July 30, 2009
Dishonest Evangelism?
I’ve been having thoughts about evangelical Christianity. Don’t worry, I’m not about to convert. My thoughts are about whether evangelicals are fundamentally dishonest about the focus of their faith.
First, a disclaimer. One of my good friends has been an evangelical Christian for as long as I’ve known him. We’ve talked about evangelism a number of times over the years, and he’s no fool. After studying at Oxford University he took a course in evangelism to “understand why he believes what he believes”. He’s clued-up on this stuff. But as well as him, I’ve met other evangelicals over the years (indeed, a regular visitor to this blog is an evangelical Christian, and I’m sure she’ll be commenting). I’ve also had the dubious pleasure of sitting through evangelical sermons; a couple of times as a teenager, and then more recently when a friend of a friend revealed to the world that he and his partner had become evangelical Christians…at their wedding ceremony. So what follows is based on personal experiences and assessments. I think this brings both limitations and advantages.
So what do I take evangelical Christianity to be? I suspect it’s impossible to define precisely, but here’s my two cents. It’s a very radical form of Christianity that emphasises two fundamental aspects of belief, and manifests them by very enthusiastic (some might say, aggressive) preaching in efforts to convert new followers. Those two aspects are: an enormous preoccupation with sin and the hell-bound fate of all sinners, coupled with a belief that the only way to truly free one’s self from sin is to love Jesus; to open one’s heart to Christ and love him so that he can redeem one’s sin and save one from hell-fire.
Thus evangelism is distinct from many (most?) other more modest forms of Christianity. My long-time friend and regular visitor to this site, Peter, is a Christian. He’s a very wet sort of Christian, mind. He believes that everyone gets to go to heaven, because “hell” is actually this life. Yes, even Hitler gets to go to heaven, according to Peter. Personally, I’m not sure if that’s even Christianity. When you take out the metaphysical consequences for not living a Christian life in this world, I’m not sure what you’re left with is Christianity at all, but instead some sort of very wet – and rather pukey-nicey – take on spirituality more generally. But that’s by-the-by. [Peter may no longer think this, actually. But he used to, so that’s good enough for me to slander him].
Evangelism is not like that. A key tenet of Christian evangelism is that we are all sinners. By our very nature. It’s just what we are. And sinners go to hell. Forever. Which is a problem.
The only solution, say evangelicals, is to love Jesus and let him take away your sin by opening your heart to him. Now, evangelicals in my experience tend not to be snotty about this. Their attitude isn’t “well I love Jesus and you don’t, ha ha ha I’m going to paradise whilst you’re going to burn”. Generally they’re pretty self-deprecating despite having “found” Christ; they’re constantly on guard against their own continued sins and the need to correct for them. Their attitude to non-believers is usually one of concern (and it’s not pity, mind, but genuine concern): they really don’t want us heathens to go to hell. They want to save us. My evangelical friend did once get quite upset when he had to tell me to my face (after I asked him to) that I was going to be tortured for all eternity by demons for not loving Jesus.
It’s a pretty grim world view that states most of the people you come into contact with are going to burn for eternity. But – evangelicals will reply – it’s counterbalanced by the power of Jesus’ love. This, they say, is the light in the dark. It brings them hope and happiness. It makes this life of sin and temptation tolerable and worth living.
But I’m not so sure. Here’s why.
Every evangelical Christian I’ve met thinks that homosexuality is most certainly a sin. Gays go to hell, and on the express elevator. The reasons why evangelicals believe this (something to do with the insane book of Leviticus in the Old Testament, usually) doesn’t really interest me. I’m more interested by the logic of what follows when you talk to reasonable evangelicals wishing to consider their views.
By reasonable evangelicals, I do not include those who state that homosexuality is a choice. Anybody who says that gays simple choose to be gay – and hence are sinners by choice – doesn’t really interest me. Their world-view is so divorced from empirical observations of how human beings are that I don’t have anything to say to them. I’m more interested in the ones – like my evangelical friend – who are willing to admit that to gay people, being gay is just what they are. They can’t “help” it, it’s just what floats their boat.
But from that flows a problem. For if people don’t choose to be gay, and if being gay is a sin which lands you straight in hell, I want to know why God made the playing field so fantastically uneven. I want to know why my gay friends are on a highway to hell because of a sexual orientation that just is who they are…if God made them who they are. Why, by contrast, have I been dealt a manifestly better hand? To become an evangelical Christian would be much easier for me than for one of my gay friends: I just need to open my heart to Jesus, get baptised to wash away my sins, and stop having sex with my girlfriend until we’re married (oh, she’s going to laugh when she reads that. Married, indeed). My gay friends, by contrast, would have to repress a core aspect of their entire being if they are to avoid hellfire. Why has God made it so much harder for them? Why has he done this, when the penalty is eternal damnation?
God is starting to look like a bit of an unfair, malicious bastard at this point. If he loves his flock equally, why has he made it so much harder for some sheep to make it into heaven? Note that what does not follow from this question is any sort of metaphysical conclusion about whether God exists. There is no reason a priori to assume that God has to be nice. What does follow are important thoughts about the kind of “love” it is possible to feel towards such a God (assuming here that Jesus and God are taken as different manifestations of the same thing, as I think evangelicals maintain).
What kind of love can be felt to an entity that stacks the deck horribly unequally; who sends all sinners to hell but makes some more disposed to sin than others? Well, not a very nice sort of love, if it’s love at all. For this “love” is backed up with a coercive threat: love me – for I am the only path to salvation (a key evangelical tenet) – or burn forever. Oh, and by the way, loving me is going to be distinctly harder for some of you than others, just because I move in mysterious ways.
This isn’t a love that grows out of trust, respect, gratitude, empathy, spontaneous attraction or all the other things it seems empirically and emotionally proper to associate with love. Rather, it looks like something else entirely: the forced adoration of a hostage for a tyrant who demands gratification and obedience upon pain of eternal torture.
Again, I draw no metaphysical conclusions. As a good Humean in matters metaphysical, I’m a philosophical agnostic about the existence of God (though I am dubious as to why I should believe the evangelical interpretation of Him over, say, the Baptist, Catholic, Islamic, Judaic or whatever). The evangelicals could be completely correct about the metaphysical set-up, the primacy of sin, the need to “love” Jesus and the rest. Except, however, that they should stop calling what they feel towards Jesus “love”. It’s not love: it’s a subservience induced by fear of damnation, dressed up in pretty language (and usually accompanied by annoying songs and acoustic guitars).
Which is fine if that’s what you want from faith. Just don’t try and tell me it’s love.
Leo said,
July 31, 2009 at 12:38 am
Ok, three observations:
1) The whole “you can be predestined to go to hell” thing stems obviously from Calvin, but more fundamentally from St Augustine, who believed that we’re all damned, but some are saved by God’s grace. This has little to do with free will (although according to St Augustine we do still have that); it’s entirely about whether or not we believe in the Christian god. We believe in God and repent our sins etc. = we go to Heaven. All else, we go to Hell. Within this framework of effective predestination (the Aztecs were all damned, etc; if we accept recent ideas about the culturally encumbered self, there is total predestination), predestining homosexuals to eternity in hell is coherent, however clearly wrong the premises are.
2) I think it’s a disservice to say that your friend Peter is a ‘wet’ Christian because he believes in universal salvation. Let me put it this way – universal salvation is less incoherent than heaven and hell (although it’s still practically unworkable, because you have the problem of the continuation of personal identity to contend with, among others). Firstly, the problem with heaven and hell is that it suggests human beings can be sorted into two discrete states of morality – good and bad – and that there can be no gradation. This is clearly a problem. Secondly, why would God send those who have sinned for the (finite) time they have been on Earth to Hell, where they would spend an eternity in sin? It is as though God dislikes something so much that he makes whoever did it do it forever. Hmm.
3) ‘Evangelical’ Christianity is basically just a PR job for what anyone who has studied philosophy and theology will agree is a medieval (by which i mean totally unrecognising of the advances, changes and debates of The Enlightenment) form of Christianity. It is as medieval in its outlook as the Taliban is in its interpretation of Islam, the only difference being that evangelicals have left the bits that are difficult to square with a materialistic but highly conservative Western lifestyle out. Hence why one of the crazy bits of Leviticus is followed (homosexuality as wrong) but not the stuff about keeping different kinds of cattle separate and so forth.
Paul said,
July 31, 2009 at 12:45 am
Leo,
re 2), i’m just ribbing Peter. He’ll get it (I hope!). It’s supposed to be funny rather than serious. If I was going to plug for any form of Christianity, I’d go for Peter’s. It’s the least diseased.
re 3): to an extent. But I think there’s more to it than just a PR job. Having said that, I can’t really explain why…will maybe get back to you after I’ve had a think.
Ste For Sure said,
July 31, 2009 at 10:01 am
hmmmm…
its interesting that you pick on homosexuality here.
You make the point that its harder for a homosexual to get into heaven according to evangelicals. I think I agree, but its not because “being gay lands you straight in Hell”. I think it goes like this:
Human beings are imperfect, God is divine. Original sin means we are bound to sin, its a metaphysical fact that every single one of us is a sinner, we can’t ever truly be like God. The route to salvation is to recognise that God created you and Loves you, and submitting yourself to Him, and worshipping Him (through Jesus and his teachings). If you really do have this faith, then you will always do your upmost to be as Good (on God’s terms, written in Scripture) as you can. So, you can’t just sin all you like, but then claim to love Jesus at the end. True Love of Jesus means you ask yourself “what would jesus do?” in all of lifes testing situations, you genuinely try and learn from the lessons of the bible and act accordingly. You are bound to fail (thats just an existential fact, you are not Divine, hence the Shame), but as long as you try your best for the right reasons (cause God said so; because He created you, and the entire meaning/purpose of your existence is to serve him) you will get to Heaven.
On this account, homosexuality is just one sin like all the others. So Jesus teaches us to be meek and mild, love our neighbours, turn the other cheek, be a good samaritan etc. Some people however, have really short tempers compared to others and find it hard not to lash out. (I work with people with learning disabilities and it is very common in those circles). So they, just like the homosexuals, have to try and suppress a fundamental aspect of their personality in the name of serving God. They may commit more sins than mild tempered people, but God isn’t giving us an exam grade when he judges us. He bases his judgement upon whether or not you genuinely tried to be like Jesus, and repented when you didnt, based on a sincere faith in Him, and love of Him.
So the fact that some people are naturally homosexual is just like the fact that some people are naturally bad tempered and aggressive, or that some people have high sex drives and find it hard to abstain etc etc.
But its not harder for them to get to heaven because they will sin more, but because life will throw more testing situations at them. Whether they fail to meet Jesus-like standards when faced with such tests is irrelevent. Its whether they really tried, and really repented.
Other evangelicals on here might be able to tell me if Im right.
Paul said,
July 31, 2009 at 10:40 am
Ste,
1) Even if what you say is true, it still doesn’t change the fundamental point that what’s doing the work in evangelical faith isn’t love, but fear.
2) You deploy what looks like a good manoeuvre to get the evangelicals off the hook, but I’m not convinced.
Essentially, your reply is that evangelicals believe God assesses us all on our individual bases; rather than there being a general standard of goodness we are all compared to equally despite our unequal starting point, the standard is relative and set different for each of us.
I think that’s exactly what evangelicals believe.
But it doesn’t really affect my point: even if the standard is relative, the fact is actually *hitting* the standard is manifestly harder for some than others. According to evangelical interpretations of Christianity, the sin of homosexuality is something which needs to be overcome by asking “WWJD?” But it’s not just about asking the quesiton – as you say – it’s about acting on the answer and trying to change your life accordingly. So we’re back to where we started, because I pointed out changing your life is going to be much harder if you’re gay.
Sure, this might be compensated for by the fact God perhaps punishes the failure rate for gays at a less strenuous standard than perhaps he does for straights. But this doesn’t get to the heart of the issue, becuase it doesn’t address the continued, ongoing nature of compensating for one’s sins on the evangelical world-view. Put very bluntly: supressing one’s sexuality is going to be incredibly difficult. Thus the temptation to transgress and to “abandon” Jesus completely is going to be much higher for a gay person than a straight person. You can try and dilute this by saying “God will hold them to a different, personal standard”, but there comes a point when God has to say “this person failed, and that person didnt; the former goes to hell and the latter heaven”. The sheep, after all, have to be divided from goats – so says the Scripture. I contend that gay people are far more likely to fall into the first category. So God is stacking the deck unevenly, (and not just in terms of metaphysical salvation, but also in terms of the unpleasentness endured in this life. Though, if this life is supposed to be a vale of tears, I suppose that doesn’t bother evangelicals that much).
And this isn’t even getting onto the question of how unhealthy the repression of sexuality is for people, and why God wants people to inflict such unhealthy things upon themselves. Or why he’s so obsessed with testing people and constructing them in ways whereby they are likely to fail His tests and so receive eternal damnation. Again we’re back to the situation of viewing this entity as a pretty horrific sort of deity. Which He may well be. But I don’t see how I could love such a cosmic bully, should he actually exist.
Grace said,
July 31, 2009 at 11:32 am
“*hitting* the standard”
“God punishes the faliure rate”
“but as long as you try your best for the right reasons…you will get to Heaven.”
“this person failed”
Phrases like this indicate a fundamental misunderstanding of salvation. Evangelical Christians believe that you are saved freely by grace. Christianity isn’t about trying hard and doing your best. Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” Whether you get to heaven is NOT based on how “well” you do, whether you hit the standard or not (so the whole discussion of whether the standard is different for homosexuals is irrelevant). Because none of us could ever hope to hit God’s standard – perfection. That’s why Jesus had to live the perfect life we could never live and take the punishment for our sins in his death on the cross.
NB I certainly don’t base my conviction that homosexual acts are wrong on Leviticus in isolation. Because of complicated reasons to do with the Old and New Covenants (would take a long time to explain and i’m about to go on holiday) commands given as part of Jewish law are not binding on Christians today except if they’re repeated/affirmed in the NT (why we aren’t fussed about different types of cloth in clothes). But Paul (eg in Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6) does say that it’s wrong.
“this life of sin and temptation tolerable and worth living” The Christian life isn’t merely “tolerable”. John 10:10 – Jesus said he came so that we could live life to the full.
“To become an evangelical Christian would be much easier for me than for one of my gay friends: I just need to open my heart to Jesus, get baptised to wash away my sins, and stop having sex with my girlfriend until we’re married” – I think this demonstrates a superficial view of conversion. It isn’t about vaguely deciding to sign up to a list of Christian doctrines, turning up and being baptised, then half-heartedly trying to be “good”. Becoming a Christian means a complete change in your life – almost becoming a different person – that’s why Jesus said you need to be “born again”. It’s not “easy” in a superficial sense – God has to change our very natures. It’s not “harder” for some to be saved compared to others – even the most outwardly “good” person still has to sacrifice self every day.
Re love: you said it doesn’t grow out of “gratitude”. This seems implausible given how grateful Christians are to Jesus because of the infinite punishment and pain he bore on the cross for our sakes.
“forced adoration of a hostage for a tyrant who demands gratification and obedience upon pain of eternal torture” – tyrants don’t suffer and die in the place of their subjects. tyrants don’t want to have a relationship with them either. also the “eternal torture” is necessary – since God is just, sin (the magnitude of which we can’t really understand) has to be punished in some way – we either bear the infinite burden ourselves in hell (and it is an infinte burden because we’ve sinned against an infinite God) or we accept Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for us.
Peter said,
July 31, 2009 at 11:38 am
Interesting post.
As for my own position – I don’t know anymore. I no longer consider myself a Christian (I didn’t attend Church at all in Finals year), and I guess I self-identify as an agnostic. But all that’s irrelevant (I just thought you’d want to be kept up to date).
I think your characterisation of evangelicalism makes sharp cuts in the wrong places. I don’t think that evangelicals have to be exclusivists about salvation – they can be inclusivists like I was. It’s not like inclusivism (ie. the belief that those who don’t explicitly profess faith can be under grace, and hence be saved) is a position that’s not theologically defensible either. I think there are strong philosophical arguments for it (Marilyn McCord Adams, former Regius Prof at Christ Church defends it) and I think it’s defensible on theological grounds (a friend of mine who’s doing a Masters in Theology at Durham is an inclusivist, and self-identifies as an evangelical). So evangelicalism doesn’t necessitate exclusivism about salvation (though of course, many evangelicals, especially the sort of North American protestants I think you’re trying to characterise, are exclusivists).
I don’t think (and never thought) that there is anything morally suspect about homosexuality. But one of your criticisms misses the target. It’s false that evangelicals believe that homosexuality is a sin. And hence, it’s false that something unchosen is believed to be a sin. Those who believe (wrongly, in my view) that there’s something morally suspect about homosexuality don’t say that it’s a sin *to be* homosexual, they say that homosexual *acts* are sinful. And homosexual acts, presumably are chosen (in the same way people can choose not to have heterosexual sex etc).
However, a natural modification of your view can be made which comes closer to the target (and I think you put something like this modification forward later on), and that is that homosexuals are under a greater burden that heterosexuals. They are forbidden from doing something that heterosexuals are not (ie. having a sexual relationship within the context of a loving relationship, yada yada yada). This at first glance strikes me as unfair (and God’s not unfair).
However, I’m not sure how potent that criticism is if we take the standard Christian line that acts can’t save. I think a lot of your criticisms forget that.
Leo said,
July 31, 2009 at 11:53 am
Paul,
Apologies – it’s just i encounter so many people who take their cues from Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens in calling any kind of moderate, thought-out and intelligent form of religion ‘wet’ and so forth, as though you have to be a Bible-bashing literalist to be truly religious.
I really think evangelical Christianity is fundamentally medieval in its outlook, and am prepared to defend that proposition. It not only ignores the debates of the Enlightenment (moving away from an Augustinian view of human nature, including original sin), it often still insists on creationism (admittedly not all do, but a large number), it almost entirely ignores the field of historical Biblical criticism and insists on a propositional approach to revelation – an increasingly problematic view, given the way the Bible contradicts, what we know about its authors, their historical distance from Jesus, the clearly fictitious passages (where Jesus is on his own for 40 days and 40 nights, and yet the whole thing is transcribed..), the audiences each gospel was clearly written for, etc.
Basically, evangelicals rest a substantial portion of their faith on a) not accepting things (both scientific and philosophical) that have become accepted parts of the 21st century Western worldview and b) an untenable approach to scripture. For these reasons, i think it’s fair to describe evangelical Christianity as medieval in its essence.
Peter said,
July 31, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Leo,
“I think it’s a disservice to say that your friend Peter is a ‘wet’ Christian because he believes in universal salvation. Let me put it this way – universal salvation is less incoherent than heaven and hell (although it’s still practically unworkable, because you have the problem of the continuation of personal identity to contend with, among others).”
- I don’t think that there actually is a problem of the continuation of personal identity that applies here. I think that all the plausible accounts of personal identity are consistent with a Christian model of the afterlife.
Bodily continuity necessary? Then there’s a miracle and resurrection happens (this is what Peter van Inwagen thinks). Psychological continuity necessary? No problem for the theist. Simple view? Obviously consistent with theism.
Why do you think there’s a problem of personal identity, specifically for the Christian? (I’m aware that there’s a “problem of personal identity” in the literature, in the same way that there’s a “problem” of evil. But it doesn’t follow from that that there actually is a problem. Indeed … the literature I’m familiar with on personal identity and the afterlife tends to come to the conclusion that there is no problem).
Leo said,
July 31, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Peter,
Then maybe you’re familiar with different stuff to me. I wasn’t suggesting it’s solely a Christian problem – it’s a problem for anyone who posits an afterlife; a group that includes Christians.
I’ve debated this a number of times, and it generally seems to be agreed that while bodily continuity is to some extent necessary, though not sufficient, and the same with psychological continuity, the same is true of spatio-temporal continuity.
As Bernard Williams has argued, if i vanish into thin air in London and reappear as a complete psychological and physical replica in Sydney, we would not say that is the same person. This is clearly a problem if you think Heaven is in a different world. Indeed, even if it is in this universe (which it would have to be in order for spatio-temporal continuity to be even possible), it would involve resurrection, which gets us into a debate about miracles. Again, something i think is wholly incoherent.
Ste For Sure said,
July 31, 2009 at 2:48 pm
im gonna read the rest of the thread in a sec, but just for the record; i wasnt trying to get the evangelicals off the hook, and dont think i disagree with you much at all. I just wanted to put forward the idea that being gay isnt an automatic ticket to hell, anymore than having a bad temper is. thinking homosexuality is sinful/abominable etc is still disgusting of course.
so yeah, no beef with your general outlook…
Ste For Sure said,
July 31, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Grace could you clarify this notion of “grace” a little further. (by all means tell me to piss off and read a bible if you cant be bothered!)
You say that its not about trying your best at anything. But then go on to say that being born again is not easy, and requires fundamental life changes.
The only way this makes sense to me is if to be under grace, and be saved, you must commit to a certain way of life, a fundamental part of which is to try your best to refrain from sin. If this isnt the case, then the picture seems incoherent.
You believe sex before marraige is wrong for religious reasons. Therefore you dont do it. You dont say “ah fuck it, god gave me grace anyway so ill sleep with whoever i want whenever i want as long as i accept Jesus”. Presumably, a fundamental part of accepting Jesus and his ultimate sacrifice is to follow through with your beliefs in his teachings, which requires effort in resisting temptation to sin; this effort is surely required despite the fact that you will never actually live a life free of sin.
Am i still on the wrong track?
Thanks
Peter said,
July 31, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Ste,
“The only way this makes sense to me is if to be under grace, and be saved, you must commit to a certain way of life”
- No. That’s just another act. Acts do not save.
Leo,
Will get back to you.
Peter said,
August 1, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Leo,
This is how I see it. The problem of personal identity and the afterlife looks like this.
1. *This* is the correct criterion of personal identity (insert your favourite view here)
2. Jones-in-this-life and Jones-in-the-Afterlife are the same person
It’s then argued that the above propositions are inconsistent. I think it’s a very difficult argument to make, because:
a) there simply isn’t a view of personal identity that is accepted by all reasonable philosophers. There thus isn’t an “orthodox” view of personal identity that the theist need be committed to. For example, I don’t think I agree with you that some form of bodily continuity is necessary. Contra Williams, I am tempted to say that Charles (or whatever the new person is meant to be called) really is Guy Fawkes. I think that’s a fairly mainstream position as well (that’s why the reduplication argument against “empiricist” theories of personal identity is so powerful).
and
b) even if there was an orthodox view of personal identity, showing that it’s inconsistent with Jones-in-this-life being the same person as Jones-in-the-Afterlife is no easy feat, seeing that God can supposedly do all sorts of things that humans can’t (eg. raise the dead).
Your argument for [2] (if we assume that bodily continuity is necessary, which I dispute but we’ll stick with it for the sake of argument) seems to be that it’d require a miracle. But that’s no argument. God is traditionally taken to be able to do miracles. Indeed, the only argument I’m familiar with against miracles (Hume’s, though I don’t know too much about it) doesn’t get you the conclusion you want. For Hume doesn’t think that miracles are impossible. His argument is epistemic.
Peter said,
August 1, 2009 at 4:07 pm
…
You on the otherhand require an argument stronger than an epistemic one. You need to say that a particular miracle is flat out impossible, not that rational belief in a particular miracle is (not the same thing).
Leo said,
August 1, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Ok, i can think of 5 reasons why you’re wrong:
1) My point with personal identity is that there are three main types of continuity, the relative importance of which is a subject of debate – physical (by which i mean bodily, which obviously can’t be the whole of personal identity as the individual atoms that make us up change over a period of time so that by now i have none of those i started life with, but i’m still the same person), mental (if i were to have total amnesia or somesuch, i would still be me – so again, not the whole picture) and spatio-temporal.
Spatio-temporal continuity is the important one because i’m not saying i know what personal identity is constituted of, or that there is general agreement, but i am contending that no account of personal identity is complete without spatio-temporal continuity. It’s why if a Picasso painting was destroyed, but then an exact atom-for-atom replica was made, it would still be a fake. Just as a physically identical human being, programmed to have my exact psychological makeup, memories and so forth would still not be me. Why? Because it wasn’t the same person who had actually done all the things i did. In short, my identity (which to be meaningful as a concept has to recognise my uniqueness) can only be considered unique through spatio-temporal continuity – all other factors could, at least hypothetically, be replicated. Spatio-temporal continuity, by its very definition, cannot.
This is why the man who appears in Sydney is not me – if there is no physical connection between him and me, he is just a perfect replica who has come in to being at the exact same time i left it. Otherwise, it would also be coherent for that replica to come into being while i am still here, and we would both be me.
2) The “God can do anything” debate is an interesting one. If you’re contending that God can do the logically impossible, that’s another argument entirely. If you’re saying that we have to take it on faith that God can do things which seem to contradict our knowledge, then that kind of appeal to God’s mystery works not only for believing he can construct an afterlife when we think such a thing is logically impossible, but for – for example – believing the creation story and everything else that Biblical literalists demand is correct. The Westboro Baptist Church honestly believes that everything in the Bible is true, and any apparent discrepancies between it and what we know, or apparent contradictions in it, are merely faults in our understanding. In short, they are taking as their premise that which they are seeking to ‘prove’, for want of a better word – that the Bible is literally true, etc. etc.
3) God may be traditionally thought to do miracles, but as with a lot of traditional notions (Hell, angels, the immaculate conception), it’s probably incorrect, from where i’m standing. If a miracle is a breach of the laws of nature, Hume is right to point out that what we think are nature’s laws are basically hypotheses formed retrospectively, to cover all past occurences. Hence were resurrection to occur, we’d have to rethink a lot of commonly-accepted science. The problem is (and this is basically the other half of Hume’s argument), there isn’t a single miracle (or so Hume contends) that has been witnessed by a sufficient number of people of good sense and reliable character to render its likelihood of truth more probable than another, non-divine explanation – mass delusion, psycho-somatic effects, hallucination, straightforward lying, coincidence, etc.
4) On top of Hume’s arguments against miracles, i’d add Maurice Wiles’, namely that miracles lead to one of two conclusions – either you accept that these ostensibly random intercessions into human life pose a problem for God’s justice (why does he perform minor miracles but not prevent the Holocaust?), or you resolve the conundrum by once again appealing to God’s mystery and say that we can assume (on faith) that God has a just plan worked out, and that it’s just our own fault for not being able to discern it. A variant on this is Leibniz’s optimism – ‘all’s for the best in the best of all possible worlds’, which was so brilliantly satired by Voltaire in ‘Candide’.
5) A final problem, again from Bernard Williams: “an eternal existence is a meaningless one”?
Peter said,
August 1, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Leo (this might be my last reply for a while, as I go on holiday for a week tomorrow),
Some thoughts
1) I simply don’t agree that spatio-temporal continuity is necessary for identity (though I’m not entirely clear on what spatio-temporal continuity amounts to. How is it different to bodily continuity?). Again, look to Williams’ Charles and Guy Fawkes. If a man named Charles surfaces today, knows all the facts about Fawkes’ life, has his memories etc, tells us things that were hitherto unknown but are plausible and allow us to illuminate certain aspects of Fawkes’ life etc, a significant chunk of philosophers really are tempted to say that Charles is Fawkes. Now, maybe they’re all wrong (some very clever guys, eg. Williams himself, disagree with them). But “spatio-tempiral continuity is necessary for identity” simply won’t serve as a jumping off point for the Afterlife-identity debate in the philosophy of religion, as it can be reasonably rejected by reasonable people.
There’s also the “rebuilding” view of the Afterlife, which I think might actually get satisfy the spatio-temporal continuity criterion! So regardless, I don’t think your argument is particularly strong – it either misses it’s mark or relies on premises the theistic philosopher need not buy.
2) I don’t think that God can do the logically impossible (nor does any serious Christian philosopher that I’m aware of). But miracles aren’t logically impossible.
3) I agree with all of that, but it’s epistemic. You need something stronger than an epistemic conclusion. And the “immaculate conception” is not the same as the Virgin Birth. Sorry, it’s a pet peeve of mine. The immaculate conception is the specifically Roman Catholic belief that Mary was without Sin.
4) Well, that’s the Problem of Evil. There’s been lots written about it. Maybe the Problem of Evil in one of its forms is a good argument. But that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the personal identity-afterlife debate.
Grace said,
August 8, 2009 at 10:21 pm
i’ve just come home from holiday so this is probably too late but never mind…
i’ll do my best to explain grace a bit better.
we are not saved – given a relationship with god, eternal life in heaven etc – through anything we have done, any “desert” on our part. it’s all due to jesus’ atoning sacrifice on the cross.
BUT this doesn’t mean that christians have no motivation not to sin. we know we’re rejecting and displeasing god, who has done everything for us. also the bible teaches that when we become christians the holy spirit comes into our hearts – he changes us and our desires so that we want to serve god. i hate the fact that i sin, i eagerly await the day when i’ll be free from it.
THEREFORE someone who doesn’t care about sin, doesn’t repent probably isn’t a christian – not because their lack of works means they fail the “salvation test” but because their lack of works reflects their unchanged heart\nature. look at james 2 – “i will show you my faith by my works”. chapters 6,7 and 8 of romans are also very relevant/helpful here.
any clearer? if you’re interested, could recommed some articles etc to read
Grace said,
September 23, 2010 at 9:23 pm
Just came across this post again (automatically generated at the top of the French politics one).
Ok Ste I’m pretty sure I missed the point in my reply to you. A year later, let’s try again!
I think you’re saying: Christian say they are saved by grace, a free undeserved gift from God to us. to be a Christian, there must be continuing evidence of your salvation (eg Christians can’t just say they trust in Jesus then sleep around. 1 john 1:6, “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth”). Losing the battle/giving up the fight against (persistent, habitual) sin will result in us being punished by God eternally (see mark 9:42-48). Sin needs to be struggled against. Paul said “But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified”, 1 corinthians 9:27.
Yet this leaves us with a strange thought: do we begin the Christian life utterly reliant on God for his undeserved mercy (grace), and then continue in it relying on our own efforts towards holiness (works)?
The way out of this is to recognise that every act/attitude that pleases God isn’t produced by relying on ourselves, but on him. The Bible expresses this in a few different ways. All good works proceed from faith, which is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8). We need God every day to be able to resist sin – Jesus said “apart from me you can do nothing”. (John 15:5). “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20-21). So God doesn’t save us by grace and then leave us to make ourselves more like him by works… In all things he is the giver, so all the glory from our good works goes to him and not us.
How do we do this? Struggle against sin yet do so “in the strength the Lord supplies” (1 Peter 4:11)? John Piper finds the following steps helpful:
“A – I acknowledge that without Christ I can do nothing (John 15:5; Romans 7:18).
P – I pray that God would make me love as Jesus loves, and work in me all that is pleasing to him (1 Thessalonians 2:12; Romans 5:21; Hebrews 13:21).
T – I trust the promise of God’s help and strength and guidance (Isaiah 41:10; James 1:5, 6).
A – I act in obedience to God’s word.
T – I thank God for whatever good comes. I give him the glory (1 Peter 4:11).”