Speaking at "Vine and Branches" Pastor's Retreat

Pastor’s Retreat at SBYCamp

Feb. 2-3

Spiritual Emphasis Weekend for Pastors, Church Leaders, and their Spouses

Presented By: ABC IN/KY Holy Spirit Renewal Ministries

Here is the brochure.

 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56a906cdb204d59bda7f2bd8/t/656bd411d8905b4ce2b2b2d3/1701565458249/RETREAT+BROCHURE+6.pdf

I will be teaching on The Presence-Driven Church. 

Linda will join me, as well as Norelle and Wayne Lutke, and Pam Wantz.

The Moral Argument for God's Existence: Some Resources

                                (Redeemer Church in Monroe)

The moral argument for God's existence is my favorite, among arguments for the existence of God. People have not stopped making moral judgments and pronouncements. But if these judgments are not grounded in the reality of a transcendent command-giver, and we are left with atheism, then they are mere subjective tastes.

To understand the moral argument, begin by reading "The Indispensability of Theological Meta-Ethical Foundations for Morality," by William Lane Craig.

Here are posts I have written on the moral argument for God's existence, and on moral-ethical issues in general related to this argument...

William Lane Craig's Moral Argument for God's Existence

The Most Compelling Argument for God's Existence

The Moral Argument for God's Existence (Facebook Live)

Moral Obligations to Tell People They Are Wrong

If There Is No God Then There Are No Moral Facts

Morality Is Non-binding if God Does Not Exist

Objective Moral Values and Duties Exist (Premise 2 of the Moral Argument for God's Existence)

Biological Determinism and Moral Responsibility

George Mavrodes On the Weirdness of Moral Obligations in a Russellian World

Metaethical Studies and Moral Nihilism

Explaining Objective and Subjective Moral Values

Is Paul Copan A Moral Relativist?

On Objective Moral Values

Science Says Nothing About Moral Values

What Is It Like to Be a (Moral) Bat?

Does Moral Action Depend on Reasoning? Part 1

The Naturalistic Fallacy (You Can't Derive Moral Facts from Scientific Facts)

Is God a Moral Monster? #2

Is God a Moral Monster?: #3

On the Moral Argument for God's Existence: Objective Moral Values Exist

Objective Moral Values - Another Example of Proper Basicality

The Difference Between Moral Ontology and Moral Epistemology

The Moral Argument for God's Existence - Going Deeper

Is God a Moral Monster?: #4a

Marcello Pera On the Moral Necessity of Assuming the Existence of God

How One Atheist Lives Without Morality

Christianity's Moral Claim

Is God a Moral Monster?: #5

Michael Shermer's Category Mistake About Moral Progress

Logic, Moral Reasoning, & the "Trolley Problem"

Atheists Who Agree That Without God There Are No Objective Moral Values

You Can't Derive "Ought" From "Is"

The Christian Roots of Atheistic Morality

Franz DeWaal & the Atheist Dilemma

Divine Command Theory and P1 of Craig's Metaethical Argument

On Evolutionary Accounts of Ethical Beliefs

The Euthyphro Dilemma

If There Is No God, then Right and Wrong Don't Exist (Moral Nihilism)

Why the Universe's Cause Must Be a Personal Agent (Re. the Kalam Cosmological Argument)

Monroe County

(I taught this my MCCC philosophy students.)

The Kalam Cosmological Argument, as formulated by William Lane Craig is an evidential argument. If someone says "There's no evidence for God's existence" that is simply false. Using the evidence of a temporal universe, and then reasoning logically using that fact as a premise, one concludes (deductively) that our universe has a cause.

But why must that cause be God?

I was answering that question for my MCCC philosophy students after a recent class. This is abstract, logical thinking that is hard to grasp for students who are not used to critical thinking like this. I told them I'm going to make a post to help explain this further. I'm going to quote from Craig's excellent On Guard. He writes:

"The cause of the universe must therefore be a transcendent cause beyond the universe. This cause must be itself uncaused because we've seen that an infinite series of causes is impossible [using, e.g., German mathematician David Hilbert's reasoning that an actual infinite is impossible]. It is therefore the Uncreated First Cause. It must transcend space and time, since it created space and time [remember: in the "singularity" there is neither space nor time, and thus the laws of physics do not apply]. Therefore, it must be immaterial and nonphysical [logically so]. It must be unimaginably powerful, since it created all matter and energy." (99)

But why must the cause of the universe be a personal agent? Because if the cause of the universe is timeless and impersonal this cannot produce a temporal effect with a beginning like the universe. Craig writes:

"If a cause is sufficient to produce its effect, then if the cause is there, the effect must be there, too. For example, water freezes when the temperature is below 0 degrees centigrade; the cause of the freezing is the temperature's falling to 0 degrees. If the temperature has always been below 0 degrees, then any water around would be frozen from eternity. It would be impossible for water to begin to freeze just a finite time ago. Now the cause of the universe is permanently there, since it is timeless. So why isn't the unvierse permanently there as well? Why did the universe begin to exist only 13.7 billion years ago? Why isn't it as permanent as its cause?" (100)

By inference to the best explanation, a timeless, personal cause best explains the effect of a temporal universe. "The answer to this problem must be that the cause is a personal being with freedom of the will. His creating the universe is a free that is independent of any prior conditions. So his act of creating can be something spontaneous and new. This, we're brought not merely to a transcendent cause of the universe but to its Personal Creator." (Ib.)

Finally, Craig concludes: "The kalam cosmological argument gives us powerful grounds for believing in the existence of a beginningless, uncaused, timeless, spaceless,  changeless, immaterial, enormously powerful, Personal Creator of the universe." (Ib.)

The Kalam Cosmological Argument for God's Existence

Monroe County Community College

(I taught this argument to my  MCCC Philosophy of Religion Students. The Kalam Argument is one of the arguments for God's existence that is included in most philosophy of religion textbooks.)

The Kalam Cosmological Argument for God's Existence

1. State the argument.

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore. the universe had a cause.

If 1 and 2 are true, than the conclusion logically follows.

2. Defend Premise 1.

Premise 1 seems to be true, since things do not just pop into existence.

In order to prove Premise 1 false one would have to find something that begins to exist that is uncaused, and that seems unlikely. It also seems unscientific.

Further, if things just popped into existence, uncaused, then would the uncaused thing be a "universe?" Given no antecedent causal conditions, that a "universe" should suddenly appear rather then Elvis or a bottle of root beer is inexplicable.

3. Defend Premise 2.

Reason 1 - current cosmological theory states that our universe began to exist. This is also called the "Big Bang Theory of the Origin of the Universe."

Our universe has an age (13.7 billion years). Whatever has an age necessarily has a beginning (or birth).

Reason 2 - the impossibility of an actual infinite.

Craig uses mathematician David Hilbert in support of the idea that an actual infinite cannot exist, because it leads to absurdities.

For example, consider "Hilbert's Hotel." Imagine a hotel with an infinite number of rooms. Let's say the rooms are all occupied, one person in each room. How many people are in this hotel? The answer is: an infinite number. Next, suppose that persons in the even-numbered rooms check out. How many people leave the hotel? The answer is: an infinite number. How many are left in the hotel? An infinite number. But our "infinite hotel" is now half full. All of which is absurd.

A "potential infinite" exists, but potential infinites never reach actuality.

4. Why must the cause of the universe be God?

As the argument shows, it follows logically that the universe must have a cause.

Using conceptual analysis, or the Principle of Sufficient Reason, whatever cause the universe must itself be timeless (therefore changeless), non-spatial (therefore immaterial),  and very powerful. (The laws of physics do not apply to the cosmic singularity.)

It must also be personal (a personal agent who made a choice to make a universe), since if the cause of the universe was timeless and impersonal the conditions for causing a universe to exist would be timelessly there, and the universe would have always existed. But we have already seen that this is not the case (Premise 2).

Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that a timeless, changeless, immaterial, non-spatial, very powerful person agent is the cause of our universe. And this describes (in part) what is meant by "God."

*****
A Final Note - Here is William Lane Craig on the cause of the universe as a personal creator.

"Given the truth of premisses (1) and (2), it logically follows that (3) the universe has a cause of its existence. In fact, I think that it can be plausibly argued that the cause of the universe must be a personal Creator. For how else could a temporal effect arise from an eternal cause? If the cause were simply a mechanically operating set of necessary and sufficient conditions existing from eternity, then why would not the effect also exist from eternity? For example, if the cause of water's being frozen is the temperature's being below zero degrees, then if the temperature were below zero degrees from eternity, then any water present would be frozen from eternity. The only way to have an eternal cause but a temporal effect would seem to be if the cause is a personal agent who freely chooses to create an effect in time. For example, a man sitting from eternity may will to stand up; hence, a temporal effect may arise from an eternally existing agent. Indeed, the agent may will from eternity to create a temporal effect, so that no change in the agent need be conceived. Thus, we are brought not merely to the first cause of the universe, but to its personal Creator."

The Anthropic Teleological Argument for God's Existence

                                                                  (Holland, Michigan)

 
See Betty & Cordell, “The Anthropic Teleological Argument,” in Peterson et. al., Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings (4th edition)

The Anthropic Teleological Argument for God’s Existence

1. The Anthropic Principle

a. “If the universe were in fact different in any significant way from the way it is, we wouldn’t be here to wonder why it is the way it is.” (Betty & Cordell, 224)

2. We have a universe fine-tuned for our existence.

a. According to Cambridge University physicist Brandon Carter, “if the initial conditions at the Big Bang had been any different from what they were, life as we know it could not have evolved.” (Ib.)

b. Princeton physicist Robert Dicke “was specifically concerned to show that the Hubble constant, which governs the rate of expansion of the universe, could not have been much different from what it in fact is, or otherwise life could not have evolved.” (Ib., 224)

3. The question is: “How likely is it that our spectacularly complex, orderly universe should have arisen from the chance twitchings and interactions of these strings?” (Ib. Note: Superstring theory “is the theory of the universe, a ten-dimensional one, in which the fundamental building blocks of matter and energy aren’t infinitesimal points but infinitesimal strings.” (Ib., 223)

a. “It is no wonder that today a few scientists who are aware of the anthropic principle are asking the question, “Does this all mean that cosmology has come to the point of having to postulate a ‘Creator’?” The answer would seem, on first glance, to be Yes. For how else can we explain all these “coincidences”?” (Ib., 224-225)

4. Betty and Cordell use this example to illustrate.

a. “Imagine nine jars, each containing ten slips of paper with one number from 0 to 9, one number to a slip, with each number represented, placed side by side. Suppose now that a mechanical device drew at random one slip from each jar, and that the numbers drawn in sequence happened to correspond exactly to your nine-numbered Social Security Number. What are the chances of a random drawing giving such a result? They are exactly one in a billion. Now suppose, unlike a legitimate, genuinely random lottery drawing, there was no special reason dictating that the drawing had to be random, even though the mechanical device suggested randomness. If your number were drawn, would it not be far more reasonable to assume that the drawing was not random, that it was instead being superintended by some intelligence behind the scenes who was in some way invisibly manipulating the mechanical device? Would it not, in other words, be reasonable to conclude that the drawing was fixed – foxed in your favor?” (Ib., 225)

b. I think this analogy would be stronger if we added the idea that one’s life depended on your S.S. number being drawn. Since the odds of drawing any 9-digit number are one in a billion, it is not strange that a particular 9-digit number is drawn. I think John Leslie’s “firing squad analogy” works better here. If fifty sharp shooters all miss me, the response “if they had not missed me I wouldn’t be here to consider the fact” is not adequate. Instead, I would naturally conclude that there was some reason why they all missed, such as that they never really intended to kill me. Why would I conclude this? Because my continued existence would be very improbable under the hypothesis that they missed me by chance, but not improbable under the hypothesis that there was some reason why they missed me. Thus, by the prime principle of confirmation, my continued existence strongly confirms the latter hypothesis."

5. The argument, using inference to the best explanation

a. On the atheistic single-universe hypothesis the existence of the fine-tuning is very improbable.

b. On the theistic hypothesis the existence of the fine-tuning is not improbable.

c. Therefore the theistic hypothesis (God exists) is more probably than the atheistic single-universe hypothesis.

6. But what if multiple universes exist? For example, University of Texas physicist John Archibald Wheeler “reasoned that, given enough universes, it is not unlikely that one would come along which had the right ingredients for life, and our universe is it.” (Ib., 225) Betty and Cordell say Wheeler’s view found few supporters, “largely for the reason that such universes have never been observed and, moreover, are in principle unobservable.” (Ib.)

a. Betty and Cordell’s essay appeared in International Philosophical Quarterly 27, Dec. 1987. A lot of discussion has happened about this argument and multiverse theory since. Recently, e.g., Hawking and Mlodinow recited the amazing “coincidental” fine-tuning of our universe for life but posited multiverse theory to explain this (The Grand Design). For objections to multiverse theory as a solution to the anthropic coincidences see here.

The Cause of Your Church Problems

                                                                        (Monroe County)

"Most problems in contemporary churches 

can be explained by the fact that 

members have never decided to follow Christ."

Dallas Willard

The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus’s Essential Teachings on Discipleship (p. 5)

(More on) 'Deconstruction'

 

                                                              (South Central Kenya)

'Deconstruction' does not mean "dismantling." The opposite of 'deconstruction' is not 'reconstruction'. That would render the term banal, nugatory.

Mark C. Taylor (Columbia University) writes:

“Mr. [Jacques] Derrida's name is most closely associated with the often cited but rarely understood term "deconstruction." Initially formulated to define a strategy for interpreting sophisticated written and visual works, deconstruction has entered everyday language. When responsibly understood, the implications of deconstruction are quite different from the misleading cliches often used to describe a process of dismantling or taking things apart. The guiding insight of deconstruction is that every structure -- be it literary, psychological, social, economic, political or religious -- that organizes our experience is constituted and maintained through acts of exclusion. In the process of creating something, something else inevitably gets left out. These exclusive structures can become repressive -- and that repression comes with consequences. In a manner reminiscent of Freud, Mr. Derrida insists that what is repressed does not disappear but always returns to unsettle every construction, no matter how secure it seems.” Mark C. Taylor, “What Derrida Really Meant,” NYT Op-Ed, p. 26, Oct 14, 2004. (Bold mine.)

Free to Not Be Who I Am

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.
 But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which 
God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. 
All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. 
And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.

Philippians 3:13-15

Some people counsel others to "Just be who you are." I think that's bad counsel. But it is an alternative in a godless, secular culture.

When I was a campus pastor at Michigan State University in the 1980s I had many meetings with new students. I would begin the conversation by asking them, "Tell me, who are you?" 

When I was a college freshman I could not answer this question. I think back and remember how others viewed me. I was...

...drug user
...alcohol abuser
...failure
...party animal
...stupid

I didn't let others see my insides. Even if I wanted to reveal my heart, I was unable to because I never addressed the self-question, never asked, "Who am I..., really?"

Looking back I see myself as...

...insecure
...lonely
...lacking confidence
...unaware
...easily manipulated
...phony
...duplicitous
...lost

Outwardly, especially when I was drunk, I celebrated who I was. Inwardly, the party was over. I was mired in the Eriksonian "identity crisis," a prisoner caught between ego identity and role confusion. 

Looking back, should I have celebrated this? No way! Should I have "accepted who I was?" No, thank God.

Don't celebrate who you are. Instead, look at what you are meant to be. You need more change (as do I). 

If you are a Jesus-follower, celebrate Christ, not the "you" that you are now. You have been purposed to be like Christ. He is the paradigm of true humanity.

God wants to set you free from this world's current identity confusion. What you can be and be transformed into is what matters, not the current "you" that others, or you, think you are. This is no small matter. Your answer to this will influence everything you do in life. And, contrary to how our identity-celebrating culture embraces this, it is not easy. 

In the winter of 1970 I was on a tiny stage in DeKalb, Illinois, playing my guitar in a band in front of a small crowd. That's when my release from who I was began. The thought came to me, "I am screwed up." When I heard this, I didn't feel condemned. I felt truth. That's when the voices of friends who said they liked "me" and thought I was "fun" began to lose their influence.

Every rescue begins with repentance. A few days after this I looked away from my self, and began to look at Jesus. I was being set free, not to be who I was, but what I was always meant to be.

Is Religion the Root Cause of Evil?

(Cantoro)

(I may mention this post in my sermon Sunday morning. We're not "progressing" morally and spiritually, correct?)

Is religion the cause of evil? Was John Lennon correct (in spite of his own wife-beating, child-abusing behaviors) that "imagine there's no religion" and... no wars?... and we all will live as one big metaphysical love-mass?

I don't think so. Atheist David Berlinski doesn't think so either.

See Berlinski's The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions. What is unique about Berlinski is his non-religious nature, railing against the new (but aging) atheists. He writes: "I am a secular Jew. My religious education did not take... I cannot pray. I have spent more years than I care to remember in studying mathematics and writing about the sciences. Yet the book that follows is in some sense a defense of religious thought and sentiment. Biblical verses are the least of it." (xiii)

Berlinski is witty, caustic, funny, and brilliant. One of the things he addresses is the atheistic idea that religion is, especially, the root of all evil. He quotes physicist Steven Weinberg, famously, as saying: "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." (21)

I now confess that "religion" has made me a far better person than I was without it. And, I have met countless people over the years about whom I could say the same. But onwards...

Berlinski turns to atheist Steven Pinker, who believes that "something in modernity and its cultural institutions has made us nobler." Pinker gives us good news: "In the scale of decades, comprehensive data again paint a shockingly happy picture. Some of the evidence has been under our nose all along. Conventional history has long shown that, in many ways, we have been getting kinder and gentler." (21-22) Pinker goes on to list things like "cruelty as entertainment, human sacrifice to indulge superstition, slavery as a labor-saving device, genocide..., torture and mutilation..., assassination..., rape..., homicide... - "all were unexceptionable features of life for most of human history. But, today, they are close to nonexistent in the West." (22)

To which Berlinski responds, surely Pinker jests! Here is Berlinski's list of 20th century "happy-face moments," presented to you by irreligion and atheism..

A Shockingly Happy Picture by Excess Deaths (22-24)

• First World War(1914-18): ……...................................15 million
• Russian Civil War(1917-22) ……...................................9 million
• Soviet Union,Stalin's Regime(1924-53) ……...............20 million
• Second World War(1937-45) ……................................55 million
• Chinese Civil War(1945-49) ……..................................2.5 million
• People's Republic of China, Mao's regime(1949-75) ...40 mill.
• Tibet(1950 et seq.) …….................................................600,000
• Congo Free State(1886-1908) ……................................8 million
• Mexico(1910-20) …….....................................................1 million
• Turkish Massacres of Armenians(1915-23) ……............1.5 million
• China(1917-28) …….......................................................800,000
• China,Nationalist Era(1928-37) ……..............................3.1 million
• Korean War(1950-53) ……............................................2.8 million
• North Korea(1948 et seq.) …….....................................2 million
• Rwanda and Burundi(1959-95) ……..............................1.35 million
• Second Indochina War(1960-75) ……...........................3.5 million
• Ethopia(1962-92) ……...................................................400,000
• Nigeria(1966-70) ……....................................................1 million
• Bangladesh(1971) ……..................................................1.25 million
• Cambodia,Khmer Rouge(1975-78) ……........................1.65 million
• Mozambique(1975-92) ……............................................1 million
• Afghanistan(1979-2001) ……..........................................1.8 million
• Iran Iraq War(1980-88) ……............................................1 million
• Sudan(1983 et seq.) ……................................................1.9 million
• Kinshasa,Congo(1998 et seq.) ……................................3.8 million
• Phillipines Insurgency(1899-1902) ……..........................220,000
• Brazil(1900 et seq.) …….................................................500,000
• Amazonia(1900-1912) …….............................................250,000
• Portuguese Colonies(1900-1925) ……........................... 325,000
• French Colonies(1900-1940) ……...................................200,000
• Japanese War(1904-5) ……............................................130,000
• German East Africa(1905-7) ……....................................175,000
• Libya(1911-31) …….........................................................125,000
• Balkan Wars(1912-13) …….............................................140,000
• Greco-Turkish War(1919-22) ……...................................250,000
• Spanish Civil War(1936-39) …….....................................365,000
• Franco Regime(1939-75) …….........................................100,000
• Abyssinian Conquest(1935-41) ……................................400,000
• Finnish War(1939-40) ……...............................................150,000
• Greek Civil War(1943-49) …….........................................158,000
• Yugoslavia,Tito's Regime(1944-80) ……..........................200,000
• First Indochina War(1945-54) ….......................................400,000
• Colombia(1946-58) ……...................................................200,000
• India(1947) ……................................................................500,000
• Romania(1948-89) ……....................................................150,000
• Burma/Myanmar(1948 et seq.) …….................................130,000
• Algeria(1954-62) …….......................................................537,000
• Sudan(1955-72) ……........................................................500,000
• Guatemala(1960-96) …….................................................200,000
• Indonesia(1965-66) ……...................................................400,000
• Ugandi, Idi Amin's Regime(1972-79) ...….........................300,000
• Vietnam, postwar Communist Regime(1975 et seq.) ……430,000
• Angola(1975-2002) ……....................................................550,000
• East Timor, conquest by Indonesia(1975-99) ……............200,000
• Lebanon(1975-90) …….....................................................150,000
• Cambodian Civil War(1978-91) …….................................225,000
• Iraq, Saddam Hussein(1979-2003) ……...........................300,000
• Uganda(1979-86) ……......................................................300,000
• Kurdistan(1980's,1990's) ……...........................................300,000
• Liberia(1989-97) ……........................................................150,000
• Iraq(1990- ) ……................................................................350,000
• Bosnia and Herzegovina(1992-95) ……............................175,000
• Somalia(1991 et seq.) ……................................................400,000

Berlinski concludes: "In considering Pinker's assessment of the times in which we live, the only conclusion one can profitably draw is that such an excess of stupidity is not often to be found in nature." (25)

And, we have the following "awkward fact": "The twentieth century was not an age of faith, and it was awful. Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot will never be counted among the religious leaders of mankind." (19)

One more: U of Notre Dame's Alvin Plantinga writes:

"Of course the world’s religions do indeed have much to repent; still (as has often been pointed out) the suffering, death, and havoc attributable to religious belief and practice pales into utter insignificance beside that due to the atheistic and secular idiologies of the twentieth century alone."  (Plantinga. Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism . Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition. 

A Fail-Safe Recipe for Humility

 

                                          (Munson Park across from our home. 2/14/21)

One of the devotional books Linda and I use every day is Dallas Willard's Hearing God Through the Year: A 365-Day Devotional.

A recent reading was on humility.

In Numbers 12:3 we read that “Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.”

Surely, writes Willard, there is a connection between Moses' humility and his close working and talking relationship with God.

God gladly gives us the grace of humility if...

• We refrain from pretending we are what we know we are not.
• We refrain from presuming a favorable position for ourselves in any respect.
• We refrain from pushing or trying to override the will of others in our context. 

A fail-safe recipe for humility is:

Never push.

Never presume.

Never pretend.