Caleb's response # 3

I want to begin where Dan left off and then I will cover the rest of his remarks.

He ended by saying,

“The idea of absolute certainty may make you feel good, but you’re just kidding yourself.”

I would simply ask him if he was absolutely certain about that.

Dan does have absolute certainty about many things such as his existence and the laws of logic but he uses the technical term “axiom” and claims that the truth of these axioms is not a knowledge claim. So he can uses the laws of logic which he knows to be true and totally disregard any conversation about their justification because he claims these are just things we all know based upon the impossibility of the contrary. However, impossibility implies certainty and Dan has given up certainty.

Now, let me cover some of these other areas and I’ll finish covering more of that later.

I guess I should just ask Dan if he is a naturalist. He using transcendental laws of logic and even appealing to moral absolutes but when he took the verse from Romans and tried to flip it around so that “nature” is the creator and foundation of all things he appealed to naturalism. Of course we would have to ask, how could nature be the creator and sustainer of the laws that hold nature together? If the natural world is all that there is then we can’t know anything, we are the accident. The universe is simply time and chance acting on matter that came into being out of nothingness.

We find ourselves coming back to the verses from Numbers. Dan said that Christians should read the bible front to back and see that the God of the Bible is some kind of moral monster. I agree that we should read the Bible, Dan is not the first person to read these verses and he is not the first person to be shocked by them. But unlike what Dan has done I would also encourage you to read it in context. Notice he said, “Fortunately for all of us, most Christians no longer take seriously the Biblical calls to stone to death disobedient children (Deuteronomy 21:18) or to punish someone for wearing two types of fabric (Leviticus 19:19).” This is just being intellectually lazy when it comes to refuting the book you claim to disagree with. No Christian would believe that these punishments that were given only to Israel as part of the old covenant which they willingly entered into,  in any way apply to all mankind; especially to those of us under the new covenant.

This is a great opportunity to address what Dan stated when he said, “it shouldn’t matter for you if abstinence before marriage increases well-being, because well-being isn’t part of your equation for morality.” What Dan fails to recognize is that Gods morality is for our well-being.The difference is this well-being is not merely a physical one but a spiritual one as well. Take for example the verse inNumbers Dan keeps mentioning, if the Jewish army had not stood up to the armies that had opposed and tried to destroy the blood line through which Jesus was prophesized to be born Gods plan wouldhave been destroyed.  But because God loves Dan, he kept the enemy from winning and protected his plan to save us not just for this life but for the life to come.

Dan also mentioned that if this was an act of Gods love then he wants no part of it. However, you cannot divorce justice from love. A judge who lets a rapist go because he wants to be loving is in fact the opposite. God might seem mean to those who want to destroy him just as criminals don’t like policemen.

Dan wrote, “Is it any wonder that every type of bigotry, hate and violence has had a religious sponsor?” To me this shows that Dan’s objection to God is not an intellectual one but an emotional one. Simply because people abuse an idea does not make an idea invalid. The interesting thing is between the two of us I’m the only one who can objectively identify counterfeit morality.  I can easily show that those who act with hatred towards homosexuals are not being biblical. Though we may say their lifestyle is a sinful one we are told to love our enemies. Notice he still hasn’t said what well-being is but insist that it is the basis for morality. This notion is just one of many competing ideas in the atheistic community as to what morality might be. But how does Dan decide between the well being of Hitler over the well being of the Jews? Hitler rationalized that what he was doing was for the well being of Germany and it’s people. Of course Dan will object to Hitler’s actions but he has to appeal to a higher moral law than just mans well-being. To claim that the well-being of humans is superior to that of the well-being of army ants is to be guilty of Speciesm (assignment of different values, rights, or special consideration to individuals solely on the basis of their species).

The very fact that he lumps in the actions of faith healers who let children die with the traditional Christian faith shows that he is not willing to deal intellectually with the difference between reasonable faith and un reasonable faith. If someone claims to be a Christian but then acts contrary to what scripture teaches then simply by calling it faith does not justify his or her claims. Where I live lots of people preach that if we have enough faith God will give you a nice car and a big house. This faith is completely disconnected rationally from the very sources they claim to stem from. 

The picture Dan has tried to paint of the Christian God is a god I would reject because it is not the God of scripture.

Dan wrote, “The main problem is using terms like “sustain” and “govern”. Both of these terms imply an intentional cause. And why not? You’ve already decided that there is an intentional agent; why not give him something to do? But when scientists speak of the laws of physics, they’re simply describing how mass and energy interact. What they’re not saying (as you are) is that the laws control how mass and energy interact.”

I have not just decided there is an intentional agent; it’s the only reasonable explanation. I agree scientist observe these laws at work but they must observe them consistently in order to do science at all. You have to remember this isn’t just the god of the gaps, it is one of the most fundamental questions we can ask. Why is there something instead of nothing and furthermore how is it that something came from nothing? From nothing you get nothing. To infer a transcendental cause is totally justified.

Dan wrote, “The statement “logic is a process of the mind, which means it is conceptual by nature” we’ve already covered, and it makes the classic TAG error of confusing our understanding of logic (its conceptualization) with logic itself.

How much does logic weigh? What color is it? If you can’t answer that then it is immaterial. If it is not conceptual then what is it? Dan will no doubt claim it’s an axiom and he doesn’t have to know where it come from because it’s not a knowledge statement. If it is not a knowledge statement then what is it? It is something he has to assume because of the impossibility of the contrary. For something to be impossible is to be certain of it’s implausibility, and Dan has already said I was “kidding myself” for being certain.

Dan wrote, “I still don’t see an answer to how God produced logic, or if God was logical in the process.” I know Dan has been told this before and I will simply state it again. God is logical by nature. Logic is not something outside of God our use of it is simply a reflection of what God is like.

Two thoughts on the fine-tuning argument. You gave some great illustrations but I think they fail. You claim it is just a post diction, but this is not the case since this has been the belief of Christians before modern cosmology understood it.Now there are only three ways to account for this remarkable fine-tuning of the cosmos for intelligent life: physical necessity, chance, or design. The contemporary debate is over when it comes to which of these is the best explanation and it is design.  Post diction fails as a rebuttal because this is not the only observable world. We can look at all the other planets and observe what naturally occurs in the universe and from that the improbability of a planet capable of sustaining life is immeasurable. Atheist Dan Barker once comment that the fine tuning argument is probably one of the best arguments for theism.

I would like to say one final word about Dan and his love of axioms. Dan is true when claiming we need these in order to do any real dialogue. But if you ask him how he knows that he quickly reminds you it is not a knowledge claim. This is somewhat of a philosophical word game. If you define the words in such a way so that they always support your argument it’s not a search for real truth but a justification for unbelief.

Dan is certain that logic is an axiom but remember, being certain of anything makes you foolish according to his own statement.