Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Rosenhouse Dissects Johnson

    Jason Rosenhouse has an excellent discussion or even better dissection of some recent writing by Philip Johnson. I’ve had this partial entry on Johnson sitting amongst my drafts for ages, but since Johnson is now bringing forth many of the same arguments, and Rosenhouse has quite thoroughly demolished them, I will simply refer you to his post.

    For some reason lawyers think they have a special handle on argument, but on scientific and religious topics it appears to be largely vacuous. Perhaps they should allow some facts to interfere somehow.

  • Plantinga on The God Delusion

    Ben Witherington alerted me to Plantinga’s review of Dawkins’ book The God Delusion on Christianity Today. Now I must be frank (well, no, I don’t have to, but I will!) and say that I find philosophers provide the most annoying of reading. They seem to me to be the world’s best rationalizers, providing excellent reasons to believe what they already believe. I have previously commented on some other work by Plantinga in my post An Evolutionary Understanding of Kinds, and I found his arguments in favor of a theistic science pretty seriously unconvincing. Other philosophers regard him as a heavyweight, however, so I suppose he must be.

    In this case, I haven’t read The God Delusion because I suspect it’s largely going to annoy me. I truly love Dawkins when he is writing about scientific topics, and I note that Plantinga expresses much the same sentiment for many passages on biology. Dawkins is a gifted science writer. But I find his hostility toward theism, and particularly liberal theism as kind of gratuitous. Having discovered that complexity can come from simplicity without any demonstrable guidance (a point on which Plantinga disagrees with him), Dawkins seems anxious to move forward and make claims about things he can’t possibly know.

    Of course, making claims about things you can’t possibly know is a time honored religious tradition. So if Dawkins were to admit that he is speculating, I would generally have no problem with what he does. As it is, I just avoid reading those portions of his writing. I’ve already heard the argument. I’m still a theist. I shrug my shoulders and go on.

    Now I’m not going to quote more than a few lines of the lengthy review. You really should read the whole thing to get the flavor. But Plantinga seems to believe that the evidence is solid for his viewpoint, and Dawkins is on thin ice. I think they’re both well past the ice, and just waiting, like cartoon characters, for the law of gravity to notice. As a theist, I look back at the chasm over which I have leapt in a classic leap of faith, and I have great understanding for those who shake their heads and call me an idiot. I think my concept of God works well with the universe as it is, but I know the evidence I see admits of other explanations.

    Arguments like fine-tuning sound so good in philosophy classrooms, but when it comes right down to it, I know I have to start my argument from the point of view of a universe that was capable of producing me to think about it. In practical terms, astronomical odds against my being here are irrelevant. I’m here, after all. (Yes, I know, philosphers don’t think that’s a good answer, but I think it’s a real answer.) Even more, though, all arguments about the probability of one type of universe existing over another are founded on nothing. Nobody knows just how a universe comes into existence at all, nor at this point whether there is one universe or many, or if many, in what relationship they are to one another. We cannot even imagine what creatures might inhabit a universe substantially different from ours, and who might speculate on the existence of God because their universe was precisely designed for them.

    The thing that really gets me about Plantinga’s argument, and Dawkins’s, if Plantinga has characterized it accurately, is that it places both Dawkins and Plantinga in the position of claiming their own position is true, because it hasn’t been disproven. In other words, Plantinga wants us to default to his position, Dawkins to his. Plantinga summarizes what he thinks Dawkins’s argument amounts to:

    We know of no irrefutable objections to its being possible that p;
    Therefore
    p is true.

    But to me, both arguments push beyond the bounds of science, and both questions should be answered with a form of “I don’t know.” And here Plantinga has the upper hand. He is a philosopher, and is thus doing the stuff he is supposed to be doing. When he starts talking about theistic science elsewhere, I think he transgresses in the other direction, but here he is on the ground appropriate to his field. (I am an interloper in either direction, but it’s my blog and I get to interlope!) Dawkins, on the other hand, whether he intends it or not, is seen as a spokesman for science saying that there is no God, no supernatural. And science is simply not capable of testing that. It can see the effects, but it can’t track them back.

    All of this leaves me in pretty much the same place I was when I started. But Plantinga’s review is interesting and well worth reading.

  • Abortion and Moral Good-An Illustration of Extremes

    A post on the evangelical outpost alerted me to a minor tempest about abortion rights. It seems that Amanda Marcotte believes that abortion is a moral good, something to be celebrated.

    Having recently encountered the notion that one trully cannot take the position I do, that abortion in the bulk of cases is to be abhorred, but that making it unlawful is not the best strategy for limiting it in our society, I find it interesting to see the same position taken by the other side. Marcotte says:

    Also, saying that abortion is morally questionable, even if you’re pro-choice, is a huge insult to the brave men and women who risk life and limb to perform them.

    Which simply adds that to a whole list of other things I can’t possibly do, but do anyhow, such as supporting our troops, but opposing the war our political leaders have sent them to fight. As a moral choice, I think that there are a very few cases in which I could morally support the decision for someone to have an abortion, such as serious risk to the life of the mother. I don’t buy the notion that we can’t decide who lives or dies–we do that every day. We just like to pretend that we’re leaving it in God’s hands.

    As an aside, this whole business of “leaving it in God’s hands” suggests to me the picture of someone in a hospital bed, with machines breathing for him, tubes feeding him, and various monitors attached to every part of his body. Then somebody says, “We can’t disconnect the tubes, we need to leave it in the hands of God.” Well if those tubes are sticking out of me, or if my life is being preserved on the off chance that I might come out of a coma some years later, pull the tubes and truly leave it in God’s hands. (And yes, the responsible parties, including my health-care surrogate are aware of my views.)

    What I think is morally reprehensible is the notion that we can’t choose responsible behavior in the first place, i.e. that the decision to produce the baby in the first place is too difficult, yet it’s OK to make abortion an easy option. I don’t think it can be, or will be, an easy option no matter what you do. For various reasons, I want to keep it legal, but “legal” and “right” are not equivalent in my view.

    Thus I’m angered by Marcotte’s rhetoric, but I simply see it as part of the continued insistence by people on both sides of this debate to leave the majority of the country out of the debate, or alternatively to define them into one camp or the other whether they fit there or not.

  • Why I Dislike Both Major Parties

    One of the few things the Democrats and Republicans can agree on is measures to keep themselves in power. This includes limiting access to the ballot and making sure that the election system continues to favor the two major parties.

    Thus, it’s good news that the supreme court has agreed to review the appeals court decision that has set aside the voting system in Washington state as unconstitutional (scotusblog and story on CQPolitics).

    I lived in Washington in the good old days of the pre-2003 open primary system, and I truly appreciated it. Anyone could get on the initial ballot, but you were guaranteed a general election ballot with a limited number of candidates. That system was abandoned earlier as unconstitutional.

    I’m not going to get into the details of constitutional law on this one, but I believe it’s a stretch to call these unconstitutional. The 9 robed ones in the other Washington get to make that decision. But from a political point of view, I believe the country would benefit from this type of system nationwide. The idea that we must choose between an abominable Republican and an obnoxious Democrat (or vice versa) is one of the causes of political apathy, not that I allow such an excuse–in a democracy all should get involved and have only themselves to blame for the result if they don’t.

    I believe the problem the two parties have with this is not that someone who is not really a Republican or really a Democrat (who can tell?) might get on the ballot against the will of the party. Rather, their problem is that in the initial election everyone starts equal. There is no automatical appearance for a Democratic or Republican candidate. There is no particular benefit, except for the effort a party can make for the candidate, to being affiliated with a party.

    The Washington state system solves many perceived problems of minor party participation. What about the multiplicity of parties diluting the vote so that a candidate who actually only represents a minority of the constituency can be elected? Ignoring the fact that in many cases the “hold your nose” vote probably means much the same thing, the Washington system still provides only two candidates for the general election. The legal issues may be a bit thornier, but in practical terms, I think it’s an excellent solution. Opposition by both the Democratic and Republican parties of Washtingon only makes me more certain. Anything those guys can agree on, I’m probably against!

  • Journalistic Duty and the Jesus Ossuary

    Carl Zimmer has an excellent short post at The Loom commenting on the journalistic duties involved. Go read it–it will only take a few moments, but it makes a critical point.

    One of the failures of the Christian response to this is to get over-the-top about attacks on Christianity, when what we are actually dealing with is an unscientific report irresponsibly presented. Zimmer has hit the nail directly on the head on this one.

  • Is it a Hoax?

    Rev. Rob Schenck of the National Clergy Council issued a statement attacking the forthcoming documentary on the grave of Jesus and his family. It was titled TV Special on Jesus’ Grave — a Hoax?. Though I have already commented on what I see is a completely unscientific and unscholarly hype, this is not terribly surprising in terms of the shallow reporting the media gives to historical projects. “Hoax” is probably too strong a word. One must, after all, take into account the standards (such as they are) of the industry before condemning a single individual. The documentary will probably have as much truth as one would expect–very little.

    But Rev. Schenck himself engaged in some similarly unscientific and unscholarly rhetoric himself:

    “Media outlets should exercise restraint in reporting Cameron’s Hollywood fiction masquerading as scientific fact. All of Jesus’ contemporaries recorded Christ rose after being dead for three days and ascended into Heaven. For 2,000 years people of faith along and countless scholars have pored over the Scriptures, confirming their veracity. A Hollywood director is the least qualified to render any determination of Biblical truth. Not only so, but the people Mr. Cameron has partnered with completely lack credibility. One has been discredited by experts as a charlatan. This is nothing more than a modern day circus sideshow. At best it is pure presumption. At worst, it is pure chicanery.” [Emphasis mine]

    Instead of responding with a more reasoned approach to the evidence, Schenck responds with hyped rhetoric. It is plainly obvious that not every contemporary recorded that Jesus rose and ascended into heaven. That might be good advertising copy, but it is not good scholarship, nor does it do anything to promote a Christian understanding. The second sentence I emphasized simply affirms that Christians have believed in the resurrection. It is certainly debatable from a historical point of view. It’s interesting also that the National Clergy Council chooses to present a response from a person whose bio shows no signs of any qualifications in archeology or history at all.

    For me, the resurrection of Jesus is an article of faith. I welcome neither careless documentaries, as this one will almost doubtless turn out to be (it’s claims are clearly excessive), nor do I welcome hyped and careless defense of my faith.

  • Finding the Tomb of Jesus

    A documentary to be shown on the Discovery Channel purports to have discovered the tomb and the ossuary of Jesus (CNN story here).

    I’m amazed that something like this would be called a “documentary” since there is next to no possibility of sufficient evidence for such a claim. The sad thing is that archeological claims, when popularized, rarely resemble anything a trained archeologist would actually say. Archeology is not about searching for a specific person’s remains or some specific artifact, Indiana Jones movies notwithstanding.

    This is not, however, solely a province of opponents of Christianity. When archeological discoveries have even the slightest relationship to the Biblical text, Christians will portray them as new “proofs” of the accuracy of the Bible. Inevitably they do no such thing, but each side contributes to this attitude of proving or disproving. Then of course others make discoveries that disprove Christianity, but later these prove to be no such thing either.

    Scientific historical study doesn’t work this way. The point is not to prove or disprove an entire collection of documents, such as the Bible, but rather to determine historicity point by point and create a most probable reconstruction of historical events. That process involves a great deal of nuance, and a willingness to admit ignorance in many cases, or tentative conclusions in many others.

    Both the statements “archeology proves the Bible” and “archeology disproves the Bible” are silly. The Bible is not a single source from the historical point of view, and sources are not proven or disproven, rather, individual elements of a story will be determined to be more or less probable.

  • The Balance of Outrage

    Frequently I see the challenge to outrage on blogs or even occasionally in print media. It goes something like this: Group A has been very outraged by X, the horror of which is minimized by the writer. The writer describes something that outrages him or her, surely much more horrible than X, and wonders if Group A will be duly outraged by this new thing. If they don’t, they are inconsistent and possibly morally reprehensible.

    I’m not really aiming this at anyone in particular. I’m certainly guilty of this very behavior. The idea is that we have to expend appropriate amounts of outrage and the various bad things that happen. Our outrage should balance, and will say something about our true moral beliefs. A lack of expressed outrage is sometimes taken as an indication that someone secretly approves of the horrifying action, or perhaps is totally apathetic.

    Well, I’m resigning from this little game. I think it’s silly. I cannot be outraged about all the outrageous things that go on in the world. There are simply too many. I cannot express my outrage at all the things that do outrage me. Time at the keyboard would fail me.

    Many different things go into personal outrage, a personal connection being the most important. Other factors also enter into writing about such outrage. There are a number of issues that have angered me a great deal, but yet have not moved me to write. Often this is because I can’t think of anything to say that I feel would be constructive. In other cases, I don’t believe I can gather enough facts to back up whatever I say. (Sometimes that doesn’t stop me!) At other times I feel that so many people have expressed themselves on an issue that anything I might say would be superfluous.

    So when I express outrage at something here, it means nothing more or less than it says. It doesn’t mean that’s the only thing that annoys me at the moment. It doesn’t mean that I think other issues on which I have not commented are unimportant. It doesn’t mean that I have created a hierarchy of outrage, and am now blogging through the top 10. If you challenge me to outrage so as to prove my sincerity, I’ll evaluate it in the same way. If you think this makes me insincere, well, that’s you’re problem.

    Enjoy being outraged! 🙂

  • Word Study Dangers: Glosses and Definitions

    In my previous entry in this series I noted the difference between a gloss and a definition. To review:

    First, let me distinguish between a “gloss” and a “definition.” A “gloss” is a word or phrase proposed as a translation for a word in the source language. When a Greek student is taught that “pistis” means “faith” what he is learning is a “gloss.” Contrast that with the following from the Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains: “that which is completely believable—‘what can be fully believed, that which is worthy of belief, believable evidence, proof” [Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996, c1989). Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament : Based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition.) (Vol. 1, Page 370). New York: United Bible societies)]. While I could complain just a bit, the latter is a definition, rather than a mere gloss.

    Two pitfalls that are related must be avoided. The first is trying to create a single definition for a word that covers the whole range of meaning of a word. Most words actually have clusters of meaning and sometimes these don’t even overlap. Native speakers naturally apply the precise definition of a word for the particular circumstances. In American English, for example, we have the word trunk, which may reference the trunk of an elephant, a trunk in which one packs clothes, the rear compartment of one’s car, the main torso of a person’s body, or the main shaft of a tree. In British English you have a boot that you put on your foot, or the boot of a car, which is the same as the American trunk. These definitions are related, but are better defined separately.

    Now imagine how silly it would sound if someone reads me a passage about a tree, and then asks what the word trunk means in that passage, and I respond by reading the full list of definitions. Obviously the person asking wants the definition of trunk as it applies to trees, and that is the only definition to provide. Yet preachers regularly read a list of definitions from Webster’s (a favorite with American prechers), and proceed as though the congregation now understands the English word.

    Let’s think about the process here. First there is a word in the source language. Translators carefully choose an English word whose meaning adequately expresses a similar meaning. The semantic range of the two words will not be equivalent, but they overlap adequately to provide a meaningul sense in the translation. Now an English speaking preacher or teaching comes along and reads the full list of definitions of the English word, each of which represents a range of meaning for that word. The result is not clarity, but rather a fog. Because the listeners have seen the dictionary consulted, they feel that they have a meaning, but were you to ask them precisely what that was, they wouldn’t know, or even worse, they might know something that was just not so.

    The second is a kind of reverse of the above. In this case the preacher or teacher announces that the Greek word that we here have translated ____ actually means . . .” and then reads a list of glosses from the concordance or from a standard Greek lexicon. Again, only one of those meanings will be the center of the range of meaning.

    I’m going to keep this entry short. Let me just conclude by restating the key factor in word studies: The result should be finding a working definition that fits precisely in the specific context.

    Next: Word Study Dangers: Your Dependence on Scholars

  • With Reasons Like These . . .

    . . . who needs rationalizations? I refer to the article 7 Reasons Why (it’s title in the title bar) also titled “Key Issues Regarding Bible Translation.” This is on the domain genderneutralbibles.com, (yes, Virginia, there really is a genderneutralbibles.com!).

    A while back I blogged on Mark Driscoll’s reasons for using the ESV at his church. But with highly credentialed people to feed pastors misinformation, what should we expect? I am freshly astounded at the poor quality of argumentation and even of exegesis that is used in these articles, even though I shouldn’t be, because I have read these so many times before. Much of this is warmed over KJV-Only argumentation, just used a little bit more narrowly.

    Let’s look at some of the major problems with this essay.

    In discussing 1 Kings 2:10, the authors wax quite eloquent about the wonders of the metaphor “slept with his fathers” as opposed to “died,” preferring the Hebrew metaphor for death to a modern understanding. One should, of course, note that the metaphor is a Hebrew metaphor, and question whether the modern English reader in fact hears all of the things the translators expect. This underlines one of the common problems with the arguments of advocates for literal translation: They speak constantly of what meaning a word, phrase, or passage “contains” without asking what an audience will hear when reading that translation. What is lacking is any testing to see precisely what people will hear and understand.

    This is precisely how I was awakened out of my own apathy on the issue of translations. I was already a fan of dynamic equivalence translations, and thought the KJV was hopelessly out of date in terms of language. But I felt there was no great reason for me to argue with anyone else about this until I was invited to teach on the history of the Bible to a group of high school aged young people. A couple of the students used the KJV, and when they would read, nobody, including them, understood. Now I still see no problem with my mother using the KJV. She’s 87 years old, has read it all her life, and can understand it quite well. But those young people could not. Why should I spend my teaching time in teaching them how to understand 17th century language?

    But that incident started me on learning something very important, other than the realization that many people try to use the KJV even though they don’t really understand it. It suggested to me that the right way to discover how well a Bible translation functioned was to ask people to read it or hear it, and then to explain what they had heard. This applies to the use of gender language, or in this case to the particular metaphor, “slept with his fathers.” Does this metaphor mean all those things to actual church congregations, new believers, or non-Christians? I haven’t tested that particular one, though I suspect the answer is that few people would come up with all the wonderful meanings for the metaphor that our authors find. The problem is that those authors are blithely unconcerned with what people understand. For them, communication is all about what’s “in” the text, not about what readers actually understand from it.

    Thus we see the following:

    Supporters of essentially literal translations would agree that the dynamic equivalence rendering “then David died” does translate the main idea into contemporary English, but they would add that it is better to translate all of the words of the Hebrew original, including the word shakab (which means, “to lie down, sleep”), and the words ‘im (which means “with”), and