Keeping the Slaughter of Canaan in Context

By Shannon Byrd

Are the conquest narratives in the Old Testament any different from what we are currently viewing with ISIS throughout the Middle East and Europe? Questions like this often come up in discussing the existence of objective moral values and duties and their proper grounding. When God is posited as the grounding of morality, the objector usually brings up some obscure OT text that he or she thinks will demonstrate that God has a warped sense of morality and it is usually in this context that the conquest narratives are brought up.

False Distinction

One reason this problem has persisted is that many Christians aren’t comfortable with God judging people; they draw a distinction in their minds between the God of the OT and the non-violent, peaceful Jesus of the NT. However, this distinction is an artificial one, Jesus regularly denounced others and threatened judgment. He took a whip and drove moneychangers out of the temple (Jn 2:15). Never mind what he said in Matthew 18, “. . . whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” So this distinction between God in the OT and Christ in the NT falls flat on death ears. Christ didn’t downplay the texts depicting judgment and for modern Christians doing so actually skews the image of Christ.

The Bible is Literally True

We’ve all hear this before, “Either the bible is literally true, or it’s literally false.” I remember agreeing with statements like this as a kid growing up in church; it sounded pious, but I didn’t know any better at the time. Many critics of Christianity as well as pastors have little to no understanding of biblical hermeneutics. Just because everything in Scripture is true, does not mean it is literally true. What am I saying? If we take everything in Scripture to be literally true, then tree’s sing,(1 Chr 16:33; Ps 96:12), Christ is a door (Jn 10:7), YahWeh flies in the sky on Cherubs (2 Sam 22:11), and Elihu’s heart jumped out of his chest (Job 37:1). Clearly everyone understands these texts to be figures of speech and aren’t to be taken literally; they were consciously exaggerated by the author for the sake of effect. Taken literally, these passages sound like a Harry Potter novel.

The statement “either the bible is literally all true, or it’s literally all false,” is also a logical fallacy. Just because some passages of Scripture are literally true, it doesn’t follow that all passages are literally true. So, not only is thinking in this manner hermeneutically flawed, it’s logically flawed as well. There we have it, two solid reasons to reject a rigid literal only interpretation.

Additionally, there are good textual reasons not to take the conquest accounts literal. K Lawson Younger Jr. notes that the accounts in Joshua 9-12 are figurative and utilize what he calls a “transmission code,” which is a commonly stylized and frequently hyperbolic method of recording history.[1]

It is clear that from within the book of Joshua itself, the text indicates that it isn’t to be taken literally. Consider the text of Joshua 10:20, ”It came about when Joshua and the sons of Israel had finished slaying them with a very great slaughter, until they weredestroyed, and the survivors who remained of them had entered the fortified cities.” If they were slaughtered and destroyed then there shouldn’t have been any survivors.

One of the best examples of why we should regard the text as hyperbolic occurs in Joshua 8.

v. 16, And all the people who were in the city were called together to pursue them, and they pursued Joshua and were drawn away from the city.

v. 17, So not a man was left in Ai or Bethel who had not gone out after Israel, and they left the city unguarded and pursued Israel.

v. 22, The others came out from the city to encounter them, so that they were trapped in the midst of Israel, some on this side and some on that side: and they slew them until no one was left of those who survived or escaped.

v. 24, Now when Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field in the wilderness where they pursued them, and all of them were fallen by the edge of the sword until they were destroyed, then all Israel returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword.

Taken literally, this block of scripture would be manifestly nonsensical. If there were no survivors or fugitives remaining in Ai, who did the Israelites pursue?

Joshua also exaggerates numbers:

v. 25, all who fell that day, both men and women, were 12,000—all the people of Ai.

Yet earlier the spies Joshua sent in prior to the battle for Ai make the remark:

Do not let all the people go up; only about two or three thousand men need to go up to Ai; do not make all the people toil up there, for they are few (Josh 7:3).

Clearly these texts aren’t meant to be literal, something else is going on and the hagiographic hyperbolic interpretation fits best and takes the passages that appear at face value to be nonsensical and interprets them within a flexible framework, just as other Near Eastern texts were understood at the time. A great deal of the narratives that contain troop numbers and or casualties mentioned are exaggerated for added effect. This was common during that period.

           

The Canaanites Were Innocent

Often times it’s assumed by many that the Canaanites were the victims of a terrible crime against humanity. “They were attacked and massacred for no reason at all,” I’ve heard some say—but is this true? Scripture presents a different story; the Canaanites were called wicked (Deut 9:5). What were they guilty of? Moses listed all the occultic practices of the Canaanites; they did “detestable things,” “practiced witchcraft,” and sacrificed their children to Baal via fire. Moreover, the Canaanites practiced bestiality—disgusting—this is why it is mentioned in Leviticus 18; God did not want the Israelites practicing this as the Gentile nations around them had done. “Not good enough evidence,” the skeptic might say, “the authors were biased and looking for a reason to fight the Canaanites.” To be sure, no one is without bias, but did the author accurately report what the Canaanites were doing? Extra-biblical evidence corroborates what the OT reports of them. In the Canaanite epic poem The Baal Cycle, we learn: “Mightiest Baal hears; He makes love with a heifer in the outback, A cow in the field of Death’s Realm . . . He lies with her seventy times seven, Mounts eighty times eight; [She conceives and bears a boy].” I think the evidence speaks for itself; Canaanite sexual practices are well documented.

“Utterly Destroy”

In Joshua 6-12, it is reported that Joshua “utterly destroyed” multiple cities and peoples. It is unlikely that whoever finalized the form of Joshua intended it to convey that the Canaanites were exterminated at God’s command. Joshua was intended as a literary component consisting of Deuteronomy, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings. It is best to interpret it as preceded by Deuteronomy and succeeded by Judges. Given Judges is literarily linked to Joshua, the book presents a different story; it starts with the presumption that the Canaanites are still present in the land. So, Joshua on the surface seems to show that the Canaanites had been “utterly destroyed” yet Judges assumes they are not. In Joshua specific locations are mentioned where Joshua exterminated everyone (Hebron 10:36; Debir 10:38; Hillcountry Negev and western foothills 10:40). Yet, in the first chapter of Judges, it’s affirmed they couldn’t drive the Canaanites out from these very cities (Debir v.11; Hebron v.10; western foothills v. 9). Moreover, Joshua reports that he took the “whole land,” (Josh 11:23) whereas God makes a statement in Judges that presupposes Joshua did not take the whole land (2:21-23).

This tension can even be seen within Joshua itself, “It came about when Joshua and the sons of Israel had finished slaying them with a very great slaughter, until they were destroyed, and the survivors who remained of them had entered the fortified cities,” So, Joshua destroyed them yet they had survivors? What is going on? It seems to me, Joshua occurs in a literary genre that allows for the language of “utterly destroy” to be immediately followed up by a narrative stating the Canaanites were not “utterly destroyed.” So, put simply, Joshua appears to be highly stylized hyperbole whereas Judges appears to be more like down to earth history. This means Joshua is used to teach theological points rather than give a detailed account of history as it happened. Additionally, this sort of hyperbole was very common in Near Eastern conquest accounts and wasn’t understood as literal.

Some Innocents Were Killed

Given that the interpretation of Joshua presented here, the critic might still argue that some Canaanites were still killed including innocent children. I fully admit that this is possible. Is this a defendable position? My view is if we can coherently defend that if human beings on exceptionally rare occasions can kill innocents for some greater purpose or some greater good, then we have an even better reason for God issuing such a command.

First, humans kill innocents all the time for the sake of a greater good. Consider this scenario: a plane headed for Washington D.C. is reportedly hijacked. A terrorist has control of the aircraft and is headed for the White House, where thousands are gathered. The Air Force intercepts the plane and the fighter pilot is faced with a choice; he can either let the plane hit its intended target, killing thousands and potentially the leaders of the executive branch of government to include the president, or he can shoot the aircraft down and kill everyone on board to include the terrorists, men, women, and children. Is it coherent for this pilot in this extremely rare circumstance to kill innocent human beings? Most would say yes, he would be rational in making such a decision.

This pilot is armed with counterfactual knowledge and knows that if he does not shoot the plane down, more lives will be lost. Like the pilot, God knows counterfactuals as well. He knows not only what will occur, but also what would occur given different circumstances, and he knows this infallibly, whereas humans do not. So, is it coherent that God could command the killing of innocent human beings? My answer is yes. God may know that permitting the killing of some innocent Canaanites might have prevented future and greater loss of life or even greater apostasy by Israel leading to more spiritual death. The point is, if we as humans can rationally justify killing innocents in rare circumstances, and do so with hypothetical knowledge, then we have no grounds to criticize God, who does so, and is omniscient.

* Please read this related article from my colleague, Tim Stratton, shining additional light on the subject of the Canaanite Objection.

[1] K. Lawson Younger Jr., Ancient Conquest Accounts: A Study in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical History Writing (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990).

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What The Fighting Over Gender Issues Is Really About

What The Fighting Over Gender Issues Is Really About

By Michael Sherrard

Do you have a hard time understanding how rational people can really think that genderless bathrooms are a good idea? Are you confused about what is happening culturally? Does it make any sense to you that corporations are applying political and economic pressure to reform our social sexuality? Well, here’s what’s going on.

The cultural battle over sexuality and gender comes down to one thing: a meaningful life. That is what all of the fighting is about, and it is why the battle contains such fury and vitriol. Each fight is part of a larger fight: How does one have a meaningful life? And this is what you must understand, the answer to the previous question is determined by your worldview.

A worldview is a set of beliefs that cause you to view life a certain way. We all have one. You cannot escape it. We each have beliefs that affect how we see life, form conclusions, and interpret our experiences.

I have a Christian worldview. I possess beliefs about reality. Among other things, I believe that God exists, the world is rational (i.e. knowable), and life has objective meaning and inherent value. My existence is the source of my meaning and value. Because I am made in God’s image, I have inestimable worth.

I live in a society, though, where nearly everyone else has a naturalistic worldview. Naturalism is a set of beliefs about reality. Naturalism holds, among other things, that God does not exist, the world is rational (though they cannot justify its rationality), and life has no inherent meaning or value. And that is a big deal. Did you catch it? Life has no inherent meaning or value. So what makes you and your life worth anything? That’s the big problem for the naturalist.

Naturalists have long recognized the consequences and problems that stem from their worldview. George Orwell noted this some time ago in his essay Notes on the Way. In it he writes about the necessity of cutting away the soul. You see according to naturalism, the self or soul does not exist. Put simply, you do not exist. “Man is not an individual, he is only a cell in an everlasting body” as Orwell says. The problem, though, is when you cut away the soul you find yourself in a very desolate world: existence void of meaning and value. Orwell saw this.

“For two hundred years we had sawed and sawed and sawed at the branch we were sitting on. And in the end, much more suddenly than anyone had foreseen, our efforts were rewarded, and down we came. But unfortunately there had been a little mistake. The thing at the bottom was not a bed of roses after all, it was a cesspool full of barbed wire.”

So how do Naturalists rescue themselves from this bleak dystopia? How do they find meaning in life? They manufacture it. French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre was a pioneer in helping the naturalist out of their predicament. He espoused that existence preceded essence. This basically means that you are a blank slate, so make your life whatever you want. Because your existence has no inherent meaning or value, you can do whatever you want with it. Be a dragon. Become a woman. Marry your mother or computer. Define your life as you see fit. Your autonomous will is what gives your existence value and meaning. It is your dignity.

This is what the fight is over. In order to have a meaningful existence, you must have the complete freedom to form yourself according to your will and your will alone. So a threat to, say, the freedom of choosing your gender is a threat to the society that has embraced naturalism and needs to manufacture meaning and value through unfettered freedom of choice. For if you remove the ability to form your essence through choice, you remove any hope of a meaningful life.

Lets be clear about what is taking place here. Our society is collectively acting on the assumption that God does not exist and naturalism is true. They are fighting to form a society that reflects this belief. This is again why the fighting is so intense. It is a radical shift in our society. But I wonder if people are really aware of this. I wonder if we are prepared to declare in such a fashion that God is dead. Are we ready to officially replace the Christian worldview with a naturalistic one?

Well, here’s the thing, and this may shock you, we should be ready. We should abandon the Christian worldview if naturalism is true. But it’s not. Naturalism is a very weak worldview in terms of its explanatory power for reality, and it actually doesn’t offer a rational justification for believing in it. But that’s an article all by itself. Even so, I think we can examine just one aspect of the naturalist’s position and see why it’s something we can’t embrace.

According to naturalism, God does not exist. Therefore, form your own essence to give your existence meaning and value. But because God does not exist, the self cannot exist as the naturalist would readily concede. But if the self doesn’t exist, free will can’t exist. According to naturalists, I am a “cell in an everlasting body.” I am merely molecules in motion. Chemistry and physics dictate how I act, feel, and respond to this world. I am nothing more than a machine. Worse, I am a slave to my nature. Free moral agency is a huge problem for the naturalist. It is the very thing needed to have a meaningful existence, but it is the very thing that cannot exist if naturalism is true.

How anyone can hold to naturalism and a belief in free will is beyond me. It is the pinnacle of intellectual dishonesty. And for that, I cannot imagine how anyone can be a Naturalist. The most important thing about their worldview is not possible according to their worldview. And isn’t this the greatest form of irony. Because of their worldview, Naturalists must go to great lengths to manufacture freedom so that they can give meaning to their existence instead of embracing the Christian worldview that naturally contains both freedom and meaning.

To be clear, naturalism is the worldview that has brought us this battle. From it follows the fight we are currently in. Because God does not exist, life has no meaning other than what you manufacture through your autonomous will. A meaningful life is what hangs in the balance here. It is why the battle rages.

So what does this mean for us? Foremost, it means we must engage the root issue. We cannot merely address symptoms. We easily get sucked into arguments over bathroom policies and what not. And that is fine. We should engage in those conversations. But our efforts will not be fruitful if we are not addressing the heart of the issue. Genderless bathrooms flow from the naturalistic worldview.

Unfortunately, most people haven’t really thought about gender issues and such in a meaningful way. They haven’t recognized how naturalism is the worldview behind the fighting. They haven’t connected the dots. They’ve merely connected with sound bites.

You can help, though. You can help people think meaningfully about this important issue as you engage them in respectful conversation. As I’ve written in my book Relational Apologetics, I believe the best approach in most cases is to ask questions, listen, learn how to stay on topic, practice humility and point people at the right time toward a true understanding. Be gentle and respectful in your conversations, and many will come to see that Christianity still speaks reason in an age of naturalistic nonsense.

_____________________________

Michael C. Sherrard is a pastor, the director of Ratio Christi College Prep, and the author of Relational Apologetics. Booking info and such can be found at michaelcsherrard.com.

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Please Don’t Tell Your Kids to Believe in God Just in Case He Exists

Please Don’t Tell Your Kids to Believe in God Just in Case He Exists

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By Natasha Crain

Today’s post, like my last one, is in response to some comments I saw in a Facebook group recently. A mom posted that her 5-year-old asked, “How do we know God is real?”

Amongst the many responses from fellow parents was this one: “I would say… Maybe God isn’t real. If he isn’t, then have we lost anything by following him and living good and moral lives? No. So if our faith isn’t true, we can still live lives that spread goodness and love. And if it is true then we get to experience the source of goodness and love when we pass on to the next life. Either way, we make a good choice to follow God and spread love and goodness in this world.”

This response is the basic idea behind what is famously known as “Pascal’s Wager,” named for the 17th-century philosopher Blaise Pascal who first championed it. The gist of the argument is that humans should live as if God exists because we have everything to gain and nothing to lose from it—a safe bet. If it turns out that God exists, then you gain heaven and avoid hell; if it turns out that God doesn’t exist, you’ve lost nothing. So everyone should just believe in God, right?

No, no, no. Please don’t use this as your Christian parenting philosophy…either implicitly or explicitly.

Over time, I’ve received quite a few blog comments from Christian parents suggesting this is their underlying rationale for faith, and I’ve seen many Christians attempt to use this logic with nonbelievers. However, it’s riddled with problems and I implore Christian parents to avoid this mentality at all costs. Here are four reasons why.

1. Such a mindset perpetuates the myth of blind faith.

If, in response to the question of how we know God is real, we have nothing more to offer our kids than “better safe than sorry,” we have implied there’s no surer footing for their faith available. This is exactly what atheists want our kids to believe.

Atheists incessantly proclaim that Christianity is all about blind faith—a complete leap in the dark with no evidence to support it. When we, as Christian parents, don’t teach our kids that Christianity is, in fact, a faith based on extensive evidence, we perpetuate this destructive claim. Given the increasingly secular world in which our kids are living, it is our God-given responsibility to 1) teach them that Christianity IS an evidential faith and 2) teach them what the evidence is. (If you need help with this, please get my book, Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side!)

2. A philosophical wager doesn’t address the question of which God to bet on.

It’s pointless to bet your life on the existence of a generic God because there are multiple ideas of God to choose from. Should we bet on the Christian God? The Mormon God? The Muslim God? The differences between these concepts of God are not trivial. Each religion would say that if you aren’t “betting” your life on that particular idea of God, you have just as much to be concerned about as if you were betting on no God at all!

Once you understand that there isn’t a simple “God or no God” choice, it naturally leads to the question of what good reasons there are to choose one religion over another. In other words, a decision must still be made to some degree based on evidence and not safety. Pascal’s Wager can’t help with that.

3. A philosophical wager doesn’t take into account the trade-off between probabilities and cost.

Imagine for a moment someone told you that if you run 10 miles every day of your life, you will get to be God over your own eternal paradise after death.

Would you do it?

No. For two reasons.

First, the probability of this being true is extraordinarily low; there are no good reasons for believing it. Second, there is a giant cost of daily exercise involved. Maybe if someone told you that throwing a penny out your window would achieve the same outcome you’d give it a go just for fun. But you’re certainly not going to run 10 miles every day of your life given the tiny probability of it being true.

As Christians, we believe there is an enormous cost of following Jesus. We are called to prioritize our relationship with Him beyond all Earthly relationships and pursuits, taking up our “crosses” to follow Him daily.

If you believe that there is no evidence for the truth of Christianity (as atheists typically do), becoming a Christian would be an unreasonable trade-off to make with your life. It’s like running 10 miles every day to be God over your own eventual paradise…an unreasonable decision given your assessment of the probability that this is an accurate picture of reality.

Once again, this brings us full circle to the question of why there’s a good reason to believe Christianity is actually true. Our kids will only live out the costly life Christians are called to have when their belief is accompanied by conviction.

4. Mere probabilistic arguments have little impact on the heart…which is what really matters.

In the Christian view, believing that God exists is not enough. James 2:19 points out that even demons believe in God. Saving faith is about our relationship with Jesus, and God knows our heart. If we are, for all intents and purposes, living a Christian existence because we see our faith as a safe choice, we are fooling no one except ourselves.

Parents, please understand that when I write posts in response to well-meaning comments I see from Christians online, it’s not to be critical for the sake of being critical. It’s because I believe we Christian parents HAVE to step up our game. This world is getting more challenging for believers every day and it requires us to avoid passing down harmful beliefs at all costs. We must strive to arm our children with accurate beliefs, an accurate rationale for those beliefs, and an accurate defense of those beliefs. Let’s be vigilant in this. Together, we can raise a generation ready to stand strong for their faith…even when it’s not a safe choice.

 

Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2SavJ1w

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The Wisdom Chronicle

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

  1. SLEEP “I started reading the research on the relationship between sleep deprivation and obesity about 10 years ago. At first the idea that sleeping less would cause you to gain weight didn’t make any sense to me. If you are sleeping less, then presumably you are more active because you are doing something. You aren’t sleeping. And almost any activity burns more calories than sleeping does. But it turns out that if kids or grown-ups are sleep-deprived, the hormones that regulate appetite get messed up, which confuses our brains in all kinds of bad ways. Your brain starts to say, I’m so tired, I deserve some potato chips / ice cream / candy / cookies / cake / and I need them right NOW.”

Excerpt From: Sax, Leonard. “The Collapse of Parenting.”

  1. WRITE IT “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”

— B. Franklin

  1. YOUR TEAM UNLUCKY? “Psychologists have found that people too often attribute success to skill and failure to luck, a bias called self-attribution. We brag about the three stocks we bought that hit it big but dismiss as bad luck the seven that plummeted. We applaud our quick reflexes and driving skills when avoiding a gaping pothole, but when we hit it squarely, we curse the weather, other drivers, and the city (everyone but ourselves). In many aspects of life, we are quick to claim success and reluctant to admit failure. We do the same thing for our favorite team.”

Excerpt From: Tobias Moskowitz & L. Jon Wertheim. “Scorecasting.”

  1. GOOD PARENTING FOR COACH K “I knew I wanted to coach,” Krzyzewski said. “I can’t honestly remember not wanting to coach. I knew I wasn’t a good enough player to play pro ball, but I did think I could teach and I could lead and it was something I wanted to do. But when Coach Knight came to the house and talked about West Point and having a guaranteed job in the army for four years, my attitude was, ‘No way do I want to be in the army.’ ”

His parents felt differently. They thought the chance to go to college for free and then serve your country was about as good as it could possibly get for a teenager whose major aptitude seemed to be for playing a game.

“They would talk in the kitchen after dinner every night,” Krzyzewski remembered. “They knew I was in the next room listening. They would talk in Polish, but there are no words in Polish for ‘stupid’ or ‘dumb.’ I would hear a lot of Polish and then, ‘Mike—stupid’ or ‘Mike—dumb.’ It went on like that for a few nights. The message was clear: they couldn’t believe they had raised a son so stupid and so dumb that he didn’t want to go to a great college and be in the army. Nothing would make them more proud. Where could they have gone wrong?”

Krzyzewski laughed at the memory. “Nowadays, when I hear people say their child has to make up his or her own mind about where to go to college I say, ‘No, that’s wrong.’ If you know things your child doesn’t because you’re older and smarter, you owe it to them to let them know how you feel. If my parents hadn’t done that, I have no idea how my life would have turned out—but it wouldn’t have been like this.

“I knew exactly what they were doing—but it worked anyway. I finally got angry and I stalked in one night and said, ‘Okay, okay, I’ll go. If that’s what you want, I’ll go!’ They just looked at me, smiled, and said, ‘Good decision.’ ”

Excerpt From: Feinstein, John. “The Legends Club.”

  1. DIVERSITY? “Ac­cord­ing to data com-piled by the Higher Ed­u­ca­tion Re­search In­sti­tute, only 12% of uni­ver­sity fac­ulty iden­tify as po­lit­i­cally right of cen­ter, and these are mainly pro­fes­sors in schools of en­gi­neer­ing and other pro­fes­sional schools. Only 5% of pro­fes­sors in the hu­man­i­ties and so­cial-sci­ence de­part­ments so iden­tify. A com­pre­hen­sive study by James Lind­gren of North­west-ern Uni­ver­sity Law School shows that in a coun­try fairly evenly di­vided be­tween De­mocrats and Re­pub­li­cans, only 13% of law pro­fes­sors iden­tify as Re­pub­li­can. And a re­cent study by Jonathan Haidt of New York Uni­ver­sity showed that 96% of so­cial psy­chol­o­gists iden­tify as left of cen­ter, 3.7% as centrist/mod­er­ate and only 0.03% as right of cen­ter. (WSJ 4-1-16)
  2. FINE TUNING! “If the Earth took more than twenty-four hours to rotate, temperatures on our planet would be too extreme between sunrise and sunset. If the rotation of the Earth were slightly shorter, wind would move at a dangerous velocity. If the oxygen level on our planet were slightly less, we would suffocate; if it were slightly more, spontaneous fires would erupt.”

Excerpt From: Moreland, J.P. “Love Your God with All Your Mind (15th anniversary repack).”

  1. RULE OF LAW? “America is a nation of judges and lawyers more than it is a nation of laws.” –Dennis Prager
  2. LIFE-LONG LEARNING “I believe the reason a graduation ceremony is called a commencement is because the process of learning begins—or commences—at that point. The schooling that went before simply provided the tools and the framework for the real lessons to come.”

Excerpt From: Stovall, Jim. “The Ultimate Gift.”

  1. GOALS “How would you like a job where, if you made a mistake, a big red light goes on and 18,000 people boo?” – Hockey goalie
  2. MONEY: GOOD OR BAD? “By the time they have been retired for two years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress and within five years of retirement, an estimated 60% of former NBA players are broke.

Rock stars, actors and actresses, lottery winners? The numbers are all similar. The National Endowment for Financial Education estimates that 70 percent of people who suddenly receive life-changing money are separated from it within three years.

Deeming money “good” personifies it, and the people in our lives simply can’t compete with our relationship with an inanimate object that silently promises to make all of our dreams come true.

Those who think money is inherently bad tend to manage it poorly, straining relationships. Those who “love money” and think it is inherently good tend to strain relationships, deprioritizing the people in their lives. And, by the way, straining relationships also tends to cost money—half of your money, typically.

Meanwhile, those who view money as a neutral tool tend to employ and attract it most effectively.”

Excerpt From: Maurer, Tim. “Simple Money.”

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How to Explain to Your Kids Why Some People Think Gorillas and Humans Are Equally Valuable

How to Explain to Your Kids Why Some People Think Gorillas and Humans Are Equally Valuable

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By Natasha Crain

By now, you’ve probably seen all the headlines and controversy surrounding the killing of Harambe the gorilla. In a nutshell, a 4-year-old boy somehow fell into a gorilla exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo last weekend and authorities ended up killing the gorilla in order to ensure the boy’s life would be saved. Controversy has raged over whether or not the gorilla should have been shot when he was, whether the mom was at fault for the whole thing, and, most notably,whether we really should always choose a human life over an animal life.

If you find the italicized last part of that sentence confusing, you should. It goes against our most basic understanding of our existence. But that’s where our society is today: equating the value of human life with the value of animal life.

On the surface, this controversy can sound like a simple battle over opinions, but in reality it originates miles deeper—at the level of a person’s entire worldview. The reactions to this story make it a perfect case study for our kids on how our worldview impacts the way we see absolutely everything in life.

Here’s what they should understand.

 

A Tale of Two Worldviews

There are two major worldviews in play here (well, technically, there are many more, but for our purposes we’ll compare the two big ones).

First, there is the naturalistic worldview. In the naturalistic worldview, there is no God. All that exists is the natural world, which sprang into existence 13.7 billion years ago. Eventually, about 4.5 billion years ago, the Earth formed, and 0.5 billion years later, the first life appeared. As life continued to reproduce, random mutations occurred in DNA (the molecule that contains all the information necessary to build and maintain an organism). Some of those mutations conferred an advantage to their organism within their environment, leading to improved survival and reproduction. When the organisms with the beneficial mutation no longer reproduced with the original population, a new species was created. Over billions of years, this process created every species on Earth—fish evolved into amphibians, amphibians into reptiles, and reptiles into birds and mammals, with humans finally arriving on the scene a couple hundred thousand years ago (the actual date is debated).

Without assessing the truth of this worldview, we can identify four basic implications of it. If naturalism is true:

 

  1. There is no objective meaning to our existence. People can certainly create their ownsubjective meanings—I can decide that the meaning of my life, for example, is to save dolphins—but no meaning is any truer than any other; there is no objective meaning to our existence.

 

  1. There is no objective purpose of our existence. Evolution isn’t moving toward any particular goal. Environmental factors may influence the rate of DNA mutations, but not the direction. In the most basic sense of the word, our lives our purposeless.

 

  1. There is no objective morality. Any individual can have a preference for what they think is right and wrong, but no one can claim a higher authority for that preference. I might say murder is wrong, for example, but I can only mean wrong in the weakest sense—“murder is wrong in my personal opinion.” Someone else could legitimately claim that murder is great, and there would be no objective arbiter of morality between us; no one could say what weought to do.

 

  1. Humans are equal in value to animals. If humans evolved from animals without any prior planning for or direction toward our existence, we are quite literally just another animal. No creature has a more intrinsic right to life than any other. The question of which lifeshould be saved in a situation like a boy falling into a gorilla exhibit is irrelevant—there can be no speak of objective shoulds. We humans may have an opinion on it, but no opinion is objectively more right than another. If naturalism is true, we have no reason to bristle at those who say they would choose the life of Harambe over the life of the child—like this person I saw on Facebook:

 

Now let’s consider the Christian worldview. In the Christian worldview, God created the universe and everything in it. We learn about Him and ourselves through His revelation in nature, Jesus, and the Bible.

Again, whether or not this is an accurate picture of reality, we can identify the following four basic implications of it:

 

  1. There is objective meaning to our existence. If there’s an author of life, then it follows that He would imbue His creation with a specific meaning. Think, for example, of a painter who created artwork with the meaning that life is beautiful. Someone may look at the painting and say, “Oh! It meant something else to me…” but that won’t negate the fact that the author himself is the only one who can state what the meaning truly is.  In the Christian worldview, God is the One who determines the true, objective meaning of our existence (whether we like that meaning or not).

 

  1. There is a purpose for our existence. Similarly, if there is an author of life, then it follows that He created us with a purpose in mind. And, again, we might live as if that purpose is something totally different, but that doesn’t negate our true purpose.

 

  1. There is objective morality. In the Christian worldview, God is perfectly good and is the objective standard of morality. He has given us a moral conscience (Romans 2:14-15) and revealed further moral prescriptions in the Bible. We can speak of what humans should do because there is a universal should that applies to all people.

 

  1. Humans are fundamentally different from and more valuable than animals. Christians disagree over the age of the universe and God’s creative method, but universally agree that human beings—and no other creatures—were created in His image (Genesis 1:27). We were made to resemble God in a meaningful way that sets us apart from the animal world: We are rational, moral, and capable of having a relationship with our Creator. That makes human life sacred and of infinitely more value than that of other creatures.

 

So What Should We Make of Harambe?

None of this is to say that we should mistreat animals, or that we should have been happy about Harambe being killed in this unfortunate situation. It’s also not an analysis of whether or not he was killed prematurely. In an ideal world, they would have been able to save both the child and the animal.

Rather, this is to say that a person’s worldview is foundational to how he or she evaluates a situation like this. If you believe that there is no God who designed humans as unique creatures with a unique right to life, you’ll argue over the details of the situation to assert your opinion on which life should have been spared in this particular case. Maybe you think the gorilla should have won, maybe you think the boy should have won. The details are there for discussion. But if you believe that there is a God who has created us specially—in His image—you’ll always argue for doing what it takes to save a human life, because human life is sacred in a way that animal life is not.

 

When we take the time to dig into the worldview issues behind popular stories like this, we help our kids tremendously in preparing them to engage with this secular world. So many of the battles today come down to the worldviews behind the issues themselves. The more we teach our kids to look far beneath the surface of what’s going on around them, the more we develop their critical thinking skills and demonstrate how far-reaching the implications of their beliefs are. If you need help with having these conversations, please check out my new book, Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side: 40 Conversations to Help Them Build a Lasting Faith.  It’s available from your local Barnes & Noble and Christian book retailers, as well as ChristianBook.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and Amazon.com.

 

 

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Is Spiritual Truth a Matter of Opinion? An Open Letter to a Relativist

Is Spiritual Truth a Matter of Opinion? An Open Letter to a Relativist

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By Natasha Crain

I received the following blog comment this week, packed with statements that your kids are likely to hear (and possibly come to believe) about the nature of truth. I wanted to reply to the commenter right here in a blog post because I feel there is so much that is important for everyone to understand about what he is saying.

I’m going to include the full comment below so you can read it in its unbroken entirety, then I’ll break it down part-by-part. If you have older kids, I encourage you to read them this letter and use it as a discussion starter.

For context, this person is responding to an atheist who had commented on a post previously and is encouraging him to stay strong in the midst of Christian claims.

You are really brave defending your stance against a bunch of evangelical Christians banging on you. I myself am not an atheist. If I have to put a label on myself, I would choose agnostic theist. I believe in God or a higher power, but I don’t have an absolute certainty of his or her nature.

 My belief is rational to [a] certain extent. The rest is on faith. However, unlike Christians, my spiritual path is highly personal and subjective. I will never say that “you’d better believe what I believe or you will suffer eternal consequences”. Christians, whichever denominations, like to intimidate me which [sic] this “Jesus is the high way” tactic even though I never initiate any religious conversation with them. However, I have survived as a gay, Vietnamese, and non-Abrahamic-faith person, and my life is pretty good so far. I know you may not like to hear this. I feel connected to God with contemplation, prayer, and compassion practice. When I have a child, I will not raise him or her as an atheist or a believer. I will do my best to raise him as a person who has a higher sense of empathy and compassion. If he chooses to be a Christian, Buddhist, Wiccan, Pagan, etc., I will support his decision. I believe that God is like an ocean, and different spiritual paths are like rivers. I am not the one who decides which river is the best to reach the ocean…

Keep your stance and keep searching truth…your truth. Not mine and definitely not these Christians’.

My Response: An Open Letter to a Relativist

Dear Minh,

Thank you for being willing to honestly share your spiritual journey in the comments section of my blog. It’s clear that spirituality is an important topic for you, as it is for me. With that in mind, I’d like to respond to several of the points you make.

You said: I myself am not an atheist. If I have to put a label on myself, I would choose agnostic theist. I believe in God or a higher power, but I don’t have an absolute certainty of his or her nature.

From what you’re saying here, it sounds like you are “agnostic” about what kind of God or higher power exists because you haven’t found anything pointing to that Being’s nature with absolute certainty. However, it’s important that we’re honest with ourselves about this desire for absolute certainty. There’s pretty much nothing in life we know with “absolute certainty.” For example, do you know with absolute certainty that you are a real person and that everything you experience is not just an illusion? No, but you have good reason to believe you really exist and you live accordingly. We claim to know things all the time that we can’t be absolutely certain about. When the preponderance of evidence points toward something being true, we go ahead and say we know it.

The question I would leave you to consider, therefore, is this: If you discovered that a preponderance of evidence pointed to a specific religion being the one true revelation of God to humans, would you accept it as truth? Or do you require a level of certainty that you don’t require of anything else in your life?

If you require a unique level of certainty in spiritual matters, then I would suggest perhaps you don’t want to find truth. If you are open to considering the weight of the evidence for the possible objective truth of a specific religion, then I would invite you to begin that investigation in earnest. If you would like to learn about the evidence for Christianity specifically, I will recommend a great starting book at the end of this letter.

You said: My belief is rational to a certain extent. The rest is on faith. However, unlike Christians, my spiritual path is highly personal and subjective.

It sounds as though you are suggesting that a highly personal and subjective spiritual path is a better way than an objective one, such as in Christianity. However, it’s important to realize (if that’s indeed what you are implying) that by claiming this, YOU are making an objective statement–that a highly personal and subjective spiritual path is best for everyone! That’s a contradiction.

You said: I will never say that “you’d better believe what I believe or you will suffer eternal consequences”.

If you’re an agnostic theist, then you presumably don’t believe there are eternal consequences for your beliefs, so of course, you will never say that. But what you are really saying here is that it’s wrong (and probably arrogant) for Christians to suggest to others that they have objective knowledge that beliefs have eternal consequences. Here’s the problem: What if Christianity is true? What if there are eternal consequences for what you believe? Would it be more loving for Christians to tell others about that, or to stay silent in the fear that the truth might bother you? Whether you believe Christianity is true or not, it’s not logical to suggest it’s a bad thing for Christians to warn other people about what they believe to be eternal consequences. When a person truly believes something horrible will happen to another person unless they warn them about it (think of someone about to get hit by a bus), the logical and loving action is to warn them. I would hope you would do the same if that were your belief.

You said: Christians, whichever denominations, like to intimidate me which this “Jesus is the high way” tactic even though I never initiate any religious conversation with them.

We really need to stop here and better define the nature of intimidation; there is a huge difference between an intimidating delivery of a message, an intimidating message, and feeling intimidated.

If a Christian has gotten in your face, waving a Bible in the air and shouted angrily at you, “Jesus is the only way!” then they have delivered a message in an intimidating way. And I apologize if you have been the recipient of any such graceless delivery. That is not how Jesus would speak.

An intimidating message is one that is frightening in and of itself. Is the message that Jesus is the only way to God frightening? If so, I encourage you to really dig deep and understand why it would be frightening to you if there was really just one objective truth. The gospel is good news…Jesus died so that our sins can be forgiven and we can be reconciled to our wonderful Creator.

Finally, a person can feel intimidated even if someone does not deliver a message in an intimidating way and doesn’t even deliver an intimidating message. There is nothing inherently intimidating about saying that Jesus is the only way to God! But if in response to that, you feel intimidated, then it’s worth digging within to understand why the notion of one objective truth is so challenging to you personally.

You said: However, I have survived as a gay, Vietnamese, and non-Abrahamic-faith person, and my life is pretty good so far. I know you may not like to hear this.

Minh, the test of truth should never be whether or not our lives are “pretty good.” A person can believe the world is flat (a wrong belief about reality) while having an amazing life from an earthly perspective. It’s not about survival and circumstances; it’s about having good reason to know that what you believe is an accurate picture of reality.

You said: I feel connected to God with contemplation, prayer, and compassion practice.

But why put so much trust in your feelings? Our feelings can’t be the final arbiter of truth. If I tell you I feel connected to Jesus as God’s son, who represents the only way to God, you wouldn’t believe I’m right. So there has to be something objective–evidence outside of your and my personal experiences–to help us determine what is actually true.

You said: When I have a child, I will not raise him or her as an atheist or a believer. I will do my best to raise him as a person who has a higher sense of empathy and compassion.

Why are empathy and compassion the most important values? Why are they “higher” in value or truth than whether or not God exists? If God doesn’t exist, and the world is only material, then there is no basis for objective morality; there is nothing morally good or bad because there is no moral authority. Empathy and compassion are morally equivalent to killing people if we are just molecules in motion. To be sure, I’m not suggesting that most atheists would ever think killing a person is OK. But, in a world with no God (a moral authority), at best you could say that killing people is not good in your opinion, and therefore you won’t do it. Atheists can be “good without God,” but they have no objective basis from which to call anything good. Similarly, if you don’t believe in a God who has revealed anything of His nature, you have no objective basis from which to refer to empathy and compassion as “higher” values.

You said: If he chooses to be a Christian, Buddhist, Wiccan, Pagan, etc, I will support his decision.

If by “support” you mean you will continue to love him dearly, regardless of what he believes, then I agree wholeheartedly. But if by “support” you mean you will accept whatever he believes as an equally valid picture of truth, then once again this is a contradiction. At the end of your whole comment, you advise fellow readers to not search for the truth of Christianity. Clearly, if your son believed Christianity is true, you would not feel that view is as valid as yours. Thus, you are willing to claim that at least some views are objectively wrong.

You said: I believe that God is like an ocean, and different spiritual paths are like rivers.

If you study where all these “rivers” are actually leading, you’ll see that they make logically incompatible truth claims; they aren’t even claiming to run to the same ocean. As a simple example, in Judaism, Jesus is not the Messiah. He is simply a man. In Christianity, Jesus is the Messiah and is God Himself. These claims cannot both be true. They contradict each other and cannot point to the same truth.

You said: I am not the one who decides which river is the best to reach the ocean.

If God exists, as you and I both believe, then you are correct: We are not the ones who decide which river is the best to reach the ocean. GOD IS! Ironically, by stating that you are not the one to decide what is best, so you, therefore, choose to believe that all paths are fine, you ARE making a claim of what is best. God, and God alone determines which “river” flows to Him. The question is, has He revealed which river that is, and if so, which revelation is correct? Christians believe He has revealed that river as Jesus. We are not claiming to have decided that on your behalf, which I think is a misunderstanding that flows throughout your comment. We are simply claiming that the river that runs to God has already been decided by God and are sharing what we believe He has revealed.

You said: Keep your stance and keep searching truth, your truth. Not mine and definitely not these Christians’.

After all you wrote about the equally valid paths to God, it’s hard not to see the irony in how you’re advising others to definitely not search for the truth of “these Christians.” Are all paths valid except Christianity? You champion relative, subjective truth, but in doing so, you are making an objective claim that all paths are equally valid (except, notably, Christianity).

The bottom line is this: Truth is not what we like the best, what makes us most comfortable, what costs us the least, or what makes us happiest. It’s what accurately matches reality. I encourage you to consider the actual evidence for the truth of various worldviews, including, of course, Christianity. If you honestly and openly do so, I am confident you will see that there is a good reason to believe that Christianity is the uniquely true revelation of God. An excellent book that examines this evidence from the perspective of a detective is Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels.

 I wish you the best and hope that there is some food for thought here.

For anyone wanting to better understand the nature of objective truth, whether or not all religions can point to the same truth, why Christians can claim to “know” Christianity is true, and how common sense and personal experience are or are not helpful in determining truth, please check out my new book, Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side: 40 Conversations to Help Them Build a Lasting Faith. It’s available from your local Barnes & Noble and Christian book retailers, as well as ChristianBook.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and Amazon.com.

 

Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2Clbys2

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TEN Problems with the Canaanite Objection

TEN Problems with the Canaanite Objection

By Tim Stratton

“Then they devoted all in the city to destruction, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys, with the edge of the sword” (Joshua 6:21).

Why would God command the execution of all the Canaanites (along with the children) in the Old Testament? Many think this is one of the biggest objections to Christianity; however, when thinking logically, we can see that this is not an objection to Christian theism at all. We must recognize the real objection; at most, this is only an objection to Biblical inerrancy, as the “Canaanite objection” does absolutely nothing to disprove the existence of God or the resurrection of Jesus. These two things must be invalidated before “Mere Christianity” (as C.S. Lewis put it) is discredited.

With that said, however, is this even a good objection against Biblical inerrancy? I think not. Why? Perhaps God had perfectly good reasons for issuing these “divine commands” (if He really issued them at all).

A quick study of the Canaanite tribes reveals a totally wicked culture, that if existed today, the world would decry. The Canaanites would brutally torture and sacrifice their babies to idols by slowly burning them alive (this sounds worse than ISIS Muslims today)! Eric Lyons noted the following:

 Their “cultic practice was barbarous and thoroughly licentious” (Unger, 1954, p. 175). Their “deities…had no moral character whatever,” which “must have brought out the worst traits in their devotees and entailed many of the most demoralizing practices of the time,” including sensuous nudity, orgiastic nature-worship, snake worship, and even child sacrifice (Unger, p. 175; cf. Albright, 1940, p. 214). As Moses wrote, the inhabitants of Canaan would “burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods” (Deuteronomy 12:30). The Canaanite nations were anything but “innocent.” In truth, “[t]hese Canaanite cults were utterly immoral, decadent, and corrupt, dangerously contaminating and thoroughly justifying the divine command to destroy their devotees” (Unger, 1988). They were so nefarious that God said they defiled the land and the land could stomach them no longer—“the land vomited out its inhabitants” (Leviticus 18:25).

These tribes inhabited the land that God gave to the Israelites. Therefore, not only were the Canaanites suffering God’s judgment for their wicked ways, the land was also restored to Israel. These tribes were to be utterly demolished as nation states! The Canaanites were ripe for God’s judgment, and justice would be served via the Israelites.

Here is what many skeptics miss: The Canaanites, seeing the advancing armies of Israel could have chosen to “get the heck out of Dodge,” and no one would have been killed! To underscore this point, we see no Bible verse in which God commands pursuing the Canaanites, or “hunting them down to the ends of the earth.”

Utterly Destroy?

Moreover, the Israelites did not literally “utterly destroy” all the Canaanites! Only the Canaanites who chose to stay and fight the Israelites were to be killed. In fact, it is quite possible that there were no Canaanite women or children killed at all. The Bible makes zero references to the actualkilling of Canaanite non-combatants, which supports the notion that it was only the Canaanite soldiers, who stayed to fight the Israelite armies, who were exterminated.

Speaking of Biblical affirmation, the Bible reports that Canaanite people were still alive after the conquest of the land in question:

“Thus Joshua struck all the land, the hill country and the Negev and the lowland and the slopes and all their kings. He left no survivor, but he utterly destroyed all who breathed, just as the LORD, the God of Israel, had commanded… Thus Joshua took all that land: the hill country and all the Negev, all that land of Goshen, the lowland, the Arabah, the hill country of Israel and its lowland” (Joshua 10:40; 11:16).

Joshua reports that God commanded “utter destruction,” and that he had followed that command “to the T” (Joshua 11:12, 15, 20); however, if we read the text further, we find that Joshua did not take all of the land (Joshua 13:1-5), and that many of the people who were supposedly either annihilated or removed from the land were, in fact, still living there (Joshua 13:13). The author is clear that the people of Anakim had been “utterly destroyed,” (Joshua 11:21-22); however, if we continue reading, we find Caleb asking for permission to drive out the people of Anakim (Joshua 14:12-15; 15:13-19).

Moreover, the book of Judges records that “the Canaanites persisted in living in that land” (Judg. 1:21) and “they did not drive [the Canaanites] out completely” (Judg. 1:28). This gives us good reason to conclude that modern readers might be making a hermeneutical error in trying to read ancient text through modern lenses. This is corroborated by the words of Moses regarding a future generation of Israelites, He says Israel “will be utterly destroyed” (Deut. 4:26). Now, the nation of Israel has experienced some great defeats in the past; however, the nation of Israel has not been “utterly destroyed” at all. In fact, the nation of Israel thrives today.

After considering all of the text and seeing that the Canaanites continued to survive, this either proves the Israelites disobeyed this supposed “command of genocide,” or this was likely figurative language not to be taken literally (i.e., I hope the Huskers KILL and wipe out the badgers and wolverines next year on the field), or, it proves my point – this battle was not about people; it was about taking control of the land.

What Does Evil Prove? 

Another problem the skeptic has when referencing the Canaanite Objection as evidence against God, is that it actually proves the existence of God! That is to say, if an atheist thinks the “Canaanite problem” is a good refutation of theism, they are actually refuting atheism. If they claim that the Israelites actions were really wrong (objectively), they are inadvertently providing evidence that God exists! Examine the Moral Argument:

1- If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.

2- Objective moral values and duties do exist

3- Therefore, God exists.

If atheists object to the “Canaanite problem” and proclaim it was objectively wrong to drive the Canaanites from the land, they are offering evidence supporting premise (2) of the Moral Argument. Therefore, God exists! If they do not think it was really wrong, then they have no grounds to complain.

To Whom is God Accountable?

On the other hand, and for the sake of argument, what if the Bible is supposed to be taken literally in this passage in question and God did actually command the Israelites to kill all Canaanites? Would God be guilty of sin? This raises several questions. For instance: is it objectively wrong for God to issue commands to us, that we are obligated to follow, but that He is not?[1] Moreover, is it objectively wrong for God to issue a law that we ought to follow, and then, tell us to do something different in a specific situation?

When we stop to intellectually consider this (as opposed to emotionally) things become clear. For example, I live in the great state of Nebraska (Go Big Red!), and the lawmakers that govern this state have issued the command: “Thou shall not drive over 75 mph on the interstate!” Now, I have to be honest, I do not like this command (I wish the speed limit were at least 90 mph); however, I am obligated to drive according to the laws of the State of Nebraska, independent of whether I agree with them or not. If I do not drive according to these laws (which are issued to help Nebraskans flourish), I will suffer consequences that the lawmaking minds of Nebraska have issued as well.

The same lawmakers have the ability to issue commands to certain individuals in extreme circumstances. For instance, the Nebraska State Patrol is allowed to drive much faster than the speed limit, when they are in pursuit of those who have broken the law. Moreover, thankfully, those who drive ambulances and fire engines can drive much faster than the speed limit if they need to. Are Nebraska’s lawmakers morally wrong or evil for issuing different commands to different people in extreme situations? Not at all! In fact, I think they would be wrong to tell State Troopers that if they were chasing bad guys who were driving 100 mph, that they still had to drive 75 mph while in pursuit. It would be wrong and just plain silly.

When thinking this through, did God really do something wrong if He issued such commands to the Israelites to annihilate the Canaanites? God has the right (as the Ultimate Lawgiver) to give commands to certain individuals in extreme situations. We see this all the time in our government today.

I would ask those who think the supposed “Canaanite objection” is a problem for Christians, to please explain to me exactly who God sinned against if He did indeed issue these commands to the Israelites? If things are objectively wrong, they are wrong in reference to a higher standard. So, if God really did issue commands to kill people, what higher standard did God sin against? Is God accountable to someone? If this question is not answered, the objection has no teeth in its bite and does not make logical sense.

God’s Middle Knowledge

God, by definition, is omniscient. This means He knows the truth-value to any and all propositions. This includes counter-factual truths in the subjunctive mood and this means God possesses what theologians and philosophers refer to as “middle knowledge.” God is the standard of logic and rationality, and he is perfectly intelligent. Given this property, God makes the most intelligent decision in every scenario and situation. This means that God would know what would happen, if he did not issue the commands to destroy the Canaanites. Perhaps God knew that if they were not driven from the land and destroyed, Israel would not have become a nation, and Jesus would not have been born to save the world.

Moreover, God would have known how wicked the Canaanites were, and known with absolute certainty that none of them would have worshipped him, if given the opportunity. We could conduct thought experiment after thought experiment regarding an omniscient being (who would know the truth-value to counter-factual propositions) that would lead to Him knowing that issuing the commands to the Israelites to drive the wicked Canaanites from their land, and even kill them, would be the best thing to do in that specific situation.

Finite humans, who are not perfectly intelligent, are simply not in a position to know if the omniscient, divine command from God is the best decision or not because we have no idea what counter factual would have happened, if God did not issue these commands. An omniscient God, however, would be in such an epistemic position to know these things with perfect certainty and issue commands accordingly.

How We Know

According to Divine Command Morality, if God commands us to take the life of another, it would not be wrong. In the absence of this command, it is objectively wrong to murder other humans. How do we know this? God has revealed this to us through His commands and the Law of Christ — to love everyone from our neighbors (Mark 12:31) to our enemies (Matthew 5:44). This law and these commands have been historically validated via the resurrection of Jesus, as it is God’s seal of approval of everything Jesus said, taught, and exemplified.

God does not order Himself to do things. He acts in accords with his omniscient nature. He is what the laws of logic are grounded in (“The Logos”)and He is perfectly intelligent. A statement is true when it corresponds to reality. God is the ultimate standard of reality, as He exists necessarily and eternally with no beginning, and all other things are contingent upon God and depend upon Him for their existence (Colossians 1:15-20). Therefore, God is the ground of logic, the standard of truth, and we depend on Him for our existence. As William Lane Craig points out, “We ought to depend on the one who depends on no one.” That gives Him the right to tell us how to live, and to tell us what to do, even if we do not subjectively appreciate the commands (just like I don’t like the speed limit)!

It is important to remember that God is not obligated by his nature to extend human life. God is the author, giver, inventor, and creator of life. It is His to decide how we ought to live, and He has the right to issue commands that He knows are best (even if they don’t always make sense to us). God gives us life and He has the right to take it when He chooses and by whatever means He chooses. Be that as it may, some continue to object and claim that if God did command the Israelites to kill the Canaanite children, that it would have been objectively wrong for God to issue such commands no matter what. Is this really the case? My former professor, Dr. Clay Jones (who does not think these passages are hyperbole), made the following comments on the issue:

“One of the key issues that we need to point out regarding the killing of Canaanite children is that it isn’t always wrong to kill the innocent. Copan makes this point in his book (“Is God a Moral Monster?“) and uses the potential shooting down of Flight 93 as an example. . . . Also, God is every bit as just for allowing a child to be taken quickly by the sword as He is for allowing them to be taken slowly by cancer. Further, if God knew that these children, when they grew up, would commit similar sins, then He does no wrong by taking their lives early.”[2]

After contemplating these comments from Clay Jones, consider the atomic bombs the U.S. dropped on Japan to win WWII. We killed many innocent Japanese civilians, although millions of lives were saved in the process! With historical examples like these in mind, it is clear that sometimes — in extremely rare circumstances — it is actually good, and the right thing to do, for leaders to issue commands that will have collateral damage and take innocent life.

Conclusion

This essay provides several logical arguments against the “Canaanite objection.” I have answered this objection based on logic and critical thinking. One may have an emotional revulsion against these answers, but an emotional revulsion is not an intellectual objection and it does not logically lead to the conclusion that atheism is true, or that Christianity is false. The supposed “problems” of God committing genocide in the Old Testament are not insurmountable problems by any means, and ultimately, not a good reason to reject Christianity. In summary, remember theseTEN key points:

1- Objections like these do not refute Christian theism; this objection is simply an argument against Biblical inerrancy (a non-essential doctrine) nothing more.[3]

2- The Canaanites were wicked (on par with ISIS) and ripe for judgment.

3- The battle was primarily about the land as there was no command to “hunt the Canaanites down to the ends of the earth.”

4- The Bible is clear that all of the Canaanites were not executed.

5- These commands could well have been figurative speech (i.e., “our football team is going to kill your team!”)[4]

6- Objections like these support premise (2) of the moral argument for God’s existence (Therefore, God exists).

7- Lawmakers have the ability to issue different commands to certain individuals in extreme circumstances.

8- If God really did issue these commands to kill people, whom did God sin against? Who is He accountable to?

9- Given God’s property of omniscience and perfect intelligence, God makes the best decision in every scenario and situation. God would know what would happen if He did not issue the commands to destroy the Canaanites.

10- Flight 93 and WWII atomic bomb examples demonstrate that it is not always wrong to issue commands where innocent lives are taken.

Stay reasonable (Philippians 4:5),

Tim Stratton

NOTES

*Please read this related article from my colleague, Shannon Eugene Byrd, shining additional light on the subject of the Canaanite Objection.

[1] I call this the “Bedtime Fallacy,” as this is equivalent to saying parents are wrong to command their children to go to bed at 9 PM, but they retain the right to stay up past midnight.

[2] Clay Jones was my professor in my “God & Evil class” and I wrote a paper on the Canaanite Objection. Dr. Jones wrote this to me in response to my paper.

[3] Read more regarding this topic in my article, “An Ignorant Objection to the Moral Argument.”

[4] Trevor Ray Slone personally informed me that God’s curse on Canaan (Noah’s grandson) in Genesis 9:25-27 gives further credence to the view that God did not intend to “utterly destroy” all of Canaan’s decedents (the Canaanites). God, in that curse, repeatedly indicates that Canaan’s decedents would be servants of God’s people. It is therefore logically impossible for God to decree that all of the Canaanites be destroyed, for how could they be servants if they were “utterly destroyed?”

 

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Are Humans Sophisticated Carbon-Based Machines?

By Chris Du-Pond

A paramount question that humans ought to consider is what philosophers have labeled the “mind-body problem.” The key point here is this: are humans made of one substance or more? Are humans nothing more than physical matter or do they also incorporate an immaterial mind/soul? These distinct perspectives are known as physicalism and dualism. To answer that question carries profound implications, for if the soul/mind exists, then physicalism is certainly false. It is clear as well that if the mind exists as a disembodiable entity, then it is possible that humans can exist after the physical body dies. In this essay, I will argue that humans are not just physical matter and thus physicalism is false.

The challenge for those who hold to physicalism is to offer a coherent explanation detailing how mind and consciousness can arise from the rearrangement of carbon atoms. If physicalism is true, the humans are just complex rearranged and super-evolved bags of chemicals. This challenge becomes exponentially acute if we attempt to explain the emergence of mental states and consciousness.

Is there a way to ascertain if physicalism is false and that a soul/mind exists independently? Dr. J. P. Moreland believes that—with the use of simple logic and a few clear definitions—we can be reasonably convinced that physicalism is false. What comes from the physical, by means of the physical will be another form of physical matter. There is, however, strong evidence for the existence of the soul/mind independently of the brain/body.

The first step to show that physicalism is false is to define a few key terms to use as clarification tools to decide if the brain and the mind are the same “thing.” Within the realm of dualism, there is what is called substance dualism and property dualism. To understand these views requires the differentiation between substance and property. Property is an attribute or characteristic (squareness, redness, hardness, density). Properties tend to end in “ness” and “ity” in English. Properties are “had” by things. We can speak of the property of being blue, and then we can speak about the object holding that property, for example: “the pen is blue.”

A substance is something that has properties but nothing has it; for example, a pet has a property of being fluffy, of weighing 20 lbs, of being color brown, but nothing “has” the pet. The pet does all the “having.” Substances have properties and can gain or lose properties as well and remain the same substance. A pen can be painted green and lose the blueness property, but still be a pen (same substance).

To make our case against physicalism, we need to understand the nature of identity: Leibnitz’s law of identity posits that if we have a substance (or a property) X and another substance (or property) Y, if X is identical to Y, then whatever is true of X will be true of Y and vice-versa. For example; let X be “Neil Armstrong” and Y be “The first man to walk on the Moon.” If X is identical to Y, then Neil Armstrong is the first man to walk on the Moon. If this is true, then X and Y are the same substance. This is also true of properties. Now, if it can be proven that one thing is true of X that is not true of Y, then they are not the same substance or property. This is extremely important because now we can ask the question: is your consciousness nothing but physical properties of your brain? Are you your brain—and nothing more?

The key premise to test using the law of identity is the following: If there are true things of mental properties that are not true of physical properties, then they can’t be the same thing.

Let’s now review three arguments that show that there are some true things of mental properties that are not true of physical properties:

Argument 1: The property dualist agrees with the physicalist that we are physical substances (brain) but adds that the brain has two types of properties: physical and mental properties (and they are not the same). The brain has physical properties and mental properties. There is one possessor with two kinds of properties. Sensations are mental properties. Sensations can be perceptual sensations and non-perceptual. A sensation is a state of awareness that arrives from a sense organ (for example awareness of color, sound, smell, taste, texture). A non-perceptual sensation does not come from a sense organ (for example, fear, anger, love, anguish). A thought is a mental content that can be expressed in a whole sentence and can be true or false (for example, I can be thinking that “snow is white” but express it in French or Spanish). A belief is a mental content I take to be true (beliefs are not thoughts, for a person can hold a myriad of beliefs but not be thinking about any of them). Desires and acts of the will are also mental properties. The issue here for the physicalist is that these properties happen “inside of us” and there are properties that are true of sensations, thoughts, desires and acts of will that are not true of physical properties and vice versa; for example, thoughts don’t have size or shape. A thought can be true or false, but a feature of the brain or a group of neurons is neither true nor false. A brain state has a physical pattern of electricity, but the pattern is neither true nor false. We can think of a pink elephant and have an awareness of pink, but that awareness is not physical and we can’t find the color pink in the brain for which we experience such awareness. A sensation is pleasurable or not, but no physical property is pleasurable. There are true characteristics of our sensations that are not true of physical properties so they are not the same substance. This demonstrates that physicalism is false, and at least property dualism is true. No amount of information about our bodies can say everything there is to say about our conscious self.

Argument 2: I have the property of being possibly disembodied (the possibility that my “self” exists apart from my body) but my body doesn’t have the property of being possibly disembodied so I am not my body. By contrast, if water is H2O, is there’s anything that could possibly happen to water that couldn’t happen to H2O? No, there is nothing that wouldn’t happen to water that wouldn’t happen to H2O if they are the same thing. Even if life after death is false, surely, humans are at least possibly the kind of thing that can live after death. If that is so, then humans can’t be purely physical objects. There is something true of a human that is not true of the human body: I am possibly disembodiable. This does not prove immortality, but it illustrates that the body is not identical to the self.

Argument 3: The reality of free will. If all you are is a brain (even a conscious brain) and you believe physicalism is true, then all your behaviors are fixed by genes, brain structure, and environmental inputs. Physical objects behave according to natural laws and inputs, including the brain. But free choice requires that you are not simply your body because bodies are governed by physical laws. Free choice requires that humans be more than matter or brains. Matter, chemistry and electrical impulses can’t exercise free agency. But I submit to you that humans have significant freedom and moral responsibility and therefore true free will. In fact, our daily experience highlights the reality of true freedom of the will.

These three arguments show that there are true things about the self that are not true about a material body/brain and therefore physicalism is false.

Note

1.William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland, ed., “The Mind-Body Problem”, The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2009), 229.

 

Chris has an M.A. in Apologetics from Biola University and writes on the topic of Apologetics and Theology in Spanish and English at Veritasfidei.org

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Robots & Rationality

Robots & Rationality

,

By Tim Stratton

Determinists determined to defend determinism often counter the Freethinking Argument by proclaiming that computers seem to be rational and they do not possess libertarian free will. They state this is sufficient refutation of premise (3) of the Freethinking Argument, and therefore, the conclusions: free will exists, the soul exists, and naturalism is false, do not follow. This article exposes a major problem with this objection and demonstrates that the deductive conclusions of the Freethinking Argument remain unscathed.

Assumptions & Presuppositions

One problem with the “computer objection” is this: simply by stating that computers are, or robots of the future could be, rational in a deterministic universe *assumes* that the determinist making this claim has, at least briefly, transcended their deterministic environment and freely inferred the best explanation (the one we ought to reach) via the process of rationality to correctly conclude that computers are, in fact, rational agents.

Naturalistsic determinists presuppose they are rational humans while offering a computer as a completely determined rational agent. The question, however, is this: does rationality exist on naturalism? With the proper question in mind, the answer given must be an explanation as to how humans could be rational in a fully physical and causally determined world, not, “Well computers are rational!”

Again, if determinists happen to luckily be right about determinism, then they did not come to this conclusion based on rational deliberation by weighing competing views and then freely choosing to adopt the best explanation from the rules of reason via properly functioning cognitive faculties. No, given determinism, they were forced by chemistry and physics to hold their conclusion whether it is true or not. On naturalism there are no cognitive faculties functioning in a “proper” way according to a design plan which would allow one to freely think and infer what ought to be inferred. Simply offering a computer as a rational entity only sweeps the problem under the rug, but the problem remains as we are not discussing computers, but rather, the designers of computers.

If one is going to assert a certain view of the actual world, then the view offered should entail the ability of the proclaimer to make this rational inference in the same world. After all, one cannot rationally conclude a model of reality which destroys the very method he used to reach the conclusion. Alvin Plantinga notes the circularity involved by the naturalist:

“such a claim is pragmatically circular in that it alleges to give a reason for trusting our noetic equipment, but the reason is itself trustworthy only if those faculties are indeed trustworthy. If I have come to doubt my noetic equipment, I cannot give an argument using that equipment for I will rely on the very equipment in doubt.”[1]

Plantinga quotes Thomas Reed’s perceptive statement to support his case: “If you want to know whether [or not] a man tells the truth, the right way to proceed is not to ask him.” If you have reason to suspect a certain man is a liar, why should you believe this individual when he tells you that he is not a liar? Similarly, if we have reason to suspect we cannot freely think to infer the best explanation, why assume these specific thoughts (which are suspected of being unreliable) are reliable regarding computers?

Moreover, the naturalist who states that he freely thinks determinism is true is similar to one arguing that language does not exist, by using English to express that thought. The proposition itself counts as evidence against that view. If a naturalist is going to assume the ability to rationally argue that computers and robots can be rational in a deterministic and completely physical universe, they must first demonstrate they are not begging any questions by assuming they are rational to reach the conclusion that they are rational.

Until naturalists demonstrate exactly how a determined conclusion, which cannot be otherwise and is caused by nothing but physics and chemistry, can be rationally inferred and affirmed, then the rest of their argument has no teeth in its bite as it is incoherent and built upon unproven assumptions. As I always say, any argument based upon a logical fallacy is no argument at all. That is to say, even if a naturalist’s conclusion happens to be right, they have not offered any reason to think the conclusion is true, or any rational justification to think their causally determined thoughts are reliable or worth considering.

 Conclusion

If all is ultimately determined by nature, then all thoughts — including what humans think about the rationality of computers — cannot be otherwise. We are simply left assuming that our thoughts (which we are not responsible for) regarding computers are good, the best, or true. We do not have a genuine ability to think otherwise or really consider competing hypotheses at all.

Bottom line: if naturalism is true, then there is no such thing as free will, and if there is no free will then there is no freethinking!

Stay reasonable (Philippians 4:5),

Tim Stratton

NOTES

[1] William Lane Craig & JP Moreland note Alvin Plantinga’s claim in Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (page 107).

Resources for Greater Impact: 

reasoninthebalance book

 

Tim pursued his undergraduate studies at the University of Nebraska-Kearney (B.A. 1997) and after working in full-time ministry for several years went on to attain his graduate degree from Biola University (M.A. 2014). Tim was recently accepted at Northwest University to pursue his Ph.D. in systematic theology with a focus on metaphysics.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2RqXcvs

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The Wisdom Chronicle

Pile of books isolated on white background

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

  1. REAGANISMS

“You know why it’s called horse sense—they don’t bet on people.”

“Ask an atheist who’s just had a great meal if he believes there’s a cook.”

“A protest march is like a tantrum only better organized.”

“Beware of those who fall at your feet. They may be reaching for the corner of the rug.”

“Some people want to check govt. spending and some people want to spend govt. checks.”

Excerpt From: Reagan, Ronald. “The Notes.”

  1. “PROGRESS” “In the lexicon of American advertising, “new” is practically a synonym for “improved.”

Celebration of the new over the old easily translates into celebration of the young over the old, of young people over old people. The cult of youth, the celebration of youth for youth’s sake, is more pervasive in the United States than in any other country I have visited. In American cities, I often see billboards promoting plastic surgeons who promise to make you look younger. I have rarely seen such billboards in the United Kingdom or Germany or Switzerland.

When the culture values youth over maturity, the authority of parents is undermined. Young people easily overestimate the importance of youth culture and underestimate the culture of earlier generations. “Why should we have to read Shakespeare?” is a common refrain I hear from American students. “He is so totally irrelevant to, like, everything.

[Modern] “Progress” means, in the final analysis, taking away from man what ennobles him in order to sell him cheaply what debases him.”

Excerpt From: Sax, Leonard. “The Collapse of Parenting.”

  1. THAT’S RANDOM “Why do we attribute so much importance to “sports momentum” when it’s mostly fiction? Psychology offers an explanation. People tend to ascribe patterns to events. We don’t like mystery. We want to be able to explain what we’re seeing. Randomness and luck resist explanation. We’re uneasy concluding that “stuff happens” even when it might be the best explanation.

What’s more, many of us don’t have a firm grasp of the laws of chance. A classic example: On the first day of class, a math professor asks his students to go home, flip a coin 200 times, and record the sequence of heads and tails. He then warns, “Don’t fake the data, because I’ll know.” Invariably some students choose to fake flipping the coin and make up the results. The professor then amazes the class by identifying the fakers. How? Because those faking the data will record lots of alternations between heads and tails and include no long streaks of one or the other in the erroneous belief that this looks “more random.” Their sequence will resemble this: HTHTHHTHTTHTHT.

But in a truly random sequence of 200 coin tosses, a run of six or seven straight heads or tails is extremely likely: HTTTTTHHTTTHHHHHH.

Counterintuitive? Most of us think the probability of getting six heads or tails in a row is really remote. That’s true if we flip the coin only 6 times, but it’s not true if we flip it 200 times. The chances of flipping 10 heads in a row when you flip the coin only 10 times are very low, about 1 in 1,024. Flip the coin 710 times and the chances of seeing at least one run of 10 straight heads is 50 percent, or one in two.” Excerpt From: Tobias Moskowitz & L. Jon Wertheim. “Scorecasting.”

  1. DO MORE “Go the extra mile. It is not crowded.” — Unknown

975. THAT’S EASY! “In the Moscow circus a beautiful woman lion tamer would have a fierce lion come to her meekly, put his paws around her and nuzzle her with affection. The crowd thundered its approval. All except an Armenian who declared, “What’s so great about that? Anybody can do that.” The ringmaster challenged him, “Would you like to try it?” The Armenian’s reply came back: “Yes, but first get that lion out of there.”

Excerpt From: Hodgin, Michael. “1001 Humorous Illustrations for Public Speaking.”

  1. “Great things never came from comfort zones.” — Unknown
  2. FORGIVENESS NOW POSSIBLE In anguish over the ravages of civil war, President Abraham Lincoln declared a National Fast Day on March 30, 1863:

“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.

It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”

Excerpt From: Lee, Richard. “In God We Still Trust: A 365-Day Devotional.”

  1. GOD AND NAZIS “How can I believe in God after the Holocaust?”

“God permitted the Nazis to murder six million Jews because it is a fundamental tenet of Judaism that God gives people moral freedom. Human beings are as free to build gas chambers as they are to build hospitals.

God constructed a world in which people choose to do good or evil. To construct one in which people could do only good, God would have to destroy the world in which we now live and create something entirely different.

We live in a world in which people can do unbelievably beautiful or unbelievably horrible things to other people. And if those horrible acts argue against the existence of God, then the beautiful acts must argue for God’s existence.

If one is to abandon faith in anything after the Holocaust, it would be far more rational to abandon faith in the inherent goodness of mankind. To abandon faith in God while retaining faith in humanity may be emotionally satisfying, but it is not logically compelling. God never built a gas chamber, and He has told us not to. Humans who loathed this God built the gas chambers—to destroy the people who revealed this God to mankind.”

Excerpt From: Prager, Dennis. “Think a Second Time.”

  1. LENDER OR BORROWER? “Borrowers were expected to pay interest (a concept which was probably derived from the natural increase of a herd of livestock), at rates that were often as high as 20 per cent. Mathematical exercises from the reign of Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC) suggest that something like compound interest could be charged on long-term loans. But the foundation on which all of this rested was the underlying credibility of a borrower’s promise to repay. (It is no coincidence that in English the root of ‘credit’ is credo, the Latin for ‘I believe’.)”                                                                                                                                                                                        Excerpt From: Ferguson, Niall. “The Ascent of Money.”
  2. A BETTER MOUSETRAP  “An irreducibly complex system is a system containing several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to its basic function, and where the loss of any single part causes the system to cease functioning. A simple illustration of an irreducibly complex system — a common mousetrap.

The mousetrap that one buys at the hardware store generally has a wooden platform to which all the other parts are attached. It also has a spring with extended ends, one of which presses against the platform, the other against a metal part called the hammer, which actually does the job of squashing the mouse. When one presses the hammer down, it has to be stabilized in that position until the mouse comes along, and that is the job of the holding bar. The end of the holding bar itself has to be stabilized, so it is placed into a metal piece called the catch.

If one piece of the trap is missing, then it won’t perform at all.

Here’s the problem: according to Darwin, each piece of the mousetrap must be useful in and of itself in performing its function. If the purpose of a mousetrap is to catch mice, then what good is a block of wood (platform) or an isolated spring?

This same line of thinking concerning the mousetrap can be applied to the eye. What good is a retina by itself? Or, ocular muscles without a lens? As an irreducibly complex system, the eye must come as a package deal or it wouldn’t be useful. Yet, according to Darwin the eye could not come as a package. If it did, it would violate the very criteria he established for his theory (that living structures had to be capable of evolving in small incremental steps; Darwin said that if a big jump in evolution occurred such that a complex structure “came as a package,” that would be evidence of a miraculous act of the Deity).”

Excerpt From: Moreland, J.P. “Love Your God with All Your Mind (15th anniversary repack).”

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