Expelled: Why are Americans allowed to care so much about freedom?, and other thoughts

_{Denyse O'Leary

June 28, 2008

Intelligent Design}

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Two nights ago, I finally saw the Expelled film.

I had become almost proprietorial about the widely denounced #5 political documentary. I had first broken the story of its existence last August. I watched it pitch and roll through accusations of trickery, a threatened lawsuit over plagiarism and a real one over intellectual property, production delays (it was supposed to be released on Darwin’s birthday but was pulled for edit), and, inevitably, street drama.

Security was so tight that – as I learned a couple of weeks ago – not only could I not get a screener, neither could the the screenwriter – fellow Canadian Kevin Miller.

Okay, so there I am, sitting half-frozen in a half-empty theatre in downtown Toronto, and … I had two main reactions:

Freedom … ?

As a Canadian, I felt confused by all the talk of freedom. Americans think so highly of freedom. It seemed so strange to me that the people in the film consider it normal to worry about life, the universe, and all that.

Here today, if you openly care even about your personal freedom to just be a goof somewhere unmolested, you are at war with society. The Government knows what is Good for us. Dissent caused by our dysfunctionally evolved neurons will be punished.

So the film felt strange – it assumed facts about human nature, such as the reality of the mind, that are everywhere under serious assault in the Western world. Canada used to be freer, but we aren’t supposed to know that any more. And people single themselves out if they say too much.

Intelligent design … ?

Second, the film badly needed an explanation of why there is an intelligent design controversy. Most of my friends and neighbours simply do not know. Legacy media retail tales from the bizarre swamplands of the United States where gun-toting cretins and their obliging sisters espouse unapproved doctrines without ever receiving any proper punishment.

When a Canadian writer wanted to publish articles on intelligent design that actually explain the arguments, he wrote to me wanting to know where he could get them published. I essentially replied, “Search me. I can’t imagine any legacy medium breaking free from the Darwinsludge – and if they did, they would be shut down much faster than in the States. The mere fact of independent ideas is itself the offence, as Maclean’s Magazine and Mark Steyn found. So watch your back.”

TV series needed?

Given the many recent discoveries that challenge Darwinism and materialism, a thirteen-part TV series on the real arguments for and against design is needed. But I can’t think who would show the series. That was likely a key reason for the producers’ decision to just make a film, so that at least people willing to buy tickets could find out something.

The God who had better really be there …

The film’s strongest point is that Stein is way too smart to waste a second on “theistic” evolution – the idea that we know that God exists by faith alone. On that view, God’s actions in the world around us are supposedly indistinguishable from chance events, so design is an illusion and faith means taking a leap without evidence.

So if, for example, neuroscientists had really found a “God gene” which explains why some people believe in God but others do not, well, we know by sheer faith that God put the gene there.

Or if evolutionary psychologists could plausibly explain belief in God as naturally selected for – again, we know by sheer faith that God really exists and caused this selection.

Except that he really didn’t, of course. It would be the other way around. The gene or the selection caused God.

Trust a smart fellow like Ben Stein to see through this gunk far more clearly than some of the Bible school biology profs I’ve dealt with: Put simply, if “theistic” evolution is true, religion is bunk.*

If, n the other hand, design is true, materialist atheism is bunk. Materialist atheists know this perfectly well. That is why they persecute the design guys and cozy up to the “theistic” evolutionists.

And why Expelled was made and has no time for “theistic” evolutionism.

Now here is a quick test: If “theistic” evolution meant anything other than what I am describing above, ID theorist Mike Behe and I should be called theistic evolutionists – we accept conventional dating methods and common descent of living things But we think that God’s actions, if they exist, can be detected. They are indeed distinguishable from chance occurrences. This is the position affirmed by Scripture, tradition, and reason and denied by “theistic” evolution. And it is why we are called “creationists.”

Look, if God doesn’t exist, he doesn’t exist. But if he does exist, we’ll know about it.

Finally, seeing the film shed light on two other controversial topics:

1. The Yoko Ono lawsuit: I got a chance to hear the controversial few bars from Lennon’s “Imagine” theme. Imagine so much fuss over so little! It sure helped me see why the Stanford fair use collective got involved on Expelled’s side. Politically, Expelled was not, perhaps, the most obvious choice. However, when I saw how little use was really made of the Lennon opus minimus, I understood why Expelled was a good choice.

Intellectual property laws were designed to bust knockoff Spongebobs, pirated Two Towers, photocopied textbooks, yada yada – in other words, substantial economic and moral losses – NOT some incidental capture of a cultural icon in a documentary. What a waste of court time! And what an opportunity to start reigning in such waste!

2. The claim that the atheists had been “tricked” into taking part. It was quite obvious that these professional atheists enjoy publicity. And why not? The legacy media have lionized them. The Expelled film is one of the few places ever that some of them are just allowed to be their nasty selves. Why that is anyone’s problem other than theirs, I confess I do not know.

*While we are here: The open theism that many “theistic” evolutionists flirt with just means that there isn’t really a God. A god who is “evolving along with creation” isn’t God. One should not describe open theism as a Christian heresy. It is an atheist heresy. The only important question is, can an atheist believe in superior alien beings like the evolving god?

Also: New at the Post–Darwinist:

Open letter to comedian Guy Earle … the latest to be charged by a Canadian “human rights”commission

Birds: What you thought you knew about their evolution is wrong, all wrong

Governor Bobby Jindal passes Louisiana bill to permit critical thinking about Darwin, and such (But is this a good idea?)

If order just somehow emerges from chaos, why aren’t we all young and beautiful?

Intellectual freedom: Is misunderstanding of Internet part of Canada’s “human rights” problem?

Alarm! Alarm! Critical thinking spotted in vicinity of pop science kludge

Intelligent design and the arts – better that way, actually. Much better.

The Right’s war on science? Lot’s of ink spilled there, but how about the Left’s war on science?

Teacher accused of burning cross on student’s arm and (much worse!) of teaching creationism

Write! Canada coverage highlights intellectual freedom risks, troubles of book industry

Comments

Stephen, no problem. Y'all have a good one now.Rude_{July 8, 2008
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Rude: "Enough said, no?" One last point, I promise. Here is why I asked the question about freedom to criticize Earlier you wrote, "I’d like it that those who supported Open Theism in this thread not be dismissed as total kooks and that we keep the ID tent big enough for us all, that whereas Judeo-Christians can disagree on the nature of God (and ultimate reality), we disagree most fundamentally with the hard core atheists and Darwin’s sycophants." I took that to mean that you thought my spirited challenge to OTs (I seemed to be the most vociferous critic maybe even the lone critic) was an indication that I didn't want them in the big tent or that I thought that they were kooks. Can you see how I might have interpreted it that way?StephenB_{July 8, 2008
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Do I think that you, Stephen B, are permitted to enter the Big Tent of ID yet differ with those in the Big Tent who support OT? Surely you're kidding! Why would I want—even if I could—to infringe on your liberty? Don’t we have the freedom to pursue the truth each in our own way? Organized religion may restrict us, but our nation (USA) should not. And that’s the common enemy we face—state sponsored ideology, forceably financed by us. As for OTs who might side with the TEs—the sad truth is that way too many theologians of all stripes, as well as all too many ministers and priests and rabbis, are on the wrong side of this the greatest dispute of the age. Many who are not outright hostle to ID are still fearful and silenced by the approbrium associated with it. I know a woman who gave her supposedly conservative Christian pastor a flier for Expelled!—he was not interested. So it’s an uphill battle, and whereas we disagree on all kinds of biblical and theological matters, we are wise to join forces against this statist materialism that threatens us all. Enough said, no?Rude_{July 8, 2008
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Rude, again, fair enough. I am on board with establishing a spirit of solidarity with pro-ID open theists, and if Alan is in that camp, then I am with him in that context. I understand that open theists, unlike most TEs, are not necessarily anti-ID, though I have no idea of the proportions involved. Alan is a bit of an anomaly among open theists, any way, so, as an ID supporter, he may well be the exception rather than the rule. Again, I have no idea. Remember how this whole thing got started. Denyse introduced open theism as a peripheral issue to theistic evolution and voiced her disapproval of it, even though her main objections were about TE. As an open theist, Alan entered into the fray, insisting that Denyse was misinformed about the subject. He proceeded to provide an eloquent defense of open theism, but his defense was on behalf of his own unique brand of open theism. In large part, he doesn’t explicitly identify with the broader claims of open theists in general. Therefore, he didn’t really refute Denyse’s charges about open theism except to say that they didn’t apply to his version of it, which seems true in most ways, but not all. So, it was left to me to critique both open theism, in general, and Alan’s differences with his open theist colleagues in particular. I argued that open theism, is indeed consistent with intelligent design, but, in my judgment, it compromises the Christian teaching on God’s nature. In a more narrow sense, I also argued that Alan’s strategy is much better than mainstream OT, but that it still falls short. I continue to hold that position. So, this raises a question: Am I not permitted to [A] join with Alan as an ID supporter and as a mutual adversary to Darwinism while [B] disagreeing with him about open theism and arguing on behalf of classical theism? Does [A] rule out [B]? If not, then I am not sure I get your point. As I said earlier, I have had my say about open theism, so I am ready to join with OTs who support ID, however many or few there are, and challenge the tenets of materialism. I don’t think Alan will abandon ID simply because one of its advocates, namely me, disagrees with him about open theism. He impresses me as one whose shoulders are a lot broader than that. In any case, ID doesn't disinvite anyone to the big tent. The only ones who are not in it are those who don't want to be here, as is the case for most TEs. We tell them that they ought to consider ID, and they respond by saying, "no thanks." We do have one or two here who don't want to hang out with YEC's, but that is decidedly minority position. So the tent door is opened by those on the outside not by those on the inside.StephenB_{July 8, 2008
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Stephen in 100 asks, "What do you think? Are there any open theists who are explicitly anti-Darwin and will say so." Google the website of the young scholar who argued for Open Theism in this thread and you'll find that he supports ID. Gregory Boyd, who writes persuasively on Open Theism, is quite naive before the likes of Ken Miller. The truly big issue facing the nation and the world is the threat of materialism---not the various takes on ultimate reality and the nature of God---and so we owe it to our fellow theists who are simply naive (not perverse) on ID to welcome them into the Big Tent if and when they are ready.Rude_{July 8, 2008
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Rude, you make a good point. Opportunities abound for theists of various stripes to come together in a spirit of solidarity and register their disagreements with the core atheists and Darwinist sycophants. We know that most theistic evolutionists, as opposed to open theists, do qualify as Darwinist sycopants, and as such, are invested in militating against ID. Under the circumstances, they have chosen to be our adversaries rather than the other way around. Open theists, however, may well be willing to renounce materialism/Darwinism and thereby distinguish themselves from the TEs. I have no way of knowing about this one way or the other. I am ready to drop the matter of open theism vs. classical theism and join with open theists to renounce the ideological pretenses of Darwinism. What do you think? Are there any open theists who are explicitly anti-Darwin and will say so. Or do they simply visit this website to challenge classical theism and promote open theism, while keeping a safe distance from the ID/Darwin conflict? Are they OK with Theistic evolutionists and their futule attept to make Christianity and Darwinism compatible, or do they opt out of that controversy as well?StephenB_{July 7, 2008
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Dave: “You don’t find that the least bit suspicious?” I don’t but Freud did. Tikva Frymer-Kensky had another take on this that I found interesting. Good points, Stephen B. Anyway it’s not that I should want to convince anyone that I’m right, just that I’m not crazy---or at least completely crazy. I’d like it that those who supported Open Theism in this thread not be dismissed as total kooks and that we keep the ID tent big enough for us all, that whereas Judeo-Christians can disagree on the nature of God (and ultimate reality), we disagree most fundamentally with the hard core atheists and Darwin's sycophants.Rude_{July 7, 2008
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-----Rude: "The emphasis of Scripture is the agency and goodness of God—for me these are the non-negotiables and any philosophical constructs that might diminish them are negotiable. We can agree on this, can we not?" Well, sure. Far be it from me to arrogate unto myself the sole right to frame an issue. On the other hand, your characterization of what scripture emphasizes is, in itself, simply one individual’s interpretation, is it not? Does it not imply that one of God’s attributes, namely, God’s goodness, can be separated from all of the others? That is precisely what all the fuss is about, that is, traditional theists, who insist on God's unity, and open theists, who don't burden themselves with such things. In any case, the problem about judgment persists. If our eternal fate rests in the hands of our Creator God, we are in big trouble if the "omni's" (I like that formulation of yours by the way) aren't there. Unless God understands and factors in all of our thoughts, words, deed, and intentions, in conjunction with everyone else’s thoughts, words, deeds, and intentions, unless he considers all mitigating factors, including biological, psychodynamic, environmental, and self made influences, and unless he ties them all together with a full awareness of every possible combination of consequences, we are not going to get a fair hearing. Think of it this way. If God is not perfect in every way, then he cannot even know what is best for us in our present condition, much less can he temper justice with mercy in the right proportions at the moment of our final judgment. Take away the omni's and God is not God---he is simply a superhuman with a lot of power that may or may not be used in the right way. It is all well and good to say that the agency and the goodness of God are the only non-negotiables, but how can God be all good without all of those other attributes? Unity, goodness, truth, beauty, and being are all tied together in God. Even as a practical matter, God’s goodness must be inseparable from his omniscience and his omnipotence. How can God be good and at the same time be compromised with limited knowledge about what constitutes a fair moral test, with limited power to administer that test in a fair way, and with limited capacity to judge the final results?StephenB_{July 7, 2008
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Rude "God is Creator and hence our Father." In my experience mothers have more to do with the creating of life than fathers. Except when it comes to creating religious screeds of course which handily explains why God, angels, messiahs, disciples, etc. are all men. You don't find that the least bit suspicious?DaveScot_{July 7, 2008
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Stephen B, you’re a decent man. I’m sure we agree on more than we disagree—on morality, society, politics. We agree on the importance of Intelligent Design. There may be certain “non-negotiables”, however, where we can respectfully disagree. For some folks these may be the omnis of transcendance and associated theodicies, for me these are not so important as that God is Creator and hence our Father. Take, for example, the Star Trek character Q. He and his “Continuum” possess all the omnis (omniscience, omnipotence ...) yet it seems natural that humans not bow in obeisance—why? I think it instructive that Q was never pictured as creator. For the writers of the series, let me suggest, that would have made Q God. I would agree that God is God, not just because he exists outside of time (or however else we might exhalt him beyond our realm)—God is God because he is our Creator. And it’s not just his power either, it’s not just that might makes right. It is also that God is good. The emphasis of Scripture is the agency and goodness of God—for me these are the non-negotiables and any philosophical constructs that might diminish them are negotiable. We can disagree on this, can we not?Rude_{July 7, 2008
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Rude, OK, fair enough. After rereading my response to you, I find that I may have been a little snippy. Sorry about that. I don’t care too much how folks resolve these problems as long as they don’t compromise on any of the non-negotiables, such as God’s omnipotence, God’s omniscience, and our free will. It seems to me that open theists do indeed make these kinds of compromises without realizing that they are doing it. To characterize God as existing in time is to compromise his nature, which is the one thing that must be preserved above all else. It seems to me that open theists, and other types who challenge the classical model, strain at gnats (laboring over the less difficult problem of reconciling God’s foreknowledge and our free will) and swallow camels (downplaying the truly difficult problem of reconciling predestination [not determinsm]) and free will. Peter Kreeft, for example, takes up the really hard problem yet he compromises nothing of God’s nature. We can say the same of Craig and Geisler. They don’t negotiate away the non-negotiables. To be more precise, my objection has to do with those who anthropomorphize God in order to make things work. That would include anyone who insists that God must EXIST in time in order to ACT in time. Since God created time, God exists outside of time. There is no reason to believe that he must exist in time as we do in order to make sense of it. We know that the big bang is a fact and we also know that this harmonizes with the Biblical idea that God created time along with those things that time measures.StephenB_{July 6, 2008
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Stephen B, let me apologize for putting words in your mouth---I should have asked whether this was what you were saying. But now I'm curious. When you say what you said you said you seem to be saying exactly what I suggested you said. Thus what I thought you said before and think you are still saying now is that, 1) God does not cause all future events, and 2) God exhaustively knows the future. This implies that you are not a determinist (like Einstein) and that you are an eternalist (like Augustine). If I’m right then we can agree on the first and disagree (though my mind could change) on the second. As for whether God can be outside of time depends upon whether the nature of time is such that it is possible to be outside of it. This is a hot debate in philosophy and I’m not sure whether one side or the other is heretical or blasphemous within any particular religious tradition.Rude_{July 6, 2008
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-----"Stephen B suggests that whereas God does not necessarily cause all future events he nevertheless has an exhaustive view of the future. Thus he does not believe that God possesses exhaustive foreknowledge because everything has been determined, rather he assumes the eternalist position—that a complete knowledge of the future is possible because the future actually exists “somewhere” and can be viewed from outside our time frame." Rude, that is exactly what I did not say. Let me reiterate: God DOES possess exhaustive view of the future and God DOES NOT cause all future events to happen. God EXISTS outside of time, but God can either enter into time or not enter into time. God can ACT in time but God does not EXIST in time. In that sense, God does not foreknow the way we do, in the sense of anticipating the “before” and reacting to the “after” because God simply KNOWS as a result of existing outside of time. Open theism challenges the very nature of God by trying to negate this truth. If you want to disagree with me, then fine, but please do not put words in my mouth and attribute to me very heresy that I am challanging. God is omniscient in every way. It is the open theists who deny this, either explicitly or implicitly, depending on the author. To repeat again, God knows the future in every way and the future is NOT DETERMINED.StephenB_{July 6, 2008
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Stephen B: “With regard to the so called tension between God’s foreknowledge and man’s free will, I don’t think there is any problem. To reiterate, God knows when the stock market is going to crash, but that doesn’t mean that he causes it. For this one problem, at least, extended analysis seems unnecessary and redundant.” Extended analysis may seem unnecessary and redundant to some but not to all. The argument is over the nature of reality—of time—a subject of interest to philosophers and physicists and theologians. The debate diverges broadly between eternalism (where the future exists “somewhere”) and presentism (where the future does not yet exist anywhere). Augustine and Calvin, one would assume, were eternalists, as also Einstein. But there is an argument for the other side, as in Craig Bourne’s A Future for Presentism (Oxford University Press, 2007), which according to the blurb “makes an original contribution to a fast growing and exciting debate.” Here’s the first sentence of the book as quoted at Amazon: “Time plays a central role in our lives and our world-view; it is fundamental to the idea of what it is to be the very beings that we are; it is indispensable to the way we structure our experiences; it is central to our understanding of the world.” Stephen B suggests that whereas God does not necessarily cause all future events he nevertheless has an exhaustive view of the future. Thus he does not believe that God possesses exhaustive foreknowledge because everything has been determined, rather he assumes the eternalist position—that a complete knowledge of the future is possible because the future actually exists “somewhere” and can be viewed from outside our time frame. The Open Theism debate is not about knocking God off his pedestal, it is not a concession to materialism (just the opposite I should think), rather it is an effort to understand the nature of reality and of time. There are honest voices on all sides and the debate is not necessarily an unimportant one.Rude_{July 6, 2008
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vjtorley: All of your points granted except for one. I hold that the official Catholic position is that one can be lost only through “voluntary fault.” If the word voluntary has any meaning at all it is that we all have some say about our final destiny. Now I realize that this teaching is specifically designed to obviate the need for roster-like membership in the institutional Church, but I think we can safely extend its meaning to apply to membership in the “elect,” as conceived by the radical determinists. If our fate is in doubt until the time of our death, which is the official Catholic position, then, clearly, our fate is in doubt from the get go. Also, Aquinas acknowledges free will in unequivocal terms, as I am sure you know. Again, if free will means anything at all, it means that we have the capacity to act morally and embrace all the means necessary for salvation. If we don’t have that option, we can hardly be free in any meaningful sense. Most important, we have the unmistakable Biblical teaching that “God wills that all men be saved.” It is inconceivable that God can, at the same time, set aside some to be damned while willing that all men be saved. For my part, this teaching alone seals the seal. I realize that the term “predestination” carries difficult and confusing connotations, some of which seem at variance with the others. I think that is because we have two truths (predestination and free will) that appear to contradict each other but, in fact, do not. That is another way of saying that we confronted with a paradox and a mystery that does not admit of any final explanation that will close all the loops. This is all the more reason to emphasize the point that the door of salvation is open to all men even though many choose not to cross that threshold. With regard to the so called tension between God's foreknowledge and man's free will, I don't think there is any problem. To reiterate, God knows when the stock market is going to crash, but that doesn't mean that he causes it. For this one problem, at least, extended analysis seems unnecessary and redundant.StephenB_{July 4, 2008
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For those who are still interested in following up the free will vs. foreknowledge issue, I would like to highly recommend Professor Norman Swartz's Lecture notes on Free Will and Determinism at http://www.sfu.ca/philosophy/swartz/freewill1.htm , as well as David Misialowski's (2006) article at http://www.galilean-library.org/manuscript.php?postid=43827 . Misialowski describes himself elsewhere as "an agnostic atheist" yet he writes: "Strictly, though, in my judgment, there is no need to invoke the atemporal solution, or any other solution, to the foreknowledge/free will problem, because the problem has been solved, and no theist need fear the argument, heard so often from atheists intent on discrediting religious belief, that an omniscient God cancels human free will and moral responsibility. God's omniscience does neither, and the argument to theological fatalism is, I believe, a dead duck." Misialowski resolves the problem of foreknowledge not by invoking an atemporal Deity, but by denying the transfer of necessity principle and the accidental necessity of the past. Upon re-reading his article, I have to say it sounds very sensible - probably the best contribution to the debate so far.vjtorley_{July 4, 2008
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Stephen B.: I am aware that some Aquinas scholars would deny that St. Thomas was a theological determinist. Passages can be adduced which make him sound like a libertarian; other passages make him sound like a strict predestinationist. (See especially his "Summa Theologica," I q. 23, articles 4, 5 and 6.) It has been said that on the subject of free will and Divine foreknowledge, Banez (who was a theological determinist and a Thomist) put a full stop, where Aquinas left a comma. The notion that "that our eternal fate has been sealed even before we are born and that if we are not already among the 'elect,' we are damned" is not a uniquely Calvinist one. It is permissible for Catholics to hold such an opinion, although it is very much a minority theological opinion. You might like to read J. Pohle's article, "Predestination" in "The Catholic Encyclopedia" (1911) at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12378a.htm . Finally, I do not espouse Aquinas' position; I merely mentioned it above as a permissible point of view for a Catholic. My own view is that the predestination of the saints to glory is logically posterior to, rather than prior to, the meritorious acts of faith and love which they perform with the help of God's supernatural grace. This was the view of the overwhelming majority of Greek and Latin Fathers, as Pohle points out in his article: "This explanation is splendidly confirmed by the Greek Fathers. Generally speaking, the Greeks are the chief authorities for conditional predestination dependent on foreseen merits. The Latins, too, are so unanimous on this question that St. Augustine is practically the only adversary in the Occident. St. Hilary (In Ps. lxiv, n. 5) expressly describes eternal election as proceeding from 'the choice of merit' (ex meriti delectu), and St. Ambrose teaches in his paraphrase of Rom., viii, 29 (De fide, V, vi, 83): 'Non enim ante praedestinavit quam praescivit, sed quorum merita praescivit, eorum praemia praedestinavit' (He did not predestine before He foreknew, but for those whose merits He foresaw, He predestined the reward). To conclude: no one can accuse us of boldness if we assert that the theory here presented has a firmer basis in Scripture and Tradition than the opposite opinion."vjtorley_{July 4, 2008
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----Heather Rhoda: “If the FUTURE does indeed entail these three categories as I’ve attempted to describe them, then since God is omniscient, God knows the future as such. If the FUTURE is only made up of WILLS and WILL NOTS, then since God is omniscient, God knows the future as such (but then, is there such thing as libertarian (genuine) free will? I’ve read attempts at trying to prove that we can have (compatibalist) free will while everything is really determined, but that makes no sense to me).” Obviously, radical determinism and free will cannot be reconciled. That means that radical determinism is misguided and ought not to be taken seriously. In any case, the term "will not happen" would not apply to God unless he must be in time to act in time. Inasmuch as God can, in my judgment, act in time without being in time, his foreknowledge does not interfere with our free will. In other words, God's capacity to know the future is not at all the same thing as God's capacity to cause the future. God can know that the stock market is going to crash without causing it to happen. In the same way, God can know what we are going to do without causing us to do it. That is because God doesn't really FOREKNOW at all; he simply KNOWS. It is one of the advantages of existing outside of time while being able to act or not act in time. God’s omniscience is not unrelated to his omnipotence, a central point of classical theism. Either way, let’s explore these points in a little more depth. It appears that you, like Alan, do not share the views of most open theists, inasmuch as you don’t deny that God’s knowledge of the future is complete. Obviously, you are aware that many if not most open theists say otherwise, so, in that sense, your position is anomalous and more in tune with classical theism than open theism. Still, you argue on behalf of open theism, so it would help me to know where you are on a few pivotal issues: [A] Can an infinite God act in time without being in time? [B] Can an infinite God prophesy from the perspective of being outside of time? [C] If an infinite God cannot act outside of time, then how do you explain the big bang? [D] If an infinite God can act outside of time, then what is all the fuss about? Why not just drop the whole thing and revert back to classical theism? [E] Does God know the future in the same way that we do? In other words, does God think in terms of “before” and “after?”StephenB_{July 4, 2008
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Nullasalus (#85): In words that both the Greek philosophers and the Bible could agree on, “Come, let us reason together”. Of course I did not mean that a Christian can condemn another Christian to eternal torture. That power, in Christianity, belongs only to God. But a Christian can alarm, frighten, and bully another Christian into believing that he will damned for holding to a particular “heretical” doctrine, and thus try to frighten him out of holding it, rather than reason him out of holding it. And Christians and Christian Church leaders have at various times availed themselves of this kind of bullying. They have even turned it into a virtue. After all, if you scare the life out of a heretic, so that he “repents” of his doctrine, you’re saving his eternal soul, which is much more important than his body. This was the justification for extreme bodily torture, often leading to death, which eased the consciences of many inquisitors throughout history (as they went about performing acts of cruelty that any decent human being, uncorrupted by theological learning, would know instinctively and immediately to be wicked.) But even aside from the extreme misuse of threats by inquisitors, threats in theological argumentation are indefensible. If you have a good theological argument, you won’t need the threats, because you will be able to persuade the other person through reason. And if you can’t, maybe it’s because you’re the heretic and the other guy is orthodox. Thus, “You’ll go to hell unless you change your doctrine” is the last refuge of the theologically incompetent (or in some cases, the first refuge). To a Greek philosopher, it would be beneath intellectual dignity to employ such arguments, as they appeal to passion (the passion of fear) rather than reason. I’m afraid you need to read your Plato more closely. The sophists were not philosophers. They were the very opposite of philosophers. Plato’s dialogues were written in part to expose the fraudulent character of their wisdom and the unphilosophical intellectual procedures that they employed. And Plato never said that philosophers should try to be kings, though in one dialogue he makes Socrates suggest that only philosophers are fit to be kings. But a philosopher no more wants to be king than an excellent scholar or teacher wants to be promoted to Dean or University President. Why would you want to stop doing the highest of activities – teaching and learning -- to take up the mundane life of administration? It’s true that only a really good scholar and teacher is fit be a Dean or University President, but it doesn’t follow that such a person would seek the job. (Which is why so many fools and power-mongers in fact become deans and university presidents – the best people don’t want the job.) I never said that Greek philosophers were without human faults. I said that they were not responsible for the misuse of reason in theology. Nor was I attacking Christians as such, but only Christian theologians who misuse the Greek arts of reasoning in theology, and Christian commentators who then blame “the Greek influence” for all of Christianity’s problems. We Greeks continue to wish Christianity all the best, and we will continue to fight side-by-side with it against materialism and atheism, and for intelligent design; we were doing these things long before Christianity was heard of, and there’s no reason we should stop now. We’re especially happy that there’s currently a respected Pope articulating the need for reason in religion, and that even the Protestants are occasionally speaking nicely of us again. A refreshing change from Karl Barth, the SCM “Biblical” theologians, and all those other Greek-despising Teutons and Anglo-Americans, whom history will hopefully consign to oblivion. Extra rationem nulla salus. T.Timaeus_{July 3, 2008
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Stephen B: "How can God know something is going to happen and yet be confused about the probability that it will happen? This seems like a contradiction to me. Put another way, how can an omniscient God be mistaken about the odds of an event taking place? If God really does know what the odds are, what is the point of saying that God “believes” the odds to be a certain way? " I've been reading the comments here for a while, and Stephen, you are really misunderstanding what Alan has been saying. God is not confused or mistaken about probabilities. That was neither said nor implied. Think of it this way: for all future events, there are some that WILL happen, some that MIGHT AND MIGHT NOT happen, and some that WILL NOT happen. *These three categories don't overlap.* As events happen, what is in the M/MN category settle into DID and DID NOT happen. The WILL automatically settles into the DID; the WILL NOT into the DID NOT (the W and WN probabilities never change - they CAN'T change, otherwise they'd have been in the M/MN category) If something "is going to happen" (WILL), the probability of that happening is, of course 100% and God knows it. If something else MIGHT AND MIGHT NOT happen, then the probability of it happening is less than 100% and greater than 0%. If the FUTURE does indeed entail these three categories as I've attempted to describe them, then since God is omniscient, God knows the future as such. If the FUTURE is only made up of WILLS and WILL NOTS, then since God is omniscient, God knows the future as such (but then, is there such thing as libertarian (genuine) free will? I've read attempts at trying to prove that we can have (compatibalist) free will while everything is really determined, but that makes no sense to me). Regarding "believes" vs. "knows": replace "believes" with "knows" if that is what is preventing you from understanding Alan.Heather Rhoda_{July 3, 2008
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Timaeus, Nonsense. First, no Christian can threaten anyone with eternal torture - they can assert that a given act may result in hell by their beliefs, but Christians can do no sentencing of that type. If it happens, it's not because one of them clamors for it. Second, your defense against the death of Socrates is that - well, those were citizens. Not philosophers. The philosophers were only concerned with knowledge! That would be news to the sophists, who Plato regarded as being rather interested in payment for their services and the power that came with it. Of course, Plato himself believed the ideal kings would be philosophers. Amazing how the pursuit of pure knowledge leads to such conclusions, eh? It's almost as if any claims to peace were the result of perceived low stakes among the philosophers, as the moment stakes appeared, rules changed. Also suspect is your condemnation of Christians as 'walking away political and personal enemies' over matters of theological dispute. The unfortunate mix of theological issues with secular interests likely has quite a lot of reason for that - as we all know, nothing makes a man reach for a weapon faster than having a secular interest threatened, or too good of an opportunity presented. Mind you, your summary also overlooks instances of ecumenical cooperation and dialogue both in past and present - and glosses over the looming point that paganism alone wasn't enough to have the Church regard the greek philosophers as heretics not worthy of listening to. In fact they were more than happy to learn, study, and even defend their reasoning on many subjects. In other words, you find fault in the one religion that out and out expects its adherents to have faults, and ignore the obvious humanity of the greek philosophers - and all that implies. Timaeus, a message to the past on behalf of the many centuries that followed your time: You greek philosophers were humans, and while you had many wise things to say, vice and support of such was not unknown to you. If the revelation makes you scratch your head, don't let it trouble you. Socrates of all people realized just how little he really knew.nullasalus_{July 3, 2008
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On the contrary, nullasalus (#79). We Greek philosophers never went to war with one another. Unless you count rational argument as a kind of verbal war. And there is no case on record where one Greek philosopher asked the State to use its power over life and death to silence another Greek philosopher, as the State silenced many Christians from the time of Constantine forward. Further, there is no case on record where one Greek philosopher threatened another Greek philosopher with eternal torture for honestly assenting to apparently reasonable intellectual propositions. Unlike Christian theologians, we have never believed that making an intellectual error should be treated as criminally punishable. Yes, Socrates was killed by other Greek citizens, but not by other Greek philosophers, which is a rather important difference. Michael Servetus, on the other hand, was in essence killed by other Christian theologians, since he was put to death by the authorities of Geneva who were themselves either Calvinist theologians or held office only on the sufferance of Calvinist theologians. Far from saying that the Greek philosophers spoke in unison, I implied that they disagreed with each other frequently. They could in fact be very contentious. They disputed sharply whether the Ideas were transcendent or immanent, for example. They argued about whether the universe was governed by necessity or chance. They disputed the best form of government and the highest good for man. But if you read those ancient Greek disputes, and compare the tone and attitude of the participants in them to the tone and attitude of the participants in the disputes over the Arian heresy, the Pelagian heresy, the 16th-century doctrine of justification, and so on, you can’t help but notice a spirit of animosity in the Christian disputes that’s absent from the Greek ones. Underlying the sharp intellectual conflict of the Greek disputes is a basic moral serenity, whereas underlying the sharp intellectual conflict of the Christian disputes is suspicion, distrust, anger, pride, and the political motivation of achieving institutional control over Christian doctrine. A Stoic and Epicurean could walk away from a long debate about chance and necessity as friends; an Arian and an Orthodox bishop, or a Luther and an Eck, walked away not only as theological but also as political and personal enemies. And this in a religion that proclaims that God is Love, and that the greatest virtue is humility. This has always left us Greek philosophers scratching our heads. Thus, I agree with Allanius’s criticism of the misuse of theological debate among Christians. My only disagreement was over his indirect suggestion that we Greeks are partly to blame.Timaeus_{July 3, 2008
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StephenB, "How can God know something is going to happen and yet be confused about the probability that it will happen? This seems like a contradiction to me. Put another way, how can an omniscient God be mistaken about the odds of an event taking place? If God really does know what the odds are, what is the point of saying that God “believes” the odds to be a certain way? " I think this is central. Let me add that I believe there are some people who hold more limited views of God's knowledge. I believe Vox Day (whose work on The Irrational Atheist I greatly admire) falls into this category. But back to the quoted portion. Again, if A has a 99.9% chance of happening, and B has a .1% chance of happening - and if those odds are, of course, accurate - God can still be omniscient with respect to everything that will happen, full stop. No conditions. Even if God can't be certain that A will definitely come to pass, God will not be surprised if B comes to pass - He already sees the possibility, sees everything it would entail onward unto infinity (and so on for any number of situations where there are given possibilities between A, B... and so on.) So, God is at once aware of all things regardless of just how they come to pass, while at the same time unaware of which specific foreseen course will be navigated through. This is my understanding of the position Alan is taking. And again, I have questions about this. Is it possible for the open theist to believe that what some aspects of the future are indeterminate from God's point of view, that there nevertheless are some given certainties? Should we take God to be permitting this uncertainty of definite unfolding-of-events?nullasalus_{July 3, 2008
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-----nullasalus: "But Alan, oddly enough, seems to be accepting exactly this God (perfect foreknowledge). As in, unless I misunderstand him, Alan pictures a God who knows that there is a 99.9% chance of A happening, and a .1% chance of B happening. He knows everything that will come to pass both before and after A or B occurs in the smallest detail, regardless of which actualizes. But as to whether A or B will occur, what He knows are the odds. No ’surprise’ occurs in the sense that God didn’t anticipate B, no event can come to pass that God is not prepared for, no matter how unbelievably unlikely." But Alan doesn't use the word "knowledge," he uses the word "belief." Here is the question that I asked: "Can God be surprised in any way?” Here was his response: That depends on what you mean by “surprised”. If you’re asking whether some event could happen that God had not even anticipated as a possibility, then the answer is no since God is the ground of all possibility and knows Himself quite thoroughly. If, on the other hand, you’re asking whether some event could happen that God had believed to be improbable, then the answer is yes. Passages like Jeremiah 7:31, 19:5, and 32:35 in which God says that the Israelites’ sacrificing their children to Molech did not “enter my mind” are, I think, somewhat hyperbolic. And so I take them to indicate only antecedent improbability." He acknowledges that we shouldn't take the words "didn't enter my mind" literally, but he does allude to the passage for some reason. Why? Is it not to suggest that there is some aspect of God's foreknowledge that has been compromised in some way? How can God know something is going to happen and yet be confused about the probability that it will happen? This seems like a contradiction to me. Put another way, how can an omniscient God be mistaken about the odds of an event taking place? If God really does know what the odds are, what is the point of saying that God “believes” the odds to be a certain way? More to the point, why would an omniscient God even be considering the possibilities that something will play out when he already knows that it will play out? What is with all this twisting and turning? Why not just say that God knows what we will do but his foreknowledge does not cause us to do it? Is it not the case that Alan questions some aspect of God's omniscient power in spite of his erudite and thoughtful account of probability?StephenB_{July 3, 2008
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-----jnewl: "For just as God predestines some men to Heaven, he also predestines, or reprobates, some to Hell. Unfortunately, in this latter case, predestination *does* imply predetermination, inasmuch as man is completely incapable of attaining Heaven on his own. God doesn’t take away the reprobated man’s free will and determine his every move. He simply withholds the only means available of attaining Heaven." Here is Aquinas on free will: -----"I answer that, Man has free-will: otherwise counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards, and punishments would be in vain. In order to make this evident, we must observe that some things act without judgment; as a stone moves downwards; and in like manner all things which lack knowledge. And some act from judgment, but not a free judgment; as brute animals. For the sheep, seeing the wolf, judges it a thing to be shunned, from a natural and not a free judgment, because it judges, not from reason, but from natural instinct. And the same thing is to be said of any judgment of brute animals. But man acts from judgment, because by his apprehensive power he judges that something should be avoided or sought. But because this judgment, in the case of some particular act, is not from a natural instinct, but from some act of comparison in the reason, therefore he acts from free judgment and retains the power of being inclined to various things. For reason in contingent matters may follow opposite courses, as we see in dialectic syllogisms and rhetorical arguments. Now particular operations are contingent, and therefore in such matters the judgment of reason may follow opposite courses, and is not determinate to one. And forasmuch as man is rational is it necessary that man have a free-will." If we integrate this with the Scriptural teaching that God “wills that all men” should be saved, it follow that God will not withhold the means of salvation from anyone. What good is free will if its exercsie if futile? What sense does it make for God say that he "wills all men to be saved" and then to turn around and withhold the means of salvation from those who do not qualify as the "elect."StephenB_{July 3, 2008
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StephenB, "Without a perfectly omniscient God, that is, without a God who knows what we will do, why we will do it, and what all of the consequences of our actions will be, our religion is less about morality and more about luck." But Alan, oddly enough, seems to be accepting exactly this God. As in, unless I misunderstand him, Alan pictures a God who knows that there is a 99.9% chance of A happening, and a .1% chance of B happening. He knows everything that will come to pass both before and after A or B occurs in the smallest detail, regardless of which actualizes. But as to whether A or B will occur, what He knows are the odds. No 'surprise' occurs in the sense that God didn't anticipate B, no event can come to pass that God is not prepared for, no matter how unbelievably unlikely. And I want to stress this: I believe that when it comes to theology, these matters are important. I'm not an open theist myself, even if I do respect some of the arguments. Just as I am not a subscriber to any number of faiths, though I respect a lot of the philosophical, and even theological thought of many who I disagree with. But I would view a division between ID proponents and open theists the same way I view the division between ID proponents and many TEs - as something regrettable, that weakens the goal of providing a formidable intellectual opposition to atheistic philosophy and ideological materialism. There are differences between Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans, Eastern Orthodox, the SSPX, and otherwise, yet all these groups are entirely capable of cooperating on many philosophical and social endeavors. Open theists should be cooperated with on an appropriate issue such as ID, even while differences are recognized.nullasalus_{July 3, 2008
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Timaeus, Socrates wasn't killed by Christian factionalists, you know - the greeks were entirely capable of censoring, sentencing, and executing those among them whose 'pursuit of knowledge' took them down the wrong roads. Nor did the greek philosophers speak in utter unison, as your text seems to imply - they had divisions and differing views among themselves, and the idea that Christians would absorb their concepts without continuing to study and expand upon them betrays an interesting view of the pursuit of knowledge. Further, your understanding of the history of Christian thought is what one would expect for someone who died in the centuries BC. The Spanish Inquisition wasn't started by 'The Church', but by the monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand - and they had to pressure the pope to agree with it to begin with. The Crusades were 'launched' insofar as they were a reaction to a long-standing, growing military threat of foreign nations (with a somewhat foreign faith). Nor did the Church (or any churches) react to any and every display of unorthodoxy with arms and threats - in fact, from the cathars to natives to otherwise, instances of dialogue, debate, and peaceful overtures were by far more commonly employed. Naturally, the history is imperfect - there are sins upon sins done by those acting in the name of God, certainly the Church. But then, no one - certainly not Christ - expected Christians to be sinless or faultless. In fact, He rather warned that there'd be plenty of failures, even hypocrites, among their number. Now, I admire the greek philosophers, just as I admire the Church. But let's not pretend those ancient greeks spoke with one voice, or had no concerns other than knowledge itself - they had flaws, plenty of them. Flaws that involved intellectual disagreements, conflict, division, and even war.nullasalus_{July 3, 2008
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As the resident ancient Greek philosopher on UD, I must take exceptions to the aspersions which were indirectly cast upon my masters, Plato and Aristotle, in post 74 above. While the writer, Allanius, intended no malice, his statements surely require some qualification. Let me start off with the remark about philosophy made by Nietzsche. After a promising start as a classical philologist, Nietzsche went off the rails. He ended up as a complete fruitcake, needing psychiatric supervision until his death. In between his sane and insane periods, he wrote his philosophical works, which vary in quality, containing flashes of brilliance alternating with extensive blocks of self-indulgence. And in all his writing, a characteristic feature is recklessness. The pedantic scholarly caution that he learned as a good German philologist, he frequently throws caution completely to the winds, in irresponsible statements such as the one referred to by Allanius, i.e., that all philosophy is about the will to dominate. In fact, the will to dominate is characteristic not of all philosophy, but of modern Western philosophy. From Bacon and Descartes through Kant and beyond, philosophy has backstopped and encouraged the limitless pursuit of science and technology in combination with an exaltation of human will and human freedom. We Greeks (like our Indian and Chinese brethren in philosophy) have always been of a different cast of mind. For us, knowledge is not for power, but is an end in itself. Contemplation, which aims at the union of the mind with its object (as opposed to the domination of the object by the human will), has always been our aim. Nietzsche of all people should have known this, but, as I say, he was given to irresponsible statements. Regarding the philosophical speculations that have divided the church, and the way that Greek philosophy has been employed in those speculations: Is that our fault? Did Plato and Aristotle ask for their ideas to be endorsed or employed by the Church? Considering that they lived long before Christ, that is unlikely. Who first brought Greek philosophy into theology, anyway? It was the Church Fathers. And to what use did they put the philosophy? To define dogmas that had to be accepted, upon pain of exclusion from the Church. We Greeks would never have wanted our ideas used in that way. Philosophy requires the free assent of the mind to conclusions arrived at by reason. Philosophical conceptions, arguments, etc., must never be made binding upon people, with threats of worldly and otherworldly punishments attached for holding the wrong dogma, or for accepting a flawed argument. The Greek correction for wrong views is further dialogue and analysis, leading to the correct view; the approach of the Church to wrong views, on the other hand, has been to threaten the holders of wrong views with social ostracism, seizure of property, death at the stake, and eternal damnation. The spirit in which our ideas were taken up by the Church was un-Greek, and, if I may be so bold as to say so, un-Christian. We Greeks find it hard to believe that the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount would have burned Servetus at the stake, or hanged the witches at Salem, or started the Spanish Inquisition, or launched the Crusades. Theological division goes back to the earliest days of the Church, as the New Testament shows. The first part of the book of Revelation, and the letters of Paul, show that Jesus was barely gone from the scene before partisan factions had arisen, each striving to control doctrine. At this point in time, no one in the Church knew the texts of Plato or Aristotle, so the Greeks can hardly be blamed for the theological disputes. And even such half-baked uses of Greek philosophical concepts as are present in, say, the letters of Paul, show that insofar as Greek notions were present in the early Church, they were grossly misunderstood and misapplied. Further, to the extent that Greek philosophy was really allowed to be itself within Christianity, its influence was always wholesome. Allanius has alluded to Augustine’s baleful influence upon the Calvinists, but it was precisely his un-Greek side that the Calvinists appealed to. On his Greek side, Augustine wrote marvellous passages of a Platonic character about the nature of love and the nature of being, passages which have deeply enriched Western thought and literature. Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae, filled with the calm spirit of Aristotelian learning, was a vastly constructive force in the history of Western education. The Platonists More and Erasmus were the great educators of Renaissance Europe. Platonism influenced Kepler, the great astronomer who worked out the first planetary laws. And then there was C. S. Lewis, the great Christian apologist, who employed Greek philosophical thinking in the constructive way that it ought to be employed, i.e., to tear down the pretensions of modern philosophers, and to illuminate Christian doctrine in delightful fictional works filled with Greek motifs and imagery. We Greeks are not the problem with philosophy. We did not make man so infinitely important that the cosmos – what Christians refer to as “Creation” – was of no importance in comparison. It was Bacon, Descartes and Kant who did that. And we Greeks are not the problem with Christian theology. We did not create Christian factionalism, intolerance, intellectual pride, disputatiousness, or theological vindictiveness. Christians had better look inside themselves for the sources of those things. T.Timaeus_{July 3, 2008
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Vjtorley: With respect, I think jnewl has a point. I believe it is a serious mistake to characterize Aquinas as a theological determinist. He was well aware of the paradoxes involved in this difficult subject and I don’t think your description of his position and your interpretation of his quotes fully captures the spirit of his thought. I gathert that, like me, you are Catholic and that you would resist the radical Calvinist notion that our eternal fate has been sealed even before we are born and that if we are not already among the "elect," we are damned. Still, you seems to come dangerously close to this position. Am I misreading you? Also, see my more detailed comments to nullasalus. Nullasalus: When we study the bible, understanding that faith and reason cannot be in conflict, we come to understand that God is perfect, meaning, among other things, that God is unchangeable, omnipotent, and omniscient. These attributes simply cannot be negotiated away in order to satisfy some fashionable new way of looking at the world. Even the most reasonable of the open theists, and I feel no hesitancy in elevating Alan to that noble statues, finally must compromise God’s omniscience. That is why I asked the question, “Can God be surprised in any way?” The only answer the open theist can give is “yes,” Without a perfectly omniscient God, that is, without a God who knows what we will do, why we will do it, and what all of the consequences of our actions will be, our religion is less about morality and more about luck. If God can be surprised in any way, he is hardly in a position to pass final judgment on us. Imagine God sending someone to hell because he miscalculated the severity of a temptation or the likelihood that it would occur. Imagine God misreading the “probability” that someone might repent or trying to guess about the exact moment of that person’s death. Such a God could not even anticipate the final results of his own interventions. If God is limited to a mere 99% capacity for forecasting future events, he certainly could not have known that 459 Old Testament prophesies about Christ would all converge in time-space-history, nor could he have arranged for it to happen. To judge at that level with so much at stake requires absolute perfection in every context, including the capacity to be both timeless and to act in time. Equally important, God must be able to know the future without violating our free will, which is another way of saying that God knows what we are going to without causing us to do it. Open theism gets this part wrong as well. Ironically, some theologians commit the opposite error of “closed theism” denying free will and proposing a radically deterministic world view. To preserve their malformed notion of God’s sovereignty, they charge him with deciding ahead of time each individual’s fate, meaning of course that some poor souls are damned even before they enter the arena. As Aristotle teaches us, “a little error in the beginning” becomes a big error in the end. Open theism may seem like a small error, but it isn’t. Good theology often requires the balancing of two complementary truths. Anytime the analyst de-emphasizes one truth at the expense of another, big problems follow. We are dealing with delicate matters here, and that means that we cannot open the doors too widely or close them too tightly.StephenB_{July 3, 2008
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jnewl: Here is what St. Thomas had to say on predestination (Summa Theologica, I, q. 23, article 6): "I answer that, Predestination most certainly and infallibly takes effect; yet it does not impose any necessity, so that, namely, its effect should take place from necessity.... "Reply to Objection 2: Although it is possible for one who is predestinated considered in himself to die in mortal sin; yet it is not possible, supposed, as in fact it is supposed, that he is predestinated. Whence it does not follow that predestination can fall short of its effect." Your statement that "technically speaking, it is possible for a man to be predestined, yet still fail to attain Heaven" is therefore at odds with Aquinas' teaching, which you profess to uphold. Given that Aquinas believed that the predestined would infallibly reach Heaven, and those who were not predestined would certainly go to Hell, I think it's fair to call him a theological determinist. However, he was not a fatalist: for Thomas, there is no "chain of circumstances" necessitating an individual's salvation or damnation; rather, God's contingent, arbitrary decree alone is what determines whether an individual will go to Heaven or not. I should point out that the Catholic Church allows it members a great deal of latitude on the subject of how God's foreknowledge is to be reconciled with human free will. A Catholic can be a Banezian, a Molinist or a Boethian, so long as he/she does not dispute any dogma of the Church. As a Catholic like yourself, I also believe the Church's ancient teaching that "outside of her there is no salvation." However, I interpret this theological principle charitably, following the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Certainly, it means that: "they could not be saved who, KNOWING that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would REFUSE either to enter it or to remain in it (para. 846)." How many unbelievers do you know who fit this description? I don't think I've met one. Moreover: "Those who, through NO FAULT of their own, DO NOT KNOW the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a SINCERE heart, and, MOVED BY GRACE, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too MAY ACHIEVE ETERNAL SALVATION (para. 847)." Moreover, God "desires ALL men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (para. 74). Finally: "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the OBLIGATION and also the sacred right to EVANGELIZE ALL MEN (para. 848)." The upshot of all this is that we should be ready to defend our faith in public, but leery of regarding any individual as being on the road to damnation. Many unbelievers whom I know are closer to God than I am. I'm certain of that.vjtorley_{July 3, 2008
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10
13
AM
PDT}

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