CADRE Comments

Recently I was asked, due to my holding a minority position of which we will not speak (so to speak {lopsided g}), how "faith" and "works" fit with my position, the implication being that I have the wrong idea about faith and works and salvation somewhere. The specifics don't matter, since I am sometimes accused of having a "works" based salvation, and I am sometimes accused of having a "faith" based salvation, and I am sometimes accused of having an idea of salvation based on nothing at all. In fact, my idea of salvation follows from trinitarian theology, and from trying to reckon scriptural testimony coherently (exegetics); so it isn't surprising that I get accused of one thing or another, because (as I will argue below) trinitarian theology gives an important place to both faith and works, while of course ideas of faith and works in salvation which conflict with trinitarian theism ought to be avoided and denied. Anyway, I answered ...

Back in 2007, I wrote a blog entry entitled Lower IQs Lead to Faith in God? where I examined the claim that religious people were less intelligent than atheists. The question arose because a website compared the average IQ in various countries and correlated the data with a poll where people answered the question of whether God was important to them. The data showed that the countries where the people said that God was "very important" to them were the same countries that had the lowest IQs. The implication was that religious people were not particularly smart. I took issue with the study, and since I don't want to restate my entire argument here, I invite readers to click on the link to the article and see why I reasoned that the correlation amounted to statistical nonsense. Additionally, at the end of the article I suggested a stronger reason for the correlation. Having said all of the foregoing, I am perfectly willing to acknowledge that some very smart people...

I have been reading an apologetics text book, Introducing Apologetics, Cultivating Christian Commitment , by James E. Taylor. Dr. Taylor, who had been "a committed Christian" most of his life, writes about how in college he began experiencing intense doubts about his faith. Unlike many stories that start like this, he did not find his faith encouraged by the study of philosophy or Christian evidence. In fact, although he "spent must of [his] senior year trying to find arguments for God's existence," he could not find a sure foundation by his investigation. Obviously, because Dr. Taylor ended up writing an apologetics textbook, he somehow found his faith strengthened. If it was not the study of apologetics, what was it? In his own words, It was a spring break trip to Mexico with a few hundred fellow students to lead vacation Bible school programs and evangelistic meetings in various neighborhoods around Ensenada. What I found during that trip was that the ...

[Introductory note from Jason Pratt: the previous entry in this series of posts can be found here. The first entry can be found here. This entry concludes a fourth chapter, begun here. I highly recommend reading at least as far back as this, first.] But some people (believer and sceptic alike) will still have problems with the concept that anything definite may be discovered about the Ultimate Reality. To the sceptics, especially the atheists who are philosophical naturalists, I reply that we discover apparent truths about Nature and its operations and character all the time, and use (sometimes incorrectly, but sometimes correctly, too) such information all the time. This is despite the fact that if non-sentient Nature is the foundation of all reality, then it must be as impossible for derivative human reasoning to fully understand it, as for us to fully understand a sentient ultimate Fact. For that matter, it seems clear from the science of quantum mechanics that whatever Nature ...

[Introductory note from Jason Pratt: the previous entry in this series of posts can be found here. The first entry can be found here. This entry continues a fourth chapter, begun here. I highly recommend reading at least as far back as this, first.] It seems to me (as an initial expectation, based on my previous considerations), that every 'real' belief requires an acted inference of some sort on the part of the believer; although the exact inference may not be what the believer claims it is with respect to the belief. In other words, I question whether there can be any such thing as a real belief that is irrational (in the very limited sense I am using of ‘irrational’.) As I roll on the ground in delirium after being snakebit, I might be muttering "Snake... in hole..." But that doesn't necessarily mean I actually 'believe' it: because I might not be conscious. The sounds coming out of my mouth might be the same type of non-intended effects-by-associa...

[Introductory note from Jason Pratt: the previous entry in this series of posts can be found here. The first entry can be found here. This entry continues a fourth chapter, begun here. I highly recommend reading at least as far back as this, first.] If my brother, Spencer, thinks he has good grounds for believing that my belief of a snake in the hole has been fostered purely from a cocaine-fit, then he would not (or at least should not) be embarrassed to discover there was, after all, a snake in the hole. He had no good reason to believe the snake was there. Furthermore, my argument that he (and I) should stay away from the hole was ultimately untrustworthy. The form of the argument that we should stay away from the hole was not itself invalid; but without the anchor of rationality at the beginning, there was no good reason to pay attention either to my initial belief ("a snake is in the hole") or to my consequent inferred belief ("we should stay away from the hol...

[Introductory note from Jason Pratt: the previous entry in this series of posts can be found here. The first entry can be found here. For connectivity purposes, I am beginning this entry by reprinting the last few sentences from the previous entry.] As I have just illustrated, a denial of a link between faith and reason not only erects an unnecessary barrier between a sceptic and the truth (as I think Christianity to be), but also undermines any claim Christianity (or any other theism) may have to truth--even if we stick to a 'simple' faith. But an even more pernicious problem rises in this situation; and although a believer of this sort [who dichotomizes faith and reason] may not recognize it, the sceptic very probably will: This type of believer does in fact have a 'faith' based on reasoning! This will be concealed from him by the fact that he is taught to distrust (or ignore) complex metaphysical and philosophical theorems, as being 'proof' or 'evidence...

[Introductory note from Jason Pratt: the previous entry in this series of posts can be found here. The first entry can be found here. ] There are many devout people who rightly (I believe) value a faith in God above all other possessions, but who will also see my attempts as striking against a true relationship with God. I think they are quite correct (as I will discuss much later) that it is better to have a living relationship with God and to work with Him, than only to understand God in some technical sense. Furthermore, I agree that if it is possible to discover the existence and character of God by reasoning from neutral propositions, this neither can nor shall ultimately benefit the thinker unless he takes the next step and chooses to work with God personally. [See first comment below for a footnote here.] But although I agree with these notions, I do not think it logically follows from these notions that such a discovery by logical analysis must necessarily fail. Consequently...

Sometimes newspapers publish stories that are so unsurprising that they hardly pass for news. One such story was published by the USA Today on their religion page entitled Study: Youth see Christians as judgmental, anti-gay . The article begins: Majorities of young people in America describe modern-day Christianity as judgmental, hypocritical and anti-gay. What's more, many Christians don't even want to call themselves "Christian" because of the baggage that accompanies the label. Yeah? And this is news because . . . ? The idea that Christianity is "judgmental, hypocritical and anti-gay" is not news. These allegations are really rather old. The idea that Christians are judgmental goes with the territory: most Christians accept the orthodox view that there is such a thing as truth -- "true truth" as Francis Schaeffer labelled it -- and that people can be wrong about issues of spirituality. Christians take a position that the only path to God is thro...

Providing a bit of a break from the multi-page metaphysical discourses today. Consider this a practical application quiz. I.) "Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural & spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things as a meaningful unity" - Albert Einstein Question 1.) Identify the blatant topical contradiction in this statement. (5 pts) Question 2.) Analyze the final 'characteristic' (beginning at "and it is based") in comparison/contrast to the notion of 'meaningful unity' developed in the progressing argument of my Eth&t3rdPers series. Hint: pay special attention to the contrast between the positions/conclusions of that argument and Einstein's first 'characteristic of Buddhism'. (70 pts) (Disclaimer: this quiz does not necessarily involve affirmi...

Over at the blog of our co-blogger, The Dawn Treader , he has begun (maybe finished) a series reviewing some of the ideas found in the newly published book by C. John "Jack" Collins entitled Science and Faith: Friend or Foe? The book has received a favorable rating over at Amazon with an average rating of five stars. One commentor who really liked the book wrote: Dr. Collins has his undergraduate and first graduate degree from MIT, and his Ph.D. is from the university of Liverpool. Professor Collins produced an excellent balanced book on Intelligent Design (ID), which unlike most books in this area he looks at both the science of ID and the implications of this field for theology. Chapter 20 "Cultural Wars and Warriors" is an excellent refutation of the foolish claims of Eugene Scott and her organization. Collins shows why ID is critical for theology and why Fundamentalist Darwinism is lethal for theism. In chapter 17 he answers some common objections to ID, and sh...