Deuteronomy 30:14

I had a conversation not too long ago with some friends of mine at church. I am one of the few Calvinists at the predominantly Arminian church, and naturally, that leads to a little tension (which is not necessarily a bad thing, if handled gracefully). One evening we were talking about human ability in salvation. As a Calvinist, I have a rather negative view of it. One of my friends, on the other hand, pointed out that Deuteronomy 30:14 says that we are in fact able to obey God's word.

Now right away, I should point out that this friend of mine wasn't even defending Arminianism, but rather Pelagianism. I am sure that my friend had good intentions (I commend Arminians for their desire to preserve human responsibility, although I disagree with the reasoning by which they defend it). But even Arminius acknowledged that humans cannot obey the law, but need Christ's atoning sacrifice to cover their sins. In the Arminian view, human ability comes into play in the matter of receiving the offer of the gospel, not in the matter of meeting the demands of the law.

But we are still stuck with that verse in Deuteronomy, which certainly seems to support a Pelagian view, at least at first glance. But we need to take this passage in its proper context. According to the broader text, there are two things necessary for obeying God's law: (1) knowing what the law is, and (2) having a desire to obey it. Obedience is not possible without both conditions being met. Now in 30:14, the author is saying that because God has condescended to reveal his word, we meet condition (1). We don't have to strive to seek out God's word, because it is not beyond our reach (it is even written on the hearts of unbelievers, cf. Rom. 2:14-15). It was given for the purpose of enabling us to obey. As such, it is a necessary but not sufficient condition for obedience.

Condition (2) must also be met. Verse 6 speaks of the need for having a circumcised heart. Nowhere in the Old Testament do we find people with uncircumcised hearts being able to obey God's law. The reason they cannot is because they would not (cf. Rom. 8:7). And as verse 6 clearly states, it is God, not us, who circumcises our hearts. This terminology is equivalent to the New Testament's terminology about being "born again" (cf. John 3). When God changes our hearts, he gives us a desire to obey. When this happens, we are able to obey, insofar as the Spirit gives us strength over the flesh.

Is the Lord's Supper for unbelievers too?

Earlier this summer I was at a Bible study where we discussed the issue of whether unbelievers could partake of the Lord's Supper. I thought this was a no-brainer--no, the Lord's Supper is for the Lord's people. But I was the only one in the group defending that view. Now my desire is first and foremost to conform to the teachings of God's Word. So I thought I would lay down some of the relevant passages, and why they have convinced me that the Lord's Supper is only for baptized believers.

1 Corinthians 10:21 - "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons." The context here has to do with eating foods sacrificed to idols (what Paul refers to here as demons). Paul tells believers that there is nothing wrong with eating such food, for we ourselves are not worshiping the idols. But if we were, then we could not participate in the body of the Lord. Meaning, we could not have communion. Nowadays, unbelievers do not normally give sacrifices to pagan gods, but they are nevertheless guilty of idolatry. And this is the equivalent of serving demons. This passage alone should be sufficient to show that unrepentant unbelievers should not be allowed at the Lord's table.

1 Corinthians 11:27-29 - "Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself." How can an unbeliever possibly partake of the Lord's Supper in a worthy manner? He denies the very lordship of Jesus! For an unbeliever to eat the bread and drink the cup would be to incur God's judgment on him. Now some at the aforementioned Bible study said that unbelievers are already under judgment, so what difference does it make? I would reply that Scripture teaches that even unbelievers are judged according to what they do, so that some are judged more severely than others. Dishonoring the Lord's Supper is a sure way of heaping further judgment on yourself.

One final question: what about believers who have not yet been baptized? Well, first of all, I would want to know why a believer would delay being baptized. But let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that someone converts in the middle of a worship service. They have not yet had a chance to confess their faith or be baptized. Well, if we were to follow the regulative principle of worship, I would say that the scriptural precedent is that believers always get baptized before taking communion. Further, we could make an argument on the grounds of the covenantal nature of the sacraments. Because the Lord's Supper signifies inclusion in the body of believers, you must first be a part of the body. And baptism, not communion, is the sign of entrance into the body (Romans 6:4, Colossians 2:12). Baptism signifies our union with Christ in his burial and resurrection. This union is the new birth. And only those who are born again may come to the Lord's table. That is why I am convinced that communion is only for baptized believers.

Agnosticism is functional atheism

What we think is inseperably linked to how we live. We cannot make day-to-day decisions in any area without our beliefs informing those decisions. I step on the brake pedal because I believe it will stop my car. I brush my teeth because I believe it will keep me from getting cavities.

When it comes to agnosticism, the the only possible practical outcome is paralysis. We cannot base any decisions on "I don't know." So in reality, being agnostic amounts to the same thing as being atheistic. That's why the lifestyle of the former is essentially indistinguishable from the latter. The agnostic says to himself, "I can't know if God exists, so I will live as if he doesn't," while the atheist says, "God doesn't exist, so I will live as if he doesn't." There is no practical difference.

Why do I bring this up? Becuase often agnostics will fool themselves into thinking that their position is somehow more neutral and less dogmatic than the atheist. Pleading ignorance on God's existence sounds more modest than denying it altogether. But such a neutrality is an illusion, for the aforementioned reasons.

I used to be an agnostic. I was never comfortable calling myself an atheist, although I did let that word slip from my lips a couple of times. I prefered the label "agnostic," because I thought it sounded more open-minded, and deep down I was also a little fearful that denying God's existence was pushing the envelope too far. But the fact of the matter was that my life was the same as that of an atheist. I was deluding myself into thinking that my position was more humble, more neutral, more open-minded, or whatever.

In saying this, I mean no disrespect to agnostics. I would simply urge them to think through their beliefs, and take a more consistent position. Either affirm God or deny him; there is no middle ground.

Presuppositionalism and Internalism/Externalism

I am currently considering the possibility that Christian presuppositions may be necessary to both an internalist and externalist epistemology. Here's why:

On internalism, the factors that justify a belief are internal to the mind of the knowing subject. That means that when I ask myself what gives me reason to believe that Paris is the capital of France, all I have to do is think about the evidence I have for that belief. Perhaps I read it in my geography textbook, or perhaps a trustworthy friend has told me, or perhaps I have even seen Paris with my own eyes. If I am aware of such evidence, I have internal justification for believing that Paris is the capital of France.

Now the major motivation for adopting an internalist (as opposed to externalist) epistemology has to do with deontologism (a fancy word that basically means "duty-ism"). On this view, I have an ethical responsibility to form true beliefs and reject false beliefs. Moreover, my beliefs cannot simply be true by accident. I can believe that I will win the lottery tomorrow, and it might turn out that I actually win the lottery tomorrow, but in that case I am right by accident. I have not fulfilled my epistemic duty in forming the belief that I will win the lottery tomorrow, because I have no justification for believing it.

Naturally, I can ask, whence the duty? Where does this standard come from, and how could I be held accountable to it? Why does it apply to me as a thinking person? And what norm do I submit to in determining what counts as justification and what does not? A Christian has a very simple response to this: the duty comes from God, and the norm to which we submit is his Word.

On the other hand, we may adopt an externalist epistemology. On this view, that which gives our beliefs warrant (externalists prefer to say "warrant" over "justification") is that they are causally related to the object of belief, or that they are formed by a properly functioning belief-forming mechanism. For example, if I believe that I see a tree, that belief is warranted if there actually is a tree, and light waves travel from the tree to my retinae, and the data is sent through my optic nerves to my visual cortex, and my cognitive faculties properly interpret the data in my visual cortex. Most people throughout history have never even heard of light waves, visual cortices, and so on. Yet we would still say that all those people were warranted in their beliefs. That's what makes it externalism, because they don't need to be aware of the grounds that confer warrant on their beliefs.

Now on externalism, we are forced to ask, what guarantees that our cognitive faculties function properly for the purpose of producing true beliefs? And how can we be sure that our beliefs correspond to the world as it actually is? For example, it is logically possible that my senses are being deceived by a Cartesian demon, or because I am plugged into the Matrix, or because I am simply a brain in a vat, etc. And because I cannot step outside my mind to verify the reliability of my senses, how can I really be sure that those bizarre scenarios aren't true? Again, these questions readily find answers in Christian theism. For a Christian can say that we are made in God's image, and God's desire is that our minds form true beliefs about the world as it actually is. Further, God is the one who can guarantee that our minds function properly according to his design plan for them. Without God, there is no design plan.

All this is to say that both internalist and externalist epistemologies need to be grounded in Christian presuppositions. In other words, our metaphysic precedes our epistemology. I am not taking sides here in the internalism/externalism debate. I think there is a good argument for both, and I'm not so sure that they are mutually exclusive.

It might sound as if I vacillate between classical and presuppositional approaches to apologetics, and that's because I am. I haven't yet made sense out of all of the issues involved, but I'm doing my best.

Hume and Necessary Things

I am continuing to wrestle with David Hume's critique of cosmological arguments (CA's). One of his main objections has to do with the possibility of necessary things. For him, "necessary thing" means that the non-existence of such a thing would entail a logical contradiction, and it seems to be the case that no contradiction is entailed by our imagining the non-existence of anything. Ergo, nothing can be necessary. Ergo, we cannot use a CA to demonstrate the necessary existence of God.

On the other hand, if we could succeed in proving the possibility of necessary things, that might actually work against the CA. For the critic of the CA could argue that the universe itself exists necessarily. How can a theist respond to this? Perhaps we could try to argue against this possibility by saying that for every concrete thing in the universe (say, my running shoes), we could imagine its non-existence without entailing a logical contradiction. But then we would be falling into Hume's objection to the possibility of necessary things in general. So here's the dilemma: either we accept Hume's objection (in which case nothing is necessary), or we deny it (in which case the universe itself might be necessary). How can we escape this dilemma?

Well, there is strong intuitive force to the statement that my running shoes are contingent. In fact, I think we could extend this intuition and say that all the matter of the universe is contingent. I don't think anyone would really see a logical contradiction here. And this fact might in itself might seem to support Hume's objection. But I think there are other grounds for denying his objection.

Given the existence of contingent things, and given the existence of a causal principle (all contingent things have causes), we can show that denying the existence of a necessary cause actually does entail a contradiction. For if all causes are contingent, then there can be no cause for all causes, and we will have contradicted our causal principle.

Now Hume himself suggested that if the chain of causes were infinite, that would obviate the need for a necessary first cause. But I think he was mistaken. Imagine standing in front of a moving train that is so long that you cannot see either end. You can ask, what is causing this boxcar to move? Naturally, you could say that the car in front of it is pulling it. And the car in front of that one is pulling that one, and so on. But without the engine at the front of the train, none of the cars would be moving. Even if you had an infinite number of boxcars, you still can't get them moving without an engine. Therefore, Hume's objection to the possibility of necessary things doesn't seem to hold water. There is at least one thing—the cause of all contingent things—whose non-existence would entail a contradiction.

Principle of Causation

In my continuing studies on cosmological arguments (CA's), I came across a little book by David Conway, entitled The Rediscovery of Wisdom. He devotes several pages to a critique of Hume and Kant's objections to the CA (pp. 105-116), and I'm scratching my head on a few points. In particular, I am looking at his treatment of the causation principle (CP), which is a foundation of many CA’s, the simplest of which is (in my view) the Second Way of Thomas Aquinas (so we may call it the Thomistic CA). The causal principle goes like this:

CP: Every contingent thing must have a cause for its existence.

That seems intuitively true. For every concrete object that exists in the universe (shoes, apples, planets, etc.), there is a cause. [Update: by "contingent," I mean that its non-existence is possible. Contrast this with necessary things, such as the laws of math and logic, whose non-existence is impossible. We could debate whether these kinds of necessary things actually "exist," but I'm not so sure that's relevant here, since the CP is only concerned with contingent things.] But there are a few objections to the CP:

1) One might say that such things as shoes are not literally brought into existence by their cause. For example, a shoemaker doesn't make a shoe ex nihilo, but rather the shoe comes from pre-existing materials. This is one of Kant's main objections, and I think it has the support of the law of conservation of energy. For the theist, I see three ways out of this, two of which involve giving up the CP as stated above, and the last of which requires adding a premise to our CA.

a. One way is to re-phrase the CP in terms of changes in state rather than existence. I see some appeal in this move, for it allows us to concede the possibility that matter has always existed in some form, but if its form is to change in any way, there must be a cause. I suspect that Mormons would really like this approach, since their cosmology affirms the eternality of the universe (though its structure is caused by God). This might also more faithfully represent Thomas Aquinas's intent, since apparently he thought that reason alone could not prove the finite age of the universe. His CA's are thus compatible with the universe being infinitely old.

b. The other way, which seems to be what Conway himself calls for, is to adopt a Principle of Sufficient Reason (à la Leibniz) and replace the idea of cause with explanation. [Update: by making this move, we shift the focus from a thing's being brought into existence, to the factors that explain why that thing is the way it is. The PSR is sometimes used to prove a necessary cause as opposed to a first cause. This is a subtle distinction, but still an important one.] But this is a different CA altogether—the Leibnizian one—and if that is the case we might as well abandon the CP altogether, in favor of the PSR. So on this option, the Thomistic CA appears insufficient in itself.

c. A kalam CA might disprove the eternality of matter, thereby necessitating a cause of its existence. We can keep the CP in this case, but we would have to add the premise that matter has not always existed. Again, the Thomistic CA is insufficient in itself.

2) One might say that quantum phenomena disprove the CP. Subatomic particles, it might be argued, can come into existence causelessly. Three considerations come to mind:

a. It might be the case that quantum phenomena do have a cause, and we just don’t realize it. For example, there is no logical contradiction in the proposition that God directly causes all quantum phenomena. [Update: while this proposition may be logically possible, I'm not so sure that it is empirically demonstrable.]

b. On the macro level, things seem to operate consistently according to the CP, so the exception doesn’t nullify the rule entirely. But the point remains that there are exceptions, at least when it comes to quantum phenomena. Such an exception becomes very important when dealing with something like the Big Bang. Should the Big Bang be treated as macro due to its mass (in which case the CP applies), or micro due to its size (in which case the CP might not apply)?

c. Quantum phenomena are not entirely free of causal constraints. For example, these particles can only come about in a prior existing energy field. So they have a necessary cause, if not sufficient. And this might just be enough to keep the CP afloat. We really don’t have any empirical justification for saying things can come into existence from nothing and for no reason.

3) Hume suggests that we can easily imagine/conceive of something coming into existence causelessly. And since there is no logical contradiction in imagining such a thing, Hume argues that we should reject the CP. Some considerations here:

a. Conway quotes approvingly of Haldane, who suggests that when we imagine something (say, an apple) popping into existence spontaneously, our intuition is to ask how it happened, or where it came from.

b. It may be the case that something is logically possible (i.e. it entails no contradiction) but nevertheless metaphysically impossible. After all, I can imagine a hungry tiger popping into existence in front of me, but that doesn’t make it possible in real life.

Cosmological Arguments (Part 2)

Here I describe the particular logical challenges that face any cosmological argument (CA). I give credit to Alexander Pruss for succinctly categorizing the problems as follows:

1) The Glendower Problem. The name comes from a dialogue in Shakespeare's Henry IV, 1.3:

Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; but will they come when you do call for them?

In terms of the CA, the theist will normally observe that the existence of our universe cries out for an explanation. The naturalist, on the other hand, will respond that just because the universe cries out for one, that does not mean we will get one. What they mean by this is that either the universe has no explanation, or (more likely) if there is one, we have know way of finding it out.

2) The Regress Problem. This comes from David Hume, who suggested that for every effect, there is a finite cause, for which there is another finite cause, and so on ad infinitum. In other words, we can have an endless chain of causation, which eliminates the need for any uncaused First Cause.

3) The Taxicab Problem. This suggests that a CA will invoke a causal/explanatory principle to get us to the First Cause, but then this principle is conveniently sent away, like a taxicab. But this raises the question why the causal/explanatory principle does not apply to the First Cause itself. Or as Bertrand Russell put it, "If God made the universe, who made God?"

4) The Gap Problem. Naturalists will be quick to point out that a CA, even if successful, will only prove a first cause, not the God of theism (let alone the Christian God). A theist will have to have to do some maneuvering to show that the First Cause of the CA has more attributes in common with a personal God. (But I think anyone would admit that even a bare First Cause is a step, however so slight, in the direction of theism.)

I don't intend to present these problems as an attempt to undermine the validity of CA's. On the contrary, I am somewhat persuaded that CA's can work, if formulated properly (although I need to do some more research). But we theists need to know what we are up against if we seek to defend God's existence via this route.