"History will remember this picture"

Okay, some other blogger wrote that line (so says the L.A. Times). But it's a good way to capture what's going on here. If you know the background to this picture, you would know it's beauty without a wordy blogger's thoughts polluting the drama. This is an epic picture. One for the history books. So let me briefly explain.

Called the "Nail House," this picture was taken in Chongqing, China. Just two weeks ago, the National People's Congress passed incredible and unheard of legislation in an effort to protect private property rights.

And this, the "Nail House," is private property.

This house is owned by Yang Wu, and Wu Ping. As husband and wife, they own land, and they are (in order to prove a point) in a standoff with government backed land development projects that are forcing private land owners to sell at huge losses. China doesn't allow independent apprasial, so the government is paying these people slop for what they are so proud to own...in China. A communist country. And these owners have gone "all in," betting/hoping that the National People's Congress is not just a store-front facade, boasting free-market idealism in an attempt to attract world markets, while maintaining a communism designed to empower the few.

This is a picture that confronts a system.

Not just communism. Not just free-market greed. This picture confronts the system that says the winner climbs to the top of the heap, no matter what...no matter who you hurt. "Stay on top at all costs." This picture confronts the system that demands winners become "King of the Hill."

The Times quotes Zhou Xiaozheng: "They should leave this house standing as a monument to the Chinese people's struggle for property rights." Owner Wu Ping was quoted, "People must live with dignity." Teng Biao said, "In the future, there will be more nail houses like this one. The government will have to think twice before striking them down."

So, in this picture, who's "King of the Hill." It's a modern day Masada.

A Pretty Good Argument for the Existence of God: Dr. Hunt, "Thoughtful Christian" #3

Humans as meaning-seekers.
“All men by nature desire to know.” (Aristotle)
If this is true, should we have reasons for our beliefs, or does anything go?

The Crossword Puzzle Model
Some constraints:
You can’t just fill the empty puzzle squares with whatever you feel like:
Answers must make sense (e.g., real words)
Answers must be responsive to the clues (evidence/reasons for belief).
Some answers are better than others; in fact, there’s a right answer.
Dogmatism is completely inappropriate; what’s needed is intellectual humility.
You want to equip yourself with a pencil and eraser, not a pen.

GOD as one answer
How does this answer arise from the crossword puzzle clues?
(Is it written in pen or pencil?)
The Cosmological (“First Cause”) Argument

A Classic Source
Perhaps the most famous collection of arguments for the existence of God is the “Five Ways” from the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), the greatest philosopher-theologian of the Middle Ages. The first three of the Five Ways are all versions of the Cosmological Argument.

Getting in the Mood
Why is there something rather than nothing?
Nothingness as default state.
That something exists requires explanation.

A Simple Version of the Argument
1. Every being (that now exists, or ever did or will exist) is either a contingent being or a necessary being.
2. Not every being can be a contingent being.
Therefore,
3. There exists a necessary being.

Terminology:
A contingent being is something that might not have existed, because its existence is dependent on factors outside itself.
A necessary being is something that must exist (couldn’t not exist), and so is not dependent for its existence on anything else; instead, it is self-existent: its very nature is to exist.

What’s To Be Said for Premise 1?
Three possibilities: Every being is explained either
by another being, by itself, or by nothing.

The last of these three possibilities is ruled out by the Principle of Sufficient Reason: Every fact, including the fact that something exists, has an explanation; there’s a reason why things are that way rather than some other way. If this is true, then there are no cases in which something’s existence is explained by nothing. So the only possibilities are that its existence is explained by itself (making it a necessary being), or its existence is explained by something outside itself (making it a contingent being). That’s exactly what Premise 1 says.

Is the Principle of Sufficient Reason true? (How can we so confidently rule out the possibility that something might just happen, for no reason at all?) This would be hard to settle definitively. Nevertheless,

a. We sure seem to assume it’s true (car story).
b. The likely critic of the argument, a scientific naturalist, isn’t in a good position to deny it.
c. Even if we’re willing to go along with the idea that something might “just happen,” for no reason at all, we’re much less willing to allow that something might just “pop into existence,” for no reason at all. (The “Kalam” version of the argument—William Lane Craig)

What’s To Be Said for Premise 2?
Why couldn’t everything be a contingent being? PSR could be satisfied by a beginningless series of contingent beings, because no being in this series would go unexplained: each would have its existence explained by another contingent being.

Two possibilities: infinitely long series, or circle.
Aquinas appears to deny that either arrangement would satisfy PSR. Who’s right?
Train model supports Aquinas: no motion without locomotive (self-mover).

Some Further Questions about the Argument
Who created God? (aka the “taxicab objection”)
Probably most common reaction to argument, but rests on gross misunderstanding. Contingent beings, with the potential to exist or not to exist, require explanation in a way that necessary beings do not. The why question, which arises for me, does not arise for God.

Why think that the self-explained explainer of the argument’s conclusion is identical to the Judeo-Christian God?
Granted: this is a pretty thin characterization.
But: it’s better than nothing (warning against unreasonable expectations).
And: the argument is being considered and evaluated in a context (what’s on the radar screen?).

Relation to “Big Bang”?
The “red-shift” and the expanding universe. Empirical confirmation of the argument?
Good news and bad news for Christians?

“It don’t make no difference.”

I’m serious. I’m not kidding. This 81 year old woman was arrested in Alabama for selling cocaine. Man, the south really gets a bad rap! And for what?!

Read more.

#2 Dr. David Hunt, The ‘Thoughtful Christian’: Perception (and Reality)

I. Review from Previous Week

lesson of Flat Earth Society

why Christians have some responsibility to reflect on reasons for believing
(1) responsible apologetics: the case we make to others
(2) understanding what we believe: the case we make to ourselves

II. Two intellectual challenges provide the context in which the case for Christianity must be made today:
1. there are objective standards that beliefs have to measure up to: truth, rationality, etc.
the sciences satisfy these standards to a high degree
but religious belief in general (perhaps Christian religious belief in particular) falls far short
so such beliefs must be rejected
2. there are no objective standards that beliefs have to measure up to
the only standards are those of the individual or culture that holds those beliefs
so all beliefs are equally acceptable
why this is worrisome

III. Virtues: qualities the possession of which makes something better at what it is or does
for example, sharpness is a virtue in a knife, because it equips the knife to cut better
human beings are complex, so there are many associated virtues

IV. Two whose stock has fallen:
↓ modesty
↓ chastity

one that’s mixed:
↔ frugality/simplicity/self-control

two whose stock has risen:
↑ self-esteem
↑ diversity

V. Another virtue that’s looking up:
↑ tolerance

This is the virtue that is exercised when one.
Allows (that is, does not prohibit, hinder, suppress, punish) beliefs one regards as false or
actions one regards as wrong, etc.

VI

Two kinds of truths?
A truth is subjective and relative when
it’s really about how the person who holds the belief views things (that’s the subjective part), and
it varies from one person to the next or one culture to the next (that’s the relative part).
A truth is objective and absolute when
it’s about how things are independent of what we happen to think about them (that’s the objective part), and
it doesn’t vary (that’s the absolute part)
When a truth is subjective/relative, it makes sense to speak of truth-for-me, truth-for-you, truth-for-her, etc. When a truth is objective/absolute this doesn’t make any sense at all.

VII. Where do you rate these questions between a statement like, "this pie is yummy," (which is an opinion) and "London is the capital of England," (which is as close to an objective fact as it gets)?

The Matrix is a better film than its two sequels.
It’s morally wrong to torture innocent children for fun.
2+2=4
God exists.

VIII. Protagoras: man is the measure of all things
truth is “constructed”
no truth, just “truth”
there is no “master narrative”
in sum: truth is subjective and relative, rather than objective and absolute

IX. This pushes everything to the left end of the spectrum. That’s crazy. Why would anyone hold such a one-sided view? Yet most people do.

X. One problem: this view refutes itself.

XI. Another problem: it collapses truth and belief

XII. Retreat to a “qualified relativism” where some things (world capitals, etc.) go on the right but everything else stays on the left.
Some problems with this, but no time to explore it adequately tonight.
Question: why head down the relativist road in the first place?

XIII. Self-esteem

XIV. Tolerance

XV. Morality is relative to the moral frame of reference. As long as it is understood that morality is a human construction influenced by human cultures, one can be more tolerant of other human belief systems, and thus other humans. But as soon as a group sets itself up as the final moral arbiter of other people’s actions, especially when its members believe they have discovered absolute standards of right and wrong, it marks the beginning of the end of tolerance, and thus reason and rationality. (Michael Shermer, Why People Believe Weird Things)

XVI. A final virtue: intellectual humility

Dr. David Hunt: The ‘Thoughtful Christian’: Perception (and Reality)

So here are the notes from his talk tonight. I can't say enough how this challenges me. Yes the perception is that we are angry and judgemental. But we also fight the "don't drink, don't think" stigma. I'm grateful to Dr. Hunt for sharing with us. We've got a lot to learn here. Please note that each new Roman numeral represents a new slide.

So what do you think?


I. The ‘Thoughtful Christian’: Perception (and Reality)

II. The Flat Earth Society: a hypothetical student club that also has a perception problem:
1. involvement in Earth Day event will only go so far in overcoming this problem
2. this doesn’t really address their credibility issues
3. in their case, not much can!

III. The Whittier College Christian Fellowship: a real student club with a perception problem
1. how finding common ground with our critics can address this problem
2. but: like the FES, other credibility issues remain
3. unlike the FES, Christians have incredible resources for addressing these issues

IV. Our split heritage:
Tertullian: “What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?”
“I believe it because it’s absurd.”
Augustine: All truth is God’s truth.

V. Some members of our “support group”:
Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz, Kepler, Newton, Dante, Milton, Dostoevsky, Flannery O’Connor, Bach, William Wilberforce, Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa

VI. The College Years: intellectual growth, spiritual stagnation

VII. An argument is a connected set of statements in which one statement (the conclusion) is alleged to follow from the other statements (the premises).

VIII. The Logos
logos > logic, -logy (biology, anthropology, theology, etc.)
Man made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27)
God is love: when we’re less than loving we fall short of the divine image.
Likewise, God is Logos: when we’re less than logical, we fall short of the divine image.

IX. Logos as Ultimate Explanation
Humans are explanation-seekers
Aristotle: All men by nature desire to know.

X. Lion got to roar, bird got to fly,
Man got to ask himself why, why, why.

Lion got to sleep, bird got to land
Man got to tell himself he understand.

XI. Two roles for argument?
(1) When we’re confident that we’ve got it right and are trying to convince others, we might use certain arguments that we have reason to believe might be effective with the audience we are trying to convince.
(2) When we don’t know what to believe and are trying to figure it out for ourselves, we might consider and evaluate arguments that appear relevant to the issue we are trying to sort out.
The first of these is in the service of effective apologetics

XII. But (1) and (2) aren’t the only possibilities.

XIII. Responsible Apologetics
Do we have an obligation to make sure that the arguments we use for purposes of apologetics are good arguments?

XIV. Understanding What We Already Believe
Beyond their use in persuading others, we need to consider and evaluate arguments for ourselves when trying to deepen our own understanding of what it is that we already believe.
“Lord I believe, help Thou my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24)
Faith seeking understanding (fides quaerens intellectum)—motto of St. Anselm

XV. We are naturally tempted to go easy on arguments with whose conclusions we agree. This temptation should be resisted.

XVI. Example: Why Jesus should be believed when he makes claims about Himself

When Jesus said that He is the Son of God, either He was telling the truth, He was crazy, or He was a liar.
But everyone (even the skeptic) agrees that Jesus was a good man.
He could not be both good and crazy, and He could not be both good and a liar.
So He was telling the truth.
Therefore, Jesus is the Son of God.

XVII. Compare:
When St. Francis of Assisi said that the Earth, not the Sun, is the center of our planetary system, either he was telling the truth, he was crazy, or he was a liar.
But everyone agrees that St. Francis was a good man.
He could not be both good and crazy, and he could not be both good and a liar.
So he was telling the truth.
Therefore, the Earth is the center of our planetary system.

XVIII. Both arguments grossly oversimplify the alternatives:
a. they overlook the possibility of people like St. Francis, who are neither crazy nor liars but simply mistaken about some things
b. they also overlook the fact that some people are both very good and a little crazy (perhaps St. Francis is again an example!), while others are both very good and occasionally truth-challenged

XIX. I acknowledge, Lord, and I give thanks that You have created Your image in me, so that I may remember You, think of You, love You. But this image is so effaced and worn away by vice, so darkened by the smoke of sin, that it cannot do what it was made to do unless You renew it and reform it. I do not try, Lord, to attain Your lofty heights, because my understanding is in no way equal to it. But I do desire to understand Your truth a little, that truth that my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand so that I may believe; but I believe so that I may understand. For I believe this also, that ‘unless I believe, I shall not understand’ [Isa.7:9]. (Anselm, Proslogion)