Genesis, Adam, and Evolution

I. On Method

In interpreting the Bible, we should be primarily concerned with the meaning of the text as the author himself intended.  Call this Literalism:

            Literalism:  Reading the texts as the author intended.

But note that literalism allows for the Scriptures to use metaphorical, symbolic, figurative, and poetic language, so long as these literary elements were intended by the author.  That Jesus used hyperbolic language is entirely consistent with Literalism as I’ve defined it.  

To honor Literalism, we should not seek to impose a pre-rendered interpretation upon the texts of the Bible - that is, we should not try to squeeze the first couple of chapters of Genesis into teaching that the earth is billions of years old.  Rather, we should first examine what Genesis teaches and only then compare these teachings to what we know from other sources, such as science.  We must keep these fields separate in our initial research so as to prevent ourselves from misrepresenting what the authors of the Scripture meant to teach.

II. Cautionary Note

I do not think that Genesis 1-11 teaches that the earth is billions of years old.  I do not think that it teaches evolution.  It’d be implausible to suppose that Moses, the author of Genesis, had these things in mind when composing the narrative.  This rules out the plausibility of Gap Theory and the Day-Age Theory, which attempt to see in the narrative a sort of hidden positive teaching on the antiquity of the earth.

But if we’re going to be committed to evolution and the antiquity of the earth, as well as to upholding the inerrancy of Scripture, we are thereby committed to believing that the first chapters of Genesis do not teach something that is incompatible with evolution and the antiquity of the earth.  That is, we must find a way to hold that the first few chapters are not anti-evolution, but that they’re just non-evolution.  A non-evolution teaching from Genesis would be compatible with holding to evolution from other sources outside of the Bible, such as science - just as the Bible is non-committed on the chemical make-up of water, and allows us to figure out that water is identical to H2O from science.

We need to find a way to reject that Genesis teaches anti-evolution, while still honoring Literalism.  What would be required for this rejection?

First, we could not understand the days of creation in a straightforward manner.  If they’re understood as literal days, and this is what the author intended to teach, we probably have an anti-evolution teaching in Genesis.  And so on for other elements, such as the genealogies.

So if we’re going to reject that the first few chapters of Genesis are anti-evolution, we need to find a way to argue that these elements of the texts are not meant to be taken straightforwardly.  We need to show that the genre in which the author is writing does not commit him to 6 straightforward creation days, just as we can see that the genre of writing in which the apostle John composed does not commit him to the actual existence of dragons.

It’s important to note that at this point I am not imposing evolution upon the Bible. I am at most striving to see whether the beginning chapters can be seen to be teaching something compatible with an Old Earth and evolution, and we’re going to do this solely on the grounds of the characteristics of the text, its literature type, its cultural background and common-sense.  

III. Understanding Genesis 1-11

There are elements of literary works that hint towards their genre:  We know that much of Revelation is not teaching a literal future-history.  We know it contains much symbolism and figurative language.  The Apostle John was not committed to the actual existence of dragons when he wrote about them in Revelation.  And how do we know that these elements of Revelation are symbolic?  Largely using common-sense!  We know that Jesus, for instance, isn’t a literal door despite him saying “I am the door.”  Not only that, but when we interpret texts we share with their authors a broadly common understanding of how the world works, what counts as special and not, and so on.  If the last book of the Bible is telling future history in a highly symbolic manner, we cannot in principle be opposed to the possibility that the first book of the Bible is also retelling history in a highly symbolic way.

Here’s a quick slew of elements in the first 11 chapters of Genesis that suggest that the narrative is partly figurative:

1. Talking snake:  Now, God and other supernatural powers can make animals miraculously speak.  See Balaam’s ass.  But in the case of Balaam’s ass it is intensely surprising and wonderful when the donkey speaks.  Not so with the snake.  The snake just seems to have the power naturally.  And note that the narrative in Genesis actually does not explicitly identify the snake with Satan.  It just appears, at this point in the narrative, to be an ole’ ordinary snake who is cursed to “crawl on the ground.” Satan doesn’t crawl on the ground.

2. Floating ribs:  God can do some odd miracles.  Spitting in the mud and rubbing a blind man’s eye with the spittle, for instance.  But here we’re supposed to imagine a surgery being performed on a sleeping Adam and then a rib floating around and forming into a woman.  I’m not saying God *couldn’t* do that, but I do think that the strangeness of this story points towards a symbolic and figurative meaning, just as the dragon in Revelation points to a symbolic and figurative meaning.

3. Impossible location for the Garden of Eden:  This one is hard to work through without going through an intense and difficult attempt to identify the four rivers used to locate Eden.  But we do know that the Euphrates and Tigris, two of the rivers, do not have and never have had a common source, and the author of Genesis would have known this.  That he locates Eden in an impossible location is a hint that we’re not dealing with straightforward history.

4. Inconsistent ordering of creation in Chapters 1 and 2:  Did God create vegetation on the third day before he created man (Gen. 1:11) or after he created man (Gen. 2:5)?  Or did God create animal life before man (Gen. 1:25) or after man (Gen. 2:19)?  The author of Genesis just isn’t bothered by this inconsistency and doesn’t even attempt to make sense of it. This is evidence that we’re in a narrative with strong figurative elements.

5. Nephilim:  Spiritual beings cannot sexually reproduce given that they lack bodies.  The leading interpretation of the Nephilim is that they are offspring of spiritual beings and human beings (Genesis 6).  “Sons of God,” referring to the progenitors of the nephilim, is used in other places to refer to spiritual beings (Job 1:6).  But the author of Genesis would have known that spiritual beings cannot sexually reproduce.  So this is evidence that we’re in a narrative with figurative elements.

6. Anthropomorphisms:  The manner in which God is represented in the narrative seems too anthropomorphic.  God is described as walking in the cool of the day (Gen. 3:8) and as “coming down” to confuse the language of Babel (Gen. 11:7).  Note that the text does not describe these appearances of God as of the “Angel of the Lord,” as is typical for purported Christophanies.  

7. Magical trees:  Trees that upon eating their fruit grant immortality.  Seems a bit odd.  I’m not saying that God couldn't create such a tree - I’m saying that their immediate oddity hints to us that we’re in a partially figurative story.

8. Light occurs before the sun:  Light is created before the sun (Gen. 1:3; Gen 1:16).  This would have been extremely odd to any ancient reader and many have seen in this narrative an assault on rival mythologies that worshiped the sun, such as the Egyptian religion.  Moses is claiming that God doesn’t even need the sun to produce light.  This seems to support Moses’ interest in a less than straightforward history.

9. The fantastic ages of the patriarchs:  The lifespans of the patriarchs approach 1,000 years.  The author of the text would have known this to be fantastic - see Psalm 90:10.  But he mentions their fantastic ages without surprise or concern.  

I think all of these elements strongly go to show that Genesis 1-11 is not a straightforward history.  We have some figurative elements in the text.  

But it’s important to note that there’s good reasons to believe that the author is also trying to teach some historical elements.  It’s figurative *history* - just as the Apostle John is trying to teach some historical events in figurative garb. The author of Genesis explicitly links the genealogy of Abraham to Adam, and Abraham was historical.  Purely fictional characters cannot have real historical effects, so the author of Genesis must be committed to the historicity of Adam and thus to the partial history of Genesis 1-11.  

So it looks like Genesis 1-11 is best classified as figurative-history.  Once we’ve justified this classification, we can now see that the author teaching us about 6 creation days does not automatically commit him to 6 actual 24-hour periods over which God made the world.  The genre of these chapters does not require us to think that Moses intended to teach this.  

So here’s the argument:  If we’ve successfully shown that Genesis 1-11 is best classified as figurative-history, then we are automatically not committed to the straightforward historicity of every element in these chapters.  We’ve further argued that the author does seem committed to the historicity of Adam, so we should retain the historicity of Adam.  The author is also clearly committed to the historicity of creation itself, as the world clearly exists and is an effect of one of the characters in the narrative, namely, God.

Objection 1:  So you’re saying that Genesis 1-11 is Figurative-History and that the rest of Genesis, starting in chapter 12, is straightforward history?  Doesn’t that seem ad hoc?  Why would the book have mixed genres?

Response 1:  Revelation is also a book of mixed genre.  The first 3 chapters of Revelation are just straightforward epistles, while starting in chapter 4 we get an extremely figurative apocalyptic future-history.  

Further, we can tell on the basis of Genesis itself that the author is *primarily* interested in Abraham, as he narrates Abraham’s story from chapter 11 to virtually the end of the book 39 chapters later.  In dedicating a mere 11 chapters to what’s known as the “primeval” history, he is only providing a very scant treatment.  His main interest is Abraham.

Objection 2:  How do you uphold the full historicity of chapters 12-50?  Couldn’t they also be figurative history? 

Response 2:  They could be.  But the fantastic literary elements that lead us to classify the first 11 chapters as figurative history disappear starting in chapter 12.  Further, with Abraham, we get our first strong interest in history with clearly historical figures (Pharaoh) and clearly historical cities (the Sumerian city “Ur,” Abraham’s birthplace).

Objection 3:  If there are figurative elements in the narrative, what’s their point? What are these elements attempting to teach us if they're not historical?

Response 3:  This is like asking why John appeals to the imagery of dragons in his apocalypse.  Or why Jesus appeals to the non-historical prodigal son in one of his parables.  The answer lies in the emphasis, immediacy and power their imagery provides. Figurative elements can have strong rhetorical effect.  So while I don’t think there was a literal talking snake that deceived the first human pair (just as I don’t believe in the prodigal son or in dragons), I do think that this figurative element in the text emphasizes the world-reversal implicit in the first sin and points towards real demonic influence over the first humans.  The same goes for the Nephilim - I do not think that demons were having sex with humans, though I do think that the Nephilim are figurative for the evil alliances formed between humans and demons.

To conclude this section, I want to stress the probable nature of these arguments.  They do not definitively show that Moses intended to write a figurative history in chapters 1-11.  All I claim for these arguments is that it makes it possible that this is what Moses intended to write.  All of my examples are not 100% foolproof.  They’re merely suggestive.  I do think that they’re strong enough to justify the plausibility that Moses does not teach anti-evolution in the first chapters of Genesis.  

If the figurative-history reading is correct, Moses remains uncommitted either way with regard to evolution.  Christians are free to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

IV.  The Evidence for Evolution

Atavisms:  An atavism is (a) a bit of DNA that is shared across a species (b) that is usually inactive (c) codes for some ancestral trait that was present among the ancestors of the species and (d) reactives among some rare individuals of a species.  Examples include humans born with tails, ducks born with teeth, and snakes with legs.  

Atavisms seem to strongly suggest that we descend from ancestors that had different traits than the traits that we possess. 

Genomic Evidence:  Just as we can show how closely related you are to your cousin using DNA evidence, we can also analyze our relationship to other species.  We share a great amount of DNA with chimpanzees, but less with turtles, and so on.  We even share with chimpanzees vast amounts of what’s known as “junk DNA,” that is, DNA that doesn’t code for anything.

The Genomic Evidence seems to strongly suggest that we are related to other species.

The Fossil Record:  There are skeletons of early hominids who are transitional forms from more ape-like ancestors to modern humans.  They have more traits in common with ape-like ancestors, such as smaller brain size, some walking on four legs, different skeletal shapes, and so on.  We have also analyzed the DNA of some of these species (Denisovans and Neardanthals) and have confirmed our relationship to them and their status as distinct species.

Note:  A Christian who embraces evolution is not subject to the same weaknesses of the theory as a naturalist who embraces evolution.  A Christian can hold that God has designed and directed the process, even possibly intervening at some points to arrive at his desired goal.  A naturalist cannot make this appeal and must rest on pure chance alone, which is far too improbable as a mechanism for evolution.

V.  Some Objections

Objection 1:  Adam and Eve are historical according to Paul and are the sole originators of the human race.  Theistic evolution teaches that Adam didn’t exist.

Response 1:  False.  Theistic evolution is compatible with thinking that there were just two rational hominid ancestors who are the originators of the whole human race.  We can identify these individuals as members of Homo Heidelbergensis, and the pair may have lived approximately 750,000 years ago.  This aligns well with what we know from science from when rationality first arose among hominids and science allows their being an extreme bottleneck of the population around this time, possibly even down to just two individuals.

Objection 2:  Animal death before the fall.  Death is a result of sin.  But according to theistic evolution, death went on for millions of years before the arrival of mankind.  See Romans 8:20-22.

Response 2:  The Bible does not teach that animal death is the result of human sin.  It merely teaches that human death is the result of sin.  The passage in Romans does not teach that animal death is due to sin, does not mention animals, and does not mention the nature of the “groaning” creation is undergoing.

Besides, even if we do opt for that interpretation of Romans 8:20-22, we could speculatively hold that animal death is the result of Satan’s sin.

Some Useful Advice for Online Atheists

The traditional fallacy labels, such as ad hominem or appeal to authority (Locke's ad verecundiam), describe forms of argument which are often perfectly reasonable. Quite a lot of careful and valuable research has been done in informal logic on identifying the conditions under which a given argumentative move is legitimate and the conditions under which it is fallacious. Secondly, from a pedagogical point of view, organizing the teaching of practical skills of argument evaluation around a taxonomy of fallacies encourages unduly negative attitudes to argument, tends to substitute name-calling for substantive engagement with the content of an argument, and runs into the problem that the exercise of pinning a particular fallacy label on a particular argument is fraught with controversy, even among experts.

- David Hitchcock

Outline of Feser's "The Neo-Classical Challenge to Classical Theism"

 I.  Defining the positions: 

Classical Theism (CT) Distinctives:  God is simple and not composed of parts in any way; immutable; outside of time; and impassible or unable to be affected by anything outside of him.

Neo-Classical Theism (N-CT): Rejects one or all of the four putative divine attributes in CT.

There are two basic methods for spelling out the divine nature.

Perfect being theology (PBT):  Deduces various attributes from the definition of God as the GCB.

First-Cause Theology:  Infers what the cause of the world must be like given the world as an effect.

CT and N-CT can both use these methods, but disagree about where a sound application leads.

Divine simplicity holds that God is in no way composed of parts: Of form and matter, actuality and potentiality, essence and existence, genus and differentia, substance and attributes, or parts of any other kind.

Aquinas held that God’s essence and existence are identical.  This is a monstrously difficult claim to understand.

From simplicity the other classical attributes can be inferred.

II. Mullins' Mischaracterization:  

Some alleged traits of Classical Theism: God has no properties at all, not even extrinsic or relational properties.  We cannot make even conceptual distinctions between parts or aspects of God.  God cannot even be said to be Lord or Creator.

We need to disambiguate what we mean by “property.”  

Thomistic Properties:  Attributes that are proper to a thing.

Modern Sense:  Anything that might be predicated of a thing.

But Thomists do not claim that God has no properties.

Thomists tend to use the term “attributes” rather than property, and they hold that God has attributes such as power, knowledge, and goodness.

Divine simplicity is committed to the identity of God’s power with his knowledge with his goodness, etc.  But this isn’t the same as denying that God has properties.

Classical theists also affirm that God has extrinsic (Cambridge) properties, such as currently being written about by me.

Classical theists also admit that there are conceptual distinctions between God’s attributes.  The different attributes differ in sense but not in reference.  They refer to the one God.

III. Two Objections to CT

The Creation Objection:  There is a state of affairs in which God exists without creation and a state of affairs in which he exists with creation.  So we must affirm that “God begins to be related to creation.”  But this implies God changes.  So God isn’t immutable or timeless.

Classical theists just reject that God “begins” to be related to creation.  In the words of Helm:

If one wishes to use the language of time to characterize the relation of a timelessly eternal God to a temporal order then it must be said that God has always stood in the relation of being the Creator of the temporal world. But this language is itself misleading, and therefore needs to be used cautiously. It is better, more accurate to eternalism, to say that God has a timelessly eternal relation with the temporal world, but a relation that is nevertheless causal and contingent. 

We can appeal to Cambridge properties.  In creating the world, God bears a Cambridge relation to it.  But this doesn’t imply an intrinsic change on God’s part.

God’s will is an intrinsic property of God, but that the created world is its effect is not.  Thus being creator of the world is not an intrinsic property of God.  

The created world bears a real relation to God, but it does not follow that God bears a real relation to creation.  Observing is a real property, for instance, but being observed is a mere Cambridge property.

Mullins alleges that the universe could not be causally dependent on God if God bears only a Cambridge relation to the world.  But, as stated above, creation does bear a real relation to God.

To say that God bears a Cambridge relation to the world does not mean that God bears a mere fictional relation.  It is true that he has a relation to us, just not an intrinsic one.

The second objection Modal Collapse Objection.  If all of God’s actions are identical to God’s existence, and if God’s existence is necessary, it would seem that all of his actions are necessary.  So creation is necessary.

Response:  Being creator is a Cambridge property and God is not identical to Cambridge properties, but only his intrinsic properties.  So the Classical Theist would not identify God’s existence with all of his actions.

Classical Theism and Extrinsic Relations

These are just some preliminary thoughts on the debates going on over Classical Theism (CT) between R.T. Mullins and Ed Feser.  I just want to stress the tentative nature of my comments.  

R.T. Mullins argues that, according to the tradition of Classical Theism, God cannot undergo Cambridge change as that would imply that he is in time.  He argues that the tradition of Classical Theism denied that God has extrinsic relations.  He depends on Paul Helm, among others, for this assertion.  But the strength of the assertion depends on how we understand "change."  If the b-theory is right, there's a kind of temporal becoming -  An object comes into being or changes provided that it exists but didn't used to exist.  

And yet the B-theory of change seems compatible with saying that God is timeless and experiences Cambridge change, at least if change is understood along the lines of B-theory temporal becoming.  It isn't a change in respect to God, as he sees the eternal block statically.  But it is a temporal becoming of the creature. 

Again, Mullins is somewhat mischaracterizing Helm in that Helm is supposing that Cambridge change understood in the A-theory sense is impossible for God to experience as a timeless being. The problem with Cambridge change is the "change" bit, not the external relations bit.  

R.T. Mullins is also insistent that Classical Theism denies that God can have extrinsic properties.  This would be disastrous for the tradition if true.  But I doubt that it is true.  Here’s a quote from Aquinas: “Thus there is nothing to prevent these names which import relation to the creature from being predicated of God temporally, not by reason of any change in Him, but by reason of the change of the creature; as a column is on the right of an animal, without change in itself, but by change in the animal.” - Summa Theologica, question 13, article 7. 

Perhaps the tradition is inconsistent on this point.  This depends on whether Mullins' citations that he believes show that the tradition denies extrinsic relations can withstand scrutiny.  I've only checked his Augustine citations, and it does seem like Mullins has a decent chance of misunderstanding Augustine on this score.  Still, even if the tradition is inconsistent, a modern proponent of Classical Theism can just choose to excise the inconsistent elements of the tradition and hold onto the more plausible bits, and yet claim to be within the tradition.  

But really, I'm not *too* interested in the historical interpretative question.  I would really rather know whether Classical Theism can stand on its own.

The Problem of Temporary Intrinsics

Leibniz’s Law holds that identity requires indiscernibility, that is, that "two" purportedly identical objects must share all of "their" properties in common for "them" to be identical.  But we assume that identical objects can have varying properties at different temporal points in their existence.  This is known as the problem of Temporary Intrinsics.  

The solution to this problem that I prefer is known as perdurantism.  It holds that some object, let’s say Daryl, at t is not identical to Daryl at t+1, and that Daryl simpliciter is not identical to either Daryl at t or Daryl at t+1.  Instead, Daryl at t and Daryl at t+1 are mere parts of Daryl, and parts of an object can have different properties without violating Leibniz’s Law.

If we combine perdurantism with trope theory, we can say that my existence at various times is a trope of me.  I am, fundamentally, a four-dimensional object with the various temporal existences as tropes of me.

This move better preserves the Aristotelian insight that wholes ground their parts, rather than parts grounding the wholes.  

Killing Babies as a Means to Ensure Their Salvation?

If all babies automatically go to heaven, what’s so wrong with abortion? Or with the homicide of infants? But I repeat myself.

First - Let’s grant that it would be better for a person who has a significant risk of going to hell to instead die as an infant so as to ensure their salvation.  

But perhaps that’s not the state that we should assume infants to be in.  Perhaps all infants that die are instead destined to have been Christians whether or not they died in infancy - that is, perhaps all such infants that die are all destined to have been Christians if they had the chance to reach adulthood.  So we are not actually depriving these infants of a risk for hell - rather, we’re depriving them of a rich life that would have been in addition to their eternal destination in heaven.  It’s important to remember that our earthly lives matter and have value even if we’re headed to heaven.  Our lives matter.  Our jobs matter.  Our spouses matter.  Our loyalty to Christ this side of heaven matters.  We’ve deprived these infants of their decision to turn to Christ, to choose a spouse and have children, to grow in gifts for the kingdom and to increase in merit for their heavenly reward.  If we kill these premature “subjunctive Christians,” we deprive them of these goods.  Presumably at least *some* infants are this way, and we’re unable to tell which infants are which.  

Here’s an argument for thinking that there’s a significant chance that the above story is *true.*  Perhaps God has arranged history so that any and all infants who die in their infancy are people who *would have* chosen Christ in their maturity if they had been given a chance.  God’s motive for arranging history in such a way might be due to his desire to save infants and to keep heaven occupied by people who wish to be in the presence of Christ, and these subjunctive Christians are such citizens.

To murder a person so as to assure their salvation also violates the Pauline Principle, a fundamental principle of ethics which holds that we should not work evil so that good may result.  We need to keep in mind that to murder such innocents doesn’t just harm the innocent, but the murderer himself as well, by damaging his moral character and setting his intention on working harm to another person.  Such murderous intent, even if it results in a better state-of-affairs, transforms the perpetrator for the worse and corrupts their heart. 

Besides, we’re really not *sure* where infants end up.  There’s good probable reason to think that God grants them automatic access to heaven, but this is to a large extent speculation.  It could be that God rapidly matures deceased infants post-mortem and offers them a choice after their death.  Or it could be that they spend eternity in some lesser form of heaven, a type of Limbo.  We’re not sure.  We certainly shouldn’t be murdering people on the basis of a speculation.  

Profession of Jesus as a Necessary Condition for Salvation

William Lane Craig has affirmed that it is possible for people to be “saved through Christ’s atoning death by their response to God’s general revelation in nature and conscience.”  He holds that the profession of Jesus is a sufficient but not necessary condition for salvation, and uses the examples of Abraham and Moses to prove the point - for they were not capable of professing Jesus, as they did not know about him, and yet are presumably among the saved.

Let’s call this view:

Christian Ontic-Exclusivism (COE): A person may not be saved apart from Christ’s atoning death, though they may be saved apart from knowing about his atoning death.

It seems impossible for an Orthodox Christian to deny *at least* this doctrine.  But perhaps it’s too weak.  Many (especially conservative Evangelical) Christians wish to affirm something stronger, which we’ll call:

Christian Noetic-Exclusivism (CNE):  A person is only saved due to Christ’s atoning death and they must also explicitly confess and affirm this claim to be saved.

It seems like it’d be easy to defeat CNE - just consider the case of Abraham.  He’s a man that’s presumably among the saved and yet never explicitly confessed Jesus.  But there’s two suggestions that I can think of to mitigate this response:  (a) The limbo of the fathers response and (b) the dispensation response.  The limbo response, which depends on a controversial interpretation of 1 Peter 3:18-19, would hold that Abraham and the other patriarchs were not among the saved and were held in limbo until Christ preached the gospel to them on Holy Saturday.  Upon receiving the gospel, they became saved.  This is a very controversial take and seems to imply the possibility of post-mortem conversion.  As for (b), it’d hold that CNE was false prior to the life of Jesus, but holds subsequent to his ascension.  Perhaps it can find support in Acts 17:30-31.  I’m not endorsing either of these views, just trying to map the territory.

Still, if we ultimately reject CNE, COE seems to invite problems.  We might call it the problem of Lewisian Inclusivism, wherein the urgency and need for missions is undermined as people can be saved apart from the explicit promulgation of the gospel.  How are we to avoid this pitfall of COE?

Here’s one doctrine that may help with COE:

Strong Implicit Faith:  Faith in Jesus that will activate when presented with the Gospel.

For if a person outright rejects Jesus, then they do not truly love God.  But if they love God, then their failure to trust in Christ *must* be due to their never having heard of Christ.  That is, if a person is responding positively to the minimal information they have about God, then they will respond positively to God’s revelation in Jesus if and when it is presented to them.  

Further, even if some avail themselves of the revelation available in nature and conscience are saved and are members of non-Christian religions, it does not follow that they are saved on the basis of their religion.  They may be saved *in* their religion, but not because of it.  

The second way to help with COE is to hold to the rarity of people who embrace God’s revelation in nature and conscience.  If we hold that the gospel is a more effective means to attract people to God than that of general revelation, that through it only and not through the mere witness of God in nature will some be saved, then it seems that we can stave off the problems implicit in Lewisian Inclusivism.

Still, maybe we were too quick to abandon CNE.  After all, there is a difference between the man who has only God’s revelation in nature and conscience versus the Old Testament patriarchs - for they had direct and special revelation from God on top of the general revelation.  

This hints towards another solution.  We can weaken CNE to accommodate this insight and make it more plausible:  

Weakened-CNE:  A person is only saved due to Christ’s atoning death and they must also have explicit faith in this claim, either (a) in its vague not-yet prophetic promissory form or (b) in its fulfilled form.  

This requires a bit of explanation.  The ‘fulfilled form’ of this faith is a faith that holds and accepts the historical person, Jesus of Nazareth, as the man who has accomplished our salvation.  The vague form of this faith is a faith that holds and accepts the promises that a person will come and accomplish our salvation for us.  These promises and prophecies are direct and specially revealed to the patriarchs, and it’s their faith in them that saves them.  Historically, Protestants have pointed at the protoevangelium in Genesis 3, the promise to Abraham that God would provide the lamb in Genesis 22, and the cultic symbolism embodied in the Temple throughout the OT as the implicit and vague presentation of the Gospel.  

I think this move better preserves the spirit of conservative Evangelicalism and has some precedent in earlier Protestant thought.  Still, even Weakened-CNE has another problem.  If children and severely mentally handicapped people are saved, Weakened-CNE cannot hold for them in an ordinary sense.  

A few responses are available:  Perhaps God in the afterlife rapidly matures infants and heals the mentally handicapped so that they may make an informed decision for the gospel, so that they are still saved only on the basis of CNE.  This would commit one to post-mortem conversion. Or perhaps we could further weaken CNE to hold only in the normal cases of morally culpable persons.  Perhaps that seems ad hoc, but it’s at least well motivated.

Or we can just ultimately embrace a Calvinist soteriology and hold that, post-ascension, the elect are co-extensive with a subset of those who have heard the gospel proclaimed.  So there are no individuals among the elect who have not heard the gospel, and this due to God's decision. Simple.

Or we can just embrace William Lane Craig's Molinist solution and hold that all who would have positively responded to the gospel will in fact have an opportunity to hear it.  The man on the island would not have responded to it, so has no guarantee of hearing it, and will instead be condemned on the basis of his poor response to conscience and nature.

Rebutting the Infertility Objection

Infertile couples are able to join in one-body union, an extremely intimate joining together of their biological halves into a complete body striving together, as a union, towards the good goal of reproduction.  They become a whole and the whole as a whole has a goal.  That they cannot achieve the goal of reproduction does not mean that they are not, as whole, striving towards it.  A basketball team that cannot win still nevertheless plays the game.  A man striving to fight off a lion and failing in the end still truly strove to survive.

Infertile couples still have the type of organs that are capable of engaging in reproductive striving.  If their reproductive organs were no longer capable of striving towards reproduction, it seems like we’d have to say that these organs are no longer reproductive.  Recall the alien analogy.  How would we explain their organs to an alien? By listing their function as reproductive organs.  It doesn’t matter whether or not they can succeed or not.  The man who strove against the hungry lion and failed still really did strive to survive.  And it’s the striving as a biological whole that unites two people as one body.

Gays cannot strive to the goal as a whole and thus cannot join in one body union.

Contra Contraception

First Argument:  It is wrong to act contrary to love.  Romantic love seeks one body union.  Contraception acts against what romantic love seeks.  So contraception is wrong.

This argument probably relies on the distinction between doing and refraining, as without this distinction it would seem to condemn abstinence along with contraception.  But abstinence is not a positive action, but a refrain.  Contraception requires a positive action acting against what romantic love seeks.  The distinction between killing and letting die is also an example of this distinction.  Abstinence is non-unitive while contraception is anti-unitive.

Second Argument:  Acts that undermine a person’s integrity are wrong.  To prevent intercourse from attaining its goal is to oppose one’s body while the body strives for the consummation.  It is a going back on that love, which is against integrity.  

Third Argument:  A person becomes disunited with their body when they contracept.  They are acting against the goal that their body is acting towards.  And in sexual union, two persons are supposed to be united through their bodies.  So in being disunited from their bodies, they are being disunited from each other.  

Fourth Argument:  In engaging in sex, a couple is presumably striving for feelings of closeness and union.  But the feelings are being contradicted by the reality of a contraceptive act that acts against this striving.  It’s deceptive and undermines the value of intercourse.

Fifth Argument:  It is wrong to act against basic human goods.  Life is a basic human good.  Contraception acts against the good of life by having an intentional prevention of the coming into existence of human life as one of its goals.  

Contra Pantheism

Leibniz holds that the reality of independent creaturely activity is a necessary but not sufficient condition to ward off pantheism.  It is not sufficient to refute pantheism, as a pantheist may quip that God’s parts could be active.  This lies behind Leibniz's denial of Occasionalism.

Classical Theism holds that God creates things that are apart and external to God.  But it also emphasizes the dependence of created things on God.  Leibniz tried to strike a balance between these two principles by holding to a doctrine of concurrence.

If pantheism means that we are parts of God in the way that my hand is a part of my body, then we seem to have good reason for seeing pantheism as anathema. 

Second, if creatures are not sufficiently independent of God, then the problem of evil seems insoluble - for evil is the responsibility of creatures, and not God.

Third, given Leibniz's Law, we only need to find a single property possessed by creation that is not possessed by God to deny their identity.

Fourth, it seems that if pantheism is true then some possibilities do not and will not exist.  Spinoza’s necessitarianism looms on the horizon. 

Forgiveness

What is forgiveness?  It's assumed to be a common-sense term, but I've had trouble grasping it.  Given its centrality as a concept in my religion, I had better get some idea of it, I suppose.

Here’s WLC:  The philosophical literature typically treats forgiveness as a subjective change of attitude on the part of the person wronged, a determination to put away feelings of resentment, bitterness, or anger, a relinquishing of the desire for revenge. 

Forgiveness understood in this way does not preclude a retributive view of justice. One can personally forgive someone and still have the legal system demand satisfaction from them.

The ‘Aqedah

Two Questions: (a) How is what Abraham attempted to do not wrong?  (b) And how is what Abraham attempted to do commendable?  

Paul Copan’s Suggestion:  Given a world in which death is constantly conjoined by near instantaneous resurrection, death wouldn’t seem nearly as bad.  And within this context, we can better appreciate the context of Abraham’s act - for Abraham believed, and had sufficient reason to believe, that God was capable and willing to resurrect Isaac in the event of his death prior to the fulfillment of the promise.

Mark Murphy’s Suggestion:  Abraham was acting as God’s executioner for the sins of Isaac.  So the act was not a private killing, but a justly sanctioned execution for wrongdoing.

Alexander Pruss’s Suggestion:  God did not give Isaac life, but lent it to him.  God has the right to terminate the lease whenever he wishes to do so.  This line of thought is given greater weight in light of Conservationism, the doctrine that God keeps creation in existence by a continuous act of upholding it in being.  If God were to withdraw his upholding action, creation would slip into non-being.  

I think these suggestions adequately answer (a).  What about (b)?

Here’s my best theory at the moment.  Abraham showed that he was not placing the fulfillment of the promises above the Supreme Good.  He was not guilty of idolatry.  Given our sinful state, we’re drawn to prioritize visible worldly things.  Abraham was able to shun this temptation and place his desires and hopes on the invisible God instead.  That Abraham was willing to obey the Supreme Good, even when it was personally costly, shows his dedication and regard for God.

Useful Resource on Substance Dualism: Brandon Rickabaugh

I'm sure this website will provide useful in the future:  https://www.brandonrickabaugh.com/

The Closure Principle and Plantinga's EAAN

This is more a note for future research:

From William Lane Craig: "The closure principle requires that all physical events have only physical causes. If there do exist immaterial entities, they are irrelevant because of the causal closure of the physical domain. Materialists may embrace or deny the reality of mental states of awareness, but they all deny their causal efficacy in the material world. Plantinga’s argument is therefore best cast as the Evolutionary Argument against the Causal Closure of the Physical (EAACCP).  [. . .]  Is EAACCP successful? I can’t go into the question here, but suffice it to say that on the basis of Andrew Moon’s trenchant analysis of the argument, I am persuaded that Plantinga’s argument is successful."

Link

Outline of Jackson's "The Ethics of Religious Belief"

1. The problem:  It seems that Christianity holds that we are obligated to believe certain things.  But beliefs don’t seem to be subject to our control, so how can we be held responsible for holding or not holding any beliefs?

All three of these seem intuitive:

(1) We ought to believe certain things (e.g. certain religious doctrines).

(2) Ought implies can.

(3) We cannot voluntarily control our beliefs.

Three possible responses to the triad.  

The first denies (1), holding that we do not have obligations to believe any propositions.  The obligations are located elsewhere instead, such as obligations to act rightly or to commit oneself to religion.  

The second option denies (2), that ought-implies-can.  I won’t be discussing this approach as I don’t find it very plausible.

The third option denies (3), but breaks into two camps.  One holds that while we do not have direct control over our beliefs, we do have indirect control.  The other holds that we do have some kind of direct control over our beliefs.

2. Rejecting (1)

Reject that we ought to believe certain things.  This view takes the strictly involuntarist approach that we do not have the ability to control our beliefs so are not obligated to believe any specific doctrine.  Instead, God wants us to take certain stances and volitions towards himself and the world.  

Note:  This actually looks quite similar to my proposal in Philo and Faith.  We’re not obligated to believe certain things, for those things are provided to us as part of our epistemic build - the Sensus Divinitatis - instead, we’re obligated to take certain stances towards those propositions.  

3. Rejecting (3)

Rejecting (3) is my preferred approach.  It comes in two flavors:  

1. We can directly control our beliefs.  

2. We can only control our beliefs indirectly.

We’ll explain and defend (b) first.

          An example of indirect control: 

Our blood pressure.  We cannot control it immediately, by a simple act of will, but we    can influence it over a longer period of time.

Similarly for religious belief.  We can influence it over a longer course of time by attending church, being around religious people, surveying the evidences for theism, and so on.  This is reminiscent of Pascal’s suggestion.  

It’s inevitable that we all make selective choices about evidence.  We have to decide what evidence to focus on, who to listen to, and what we read in almost every epistemic situation.  We can make it likely that we will form certain beliefs, and this is the source of our religious doxastic obligations.

Note:  Doxastic involuntarism has only recently been widely received.  Aristotle, Augustine, Newman, Locke, Kant, Pascal, Clifford and so on all disagreed with it.  Swinburne is an involuntarist.

One type of indirect control we have over our beliefs is a type of will-commitment.  If it is weak, it’s more easily given up.  We can own or disown our beliefs, making it much more likely we maintain them down the line.  If belief in God is a central life commitment, it makes it more likely that the belief persists over time.  

Turning to option (a), Jackson now explains and defends cases where we can have direct control over our beliefs.

Direct Control over Beliefs:  The idea that a belief can be a basic action that doesn’t require any intervening actions or causes.   Or, if believing isn’t a basic action, then it can be controlled via a short series of other actions. 

We have such direct control over going on a run, making dinner, etc., even though we cannot do those things in a swift uninterrupted single act.  

Perhaps theistic belief could be similar, such as a deliberate act of focusing on certain aspects of one’s evidence.  

Here’s one case where direct control for theism or religious propositions may be possible:  

Imagine that our evidence doesn’t strongly push us one way or another.  In this case, it seems we can form our beliefs for non-evidential reasons, such as desires, emotions, et.  This enables us to believe *beyond* the evidence but not against it.

Epistemic Permissivism:  The view that in some evidential situations, there is more than one rational attitude one can take toward a proposition p.  

If permissivism is true, then two people can share evidence and take different positions on whether God exists, and both be perfectly rational.  It’s not at all clear that non-evidential factors couldn’t play a role in determining whether one believes.  If there’s an epistemic tie, why couldn’t that tie be broken by one’s will or desires?  Especially so if there’s a *forced* choice, when you must pick one of the options, it’s not clear that you couldn't pick one for practical reasons.  

Permissivism is the key to our original puzzle.  It provides a compelling reason to deny (3).

Many of the cases used to motivate involuntarism involve propositions that are clearly true or false; the authors point out that you cannot believe something that is clearly false, even for a significant practical benefit.  But these arguments fail to consider the possibility that one is in a permissive case.

Consider Inwagen’s conversion story, which seems to be a permissive case:  “There was a period of transition, a period during which I could move back and forth at will.”

Thus permissivism clears space for voluntarism, even of a direct sort.  

Conclusion:  We could take a combination of the three options.

IV. Bonus (Taken from Jackson’s IEP article on Faith)

Anscombe thinks that it’s possible to both hold that rational faith does not violate evidentialism, while also thinking that faith can be resilient in the face of counter-evidence.

Here’s the suggestion for how this works:  Faith is based on testimony.  Testimony is a form of evidence. The sense in which faith goes beyond the evidence is that it goes beyond certain kinds of evidence - like visual evidence, perhaps - while nevertheless still being evidentially based.  

Note: This approach is very similar to Philo’s, as I argued in my Philo paper.

This view construes the testimonia in primarily evidential terms, while Plantinga sees it more as a mental faculty producing reliable beliefs.  Perhaps both tracks can be taken together.