurrection, were the disciples to remain in Jerusalem (Luke 24:49)? or to go ahead to Galilee (Matt. 28:7)? 

On a quick reading, it looks like we have a contradiction.  Resolution: I think there’s a gap in Luke between the first resurrection appearances that occur in and near Jerusalem and the command to stay in Jerusalem.  The timetable:  Jesus resurrects, tells them to go to Galilee, appears to the disciples in Jerusalem, and then meets up with them in Galilee (perhaps a week or so after the resurrection, given John’s account of Thomas meeting a week later in the same room in Jerusalem.)  They then return to Jerusalem a week or so before Pentecost with Jesus continuing to speak with them, and it’s here that Jesus ascends and commands them to remain in Jerusalem.  

Do I have any reason for thinking Luke is time-skipping in chapter Lk. 24 between verses 44 and 45? Yes.  In Acts 1 it seems that Luke connects this command to remain in Jerusalem with the tail-end of Jesus’s post-resurrection ministry--so approximately 40 days after the first appearances. So we have reason to believe that Luke himself thought the command to remain in Jerusalem was weeks after the initial appearances.  

3.  The day of the crucifixion.  The Synoptic gospels clearly treat the Last Supper as a passover meal, which would place the meal Thursday night.  That’d place the crucifixion on Friday. But John 18:28 seems to say that the passover has not yet occurred at the time of the crucifixion.  That’d place the crucifixion on Thursday.  John 19:14 also seems to support this; as some translations have it “it was the day of preparation for the passover.” 

Neither of these verses are strong evidence against the crucifixion being on Friday.  For the first verse, as we learn from Josephus, there was another meal celebrated the following day that was also called a passover meal.  “As this happened at the time when the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which we call Passover.”  

As for the second verse, many translations have it as “the day of preparation of the passover.” It isn’t that this preparation day indicates that the passover hasn’t occurred yet, it’s rather that the preparation day is one that’s on passover.  The preparation is for the sabbath.  This supports that the events occurred on Friday.  (Mark 15:42 has the same usage.) 

John 19:31 strongly supports that the crucifixion occurred on Friday, as the Sabbath is the following day.  “The next day was to be a special Sabbath. . . did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath.”  

4.  Did the crucifixion occur at the 3rd hour or the 6th hour?  Mark and John seem to differ.

One suggestion is that the two authors are using rough time periods.  It’d be equivalent to someone saying “I ate breakfast midmorning” and someone else saying “I ate breakfast in the late morning,” but both meaning “around 10:30 AM.”  Neither is wrong.  The vagueness in language allows such an imprecise use without either being false.  

The day was cut into 3-hour sections in 1st century Judea.  If the crucifixion occurred at 10:30, one author might roughly classify it as being in the first 3-hour section (6:00AM-9:00AM) while another might roughly place it in the second 3-hour section (9:00AM-12:00PM).  It’s important to keep in mind that first century people did not have easy access to watches and precise time keeping devices.  This allows quite a bit of vagueness in how observers would classify the timing of an event and vagueness in their use of language using time-blocks.

5.  Does Luke Contradict Paul?  We have two possible contradictions--did Paul wait three years after his conversion (Gal. 1:17-18) before going up to Jerusalem or did he go immediately (Acts 9:23-25)?  And did Paul go once (Gal. 2:1) or twice (Acts 9 and 11) to Jerusalem before the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15)? 

Let’s start with the last first.  Paul does not say in Gal. 2:1 that the Jerusalem council was *only* his second visit since his conversion.  He merely says that he went up to Jerusalem again.  We may ask--why would he neglect to mention the visit that’s narrated in Acts 11?  An answer is easy:  That visit was for famine relief and was not relevant to the problems that Paul was dealing with in the letter to the Galatians.  The middle visit simply wasn’t relevant.  

The second isn’t quite as easy,  but still doesn’t present much of a difficulty.  If we look at the passage in Acts 9, we see that Luke writes “when many days had passed. . . .”.  My suggestion is that this phrase, “many days had passed” can refer to the three year gap that Paul mentions.  We see just this sort of usage of “many days” in 1 Kings 2:38-39:  “. . . lived in Jerusalem many days but it happened at the end of three years . . .”.  Luke wasn’t beyond such quick summaries of long periods: “eight of the twelve years spanning 50 and 62 CE are summed up in the book of Acts in four lines.”  Luke neglects to mention the details of this 3 year gap as it was not very relevant to the purpose of his writing.  

6.  Paul wrote in the last chapter of the book of Romans that he intended to go onto Spain.  Yet the best chronology for the Pastorals is that he returned East after being imprisoned in Rome from 60-62 A.D.  That offers a good argument that the Pastorals are forgeries.  

I think we can see from safely genuine letters, such as Philipians and Colossians, that Paul abandoned his plans to go West to Spain sometime between the writing of the book of Romans and his imprisonment in the city.  Philippians and Colossians were both, most plausibly, written from his house arrest in Rome and both contain indications that Paul intended to return East after his release.

7.  Did the women tell anyone about the resurrection or not? 
The most plausible reading of the phrase “said nothing to anyone,” I would argue, is that the women did not run screaming into Jerusalem and tell all to the first person they encountered. Rather, the women ran straight to the disciples, without stopping to speak to anyone else on the way. In fact, Mark uses similar constructions elsewhere, which may give us some insight into his probable meaning. In Mark 1:44, after Jesus has cleansed a leper, Jesus told the man, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to them.”

Justification-Makers, Justification-Showers and the Prior

Definitions: 
Justification-Maker: Some state involving agent P that provides P with justification for some belief c but does not provide P with an argument for belief c. 
Justification-Shower: An argument for belief c that can be shared by agent P with others and provides them with reason to adopt belief c.  

Speaking vaguely, I think we can classify the justifiers for Christian belief into these two categories: 

1.  Justification-Makers: 

a)  The testimony of the Holy Spirit

b)  The pull and tug of the Christian life, or Christian experience

2.  Justification-Showers

a)  Bayesian formed historical argument for the resurrection

b)  Arguments from prophetic fulfillment and (improbable) typological interlock

c)  Increasing the prior probability of central Christian claims through natural theology

d)  Miracles

These categories aren’t neat. There’s ways to formulate Christian experience in a (weak?) justification-shower way, and perhaps the testimony of the Holy Spirit works (or can work) by empowering one of the justification-showers, but I still think it’s helpful to divide the justifiers in this way.  

Lately, my interest has been in increasing the prior probability of Christian claims and in the typological interlock between the Old and New Testaments.  McLatchie takes it that the latter provides some of the best justification for Christian belief.  I eventually want to make a post detailing this claim, but for now I want to get clearer on the former move.

I’ve discussed the idea of increasing the prior before, and what I mean by it is that, in light of what we know about God’s character from natural theology, we can increase the prior probability of God undertaking certain actions such as his becoming incarnate and providing atonement even apart from any historical knowledge that he has in fact undertaken these actions.  

For instance, if I know independently that my wife really enjoys Hershey chocolate bars, then I have a higher prior for believing that she may buy a chocolate bar on some occasion than I would have had otherwise.  Prior knowledge of her character diminishes the amount of posterior evidence required to rationally believe that she’s bought a Hershey chocolate bar.  Or, think of the converse: If I know my wife hates chocolate and is allergic to it, then that diminishes the prior probability of her having bought a chocolate bar, which in turn increases the strength required for the posterior evidence to warrant rational belief that she has bought a chocolate bar.

If the source of this knowledge of God’s character is knowable via natural theology (or public reason) alone and not dependent upon specifically Christian revelation, and if this knowledge matches up with God’s behavior as described by Christian revelation (such as becoming incarnate, providing atonement), then it seems that we’ve increased the prior probability of these events having actually happened.  If the prior is increased sufficiently, then the strength required for the posterior historical evidence is lessened.  We don’t need an overwhelming powerful posterior historical argument to warrant belief in central Christian claims.

"When I give these reasons, the reader will be right to feel that I would not have given them if I had not derived them from the Christian tradition. Indeed, I shall be arguing later that neither Jews nor pagans of the first century ad expected an incarnation of the sort I shall describe. It needs the Christian tradition to make us aware of a theory—a particular theory of the divine nature and of what a being with that nature might be expected to do, to be found in the New Testament but articulated more fully by such writers as Athanasius, Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas—before we can judge whether or not, by objective standards, the evidence supports that theory well. Most physicists could never have invented the general theory of relativity for themselves, but once it has been proposed for discussion, they can then assess whether in fact the evidence supports it." (Swinburne)

Intersex II

As per usual, I’ve been thinking a bit more deeply about my previous post and want to adjust some of my claims.  

I made an argument of this sort:  

1. If intersex conditions are corruptions of either male or female sexual development, then individuals with an intersex condition are either male or female and not both.

2. Intersex conditions are corruptions of male or female sexual development, as an analysis of the function of sexual organs demonstrates.

3. So intersex individuals are either male or female and not both.

The distinction needed to better understand this issue is that between the (a) sexual categories and (b) the categories of people.  Sexual categories, of which there are two: Male and female.  Categories of people, of which there are (possibly) three: Male, female, and male-female.  Think of the categories of Left and Right.  There is no third category here, such as Reft.  There is a binary of just Left and Right.  But even given this point, it doesn’t follow that there are not objects that exist both to the Left and to the Right.  I think the points I made in the last post support the existence of just two sexual categories, but I’m not so sure that they support the existence of just two categories of people.  

To really see this point, we need to get some sort of definition for male and female, and to do so we’re going to make reference to the normative grades I used last time.  A male is an individual that can unite with a female in the grade (2.) sense.  A female is an individual that can unite with a male in the grade (2.) sense.  To successfully unite sexually, I take it that a person’s body and sexual organs must be capable of mutually striving with another’s towards the goal of reproduction, even if there’s no chance of success.  

If hermaphrodites possess the capacity for grade (2.) of both the male and female type, then they would classify as both male and female.  There would then be three categories of people on this scheme; male, female, and male-female.  If this is right, then it seems like there’s a category of people for which sexual activity with either sex does not constitute homosexual behavior, and is thus not condemnable per my argument against homosexuality.  

There’s two paths forward.  We can bite the bullet and agree with the last paragraph.  Or, we can dig our heels in and reject it.  I can think of at least two ways to reject it:  Perhaps we can argue that there really aren’t cases of individuals that are male and female, that is, there aren’t individuals who possess both male and female organs that are both capable of striving towards reproduction, that exhibit grade (2.) of both the male and female sort.  What kind of claim would this be? An inductive one?  Maybe it could be argued for, but it seems like it’d get complex quickly and may align itself against scientific evidence.  It’s at least leaving itself exposed against such scientific evidence that may show individuals with both types of sexual organs that are both capable of such sexual striving.  

Or, if it is the case that there are individuals with both sets of reproductive organs, perhaps we can argue in other ways for the impermissibility of such an individual picking the sex of their partner willy-nilly.  Here's how this argumentative strategy may go: Each person is *meant* to be a male or a female, and an individual suffering from a DOSD is just an individual with a condition that corrupts that underlying development.  How do we find out what they’re *meant* to be? And does this *meant to be* provide any normative force? Maybe we can discover the majority underlying sex by using the criteria listed in the last post, and maybe this fact provides normative force for the hermaphrodite person to choose those people of the opposite sex to their majority underlying sex.  This position seems an improvement over the last, as it admits the possibility of individuals with sexual organs that both strive in a male and female way, but picks the majority one as the one that gives the normative force.  A counterexample to this approach would be an individual with roughly equal male and female organs/phenotype/hormones.  And if such an individual exists, it looks like we’re back to just biting the bullet.  

One last approach would be to say that such individuals are called to celibacy.  They may not exhibit the right kind or enough of the sort of striving to count as capable of achieving grade (2.).  This question depends on how we take the meaning of striving and how the underlying biology works.  If that's the case, then they possess only grade (0.) and are called to celibacy.  That’s a difficult one to accept, but maybe one we should keep in mind.  

Intersex

The existence of intersex people (individuals suffering from a disorder of sexual development or DOSD) is often put forward as a counter-example to the idea that humans exist as either male or female.  The idea is that intersex people are neither male nor female, or are both, and that their existence shows that humans come in more than just two sexual flavors.  But I don’t think the existence of intersex individuals actually does show this.  In this post, I’m going to try and substantiate this claim as well as discuss the question of how intersex individuals should live their life given their condition.  

Though not all males and females are capable of producing children (some people are infertile), all children are produced by a male and a female.  There are only two human gametes; sperm and eggs.  Intersex individuals do not have some third gamete.  Disorders of sexual development do not create an extra sex--they are malformed versions of one of the two sexes.  We can see this from examining the function of sexual organs, which largely lies in their reproductive capacities.  Individuals that suffer from DOSD suffer from a disorder that affects the development of their sexual organs. It is proper to call these various conditions “disorders'' because these conditions hamper the function of the sexual organs--they usually result in infertility and other problems.  We determine whether organs are healthy or not from how well they function, and we determine function by the role such organs play in the human life.  Sexual organs clearly play a reproductive role, and when this function is hampered, we are right to call such a condition a disorder.  The proper medical response is not to postulate the existence of some third sex that has no bearing either on sexual reproduction nor its own unique gamete, but should rather be to restore function and treatment that best restores the predominate underlying sex of the affected individual.  

There are people with XY chromosomes yet female phenotype characteristics, and there are hermaphrodites that have, in a severely malformed manner, a vestigial penis and vagina.  If all humans are either male or female, how are we to determine the sex of severely disordered intersex individuals?  It’s going to be hard, but that it’s sometimes difficult to classify an individual as a male or female does not mean that they’re neither.  Epistemic problems do not necessarily entail ontic problems. The textbook Pediatric Encrinology provides, I think, a useful rubric to determine this question: “Cosmetic appearance of the reconstructed genitalia, on the potential for normal sex steroid secretion at puberty, on the potential for sexual intercourse, and on the potential for fertility,” are some of the considerations we should use to gauge a person’s sexual identity.

I think it’s useful to introduce here the idea of grades of normative power.  (This is largely taken from Pruss):

0. Normative possession of a power:  An individual belongs to a kind that should have some causal power. An adult human who lacks eyes still has normative possession of vision in this sense.

1.  First normative possession of a power: An individual has the causal power but isn’t currently exercising it. The human with closed eyes has first normative possession of a power.

2.  Second normative possession of a power: An individual has the causal power and is exercising it. The human who is seeing possesses this grade.

3.  Full normative possession of a power: An individual has the causal power, is exercising it, and the causal power is achieving its goal. The human who gains knowledge through seeing possesses this grade. 

Now replace “sight” in the above examples with “sex.”  Working backwards, a person that successfully reproduces possesses (3.)  People engaging in sexual intercourse are achieving (2.)  People that possess sexual organs capable of (2.) but not currently exercising that capability possess (1.).  People without sexual organs (think of a man that’s been bisected and no longer has genitals) possess (0.) 

Where do we place intersex individuals?  Depending on the severity of the condition, I think they’d be capable of achieving even (3.)--but most intersex individuals are infertile.  If we take a hard case, such as a man that is completely lacking genitals, it seems like he’d fall into category (0.).  This classification is what retains his status as a male--that he is the sort of being that should have the causal power to be a father, even if he no longer does.  My argument above is that all humans possess a normative power to be either male or female of at least type (0.).  

Merely infertile individuals can possess (0.), (1.), (2.) but not (3.)  They achieve (2.) through the one body union that is sexual union, in which both their bodies strive towards a common goal.  If an intersex individual possesses enough of a sexual organ that is capable of striving towards one body union, even if in a faulty way, then they achieve (2.).  If they do not possess organs capable of striving in such a way, they may be more like the man who is lacking his lower half and thus only possessing (0.).  The hard (and deeply tragic) teaching is that individuals who possess only (0.) are called to a life of celibacy, though they may have extremely strong bonds with members of the opposite sex.  This position is reflected in Western law by the idea that marriages not consummated by sexual union are not valid.  

Even granting all of this, we still have an interesting ethical question.  There are people who live and walk around that have ambiguous primary sex characteristics--they may possess both a vestigal penis as well as vestigal vagina.  How should such an individual conduct themselves in life--how should they, for instance, date?  If I’m right that every individual is either a male or a female, and if I’m also right (as I argue elsewhere) that homosexual behavior is wrong, then it follows that hermaphrodites do not have the right to pick and choose which sex they date.  They must, via the methods mentioned above, determine as best as they’re able which sex they are and live in accordance with the norms of that sex.  As the Nashville statement says, "[intersex] individuals should embrace their biological sex insofar as it may be known."  There is, of course, the possibility for error in this judgment, and unintentional wrong may be inculpable, but it is still wrong.  

Getting a Handle on Extraordinary Claims

The phrase “extraordinary events require extraordinary evidence” is largely inspired by Hume’s claim “that no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish.”  If Hume is right, then it seems that he’s effectively vetoed any alleged evidence for purported miracles.  

But is he right?  Consider a short exchange: 

“Do Christians really believe in miracles? . . . they seem a bit unlikely.”

--”If miracles weren't unlikely, they wouldn't exactly be miracles, would they?”

The improbability of miracles is what enables them to serve as validation for religious claims.  If miracles were happening continually, they wouldn’t be able to serve this role.  

The prior probability for miracles is thus lower than normal events, so they do require more evidence to establish that they occurred than normal events require.  But admitting that an event has a lower prior probability does not mean that it has a zero probability.  If a purported event has some prior probability, then it can in principle be sufficiently supported to warrant belief.  Priors tend to wash out as evidence accumulates.

For some miraculous event P, the skeptic seems to have in mind that we need some equally extraordinary *single* piece of evidence to establish that P occurred.  But it is possible for *ordinary* evidence to *cumulatively* add-up to overcome the low prior probability of some miracle claim.  It may be the case that no individual piece of evidence is spectacular or sufficient, but added together they can offer enough evidence.  A cumulative collection of known reliable witnesses, can, in principle, give sufficient evidence to overrule a low prior probability.  

There’s a vagueness in the phrase’s use of “extraordinary.”  If it’s taken to mean “sufficient evidence,” then I agree.  Then the only relevance a purported miracle claim has to the phrase is that its miraculous nature reduces the prior.  Using the word “extraordinary” has the effect of raising the bar of evidence so high that it cannot possibly be met, and it tends to reinforce in its proponents minds the error that each piece of evidence should be taken singularly and not cumulatively.  

It seems possible to specify any event whatsoever to such a degree that’s prior probability is extremely low.  Joe married Sally, for instance.  The probability that Joe and Sally would evolve from single-celled organisms, exist at the same time, run into one another at some restaurant, and so on, is extremely low.  We can specify the event to such a degree that it’s wholly unprecedented.  Do we thereby need extraordinary evidence to believe that they are in fact married? Presumably not.  

But the claim that Jesus resurrected is assuredly different from the claim that Joe married Sally.  This difference seems to stem from the fact that Joe instead marrying Veronica also could have been so uniquely specified--and this chance probability seems to cancel out the improbability of him marrying Sally.  But if, in the case of the lottery, a person wins the lottery and they had a relative working on the lottery’s oversight committee, then it seems more probable that the hypothesis that they cheated is true.  There’s not a “cancelling out” hypothesis on offer.

In the case of the resurrection, it seems that it may also be explicable on a suspect-hypothesis.  Perhaps the apostles were hallucinating, or lying, or are mythical, etc.  This is a proper advancement of the discussion, as it allows us to get down to brass tacks and discuss the probability of each of these rival hypotheses (which, I think, can be adequately met by the apologist.)  

Further; it isn't just the prior that's relevant in this question.  We also need to gauge the probability of the evidence given that the relevant hypothesis is false.  What's the probability that the nightly news would announce that lottery number if that number were in fact false?  If it's quite low, this will wash out the prior improbability of that number having been called.  Similarly, what's the likelihood of the empty tomb, resurrection appearances, and belief in the resurrection in early Christianity given the falsehood of the resurrection?  Quite low, I would think.  And this can wash out the prior unlikeliness of the resurrection.  

The stock of prior beliefs that both believers and atheists bring to bear on the miracle of the resurrection are going to differ as well.  Christians, presumably, come to the question with the assumption that other miracles have in fact occurred.  This raises the prior.  Atheists will come to the question that no other miracles have occurred. This will lower the prior.  

Hume claimed that miracles violate the uniform experience of mankind that miracles do not occur.  But that’s simply false.  There are many miracle claims throughout history.  Craig Keener has documented many, too.  

Relevant factors in estimating the prior: 

(a) Arguments for the belief that God exists.  This raises the prior of any purported miracle, as the existence of a God capable of performing miracles surely increases the prior probability that a miracle has occurred.  (b) Religio-Historical Context; Historical reasons God may have for performing a miracle, such as verifying a certain message, or surprising interlocking of Jesus’s life with OT symbols (c) Argue from natural theology that God’s character would make it more likely that he would engage in certain miracles and courses of action that imply miracles. 

The above post is based on notes that I wrote when reading an excellent discussion of the topic by Jonathan McLatchie, which can be found here.

The Slaughter of the Canaanites

The slaughter of the Canaanites is a difficult topic for Christians, especially for those committed to any robust form of Biblical inerrancy.  I happen to be one of those Christians committed to a robust form of Biblical inerrancy.  

Here are the key passages:  

“However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes.” Deut. 20:16

“They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.” Josh. 6:21

Christians often pride themselves for their view of God as loving, forgiving, and extending of mercy.  We condemn the religious violence of the expansionist religion of Islam.  But given the above verses, it appears that we may have elements of this same sort of violence embedded in our own religion.  Ours is a religion that at one point justified the killing of children.  How are we to deal with this?

One possible move is to neutralize the language.  Phrases like “do not leave anything alive that breathes,” and “destroyed every living thing in it--... young and old,” may just be artifacts of Middle Eastern hyperbolic war-language, similar to how a boxer may say “I knocked his head off his shoulders!” The phrases aren’t meant to be taken literally, but rather as hyperbolic phrases that signify the defeat of the enemy.  There is reason to believe that the phrases should be understood this way, too.  We know of other cases of NEA literature in which such phrases were used and yet we know that the descriptions were not carried out in a literal way--we know that some individuals survived, or that the women and children survived from conflicting sources, despite the presence of such strongly worded phrases in other sources.  It isn’t that the phrases are factually wrong, it’s that they are meant to convey the total defeat of the enemy.  We even have reason to believe that the Bible itself takes the phrases in a hyperbolic way.  We see the occurrence of such phrases in Joshua like “every inhabitant was killed” in some city, and yet a couple of chapters later that same city is shown to be active and still causing problems.  The phrases seem like they definitely can be taken in a hyperbolic sense at least in some cases. This move has garnered the support of Alvin Plantinga and is defended by Paul Copan.

But I don’t actually think this move is possible, at least as a way to completely remove the command to slaughter children (I do think the language is, often, hyperbolic.  But not always).  The hyperbolic language route is excluded by Deuteronomy 20 especially--the ban to exterminate all living things in the Canaanite settlements is specifically contrasted to the command to leave some individuals alive in non-Canaanite settlements.  This contrast only makes sense if the language of “do not leave alive anything that breathes” is taken in a literal way. I think the best interpretation of this chapter is that God really did command the killing of Canaanite children.  

So what other moves are left open?  A suggestive path is to look at the apocalyptic doctrines affirmed by orthodox Christians:  We believe that God will judge the world in the end, and this will result in the deaths of many (including, presumably, children.)  We also have cases in the Old Testament, such as the flood, where God exercised judgement on the world in such a way that children were presumably killed along with the rest.  These cases may be troubling, I think, but not nearly as troubling as the Canaanite slaughter.  Why is it that these cases of apocalyptic judgment are less troubling? I think for two reasons:

First, it seems that God has no obligation to keep us in existence.  He created us and owns us in a way that no human owns us.  All humans have the obligation to not kill another human, but God himself does not have this obligation.

Second, God is himself the direct actor in these judgments.  God himself brought about the flood, and God himself will bring about the final tribulations.  The Canaanite slaughter seems more troubling than these cases because God used intermediaries, humans, to carry out these killings.

(Some Christians have even taken the Canaanite slaughter to prefigure final judgment of the world.) 

The basic ingredients for an answer are in place.  It’s a short step to this principle:

Delegation: God has the ability to delegate his authority over human life to other agents

If Delegation is right, and it certainly seems plausible, then it seems possible for God to have commanded the slaughter of the Canaanites.   Humans do have a moral prohibition against killing others.  But Delegation suggests that this prohibition may, in highly unusual situations, be defeasible, specifically in those situations in which God delegates his authority to human agents.

I think we still have two problems:  (a) Why would God delegate his authority to humans in order to kill children? (b) How do we know when God has so delegated his authority? What if I believe God told me in a dream to kill my family--does that make it right for me to do so? 

The first is a question concerned with the character of God.  Even though God may have the right to terminate the life of any human at any point, it still seems like he’d have a particularly strong reason for doing so.  I think the historical narratives contained in Deuteronomy and Joshua have the answer.  God, in his Middle Knowledge, knew what the preservation of the life of the Canaanite children would do to Israelite culture in an alternate future where they survived--it may have tempted the Israelites to replicate the Canaanite culture in which all sorts of immoralities were advocated and the worship of the true God abandoned.  WLC also suggests that the death of the children was a means by which God guaranteed their entrance into heaven, as WLC doesn’t take it that children who die young are destined to hell.   

As for (b), I think Kant had a point when he said that we should usually (or did he say always? If so, he’s wrong) trust our general prohibition against killing more than a belief that a purported case of Delegation has actually occurred--presumably this would rule out dreams providing a justified case of Delegation.  We almost always have more justification to hold to our prohibition to not kill other humans than we do to believe that God has legitimately delegated his authority to kill to us.  But I do think that purported cases of Delegation can have sufficient evidence to where we’re justified in believing that a candidate case of it may be legitimate.  And remember, the narratives in which the Canaanite slaughter occur are also the narratives in which some of the most public and powerful miracles also occur, attesting to the fact that the Delegation is really from God.  

As a close, it’s important to note that Christianity does not make Delegation a universal command for Christians.  I’m not saying that God has delegated his authority in this way to anyone today.  

Two minor points: Richard Hess claims that the cities put to the ban were military outposts with little civil presence, and it's important to keep in mind that the goal of the ban was to drive the people from the land and not to exterminate them wherever they were to be found.  

Aron Wall has presented the best treatment of these difficult passages.  His treatment can be found here: 

http://www.wall.org/~aron/blog/when-god-kills-the-innocent/

The Problem of Religious Pluralism

I think this problem canvasses more than one issue.  It can be taken as:

1.  How can we know the true religion given the great diversity of contradictory religions?

2.  If there are so many contradictory religions, surely this is indicative of an epistemic process that is not truth conducive. 

3.  Our religious beliefs seem to be determined by our culture, and not by truth conducive processes.

4.  What is the fate of the unevangelized? 

I think issue (3.) is a subspecies of issue (2.), but it’s pressed often enough on its own to warrant its own treatment.  

(1.) is easy enough.  We can (a) provide positive evidential arguments in favor of Christianity and (b) we can provide arguments for why other religions are either internally contradictory or make implausible claims.  We also have Reformed epistemology available to us which holds that other religions lack the relevant truth-conducive process that Christians possess, which is the testimony of the Holy Spirit.   

(2.)  Two approaches:  

The aforementioned point about Reformed epistemology could apply here--the diversity of religious opinions does not reflect the unreliability of a haywire process, but reflects the lack of a reliable process in other non-Christian religions.  That’s one way we could argue.  We could also hold with William Alston that other religions *do* in fact have a relatively reliable process, that other religions do, mostly, make and recognize correct claims, but that they fail to be entirely reliable and are missing central and important truths.  It seems that many religious traditions will make largely identical moral claims and also recognize the intuition that God should be defined as the Greatest Conceivable Being, but disagree about how this claim should be worked out.  These two different approaches to problem (2.) is reflective of a belief in two different processes in Reformed Epistemology: The Sensus Divinitatis, present in all humanity and underlying all religions--this is the approach of Alston just given, and that of the A/C Model, which is the idea that only Christians possess the unique process of the Testimony of the Holy Spirit, which is the former approach given.  

The fact that a process can oftentimes produce contradictory and inconsistent beliefs is not, by itself, enough to disavow that process as hopelessly unreliable.  Sense-perception is an example.  We often form contradictory beliefs of some observed event, yet we still take it that we can often work through the contradictory claims and survey the evidence to discern what actually happened.  This same point should be applied in the case of religion. 

(3.) As I said previously, this really seems to be a species of problem (2.).  But it’s been pressed often in popular atheistic culture: “You would have been a Muslim if you were born in Pakistan, therefore, your belief in Christianity is irrational.”  This is a clear example of the genetic-fallacy.  How I came to hold a belief is not relevant to the truth of that belief.  We can in fact turn this maneuver on its head:  If the skeptic were born in Pakistan, he probably would have been a Muslim--is his skepticism therefore irrational? 

Just because I probably would not have believed in the truths of calculus if I were born in the 13th century doesn’t undermine my current belief in the truths of calculus, so too should we apply this to the case of religious beliefs.  We can and should rationally evaluate our religious beliefs.

(4.) is a different breed, but I think it likely underlies most of the other problems.  It’s broad.  We can take WLC’s route:  God has arranged history so that no one is lost due to geographical accident--those that would have freely responded to the gospel will have the opportunity to do so.  God guarantees this with his Middle Knowledge.  Those that would not respond positively to the gospel are not guaranteed a hearing of it.  

Those of the unevangelized that are lost are not condemned for not responding to a gospel they never even heard, rather they’re condemned for their lack of a positive response to the revelation of God present in nature, which everyone possesses.  This lack of a positive response to God’s revelation in nature is universal as well as free (Rom. 1-2).

Or, we can take the route of C.S. Lewis, in which he affirms that the death of Jesus is absolutely required for salvation, but historical knowledge that Jesus died may not be required for salvation.  Job was presumably one of the elect, yet he lived hundreds of years before Jesus.  This same appoint applies to all of the OT saints.  Perhaps it was Job's belief that he required a mediator between him and God and believed that such a mediator would eventually arise (Job 19:25) that counted as saving faith--and maybe we can apply this same sort of opportunity to the rest of individuals in history who never heard the Gospel, even those after Christ.  

The Lewisian route is nice on the surface, but I think it suffers from clear violation of Scripture (namely, Rom. 1-2) and undermines the incentive to evangelize.  The Old Testament fathers were saved due to their faith in the promised Messiah, either through explicit prophecy, or through their attention to the cultic sacrifice ongoing in the temple, reminding them of their need for atonement [Note], and Christians are saved due to their faith in the fulfillment of those promises in Jesus. 

This problem is eased when we realize that God has no requirement to save any of us.  If God were to go and pardon a person on death roll, that does not necessitate him pardoning the rest on death roll.  It’s perfectly just for him to leave the others to their just and deserving faith, while still freely desiring to show mercy on some of those present.  As R.C. Sproul was keen to repeat, we shouldn’t ask “Why doesn’t God save everyone?,” but rather “Why does God save anyone at all?”  

[Note:] Was the promise of a Messiah something only knowable via special revelation and not through nature?--there's room for theorizing here, as Anselm seems to think that we can reach the conclusion that the atonement is necessary solely given reason and the assumption that God wishes to save some of us.  We may also hold that the gospel may *ordinarily* be required to turn the hearts of people, but that there may be exceptions.  Or perhaps the presentation of the gospel is just a particularly vivid method of communicating that moves people that would otherwise not be moved.  This would be a weakening of Lewis's claim, but at least a somewhat better fit with Scripture.  
We could still even hold to the truth of the Scriptural claim that those who reject the presentation of the gospel are thereby displaying their rejection of God:  "The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day."

It's important to keep in mind that the Gospel isn't merely about getting fire-insurance.  That's not the primary purpose of our relationship with God.  It's to enjoy and be with the Good now and here--the sooner, the better.

Is RIT Necessary?

Thinking a bit more deeply about Murphy’s relationship to Pruss, it now seems to me that RIT is not necessary for a Pruss-style argument.  To see this, here’s a proposal for how a Murphy-style and Pruss-style argumentative framework against homosexual activity may (very broadly) go:

Murphy-Style Argument: 
1. Marriage is an aspect of human flourishing
        (Discoverable via theoretical reasoning)
2. We are obligated to not undermine aspects of human flourishing.
        (RIT)
3. Homosexuality undermines marriage and is not itself an aspect of flourishing.
(Theoretical reason?)
C1. So homosexual behavior is wrong.

vs.

Pruss-Style Argument:
4.  We should love everything appropriately.
(Intuitively known norm?)
5.  What counts as appropriate depends upon the nature of the patient
(Theoretical reason and the definition of love--union and goodwill)
6.  Homosexual behavior is inappropriate given human nature.
(Theoretical reason)
C2.  So homosexual behavior is immoral as it violates the norm to love everything appropriately.

Premise (2.) seems reliant on a RIT sort of move, or at least seems best supported by a RIT sort of move.  Aspects of human flourishing provide us with normative reasons to promote and pursue them.  But it doesn’t seem to me that Pruss’s argument needs RIT.  Which premise would depend upon it? (perhaps premise (5.)--more below) These two argumentative styles diverge on the source of normativity.  Do the goods themselves generate normative reasons to pursue them?  Or does a master rule, like the norm to love everything, give them their normative power?  I think Murphy’s argument falls more in line with the former, and Pruss’s with the latter.   (It's not even clear that these two approaches are opposed to one another in terms of ontology. The different styles could be reflective of merely an argumentative strategy.)

Premise (5.) best mirrors the more classical style of argument given by Murphy.  Still, I think it can work on a weaker principle than RIT, which I’ll call the Combination Principle.

Combination Principle:  It’s possible for an action that would otherwise be morally insignificant to gain moral significance in light of the nature of some agent P.  Imagine that P cannot make a statement of C-type without, from the necessity of P’s nature, subsequently lying.  C-type statements may not be wrong for any other types of agents other than P, but they are morally wrong for P in light of P’s nature.

Note: Values still have a place in the Pruss approach, they just aren’t playing the normative role they usually play in Natural Law.  We are to respond lovingly to the good, and this is how the goods exercise their normative force.

Natural Law Metaethics and the Argument that Homosexual Activity is Impermissible

 Recall the following argument:

1. If a pleasure is divorced from its underlying good, then that pleasure induces deception and undermines integrity. 

∀x(Dx⊃~Ix) 

2. Any intentional behavior that induces deception and undermines integrity is wrong. 

∀x(~Ix⊃Wx) 

3. The relevant underlying good of sexual behavior is one body union. 

∀x((~Dx&Sx)⊃Ox) 

4. Homosexual behavior cannot achieve one body union. 

∀x(Hx⊃Sx)&~∃y(Hy&Oy) 

5. Homosexual behavior induces the relevant pleasure without the underlying good. 

∀x(Hx⊃Dx) 

6. So homosexual behavior induces deception and undermines integrity. 

∀x(Hx⊃~Ix) 

7. So homosexual behavior is wrong.

∀x(Hx⊃Wx)

It’s been a goal of mine to understand how this argument fits into a broader metaethical framework.  The outline I gave in my last post was to get as clear as I can on Natural Law metaethics and see what sort of interpretive guidance it could provide.  

I think it’s useful to classify the premises under their various motivators.  Premise (2.) is based on what Pruss calls an Ethics of Love (EoL).   Our overriding norm is to love everything (appropriately).  That parenthetical remark does quite a bit of work, being the main justifying principle behind premise (3.), which is that premise which most closely approximates Natural Law.  Premise (1.) is based on a particular theory of the nature of pleasure and pain.  

Let’s just start with an EoL.  How does an EoL relate to Natural Law?  For a theory to classify as a version of Natural Law, it seems that it at least needs to locate moral norms in our human nature.  Does EoL allow this sort of move? It seems like it may. It’s part of our nature  (as agents?) to possess the norm to love everything appropriately.  There doesn’t seem anything problematic about this proposal.  Perhaps the only practical reason we have for any action is that we ought to love everything appropriately.  There’s a decent reason for locating this norm within our nature, too.  It allows the norm to be close and internal to us in a way that seems right, unlike an external command.

The driving problem of the outline of the last post is the question of what justifies the use of theoretical reason in regards to deciding practical questions of what we ought to do.  And the solution provided is the Real Identity Thesis (RIT), which is: 

RIT: States of affairs understood by theoretical reason as aspects of flourishing are identical with states of affairs understood by practical reason as goods worth having

Premise (3.) is where this concern comes into play.  We have to justify this premise using various arguments, most of them based on theoretical reason, which may be illicit.  Here’s a sample of such arguments used to support premise (3.): The relevant underlying good of sexual behavior does not classify as a version of friendship, nor does it seem plausible that homosexual sex constitutes a sui generis class of love.  We reach these conclusions by looking at psychology, thought-experiments, statistics, self-reporting, phenomenology.  This is the class of theoretical reason. 

So there’s two issues:  (a) How does an EoL relate to RIT? (b) and given an EoL, does RIT allow such use of theoretical reason to support premise (3.)? 

Let’s start with the former first.  Given EoL: We possess the norm to love everything appropriately.  This is our only practical reason for any action.  But what counts as appropriate action is set by the broader nature of the various patients that we encounter; men, children, God, women, groups, friends.  It’s loving to put a fish in water and unloving to put a human in water because of the nature of the differing subjects.  The nature of the subjects determines what actions are appropriate (good) towards it. 

On the usual Natural Law reading, life is an aspect of human flourishing.  So we have a practical reason to pursue life.  The same goes for knowledge, marriage, friendship, and so on.  If our only practical reason given an EoL is appropriate love towards everything, how is the state of affairs that ground this norm to be identified with the state of affairs that ground our flourishing as humans? Love isn't itself one of the aspects of flourishing. But what constitutes our flourishing determines which form one's love should take. Maybe this is how states of affairs that constitute our flourishing exercise their normative force--through their interplay with the norm to love everything appropriately.  Love gives us the obligation to promote goods worth having among the patients of our actions.  What goods are worth having by our patients are set by the nature of the patients. 

Again, perhaps what counts as flourishing among the patients of our action give constraints on what counts as loving action towards those patients, but the flourishing itself does not give practical reason to promote it; what gives practical reason to promote their flourishing is just the norm to love everything, and part of what it means to love everything is to pursue the patient’s flourishing.  So what counts as flourishing is determined by kinds of subjects, but what gives flourishing its practical oomph is the norm to love everything.  

But what about the norm to love everything itself--is it itself identical with the states of affairs that count as flourishing?

To diffuse this confused question, we need to keep in mind the distinction between what (a) that which gives us an obligation to pursue certain goods and (b) the goods themselves.  EoL provides (a) and flourishing gives us (b).  Obligations arise out of the confluence of the nature and purposes of the agent qua agent and the nature and purposes of the patient qua patient.

But what about RIT? Does it still run through as before?  I think so.  It just needs a slight modification.  

The Real Identity Thesis Amended (RITA): States of affairs understood by theoretical reason as aspects of flourishing for some patient p are identical with states of affairs understood by practical reason, which is love, as goods worth promoting for p by some agent s.

Good, though an evaluative concept, can justifiably be used in theoretical reason.  We can say what is good for a plant just by studying a plant.  What cannot be used in theoretical reason is practical reason, or those class of things that we are obligated to promote.  We can see that evaluative judgments do not necessarily provide us with practical reasons to promote when we consider the case of a rat colony flourishing, which may very well be good for the rats themselves, but which gives no practical reason for humans to promote. 

Outline of Ch. 1 of Natural Law and Practical Rationality

This is an outline of the first chapter of Mark Murphy’s book Natural Law and Practical Rationality.  It is a selectively interested outline, leaving out the details of many arguments of which I have little interest.  This is a part of a larger project to get a better grasp on Natural Law metaethics and its use by Alexander Pruss in practical ethics, especially in regards to sexual practical ethics.

I.  Ch. 1:  The Real Identity Thesis

    A. Definitions:  

Practical judgement = a judgment about what ought to be done.

Theoretical Judgment = a judgement about the way things are in fact.

    B. The Epistemic Problem; How are practical judgements known to be true?

i. Inclinationist:  Practical judgements are known immediately and in a non-derived way.  They may be occasioned by inclinations towards goods.  No practical judgements can be drawn from non-practical judgments.  

a.  Hume’s law is the driving principle behind this principle.

                        b.  They reject, however, the reduction of value to sentiment as exemplified by Hume.

c.  John Finnis, Girgis, Robert George, represent this strand.

ii. Derivationist:  More standard for the old style of Natural Law.  Practical judgments can be drawn from non-practical, theoretical judgments.  By examining the nature of humans, we can discover what the good of humans consists of.

a.  David Oderberg and Ed Feser represent this strand.

    C. Problems with both the Inclinationist and Derivationist positions

i.  Problems for Derivationist: (a) The first problem with the derivationist is obvious.  Hume’s law seems correct and the derivationist violates it and  (b) The derivationist also seems to give an inadequate account of the basic nature of moral knowledge possessed by most people.

ii. Problems for the Inclinationist: The non-co-assertability problem, which is the difficulty of holding both (a) the idea that practical judgements are known in a non-derived sense and (b) the idea that goods are grounded in a strong sense in human nature.  If (b) is weakened too much, Inclinationism would no longer count as a NL position.  In other words, the Inclinationist is in tension with the central driving claim that natural law is based in human nature.

This difficulty, however, is less of a direct rejection of Inclinationism and more a challenge for it, which Murphy strives to answer in the next section.  

    D. The Real Identity Thesis Stated

i. Desirables: 

(a) Preserve the basic accessibility of normative truth for the non-theoreticians 

(b) Preserve Hume’s Law 

(c) Preserve a tight and distinctive connection between the natural law and human nature.

ii.  An analogous model for the relationship between practical and non-practical judgements: Indexicals.  Consider the relationship between indexical statements and non-indexical statements: “I am in the office,” vs “Daryl Cotton is in the office.”   

a.  The one statement is not deducible from the other, paralleling Hume’s law.

b.  Yet the connection between the two is extremely tight, satisfying one of our desiderata.  The very same state of affairs is the truth-maker for both claims, which is my actually being in the office.

a.  It’s possible to know one of the statements above without knowing the other.  This can offer a parallel to the possibility of knowing only half of the non-practical vs practical judgements.  

iii.  If the relationship between practical and non-practical judgements are similar to the indexical case, then it seems we may have a bridge by which to understand how the two types of judgements can relate and shed light on one another.  Natural law and judgements about human nature may refer to the same state of affairs and are made true by the obtaining of the same state of affairs; these judgements differ because the former are formulated by practical reason and the latter by theoretical reason--and perhaps, once we become aware of the precise nature of the connection between these types of judgements we may be able to use this information to argue in a justifiable way from judgements of one type to judgements of the other type.

iv.  Why think this model is correct, though?  We need to: 

a. Identify which theoretical judgments we propose to connect with the principles of natural law and 

b. Provide grounds for supposing that the practical and theoretical judgments are made true by the same state of affairs.  

c. There is such a set of truths knowable by theoretical reason that affirms the existence of human flourishing and what the aspects of it are, 

d. There are strong reasons to suppose that such a set will also be grasped by practical reason as a good worth having.  

v. The Real Identity Thesis (RIT): States of affairs understood by theoretical reason as aspects of flourishing are identical with states of affairs understood by practical reason as goods worth having.   

vi. What relevance would RIT have on justifying an account of the basic goods?  If RIT is correct, then it can find a place for both practical and theoretical judgements in accounting for the natural law.  Given independent, theoretical access to the nature of human flourishing and the affirmation of RIT, we can conclude that those states of affairs that are grasped as aspects of human flourishing are goods worth having.  Vice versa.

E.  The Function Argument

i. Murphy argues here that Humans have a function from the fact that systems in our bodies have functions..  He then further argues that our function as humans is to flourish.   

    F.  Epistemic problem again: How do we know what human flourishing consists in?  

i. Mentalism:  Human flourishing consists in satisfying human desires.  We have easy access to what we desire, so the epistemic problem isn’t hard.  Absurd conclusions can result from this position, however. So reject.

ii. Statistical Normalcy:  Whatever is most prevalent among a kind sets the criteria for flourishing among that kind.  But it’s possible for a defect to be the most statistically common: It’s possible that every panda has its right ear removed, but that won’t constitute flourishing for pandas.  This shows statistical normalcy is neither sufficient nor necessary to gauge flourishing for a kind, though it may be suggestive.

iii. By ascribing functions to things we implicity grasp what constitutes flourishing for those things.  This back-and-forth can sharpen each to the point that we can advance in knowledge.  

iv. One way to understand different types of flourishing is to attempt to isolate them by way of imagined malfunctions.  Many of the activities that are included in accounts of human flourishing can plausibly be viewed as such through the application of this method: Imagine what we would say about the seriousness of the malfunctions in the brain that would prevent us from having friendships, or appreciating beauty, or making practical judgements.  Some cases are not merely possible but actual.  And it seems that we recognize that these inabilities count as malfunctions.  So if they are malfunctions, then it is part of our function to have these things, and if they are part of our function to have, then they are part of our flourishing.

G.  Reasons to affirm RIT 

i. Why hold that those states of affairs grasped by theoretical reason are the same as those grasped by practical reason? 

a. Unifying power.  It’s pretty.

b. Both states of affairs that are grasped as aspects of flourishing and the states of affairs that are grasped as goods to be pursued both rely on evaluative concepts.  It seems right that both judgements, if they are identifying the same state of affairs under different senses, should be marked by evaluative judgements.   (NOTE:  Evaluative and "practical" are not synonymous.  "This plant is in good condition" is an evaluative judgement, but not a practical one.  Evaluative concepts can justifiably operate within speculative reason.)

c. Structural Similarity: Some functions are for the sake of other functions, just as some goods are for the sake of other goods.  

d. Epistemic: Inclinationist say that we grasp goods by examining that which we're inclined towards.  This method bears a striking resemblance to the method for determining what a creature's flourishing is by looking at what makes the functions of its parts intelligible.  

        ii.  The above list seems suggestive for affirming RIT, but not sufficient.  

The point of defending RIT is to support the use of a dialectical method for justifying an account of the goods to be pursued that provide fundamental reasons for action.  If a correspondence can be found in listing basic goods that provide practical reasons and seeing what the concept of flourishing gets us, it can offer some prima facie evidence for affirming RIT.  

H.  Similarities with Aquinas

i. Is this account compatible with historical Natural Law as espoused by Aquinas? Maybe.  It seems like it could provide an account for why both Derivationists and Inclinationists interpret Aquinas as their own.  

ii.  Aquinas’s affirming of goodness being identical with being and differing only in sense seems awfully reminiscent of RIT.