A Response to Vytautas

A Christian who wears the moniker “Vytautas” has sought to engage me in a debate on the existence of his god. Below I provide a response to his most recent comments.


I wrote: This is irrelevant. Anyone can make this kind of claim about something that is imaginary. Anyone imagining Blakko can say it cannot be imaginary, since no one’s finite imagination can contain it. Would it follow from such claims that Blakko exists in reality? Who would believe this?

Vytautas responds: “If God is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, then God is necessary because a being that has those properties does not depend on anything else for his existence, so that God is not contingent. A necessary being must exist in reality because a necessary being exists in every possible world including ours. You should believe this, since it is true that the God of the Bible is there."

Again, this is all imaginary stuff, Vytautas. You simply assert that your god is there, that it has all these properties, and that possession of these properties means it necessarily exists. As I’ve pointed out several times now, one can say this about anything he imagines. Sorry, you’re just not scoring any points here.

Everything you’re saying about your god can be said about something that is not real, Vytautas. Do you not recognize this simple fact? I can imagine an invisible magic being, call it “infinite, eternal and unchangeable,” stipulate that it is “necessary,” and on this basis affirm that it exists, that it is real, that it did whatever I imagine it to have done. But at the end of the day, all these assertions are worthless, for they are merely assertions. There’s no objective backing to them. And, they can be said about anything one imagines. The history of the world shows that almost every culture has invested in some imaginary conscious being which supposedly explains the things we find existing in the world, things which are not imaginary. The result is a most perverse reversal: the non-imaginary is being explained by the imaginary.

Ever wonder why even within Christianity proper, there are so many different constructs of the Christian god? Some say the Christian god is one way (e.g., Arminians), others say it is another way (e.g., Catholics), and yet others say it is another way (e.g., Calvinists). Some say it wishes (e.g., the bible, Van Til, etc.), others say it does not wish (e.g., Paul Manata). How can this be? Obviously we have rival imaginations going on here. The problem is that believers are afraid to be honest and come out and admit the fact that their god is the product of human imagination.

I wrote: And I've asked how I can reliably distinguish between what you call "God" and what you may merely be imagining. You've not given me anything which speaks to this point.

Vytautas: “But you don’t know what I imagine unless I tell you what it is.”

You’ve been telling me what you imagine all along. If you don’t want to admit that your god is imaginary, then I challenge you to show me how I can reliably distinguish your god from what you are simply imagining. You’ve not done this yet.

Vytautas: “I think you are asking how we know that God exists.”

No, I’m asking how I can distinguish your god (which you say is real) from what you may simply be imagining.

Vytautas: “By knowing what God means we recognize that such a being must exist, since you cannot only imagine a necessary being because a necessary being must exist. God is necessary because he does not depend on any other thing for his existence.”

Here you reveal another epistemological reversal: the meaning of the term in question is supposed to determine that its referent is real. That’s backwards. We don’t do this with any other idea. In all other cases, we discover the existence of the existing thing first, by means of perception or by some instrument which expands our perception (e.g., microscopes, telescopes, amplifiers, etc.), and then we have awareness of an object which we then set about identifying and classifying and understanding. We don’t start with the “meaning” of a concept – for instance, clouds – and then say, “well the meaning of ‘cloud’ is [X], and because of this, clouds must exist!”

As for what I can and cannot imagine, how do you know that I “cannot only imagine a necessary being”? I can say anything I imagine is a necessary being. This is a volitional exercise. I imagine Alokutsura. What is Alokutsura, you ask? Alokutsura is a necessary, infinite, eternal and unchangeable being! Because of the properties which I assign to it, it must exist! That’s your whole argument, Vytautas. It can be used to “prove” the existence of anything I imagine. And still you make no progress in producing some process by which I can distinguish between what you call “God” and what you are simply imagining.

I wrote: Same with anything that is imaginary. You’re simply conceding that your god has a lot in common with imaginary things. This is on top of the fact that you’ve not explained how I can reliably distinguish what you call “God” from what you may simply be imagining. That doesn’t bode well for your defense.

Vytautas: "A material god does not bode well for my defense because a material god would depend on other things for his existence, since matter over time breaks down.”

No, that’s not the reason why it would “not bode well for [your] defense.” The reason why a “material god” would not bode well for your defense is that a material god would be perceptually demonstrable. But you want your object of worship to lie beyond the access of our perception. This allows you to have control over it: it is whatever you say it is. In the end, it’s all your word, but you want to appeal to the word of your god for authoritative backing. That doesn’t help, for it’s all imaginary anyway.

Vytautas: “God is spirit and does not depend on the material world for his existence.”

What would stop someone from making assertions like this about something he is only imagining?

Vytautas: “Since you are a materialist,”

Where have I identified myself as a materialist? You are unfamiliar with my worldview.

Vytautas: “you would have to say that imaginary things are sense objects, since they are the chemical and electrical thoughts in your physical brain, unless you believe you have an immaterial mind.”

Wrong again. I don’t say that imaginary things are sense objects, and not for the reason that you suggest, either.

I wrote: This objection is essentially no different from the one you provided above. And it fails for the same reason: anyone can make this kind of claim about something that is imaginary. I can call Blakko “a necessary being.” Does that make Blakko real? According to the reasoning you offer here, it does. For you claim that “a necessary being must exist in all possible worlds including the actualized world we are apart of.” By this reasoning, Blakko “must exist in all possible worlds including the actualized world we are apart of,” for Blakko is “a necessary being.” And yet, Blakko is something that I have imagined. See? I can make the kind of claim you make about your god about anything I imagine.

Vytautas: “It seems you are giving an argument by contradiction, but you call God by the name Blakko. Since there is only one God any other thing that is equal to God is God. You are just using a different name for God, but both are essentially the same. Now we move to the historicity of the New Testament gospels.”

The thing I imagined is imaginary. If you want to say that what I have imagined is “equal to God,” then clearly you’re conceding that your god is imaginary as well. No matter what name we give to that which is imaginary, it is still imaginary.

I wrote: It’s a storybook. The stories it contains are no more historical than the stories we read in a Harry Potter novel.

Vytautas: “J. K. Rowling does not claim that Harry Potter is real, but the authors of the gospels claim Jesus is real.”

That’s irrelevant and misses the point. A storybook is still a storybook, regardless of whether or not its author claims its contents are historical.

I wrote: Simply "because of what is claimed"? That's your test for historicity? Anything better than this? What if someone said that a Harry Potter novel is history “because of what is claimed” in it?

Vytautas: “Show where J. K. Rowling claims that Harry Potter is a real character if you really believe that.”

I don’t believe she does. But that would be irrelevant. Someone reading it and thinking it’s true could claim Harry Potter is a real person. Someone who invests his imagination in what he reads in a Harry Potter novel, and operates, as Christians do, on an epistemology which fails to provide the necessary mental tools needed to distinguish between the actual and the imaginary, the real and the fictitious, could easily succumb to the impression that what he is reading is “historical.” All the more if he *wants* it to be true, and even more if he’s fallen for various psychological sanctions (which are present in the bible, but absent in the case of Harry Potter books) which manipulate one into being afraid to recognize it’s all fiction. It wouldn’t be the first time (Christians and Muslims have been doing this for centuries), and it wouldn’t be the last time.

Vytautas: “If Harry Potter is either real or fantasy, then that does not say anything if the New Testament is historical.”

It doesn’t have to in order for my point to stick.

Vytautas: “Also the claim a person makes about an event is not the only criterion for what is historical, but it is one of the criterions for historical events which eliminates Harry Potter.”

So what are these other criteria which the New Testament has going for it that Harry Potter novels do not have going for them? Is it simply the part about the author of one storybook claiming his storbook is true, while the author of the other acknowledges hers to be fiction?

I wrote: So, if the places I write about are in the real world, then anything I claim in writing took place in those places must have really happened, simply because those places are real? My garage is real – it is a real place. I now write a story about my encounter with a magic leprechaun in my garage. In my story about my encounter with the magic leprechaun I describe what he was wearing, how he climbed on top of my washing machine and started talking to me about a pot of gold he hid in my neighborhood. Is my story about the leprechaun true because it takes place in a place that is in the real world? Are you going to start looking for this hidden pot of gold now?

Vytautas: “When I give a single criterion for history, then that does not mean it is the only criterion for history, but all the criterions work together to give a method for history.”

Understood. But you see how weak this one criterion is, don’t you? It is so weak that it does not work in concert with others. It would be silly to think it does.

Vytautas: “Another criterion is of many witnesses testifying to an historical event.”

How many witnesses are testifying of the event which Paul records in I Cor. 15, which claims that the resurrected Jesus was seen by some 500 or so brethren? How many people have stepped forward to corroborate this event? What are the names of the 500 brethren? Where is their testimony? What exactly did they see? Did they see an apparition? That could be a mass hallucination. Did they see an actual human being? It could be a case of mistaken identification. Did it really even happen? We only have Paul saying in passing that it happened. Was Paul there? He does not claim to have been there. In fact, the way the passage reads as a whole suggests very strongly that Paul himself was not there. Also, if Paul is simply reciting a creedal formulation, as many have suggested, then he’s simply repeating hearsay. Robert Price argues quite persuasively that I Cor. 15:3-11 is an interpolation, and is not even authentic to Paul’s original letter.

Vytautas: “There are four gospels testifying to the historical events of Jesus, but you only give a short paragraph written only by one person about an event.”

That’s more than you’ve offered in response to my challenge. But it’s moot anyway: if the gospels are fiction, then we cannot accept the claim that they are “testifying to [actual] historical events of Jesus.” It’s a storybook, just like Harry Potter.

Vytautas: “The more people testifying to the event, then the event has more reason to be believed than just one person.”

It would be very easy for someone putting his imaginary story into writing to create characters who “witnessed” the events of the story. If he wanted readers to believe the story was actually historical, he would probably not hesitate to insert characters who are said to have witnessed the events in that story. So if the witnesses themselves are fiction, then they’re worthless as witnesses of an actual historical event.

So why accept the claim that there are witnesses to the events described in the bible? Who witnessed Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus as recorded in the book of Acts for instance? Paul does not describe his own conversion in the same manner that Acts does in his own letters. So who witnessed this? The author Luke? Was he present then? Would you claim that he was reporting what Paul had told him? Where’s your proof? How do you know that Luke was infallibly reporting firsthand reports, especially when Paul himself, when he takes the opportunity to describe his own conversion, fails to corroborate what we read in Acts?

Who witnessed Jesus’ resurrection? It took place in a sealed tomb. You might say that people who knew Jesus saw him after he died on the cross and therefore must have been resurrected. Sounds like a made up story to me, and you’ve given nothing substantial to counter otherwise.

I wrote: I’m not sure why you think this is “a better explanation.” In fact, in reviewing all the defenses that believers have put forward in favor of the thesis that the New Testament records actual history, I’ve not found any evidence that legitimately secures that thesis.

Vytautas: “There are prophesies of the Old Testament that confirms the New Testament. Psalm 22 tells that a company of evildoers encircles Jesus; they have pierced his hands and feet-- Jesus can count all his bones-- they stare and gloat over him; they divide his garments among them, and for his clothing they cast lots. Matthew 27 says when the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they divided his garments among them by casting lots. And John 19 says when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. So the Old Testament gives evidence for the New Testament.”

Again this is all very weak. Anyone writing a biography about Jesus who wanted to give it the stamp of Old Testament authority, could (and would!) sprinkle that biography with allusions to the Old Testament, since the Old Testament was already held as an authoritative source. Much of the gospels read this way, and even suggest this explicitly when, for instance, Matthew writes things like “this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet…” (Mt. 1:22, see also 21:4, 26:56, et al.). If a passage in the Old Testament says that some people cast lots over a suffering servant’s garments, the obvious thing to do would be to say this happened in the case of Jesus’ garments after he was crucified, and PRESTO, the Old Testament passage becomes “prophetic.” It’s an easy trick, one which actually has precedent in many parts of the bible. The so-called “fulfillment” in the New Testament of so-called “prophecies” drummed up in the Old Testament, is so contrived as to give away the game.

I wrote: At the very most, the stories we read record what some people (e.g., their authors) believed, not “sensed.” Even the New Testament makes it clear that no one “sensed” Jesus rising from the dead, for according to the stories it took place in a sealed tomb.

Vytautas: “But there are accounts of post-crucifixion accounts of the resurrected Jesus who is alive. They could not be all false, because there could not be mass-hallucinations, since hallucinations are an individual experience and not a group experience. A better explanation is Jesus actually rose from the dead, and other people saw him and wrote about him.”

That’s not a “better explanation” by any rational measure. A better, rational explanation is that we’re reading a legend that has germinated from relatively more inert seeds. Are you saying that is not possible?

Besides, in the case of I Cor. 15, which refers to a large group of people who supposedly saw Jesus, it’s important to keep in mind that this one reference does not constitute mass corroboration. That Christian apologists seem to think it does only shows how silly their position is, and how desperate they are to defend it. It is the statement of one man artificially given the weight of many. So there’s really no need to assert mass hallucination here. Although mass hallucination has been shown to be possible (really, are you expecting me to accept that mass hallucination is not possible, but resurrection of the dead is?), if the very claim that the people in question is very shaky at best, as in the case of the anonymous 500 brethren in I Cor. 15, then it’s moot to begin with.

I wrote: Are you saying that the author of the gospel according to Matthew “sensed” that Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus? What makes you suppose this?

Vytautas: “Matthew did not see directly Mary give birth to Jesus, but he used other testimony to account for this event.”

What “other testimony”? Where is that “other testimony”? Essentially, you’re saying that the virgin birth is hearsay for the author who put it in his biographical narrative of Jesus. Historically speaking, that’s as unreliable as it gets. Yet you want people to believe this as if it held sway over their lives forever. You’re emotionally invested in the story, just as you’re emotionally invested in the outcome of our discussion.

Vytautas: “He sensed the people who witnessed the event that gave the testimony.”

So, what people did he sense? Who are these “people who witnessed the event that gave the testimony”? Why didn’t those people record their testimony themselves? And think of the time span here. Earliest dates for the writing of the gospel of Matthew put it to 70 AD, if not later. When was Jesus born? At least 70 years prior to Matthew’s writing. Whoever these “people who witnessed the event” of Jesus’ virgin birth would have been adults at the time it allegedly happened. So some 70 or 80 years later, they’re telling this guy Matthew that Jesus’ mother was a virgin when she gave birth to him? Come now, Vytautas, surely you don’t expect me to believe this, do you?

I wrote: Who “sensed” the saints who according to the gospel according to Matthew (see 27:52-53) rose out of their graves and went walking through the city showing themselves to many? Only Matthew mentions this; no one else in all of history corroborates this story. Was Matthew the only one who “sensed” this? Perhaps he was on drugs, or hallucinating. We know that people take drugs and hallucinate. But you would prefer that we dismiss this possibility and accept, for apparently no good reason whatsoever, that this story is historical. Ain’t happenin’, Vytautas.

Vytautas: “We know people witness events and record them.”

Yes, we do know this. We also know that people make mistakes, report things without investigating them firsthand, imagine things, fail to distinguish between imagination and reality, and write fiction.

Vytautas: “But you would prefer that we dismiss this and accept, for apparently no good reason whatsoever, that Matthew took drugs.”

Well, if I am expected to believe that dead people rose from their graves and walked around in a city showing themselves to many, and only one person reports this – in passing, to boot – with no corroboration whatsoever, why shouldn't I at least entertain the possibility that the person who wrote this may have been under the influence?

Vytautas: “You have no historical evidence that Matthew took drugs.”

And likewise, we have no historical evidence whatsoever that a bunch of zombies crawled out of their graves, walked through a city and showed themselves to many. But if you want evidence that someone was taking drugs, look at what they say, do and write. There’s an indication there. Of course, it could be that the author of Matthew was not on drugs, and soberly invented his elaboration of Mark’s gospel.

Vytautas: “Matthew might be the only one that recorded the event, but he wrote that the saints went into the holy city and appeared to many.”

Matthew claims that this happened. But where’s the proof? If dead people rose out of their graves and showed themselves to a bunch of people, who were those people, and why don’t we have any of their firsthand testimonies? Was Matthew among these people? Even the author doesn’t claim to have seen this himself.

Vytautas: “If you can dismiss historical events because there is only one person that wrote about the event, then I can dismiss your stories that you tell me.”

Threatening to dismiss my stories will not make me suddenly believe what is written in the New Testament. You’re free to dismiss my stories all you like. Besides, it is not simply because the stories in the New Testament are not corroborated that I do not accept them. There are other factors. For one, they all presuppose the primacy of consciousness metaphysics, which I know is false. I’ve demonstrated this time and time again on my blog. That’s sufficient reason as any to dismiss them. Any position which reduces to a subjective foundation should be dismissed because of this. There’s also the fact that the New Testament is riddled with evidences showing that the Jesus story was elaborated on over time, growing from faint glimmers in Paul’s letters to full-blown legends in the gospels and the book of Acts. So there are numerous reasons why I “dismiss” the New Testament as unhistorical, not just the one reason you cite here.

I wrote: I simply point out that those who claim that there is a god fail to provide any way by which I can reliably distinguish between what they call "God" and what they may merely be imagining. Your response to my challenge is a prime example of this. I also point out that the traditional notion of “God” is internally incoherent, just as the notion of a square circle is. See my essay Gods and Square Circles for details.

Vytautas: “You seem to say that one cannot change the world by merely thinking something will change in the world, so that God cannot create the world because a mind cannot manipulate matter. But God is not a creature like you me, but he is the Creator that is able to create matter out of nothing.”

Good. Let’s see a demonstration of this ability. Give me more than just the claim that a being with such ability exists. Anyone can imagine such a being. But so far, you’ve not given me any good reason to suppose your god is something other than imaginary. And, I don’t think you can.

I wrote: I’ve never argued “I do not sense God, therefore God does not exist.” Nor are my criticisms of theism reducible to this. However, I would point out that, by describing their god as something non-sensible, and making the kinds of claims to knowledge that they do, Christians show how nonsensical their beliefs are. If you have no means of achieving awareness of your god, then by what means could you know that it exists?

Vytautas: “I know God exists by means of the creation he has made and the light of nature in man, since he is created in the image of God.”

These “reasons” not only fail to address my questions, they beg the question for they assume that the god in question exists, which is precisely what you’re called to validate. The notion of “creation” assumes a creator, which is your god (isn’t it?), so affirming that there is a creation created by the creator in question gets you nowhere. Similarly with the notion that man was “created in the image of God.” Man is nothing like the god which Christians describe, so it’s unclear in what respect man is supposed to bear the Christian god’s image. I’ve examined many attempts to validate this and will post some material on it soon on my blog, but nothing so far seems to answer the important questions. Rather, what we have here is a Christian slogan which doesn’t really mean anything and has no objective basis whatsoever, a slogan which is asserted in order to stop inquiry rather than address legitimate questions.

Also, notice that “by means of the creation he has made” fails to address my question because it does not identify an alternative to sensation and perception as a means of knowledge. By pointing to “creation” you’re suggesting that you had to infer your god’s existence, that you do not have direct, firsthand awareness of it. Did you mean to say this? If you infer its existence, what is your starting point, and how did you end up with the conclusion that the Christian god is real? Assuming “creation” only begs the question, as I mentioned above. So hopefully you have something better than this? Now, if you claim to have direct, firsthand awareness of this thing you call “God,” then by what means do you possess awareness of this object? You’ve identified how you do not have awareness of it when you say that your god cannot be sensed or perceived. So, how can one have awareness of it? Or, does no one have awareness of it? If no one has awareness of it, why believe it’s real? Again, try to answer these questions with the distinction between the real and the imaginary in mind. So far, you’ve performed miserably in this respect.

Vytautas: “You say that you do not argue that God cannot be sensed, therefore God does not exist. But then you say that we are nonsensical to describe God as non-sensible. You cannot have it both ways, since you are giving the same argument.”

Read it again: I wrote: “by describing their god as something non-sensible, and making the kinds of claims to knowledge that they do, Christians show how nonsensical their beliefs are.”

The stipulation that your god is non-sensible, coupled with other things Christians say about why they believe their god exists (such as the question-begging appeal to “creation” that we saw in your own statement above), indicate how nonsensical Christianity is.

I wrote: If you say that you infer its existence from things that you do perceive, then what is the rationale behind your inference? This is where arguments for theism come into play. I’ve not found one which is sound. If you say that you do possess a faculty by which you can achieve direct awareness of what you call “God,” what is that faculty, how does it work, and how do you distinguish that faculty from your imagination?

Vytautas: “It is necessary for a creation to have a Creator.”

I take it by this response that you are affirming that you infer your god’s existence rather than have awareness of it directly. So unlike many Christians, you do not claim to have direct, firsthand awareness of your god. Otherwise I would expect to see you identify the means by which you have such awareness (such as when I point to my senses to identify the means by which I have direct awareness of my computer screen, the shirt I’m wearing, the amount I need to pay on a bill I receive in the mail, etc.).

You say that creation needs a creator. Okay, fine. Now you need to prove that what you call a “creation” was in fact created, that it is in fact a “creation.” Let’s see how effectively you can do this.

Vytautas: “The Creator gives meaning and purpose for creation which was created by God. If not, then you can have the creation without a Creator. But then you have no explanation for creation, and then say that existence exists.”

Existence exists, and only existence exists. Existence is an irreducible primary. It is not the result of something “prior” to existence; there is no “prior” to existence. Either you start with existence, or you start with non-existence. Implicitly this is what the theist does; he finds beginning with the irreducible fact that existence exists unsatisfying, typically for reasons that are unclear to himself, and that is why he wants to posit a form of consciousness which is responsible for bringing existence into existence. My analysis of the theist’s dilemmas is not inaccurate. Observe:

Vytautas: “But where does existence come from?”

I love this question – it confirms that my antiapologetic approach has been right on all along. Let’s consider it: “Where does existence come from?” Well, what is the alternative to existence, if not non-existence? If we accept the premise buried in your question, the only answer that would satisfy it would be: from non-existence. But you want to say that existence comes from your god (it created existence, right?), but also that your god exists. So your question leads you to a self-contradiction. You demand an explanation for existence, suggesting that existence “came from” something other than existence (i.e., non-existence), and yet say that it came from something that exists. In rational philosophy, your question commits what is known as the fallacy of the stolen concept. Incidentally, this fallacy is inescapable in the religious view of the world.

Vytautas: “If it was always here, then we could not come to this point of time because before this time an infinite amount of time had to pass before we got here. But then we would never get to this point in time because an infinite amount of time had to happen before we got here.”

This line of argument not only ignores the fact that time presupposes existence, it also ignores the fact that it is always now - i.e., the present is eternally continuous. We could not conceive of past or future times if the present did not exist. Challenges to this point will inevitably involve a false conception of time. A rational understanding of time does not lead to the conundrum you try to raise because time is conceptual, not metaphysical. This is a common mistake among thinkers, but it is a mistake nonetheless.

Vytautas: “But on the Christian position, God created time at the moment of creation and a finite amount of time can happen until this point in time.”

It is true that I can imagine this happening. But again, the imaginary is not real. You can claim that “God created time,” but simply claiming this to be the case does not make it true. And notice that it is posited in answer to a fallaciously conceived problem. “God” is asserted as the solution to a problem that simply does not exist. If this is how you infer your god’s existence, no wonder so many people reject it.

Vytautas: “If you say that all that is real must be capable of being sensed, then do you know this claim about all of reality?”

Careful not to make a category mistake here. My knowledge is not an object that exists independent of me, so it is not bound to conditions that attend objects which exist independent of me. I know what I know by a means of knowledge. It’s called reason. It is the faculty which identifies what I perceive and integrates what I perceive into the sum of my knowledge. You want me to accept as knowledge something which I cannot perceive and integrate into the sum of my knowledge without contradicting it. Why should I do this? You offer no good reasons for this.

I wrote: I have not made this claim, so I do not need to defend it. My sensing something is not a prerequisite for it to be real. But if I am going to accept as knowledge the claim that something exists, that claim needs to have some kind of evidence to support it, it must be coherent, and it must be capable of being integrated with the knowledge that I have validated without contradiction. Christianity’s god-belief claims fail on all three points. Christians can’t even show me how I can reliably distinguish their god from what they may merely be imagining! I’m simply being honest to these facts. Would you prefer that I be dishonest and affirm the existence of a god anyway? Well, that would be dishonest. And I made the choice earlier in my life to be honest, and I’m sticking to that choice.

Vytautas: “I think you do not want to believe in God because if you did then, you have to worship him by the commands that he gives in Scripture.”

You ignore the fact that at one time I was a Christian and in fact wanted Christianity to be true. I demonstrated with my whole life at that time that when I thought it was true, I devoted my life according to Christianity’s dictates. There were many problems, but they all reduced ultimately to the fact that I was being dishonest to myself. When Christians urge me to return to Christianity, they are in effect urging me to be dishonest to myself. I won’t do that. When I was young, impressionable and philosophically defenseless, I was conned into such self-dishonesty. But now I know better. So it ain’t gonna happen, regardless of who disapproves.

Vytautas: “You do not want to have anything to do with God and detest him because you want to live in darkness and not come to the light.”

I’ve matured in many ways since my sojourn into Christianity. One way in which I have matured is morally. Today, if I thought the god of the bible were real, I would certainly not worship it. It is most worthy of contempt. But I realize that it is a fiction, that it does not really exist, that it is an imagination which has captured the fixation of millions of people. I’ve observed how this fixation on such a detestable construct degrades individuals to defending the most abhorrent evils imaginable.

Vytautas: “You are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness by choosing not to bow yourself to Jesus Christ.”

You accuse me of “suppressing” something that you’ve not been able to show is even true. So you affirm two falsehoods here in one breath: 1) that I am suppressing some truth, and 2) that your Jesus Christ is real. If you’re god-belief had something more substantial than baseless accusations, why do you resort to them when the going gets rough?

Vytautas: “You choose to dismiss the New Testament not for intellectual reasons but for moral reasons.”

I do not accept the dichotomy here that the moral is non-intellectual. In fact, I would say that moral reasons (assuming the morality of rational philosophy) are intellectual.

Vytautas: “It is idolatrous and sinful to deny God exists, so I council you to be reconciled to God by Jesus Christ who gave witness to his work that he did for those that believe.”

If your god exists, and wants me to know it exists, it is up to your god to make its existence knowable to my consciousness. Arguments which are laden with fallacy and threats of doom will not suffice.

Vytautas: “It would be most unwise to remain under the wrath of God, by not believing on the Son of God.”

As I said, threats of doom will not suffice. If you have something intellectual to offer, then I would expect to see it instead of threats. But by bringing out threats like this, you concede that your god-belief is not at all rational. Knowledge is not validated by threats, and we do not acquire knowledge by means of threats. Also, knowledge is what I prize, while clearly Christianity prizes “belief.” There is a profound difference, but typically Christians fail to make this distinction, just as they do between the real and the imaginary. I’m not afraid of your imaginary deity, Vytautas. Sick him on me all you want.

I wrote: No. But do I need to have “sensed all of reality” to know that the unreal is unreal, that the imaginary is imaginary? I don’t think so. Are you trying to find gaps in my knowledge? There are many; I was born ignorant, and I learn at my own, slow pace. Are you suggesting that I’ll discover your god in the gaps of my knowledge? That would constitute a blatant appeal to ignorance. To claim knowledge on the basis of ignorance would be dishonest. Remember my commitment? Ain’t happenin’.

Vytautas: “I gave reasons for God’s existence and defended the historicity of the New Testament. You gave Harry Potter, a story of a leprechaun, and Blakko in response, and I have answered these things above.”

And I have answered your responses above. And still, you offer nothing to answer how I can distinguish between your god and what you may merely be imagining. In short, you offer nothing to demonstrate that your god is real. And when pressed on the matter, you resort to threats. That tells me all I need to know about your god-belief.

Vytautas: “But you do know God exists, since you try to deny him and say that you can imagine Blakko who has all the essential properties of God and say that he is only apart of your imagination.”

I can imagine your god, yes. But again, the imaginary and the real are not the same thing. What I imagine is imagination; it is not real. To “know” your god, it would have to exist, and you’ve not shown that it exists. You’ve simply asserted that it exists, while failing to distinguish between your god and what you are imagining. I am right to dismiss it, even if you don’t like it, even if you want to threaten me with some kind of eternal cosmic doom. Such a move only discredits your position.

Vytautas: “But if you allow for the possibility that God exist, then he exists necessarily, since he does not depend on anything for his existence.”

And you’ve given me no reason to grant the possibility that your god exists. Is it possible that fallaciously derived conclusions are true? Not on their fallacious context. Is it possible that the imaginary and the real are the same? I certainly don’t think so. Perhaps you do? Again, you give me no alternative to my own imagination as the means by which I can “know” your god. If I have to imagine it, then why would I accept as a possibility the idea that it actually exists? Blank out.

Vytautas wrote: You will say no, but that everything that you have experienced is capable of being sensed.

I responded: Actually, I didn’t say that. Put it this way. Suppose we had 150 different sense modalities instead of 5 (vision, hearing, taste, touch, smell). With 150 different sense modalities, we’d most likely perceive a lot more about our world than we do with the 5 we have now. But what would prevent someone from coming along and positing the existence of a being which we’d need a 151st sense modality to perceive? Since we don’t have that missing 151st sense modality, we can’t perceive it. So on what basis would we accept the claim that it exists? Simply because someone claims it is there? I’m not that gullible. Do you think I should be?

Vytautas: “It does not matter how many senses you have because God cannot be sensed directly.”

Exactly my point! No matter how many modes of sensation we might have, it will always be possible to posit the existence of something that exists beyond the reach of those sense modalities. We will always be able to imagine that there is something beyond the reach of our senses. And no matter what I imagine, I can say it exists beyond the reach of your consciousness, and on the basis of this supposition say you have no basis to dismiss its existence – for how could you know it doesn’t exist if “by definition” it cannot be sensed? You have fallen for a big lie, Vytautas.

Vytautas: “We can look to creation, the Bible, and the light of nature in man to understand God.”

I’ve already dealt with each of these points. And meanwhile, you’ve not provided an answer to my challenge which preserves any credibility on behalf of your god-belief.

Vytautas: “We should not deny the revelation that God has given to his creatures, since that would be immoral and against the law of God.”

I have no problem “denying” the “revelation” of an imaginary being. It’s good for the soul!

Vytautas wrote: But God can be known to be real because by definition he is a necessary being, so God must exist.

I responded: So you’re trying to define your god into existence now. You grant much power to your consciousness, Vytautas. I’m too honest to claim possession of such powers. Besides, your statement here is incoherent. Definition is a property of concepts, not of independently existing entities. Your god, if it were real, would not be a concept, but an independently existing being. Concepts are formed by human minds by integrating inputs perceived by their senses. By saying that your god can be defined, you’re implicitly conceding that it is a construct of your mind, like concepts are. That is understandable if your god is imaginary. But if your god is real, you’ve just sold him out.

Vytautas: “I am not claiming that once I define God, then God exists and comes into a point in time, since God is timeless.”

No, I wouldn’t expect you to make the error quite as blatant as this. But in terms of epistemological principles, as I explained, this is essentially what you are doing. You have stated in more ways than one that the meaning of the term ‘God’ is sufficient to indicate its actual existence. As I pointed out above, this is a perverse reversal. We don’t do this with anything else that we discover in reality. Discovery comes first, and always by some objective means. Then we identify what we discover, and only then it can be integrated into the sum of our knowledge without contradicting it. But even here we sometimes make mistakes. In the case of your god, you performatively concede that it is imaginary because you’ve shown that you have the whole process bass-ackwards. You see, if you could explain how you have awareness of your god, how you discover its existence (not simply imagining it from the inputs found in a storybook), then we can investigate whether or not you’ve accurately identified what it is you call “God.” You’ve identified it with several properties. If we can determine that what you’ve applied these properties to is actually real, then we can check out whether or not it actually possesses the properties you’ve attributed to it. So you’re far from done, Vytautas. In fact, you’ve not even gotten started. You simply claim that something exists. You don’t even explain how you have awareness of it; in fact, it’s not even clear whether or not you think you have awareness of it, since you’ve not made this point clear in your case.

Consider the case of Christian believer Canon Michael Cole, who claims to have had a firsthand experience with his Jesus. No one else could see Jesus, but Cole was certain that Jesus was standing right there next to him. Where above you stated that “God cannot be sensed directly,” Cole claims to have had direct awareness of his god. Of course, he does not identify the means by which he had this awareness. But he claims it nonetheless. For Cole, Jesus is a mood that came over him. He personifies this mood as if it were a living being existing independent of him, something he’s somehow perceiving, even though he can identify no means by which he or anyone else could perceive what he claims to be perceiving. What we have here is an active imagination.

Vytautas: “My consciousness is just recognizing what has been revealed by God and to think analogically as God would want me to think, since we are made in his image.”

Your consciousness is not guided by an epistemology which reliably distinguishes between the real and the imaginary. That is why you’re having such a hard time with this.

Vytautas: “The concepts that we have are analogies to what actually exists.”

Concepts are not analogies, they are integrations. Your “God” is neither concept nor analogy, but a fiction, a fantasy, a figment of your imagination which you have enshrined as an alternative reality to the reality which actually exists and which you perceive with your senses.

Vytautas: “If you say that a chair can be defined, you are implicitly conceding that it is a construct of your mind, like concepts are.”

You need to be a little more careful here. When you say “a chair” here, are you referring to a specific concrete, such as the chair you’re sitting on? That is not something we define. Are you referring to the concept ‘chair’ which denotes not only the chair in which you’re sitting, but also every chair that you’ve sat in, the chair I’m sitting in, and every chair that exists now, has existed, and will exist? That is what we define – the concept - not the concrete.

Vytautas: “But it does not follow that the chair is only imaginary and not real.”

The chair I’m sitting in obviously not imaginary; I wouldn’t be able to sit on it if it were imaginary. It is a physical object, it exists, it is real. Also, I perceive it by means of my senses, which interact with the chair physically. None of this applies to your god, for it is imaginary. We do not perceive what is imaginary, we imagine it.

by Dawson Bethrick

Van Til vs. Bahnsen

Van Til writes:

We say that Christ rose from the grave. We say further that this resurrection proves his divinity. (The Defense of the Faith, p. 7-8)

Bahnsen writes:

Why should anyone believe that Jesus was in fact “very God of very God”? Could any mere man’s evaluation establish such a claim? Even the estimation of a large percentage of people would be insufficient to establish that Jesus was more than a man. Even his miracles and resurrection do not in themselves imply deity (think of the other miracle workers in Scripture); they constitute evidence of divine status only because He authoritatively interprets them as such. So the only authority by which the identification of Jesus as God could be warranted would have to be the authority of Jesus Himself, taken as the one whom He claims to be. Such self-identification or self-authorization is, in the very nature of the case, “circular.” (Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings & Analysis, p. 201)

How can this be? Van Til explicitly states that Jesus’ “resurrection proves his divinity,” while Bahnsen says that Jesus’ “miracles and resurrection do not in themselves imply deity.” If Jesus’ resurrection itself does not “imply deity,” how can Van Til say that it “proves his divinity”?

by Dawson Bethrick

My Chat with a Presuppositionalist

One day while on a short flight to Denver, a presuppositionalist apologist was seated next to me. He didn’t waste time and started right in with his robotic apologetic babbling. Our conversation went as follows:

Presuppositionalist: “God, as absolute personality, is the ultimate category of interpretation for man in every aspect of his being.” (Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, p. 52)

Non-believer: Are you simply trying to state your beliefs, or do you have a proof of your god’s existence?

Presuppositionalist: “There is the evidence of the created order itself testifying to the wisdom. power, plan, and glory of God.” (Greg Bahnsen, The Great Debate, opening statement)

Non-believer: Are you saying that you infer your god’s existence from things that you perceive, or are you saying that you perceive your god directly? It sounds like you’re saying you infer its existence rather than have direct awareness of it.

Presuppositionalist: “God is not found at the end of an argument; He is found in our hearts.” (Van Til, Why I Believe in God)

Non-believer: So, you don’t have an argument for your god’s existence. Instead, you look inwardly, consulting the subjective realm of your feelings and emotions?

Presuppositionalist: "The argument for the existence of God and for the truth of Christianity is objectively valid. We should not tone down this argument to the probability level. The argument may be poorly stated, and may never be adequately stated. But in itself the argument is absolutely sound. Christianity is the only reasonable position to hold." (Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel, p. 62)

Non-believer: So you do have an argument? If you infer your god’s existence, from what do you infer it, and what is the course of reasoning by which you arrive at the conclusion that your god exists? Or, if you perceive it directly, by what means do you perceive it? And if you do perceive your god directly, why would you need any argument for its existence?

Presuppositionalist: "The theistic proofs therefore reduce to one proof, the proof which argues that unless this God, the God of the Bible, the ultimate being, the Creator, the controller of the universe, be presupposed as the foundation of human experience, this experience operates in a void. This one proof is absolutely convincing." (Common Grace and the Gospel, p. 192, emphasis original)

Non-believer: I don't find this convincing at all, let alone "absolutely convincing." And something is still not clear to me. I asked if you infer your god's existence. But here you say you presuppose it. One could say this about any arbitrary belief. So if you claim to have an argument for your god’s existence, you’re tacitly admitting that you do not perceive its existence directly (for we do not argue for that which we perceive directly). So, what’s your argument?

Presuppositionalist: “The proof of Christianity is the impossibility of the contrary. That is, the validation of the Christian worldview is that without it you cannot prove anything.” (Greg Bahnsen, Pushing the Antithesis, p. 148)

Non-believer: That is not an argument, it’s simply a naked assertion. Similarly, the Lahu tribesman can say “Geusha exists because of the impossibility of the contrary,” and I can say “All gods (including yours) are fictitious because of the impossibility of the contrary.” So you still need an argument.

Presuppositionalist: “The atheistic worldview cannot account for the laws of logic/absolutes, and must borrow from the Christian worldview in order to rationally argue.” (Matt Slick, The Christian Worldview, the Atheist Worldview, and Logic)

Non-believer: This too is not an argument. Even if it is true that a particular non-believer “cannot account for the intelligibility of human experience,” etc., this would not prove that no atheist individual or atheist philosophy can do so, or that a god exists or that Christianity is true. All it would prove is that the individual in question is ignorant on these things. Since we’re born ignorant, and the issues being inquired on are very complex and rife with controversy even among those who have devoted their entire academic lives to them, a particular individual’s ignorance in some area of philosophy is wholly understandable. Most people are too busy living their lives to delve into philosophy in the manner that the presuppositional method demands of them. So, do you have anything more than mere assertions?

Presuppositionalist: “It is impossible and useless to seek to defend Christianity as an historical religion by a discussion of facts only.” (Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, p. 7)

Non-believer: I realize that. Since the basis of your religion is not factual, you have no choice but to retreat into the imaginary. Only you refuse to acknowledge that it is imaginary. But you offer nothing other than one’s imagination as the means by which one can “know” its so-called “truths.” For instance, I can imagine Jesus rising from the dead in the confines of his stone sepulcher, but doing so does not establish what I imagine as actual historical fact. There is a difference between fact and imagination, and your religion trades on blurring this distinction.

Presuppositionalist: “To engage in philosophical discussion does not mean that we begin without Scripture. We do not first defend theism philosophically by an appeal to reason and experience in order, after that, to turn to Scripture for our knowledge and defense of Christianity. We get our theism as well as our Christianity from the Bible.” (Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, p. 8)

Non-believer: I realize this also. Your imagination of your god is inspired by the content of a storybook. The anecdotes, speeches and episodes that we read about in the bible supply inputs which the believer substitutes for actual facts, and quickened by the imagination they take on what seems to be a larger-than-life quality. The same process happens when we allow ourselves to be absorbed in a Harry Potter novel. We imagine the characters of the story and the events that the story has them go through, and in our imagination they take on their own life. The biblical realm, like the realm of Harry Potter, is a creation of the human mind invested in the imaginative elaborations inspired by what is given in the text.

Presuppositionalist: “If Christian theism is not true then nothing is true.” (Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, p. 208)

Non-believer: Okay, let’s try this. I have a simple challenge for you. You say your god is real, that it truly exists. Can you explain how I can reliably distinguish between what you call “God” and what you may merely be imagining?

At this point the presuppositionalist turned forward and stared directly ahead. His eyes were wide and bleak, and his mouth pursed shut. Completely mute, he looked like a gambler who was realizing that he had just lost his life’s fortune.

The man didn’t say anything for the rest of the flight, even when the flight attendant asked if he wanted anything. He just sat there in silence, staring off into space, as if pretending no one else existed.

When we finally landed and were preparing to disembark, I said to him, “Thanks for the chat. I hope you enjoy your stay in Denver.” He just nodded slightly and turned his back on me. I guess he couldn’t answer my challenge.

by Dawson Bethrick

D. James Kennedy's Impotent Jesus

In his sermon "The Sin of Unbelief (Part 2)," Christian apologist D. James Kennedy speaks out against "unbelief" and "unbelievers." In developing his point, he makes use of the example of Doubting Thomas, a character in the gospel narrative found only in the book of John. Kennedy finds this example useful because, according to the story, Thomas did not readily accept the testimony of his fellow disciples that Jesus had been resurrected from the dead. Thomas wanted to see firsthand evidence that Jesus was really resurrected. Says Kennedy, Thomas "is like many who say, 'unless I can see it, hear it, touch it, I will not believe." According to Kennedy, this requirement for evidence is an attitude of "sin." So accordingly, Thomas was sinning by asking for evidence to support the claim that Jesus had been resurrected; the believer is supposed to “believe,” not “know.” Kennedy's assessment is corroborated to a marked degree by the words which the author of the gospel of John puts into Jesus' mouth: "blessed are those who haven't seen and yet believe." It's hard to see this as anything other than a praising endorsement of sheer gullibility, of suspending the requirements of knowledge for the sake of believing a storybook tale.

Then Kennedy makes a most remarkable assertion. He states:

Now Christ cannot appear personally to all of the billions and billions of people that have lived on the earth since that time, but we have the testimony of many of those that have seen him at that time....

If I were a Christian, I would find this statement most puzzling. Why can't Christ "appear personally to all of the billions and billions of people that have lived on earth" since the 1st century? Christ is the second person in the trinity, a member of the "Godhead," and thus is omnipotent, omnipresent and illimitable by the constraints of this world. If Christ could appear to Saul of Tarsus on his way to Damascus, why can't he appear to other people, regardless of how many that might be? After all, all human beings who have ever walked the earth were supposedly created by this supernatural being called Christ. In fact, they claim that Christ created the earth to begin with. So why in supernaturalia would Kennedy think his Christ "cannot appear personally to all of the billions of people that have lived on the earth"? Kennedy most likely thinks all those billions will appear before Christ one day, does he not? So here we have a reversal of sorts: the god is unable to appear to man, while man is able to appear before the god.

At any rate, Kennedy does not explain why he thinks "Christ cannot appear personally to all of the billions of people that have lived on earth since that time." He simply slips this premise into his sermon hoping no one seizes upon it for examination. This is how the mystics try to get away with their egregious landgrabs, and watch the sea of chins in his audience nodding in uncritical agreement.

Now we should now ask how well this comports with other things that Kennedy himself has affirmed before his audiences. Consider what he states in his brief sermon entitled "I Can't Believe That!" He says:

If one can't believe in miracles, it is quite obvious that one can't believe in God. The disbelief in the miraculous is simply a statement of atheism. So, when a person says to you, "I can't swallow this business about Jonah being swallowed by a whale," you could simply say to him, "Oh, you're an atheist." That will shock the person. "Uhwha uh not ra really." "Oh, yes, you're atheist. You obviously can't believe in a miracle, and if you can't believe in a miracle, that is ipso facto atheism. If God cannot prepare such a fish, He obviously never created the world. If He didn't create the world, He is obviously not God.

When Kennedy tells his audience that "Christ cannot appear personally to all of the billions of people that have lived on earth" since the 1st century, he's essentially saying that he "can't swallow this business about" Jesus being able to perform a miracle that the bible itself portrays Jesus performing in the book of Acts. We’re supposed to believe that Jesus appeared before Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, but when the opportunity comes for the same Jesus to appear before any of us today, Jesus is suddenly stricken with supernatural impotence. Indeed, such impotence would have to be supernatural, for natural impotence would not be powerful enough to constrain Jesus.

So does Kennedy truly believe in miracles? Or is belief in the miraculous subject to the flip of a light switch, able to be turned on and off given the expedience of the moment? If I were a Christian, it would trouble me to think that Jesus could not appear before all human beings as he allegedly did before Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus as described in Acts 9 and 22. But then again, I never was good at simply believing and suspending my desire to know. And they tell me that my worldview "borrows" from Christianity? They obviously don't know what they're talking about (but many do want to believe this).

Personally, I have no problem denying miracles, since miracles are an expression of the primacy of consciousness metaphysics. So I can be consistent where Kennedy has to shape-shift before his own audiences. It would be better for people like the late D. James Kennedy to have taken a vow of silence on such matters.

by Dawson Bethrick

Lord Oda's "Problem with Pain"

In his thoughtful comment to my blog Singhing the Greg Bahnsen Blues, Lord Oda attempted to tackle one of the points that I raised against Greg Bahnsen’s futile efforts to untangle “The Problem of Knowing the ‘Super-Natural’,” namely my point that Bahnsen nowhere explains how we can distinguish between what the believer calls “the supernatural” and what he may merely be imagining.

Now Lord Oda did not attempt to neutralize my challenge by pointing out where Bahnsen addresses it (Bahnsen certainly does not address it in his book Always Ready, where he should have), nor does Lord Oda attempt to answer it on his own behalf by explaining how we can distinguish between the god he claims to worship and what he may merely be imagining. No, that was not Lord Oda’s chosen route here. Instead, he sought to turn the tables on me by intimating that pain, which we know is real, cannot be distinguished from one’s imagination any more than a god can. Although at first blush this might seem to be a promising counter-approach, but upon closer examination we will find some fundamental oversights in such a maneuver. Broadly speaking, it does indicate that my challenge is very well placed.

Lord Oda began by quoting from my blog Singhing the Greg Bahnsen Blues:

But this simply raises the question: what objective inputs from reality suggest this?

In response to this, Lord Oda wrote:

"No man knows another's pain." This Scriptural view is contrary to the psychological expression of empathy.

I’m curious to find where the bible supplies this view. Lord Oda provides no indication, but scriptural references would help to secure the claim that it is in fact “Scriptural” if there were any which affirm it. But it would be a rather odd statement for the bible to affirm. It would mean that, on the one hand, one cannot know the pain of someone standing right next to you, but on the other he can know what exists beyond the universe (since the same textual source insists that men accept the claim that supernatural beings exist as truth), even though he has no way of determining, for instance, how many moons are orbiting a planet orbiting a nearby star. It is interesting how mystics seem to pick and choose what men can and cannot accept as knowledge.

Also, if it's the "Scriptural view" that "no man knows another's pain," then how can the Christian believer know how much pain that Jesus supposedly experienced on the cross? I've heard many believers - ministers, in fact - preach that no ordinary man has ever had to endure the kind of pain that Jesus experienced on the cross, that it was the worst pain ever suffered by any man in all history (presumably even more than other men who were executed in the same fashion). I don't know how one would be able to know this, but I have heard this claimed on many occasions.

Lord Oda continues:

So which is true? A man's pain is a subjective reality. He may know it as objective, but only in himself. He may even express it objectively to another. But, the other cannot know that pain which is subjectively experienced by the one expressing it.

For one thing, I don't think there's a such thing as "a subjective reality." There aren't multiple realities. The idea of 'objective reality' is a redundancy, albeit sometimes a necessary one, particularly because some thinkers apparently assume that there are in fact multiple realities.

Also, a man's experience of pain is real, and it is part of reality. No doubt Lord Oda agrees with this. He should, as it is essential to his case. But where Lord Oda and I differ at this point is on the matter as to whether pain is subjective or objective. In my view, pain is not subjective at all. Not even close. On the contrary, pain is objective in the sense that anything else in reality is objective: it exists independent of one's knowledge, understanding, wishes, desires, ignorance, denials, pretenses, imagination, preferences, etc. One may not know why he has pain, but he has it anyway; he may not understand what caused the pain, but he suffers it regardless. He may wish that the pain go away, or desire it to subside, but his pain does not conform to his wishes and desires. He may try to deny the pain, or pretend that it isn’t really there, but it’s there all the same in spite of his denials and pretenses. He may imagine that it isn’t there, or prefer that it’s really nothing, but the pain persists uninhibited by these feats of conscious activity. If pain were subjective, this would mean that the subject of consciousness holds metaphysical primacy over pain, and consequently one could, for instance, wish pain away (wouldn't that be nice?). But that's not the case at all. So pain is in fact not “a subjective reality,” but an objective part of reality that man has to learn to cope with, for it does not obey any subject’s intentions. That is because pain has a biological cause, just as pleasure does. It can be scientifically tested, understood and repeated. It can even be treated, such as with chemicals which inhibit pain receptors in the brain. A trip to the dentist would be far more unpleasant without the novocaine that he injects into your gums.

Now it is true that another man cannot feel the pain that I am feeling. But it does not follow from this fact that pain is subjective or that it is not objective. There are factual reasons why one individual does not experience another's sensations. A man is an indivisible unit. He possesses the faculty of consciousness, and he possesses only his own faculty of consciousness. His senses and nerves are connected to his own brain, not to someone else's brain. So we should not expect one man to experience another man's pain.

Lord Oda continues:

So, how do you establish that you are not just imaginining that you have pain?

Here Lord Oda wants to place the burden of proving a negative on the shoulders of someone who reports to be in pain. (Suppose the author of Matthew, for instance, penciled in a witness to Jesus' crucifixion who asked, when the pinned up savior reports "I thirst," asks: "How do you establish that you are not just imagining that you thirst?") This is markedly different from the challenge that I have put before Christian believers. My challenge to them is to explain how one can distinguish between what the believer calls "God" and what the believer may merely be imagining. This challenge is philosophically relevant because "God" is supposed to be an actually existing entity independent of human nature rather than a figment of one's imagination. Lord Oda's response to this challenge is not to provide such an explanation, but to point to a phenomenon which nobody questions but which allegedly poses an analogous problem. Unfortunately, this doesn't work in favor of Christian theism, for man's pain is not an entity distinct from man, nor is it independent of man's nature. Below Lord Oda will deny that there is any difference here, but in fact there is a fundamental difference that he has clearly ignored.

So how does one know that he is experiencing pain? He knows that he is experiencing pain by means of his direct, firsthand experience of it. He may not have even identified it as 'pain' (he may be an infant who hasn't learned this concept yet), but he still experiences it. His experience of the pain gives him the objective inputs which serve as the initial units of the concept 'pain' once he does form it. Those inputs are just as objective, due to their causal nature, as any other sensory inputs in his experience.

But Lord Oda's question seems to be: How does one establish that he is not just imagining the pain he experiences to others? Interestingly, I've never had difficulty convincing my dentist that I was experiencing pain during a procedure. However, there are some reasonable questions we can ask to probe this apparent difficulty in the event of any doubt. For instance, are the others to whom one is attempting to establish the reality of his experience of pain human beings? Do they know what pain is? Do they understand that certain actions, such as those which damage the body in some way, can cause pain? Do they acknowledge that damage to the body which would result in pain has in fact taken place? Are they being honest? Etc. If the individuals to whom the hurting person is called to "establish" his experience of pain understand, at least basically, the causal nature of pain (and anyone who avoids an activity which has caused him pain in the past does), then all one needs to do is show that the causal conditions for the pain he reports have been fulfilled. For instance, if he's got a two-inch bleeding gash on his arm, he could point to it as the cause of the pain he is experiencing. He could also point to his own facial grimaces and squeals of distress as corroborating evidence. And although these can be faked, that would not necessarily indicate that the person is actually imagining that he is experiencing pain (he might want others to imagine it).

It is, in fact, quite difficult to constrain evidences of pain, especially if they are external. Try bringing a sledge hammer down on your pinky at high velocity and see if you can keep from blurting a yelp or a few expletive as it happens. But even if there is no apparent wound, a painful leg is hard to walk on, and a limp can be very difficult to conceal. Of course, if the pain is extreme, it could result in the victim falling unconscious or even worse.

Lord Oda gives his answer to his own question:

There are no external inputs to objectively establish your subjective experience.

In the case of pain, there very well may be external inputs (see above for examples), and in fact there often are. Quite frequently, testimony is not the only indicator of pain. There's the gash on your arm indicating damage that could only result in pain. An X-ray can show the break in a bone, and an MRI can show a tear in the right meniscus. It would be quite unusual for these causes not to result in pain. Even veterinarians can discern, by reference to objective inputs, when an animal is in pain. And yet, Lord Oda wants the person suffering from such injuries to prove that he's not imagining the pain. This demand is quite telling, coming from a Christian, for it demonstrates how he grants such power to the imagination.

Lord Oda continues:

The observations of another can only establish that he is observing what appears to be the experience of pain, but since pain can be faked, visual observation can not establish the existence of pain let alone the experience of it.

In other words, Lord Oda takes the possibility of faking pain (or more accurately, the faking of corroborating symptoms of pain, such as facial grimacing and yelps of distress) at face value, but he's not willing to take the actual experience of pain at face value. Does Lord Oda not think it's possible that one can in fact experience pain? Or, does he suppose that it's more likely that people will fake having pain when they report to be in pain than actually experience it? Perhaps Lord Oda has children who like to play hookie from school, and he has yet to learn how to discern when one of his little one's is legitimately ailing or just pretending so that she can get out of class for the day.

Lord Oda tries to exacerbate the problem:

Now, you may want to argue that with modern technology, pain centers can produce measures that when associated with self-reports, substantiate that pain is occuring. Yet with that, there may not be any physiological cause.

It's true - modern technology does shed light where pre-scientific cultures are left in the dark. (Such was the case in the Christian Dark Ages.) But for purposes of Lord Oda's question, this would be superfluous. A gash in the arm, or a fresh burn mark on one's finger, would be sufficient evidence of one's experience of pain. There is no reasonable doubt about the credibility of such evidence of pain.

Now it may be case that in a particular instance there is no known cause of the pain one reports to be suffering. Philosophically speaking, however, this is not problematic, certainly not in the way that Lord Oda might want to construe it for apologetic purposes. We already know that the capacity to experience pain is an objective part of human life, given our biology. And although the cause may not be known initially, it often can be discovered; as Lord Oda himself indicates, modern technology - such as ultrasound, X-Ray, MRI, etc. - can overcome many limitations in unaided perceptions.

Also, and importantly, the recognition that pain is possible is wholly consistent with the primacy of existence metaphysics. This cannot be said on behalf of god-belief.

Lord Oda then tries to complicate the matter in order to weigh the burden even further:

Another problem of course is in the objective measures of quantity and quality, for which, there is yet no means to establish a baseline for the experience, individually, which can be used acrossed populations. In the end the experience of pain is just your imagination by any external measure.

Here Lord Oda has shifted the matter from merely identifying objective inputs for one's experience of pain, to developing a method of measuring "quantity and quality" (did he mean intensity?) of one's experience of pain. This is an altogether different matter, and ceases to bolster his objection for it's not germane to the issue that he has tried to raise against my challenge to theists.

Lord Oda shows that he's anxious to ratchet up the onus when he states:

Your example of a drip simply involves you in the infinite regress.

What infinite regress does Lord Oda have in mind? This is not clear from anything he says.

Lord Oda shows a tendency to allow his anxiety to confuse him:

You state the processes that can be observed without discovering the source of those processes. You simply presuppose their existence, eternally, unsuccessfully avoiding the tautological, recursive, said so is so, redundancy.

Let's review what I wrote in my example of the drop of water:

But consider: when a drop of water falls from the leaf of a plant in the early morning dew, why suppose that some conscious activity makes this happen? Sure, one can imagine that a magic being is causing this. But this simply raises the question: what objective inputs from reality suggest this? The lack of objective inputs does not stop a thinker from imagining that a magic consciousness resides "behind" everything in the universe. But that's one of the major points which Bahnsen continually fails to confront: since there is a fundamental distinction between what is real and what is imaginary, those who assert a god need to explain how a thinker can distinguish between what the believer calls "God" and what the believer may simply be imagining.

So what is Lord Oda talking about when he says "simply presuppose their existence, eternally, unsuccessfully avoiding the tautological, recursive, said so is so, redundancy"? It appears that Lord Oda is attempting to manufacture some non-problem. If he had a legitimate objection to raise against my position, he wouldn't have to do this. What's clear is that he does not answer the question I have posed in my blog.

Lord Oda then suggests:

You might likewise presuppose that because you experience pain, that there must be an objective measure of its experience.

I did not "presuppose" that "there must be an objective measure of its experience," and I don't see how Lord Oda gathers that I "might" have done so from what I have written, or how it bears on the discussion. But I am certainly open to the possibility that a method of measuring pain can be developed (assuming one hasn't already been).

Lord Oda muses some more:

You might even presuppose, that since technology advances, what was unable to be observed, since it can be experienced, that some day there may be a means to objectify it.

No, I didn't "presuppose" this either.

Then Lord Oda issues his personal ruling on the matter:

There is no such thing, and never will be.

Three cheers for Christian optimism... Isn't it odd, though, how Christians assert the existence of invisible magic beings, magic kingdoms, magic torture chambers and the such, and expect us to accept such claims as truth, but then turn around and say things like this.

Lord Oda drifts around another turn:

The only true measure of pain is always, and ever will be, relative to the subjective experience of it. So, how do you know that pain exists, as opposed to your just imagining it does?

Now Lord Oda has brought the issue back to how I as the one who feels the pain can "know that pain exists, as opposed to... just imagining it does," where earlier the issue was presumably how I can establish my experience of pain to others. But the answer here is quite simple: I know by experiencing pain directly and identifying by means of an objective process (cf. the objective theory of concepts). Also, while experiencing the pain, I can imagine that I'm not feeling the pain, and if the pain persists, this would indicate that the pain is not resulting from my imagining it.

Lord Oda asked a question:

Or, how do you know what you know of pain?

By relying on an objective means of knowledge (namely reason).

Lord Oda asked another question:

Or, what is the basis of your epistimology of it?

The primacy of existence.

Then Lord Oda asked yet another question:

Similarly, how can an observer know what you know?

Similarly, by relying on an objective means of knowledge (again, called reason).

Lord Oda attempted to preempt certain avenues of response by anticipation:

Like pain, he can only experience the knowledge of what you say you know.

Actually he can do more than this, if he really disputes my pain. He can reproduce in himself what caused the pain in me. E.g., if my pain resulted from burning my finger on a hot stove, my disputer can do the same and experience the same thing: pain. If he really didn't think my burnt finger hurt before, he would be quite foolish to dispute it now. Of course, if his scepticism about the pain in my burnt finger took him so far as to need to burn his own finger as well to confirm that a burnt finger is in fact painful, I'd say he's already pretty foolish. But I am a patient man, and would be willing to help him learn without destroying himself.

Lord Oda states:

He cannot experience your knowing it.

And he can also experience his own pain as well.

Lord Oda asks:

So, how does an objective observer establish that you are truly knowing what you say you do.

See above.

Lord Oda states:

You may be able to argue that you do.

Yes, I may do this, if I wanted to.

Lord Oda again:

You may be exact in your expression of any given data.

If need be, yes.

Lord Oda asks:

You say you exist, another may observe that you exist, but how do you establlish for the observer that you know you exist[?]

Just by using concepts which refer to myself (as I am doing in this very sentence), I establish beyond all reasonable doubt that I know I exist. Knowing that I exist is a fundamental precondition to using concepts which refer to myself as an existent.

Oddly, Lord Oda states:

The observer cannot know with certainty that which he cannot see, namely your experience.

If it's the case that "the observer cannot know with certainty that which he cannot see," then why do Christians affirm with certainty that their god is real, when they themselves admit that no one can see it?

Lord Oda opines:

Empathy is a false reality. We say, "I feel your pain." The reality is that "No man knows another's pain."

While I don't think there is such a thing as "a false reality," I can certainly understand the concern that Lord Oda wants to express here. One's conscious experiences are private. The pain I feel is pain that I feel. And only I feel my own pain. But again, this does not make pain "subjective." Pain is very much a real and objective phenomenon, it has a causal nature, and our knowledge of it is objective.

Lord Oda continues:

Now, you would not deny that anyone but yourself can experience pain simply because you cannot know their experience of it.

Of course I wouldn't. Pain has a causal nature, and our capacity for pain is an inherent attribute of our nature as biological organisms.

Lord Oda rushes to judgment:

You've experienced pain, so you presuppose that others do, also.

Correction: I have experienced pain, and I have learned that others experience pain also. I did not "presuppose" this. I discovered it. There is a vast difference here.

Lord Oda asks what he probably thinks is the clincher:

What is the difference between your presupposition of the existence of the experience of pain, (your presupposition of eternal existence), and another's presupposition of the existence of God?

There are many points that can be raised here to underscore the vast differences between the two. For one thing, as I have pointed out, pain is an objective phenomenon and has a biological cause. It can be studied scientifically, it can be treated medically, it can be reproduced, too. Our capacity to experience pain is inherent in our biological nature, and is physical. Also, we can know that it is not dependent on imagination, because when experiencing pain we cannot make the pain go away by imagining that it will stop. If pain obeyed imagination, we wouldn't need over-the-counter painkillers, nor would we be so careful to avoid injuring ourselves because of the pain that can result.

If I break my leg, for instance, it's going to hurt no matter what I imagine. Anyone who disputes the fact that a broken leg is painful can break his own leg and settle the matter. And anyone who claims that he cannot distinguish between my experience of pain and my alleged faking it or imagining it, can break his own leg and settle the matter. Most likely the disputer won't do this, because he knows that it will result in terrible pain. His decision not to pursue the recommended course of action to settle the matter (e.g., breaking his own leg) indicates that he really doesn't dispute the fact that my broken leg is painful.

The notion of a god, however, couldn't be more different. Unlike pain, which one feels directly and is an inherent part of our nature as biological organisms, a god is supposed to be an entity distinct from the universe and everything within it, including human beings. Pain is an aspect of our experience which comes and goes depending on certain conditions, while a god is supposed to be an eternally existing and unchanging consciousness separate from man and existing independent of man's conscious activity. As such, a god would be a consciousness distinct from man's own consciousness, not an aspect of his experience that undergoes what man undergoes. Since "God" is supposed to be a distinct entity separate from man, an objective process would be required to discover its existence and acquire any understanding of its nature. To dispute this is to concede that god-belief reduces to subjectivism.

Also, as has been pointed out, pain is independent of imagination, it can be reproduced, and its causality can be scientifically understood and medically treated. In contrast to this, theistic belief has no alternative but to rely on the believer's imagination to inform it. Even according to advocates of belief in a god, its existence cannot be discovered by a perceptually based cognitive process (e.g., by means of reason), and that it is not subject to scientific study, testing, evaluation, experimentation, etc.

But Lord Oda, without providing any rationale behind his opinion, disagrees with me. In answer to his own question above, he asserts:

There is none. You simply, out of blind predudice deny that God exists. Because of that, you deny that anyone can know Him.

I also deny that the Tooth Fairy exists. Does this condemn me of “blind [prejudice]”? I don’t think so. But in the minds of those who insist that the Tooth Fairy is real, it probably does. Likewise I deny that Valhalla is a real place. Does this also condemn me of “blind [prejudice]”? Those who wish that Valhalla were real probably think so.

I simply don’t believe there is a god, and accusations such as the one that Lord Oda recites here are not going to change this. Accusations are not going to intimidate me. People claim to have knowledge from another reality, and under scrutiny such claims fall apart at their very roots (since they assume the primacy of consciousness). Does not believing that Geusha exists constitute “blind [prejudice]”? I don’t think so. What Lord Oda calls “blind [prejudice]” is actually my honesty and the integrity of my rational judgment, both of which Christianity would have me sacrifice on the altar of pretended piety and submission. Believers will of course resent me for my unwillingness to sacrifice my honesty and rationality, so they accuse me of “blind [prejudice].” Since they cannot defend their position rationally, they have no alternative in continuing the discussion but to attack my character. Have they stopped to consider that they themselves are guided by a “blind [prejudice]” against reality? After all, someone who insists that a fiction is true is very likely going to accuse those who do not accept his fiction as truth of some nefarious bias of one sort or another. Christian apologist Phil Fernandes himself admitted how prone believers are to fabrication when he stated (in his debate with Jeff Lowder):

I just believe that we are very good about lying to ourselves, and only accepting, uh, or interpreting the evidence the way we would like to.

One certainly does not need to prove that the non-existent does not exist. One can simply and honestly just point it out. What’s clear is that nothing in Lord Oda’s comments reasonably establishes what he claims here. It is not a conclusion which follows from anything he has hitherto presented. Moreover, I have already answered the charge (unargued in your case) that my atheism is borne on “blind [prejudice]” by exploring how one of Christianity’s “finest” apologists (according to Christians themselves) attempts to explain how he can “know the ‘super-natural’.” (See here.) If Lord Oda agrees that there is a fundamental distinction between what is real and what one may merely be imagining (and maybe he doesn’t), then he should also agree that it would be of fundamental importance to provide a means of distinguishing between the claim that a god exists and what one may merely be imagining (as I have done in the case of one’s experience of pain).

Lord Oda then asks:

But, how is it, that you cannot know another's pain and establish that they can know it?

That's simple: consciousness is one of my worldview's axioms. Consciousness is an inherent attribute of man, and the capacity to experience pain is universal to mammals (of which man is a species). Why would I dispute someone's claim to be in pain, for instance, if I saw that he had a fresh laceration on his arm? I know enough to realize that had I the same laceration on my arm, I would be in a lot of pain.

But if that same person said that the gash was caused by Zeus throwing thunderbolts from the clouds, why would I suppose he is not either imagining or simply pulling my leg? Even Lord Oda should see that there is an astounding difference here, and yet he exclaims that "there is none."

Lord Oda drones on:

They cannot show you their subjective experience, they can display it, you might even be able to demonstrate scientifically that pain is materially happening, but you cannot demonstrate by any means a value of experience.

It seems contradictory to say, on the one hand, “they cannot show you their subjective experience,” and, on the other, to then also say “they can display it.” Also, if one "might be able to demonstrate scientifically that pain is materially happening," as Lord Oda concedes, then there's no problem on my side. Science deals with reality by means of an objective process.

Lord Oda strains his loins even further:

Conversely, though you use all your means to demonstrate that you do not know that God exists and therefore cannot know that God exists, you cannot demonstrate that another does not.

I hope Lord Oda does not propose this as a serious defense of his god-belief. But maybe he does. (Again, I do not assume that reality conforms to my hopes.) For one, I have never argued that one "cannot know that God exists" if this is to mean one “cannot know whether a god exists.” I am an atheist, not an agnostic. Furthermore, since I argue that god-belief is irrational, it would be inconsistent for me not to suppose that someone who claims to know that a god does in fact exist is either irrational or dishonest. Philosophically, as I have shown time and time again in my writings, god-belief assumes the primacy of consciousness. But this view is self-contradictory and invalidates any claim which assumes it or reduces to it. Charitably, I can say, then, with full confidence, that anyone who claims to "know God" has misidentified whatever it is he is calling "God." Typically what has happened is that the believer has confused his imagination with reality. Lord Oda's response to my challenge shows that he has no answer to my challenge for believers to explain how we can distinguish between what they call "God" and what they may merely be imagining. I don’t think his is an isolated case.

Lord Oda goes on:

The problem with pain is that it can only be truly known by the individual experiencing it.

And all individuals can experience it. And I’ve not met one who has not experienced pain.

But Lord Oda invests this fact with theological significance:

The problem with knowing God is likewise. Unless one experiences God, he cannot know. This is faith.

Of course, anyone believing in any invisible magic being can use this defense. The Muslim can just as easily say that he has experienced Islam’s Allah. The Lahu tribesman can likewise say that he has experienced his deity Geusha. The Wiccan says she has experienced the God and Goddess of Wicca. Etc. Lord Oda’s preferred approach supplies no safeguards against contradiction or ad hoc, arbitrary claims which simply have no bearing whatsoever to reality. He figures that, if one can experience pain, then he can experience invisible conscious entities which exist independent of himself. But this is a most dubious non sequitur if there ever were one.

Lord Oda makes an appeal to the storybook defense:

Jesus put it this way, "You study the Scripture because in them you think you know God. But, they are that which speak of Me."

If one "knows" the Christian god through reading or studying the bible, then my point stands unscathed. Similarly, one can "know" Harry Potter by reading a Harry Potter book. The narratives found in the gospel stories, for example, supply inputs for one's imagination to enlarge on. These are not the same thing as objective inputs indicating the truth of what one reads in those stories. To miss this is to miss the distinction between fact and fiction. But this is endemic to religious experience, so I expect believers to resist this in some way.

Lord Oda admits:

Just like pain, apart from experiencing it, God cannot be known through objective means, alone.

It is good that Lord Oda admits that his god "cannot be known through objective means." Tacking "alone" at the end of this confession does not alleviate its subjective implications. However contrary to Lord Oda's insinuation, this is not at all like pain. Pain is not an independently existing entity. But "God" is supposed to be an independently existing entity. This is a fundamental distinction which Lord Oda fails to integrate into his case.

by Dawson Bethrick

Lord Oda on Faith

Attentive readers will recall my response to the commenter “Singh” where the commenter assumes that I “despise Christians.” On numerous occasions I’ve had to correct this common misperception. For if there were no Christians, my blog would probably lose some of its entertainment value. Indeed, at Incinerating Presuppositionalism, Christians provide the entertainment, for they are the entertainment.

Recent comments by a visitor to my blog, who posts under the moniker Lordodamanor, are no exception. This fellow kindly dropped by to offer his comments, and they are well worth exploring. Also, although I think his moniker is quite creative, I decided to shorten it for the purposes of my interaction with his comments.


Now, in my essay Faith as Belief Without Understanding, I had written:

One is that the bible is painfully ambiguous in its use of the word 'faith'.

Lord Oda lifted this one statement from my essay and offered the following response to it:

Thanks for proving that you've never read, or have never understood Scripture. Unequivocably Jesus states, "You will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free."

And I thank Lord Oda for proving that he has to ignore everything else I said beyond what he had quoted in order to conclude that I have “never read, or have never understood Scripture.” Believers love to accuse not only non-believers of failing to “understand Scripture,” but other believers as well. This naturally implies that he accuser believes he understands it in order to make such statements about others. Unfortunately, however, because of overuse, it loses credibility quite quickly.

But I will say that knowing the truth has in fact set me free. Learning just how false Christianity is has indeed set me free from the psychological sanctions and cognitive disabilities which this horrific worldview uses to decapitate man’s spirit.
Lord Oda continues:

You quoted Hebrews 11.1, but inacurately expound it. "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Estin de pistiv elpizomenwn upostasiv, pragmatwn elegxov ou blepomenwn. To unpack this: Pistis is derived from a root that means immovable, the foundation, the rock, the essential, basis, elemental, base knowledge. Hupostasis means that which is the substance, again, elemental. Elpizo, is the thing expected. To put this back together, faith is faith is faith, or knowing is knowing is knowing, or faith is the essence of hope. Or, faith is the possession of the thing hoped for.

Here Lord Oda clearly thinks that “faith” has to do with “knowing,” for his summary of his interpretation of the Greek text of Hebrews 11:1 equates “faith is faith is faith” with “knowing is knowing is knowing.” But the definition given in Hebrews, even Lord Oda’s parsing of the original Greek, does not support this interpretation. Immovable foundations (let alone rocks!) do not necessarily mean “knowledge” or “knowing”; nor does “substance” or “the thing expected.” It says nothing about “knowing” or “knowledge” (and even less about conceptualization). Christians are habit-prone to casually assuming this is the case (as common parlance clearly indicates this), but even the several models of faith that the rest of Hebrews 11 holds up as examples of faith are not examples of “knowing”; on the contrary, most are examples of acts of will.

For example, look at Hebrews 11:4:

By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain

Making an offering is an example of an act of will. It states nothing about “knowing” something or acquiring “knowledge.”

Look at Hebrews 11:7:

By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house

Again, we have another example of an act of will. “By faith Noah... moved with fear, [and] prepared an ark...” This is an example of action, not “knowledge.” Moreover, fearing something is not the same thing as knowing something. Emotions are not knowledge, nor are they a means of validating knowledge claims.

Hebrews 11:8 is especially damning for Lord Oda’s association of faith with “knowing”:

By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.

Here we have as an example of faith an act of will (“By faith Abraham... obeyed...”), and it states explicitly that this act of will was performed without the benefit of knowledge (“not knowing whither he went”). In fact, the only instance of any form of the word “know” which occurs in all of Hebrews 11 (the so-called “faith” chapter) is specifically to indicate a lack of knowledge rather than a possession of it. If this example of faith is any indication, it is better defined as the willingness to act on an assumption even though you don’t know it’s true or simply don’t believe it.

The example of Abraham’s faith, which Hebrews upholds as a model for all believers to emulate, shows just how dangerous faith is. Hebrews 11:17 makes this crystal clear:

By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,

Here the author of Hebrews alludes to the story found in Genesis 22, where Abraham is ordered by his god to prepare his only son as a burnt offering, a sacrifice to a deity that wouldn’t need any offerings in the first place. With such stories the bible shows that when a person guides his life by faith (in this case, action without understanding), it poses a direct threat to one’s values. (See also my Notes on the Story of Abraham and Isaac in Gen. 22.)

Now none of what Lord Oda states here challenges what I had stated in my essay Faith as Belief Without Understanding.

Curiously, Lord Oda also said:

Analogously, water is H2O.

I guess I fail to see the analogy between faith and "water is H2O."

Now, if faith is best defined as "the possession of the thing hoped for,” as Lord Oda has indicated, why doesn’t the bible define it in this manner rather than in the manner that Hebrews 11:1 defines it? Blank out.

Lord Oda continues his parsing of the Greek in Hebrews 11:1:

Pragma, means fact, a proven thing done. Blepo, has a wide variety of meaning, but for this context it simply means to observe and coupled with Ou meaning not, ou blepo expresses the unseen.

Same problem here: “fact” does not mean “knowledge” or “knowing,” and neither does “the unseen.” Indeed, what Lord Oda gives us here simply shows us that whatever faith does mean, it slashes off one avenue of objective input by which knowledge of reality is gained by human beings, namely eyesight.

Now, it is clear that Hebrews associates faith with hoping, and Lord Oda goes so far as to suggest that “faith is the essence of hope” or “faith is the possession of the thing hoped for.” There is in fact an intimate correlation with hoping when someone affirms a religious position on faith (he affirms it actually because he hopes it is true). But that correlation, as we shall see, is not quite as Lord Oda would have it, nor does this correlation comport with Lord Oda’s association of faith with knowledge. It must be stressed that hoping is not the same thing as knowing. In fact, we have to know something before we can hope for anything, but when we hope for something, that is not the same thing as knowing it. As I pointed out in my essay,

Hoping for something does not produce assurance. I could hope for a million dollars, but there’s no assurance in this of receiving it. Needless to say, my hoping does not assure its own fulfillment.

Christian faith, then, is the hope that the gospel story is true, nothing more. It is the hope that Jesus was real, that Jesus really died for the sinner’s sins, that Jesus really rose in resurrection, that there really is an afterlife, and that the promise of living in paradise for eternity is really the reward for devotional worship, etc.

Of course, one can hope all he wants, but reality prevails; reality will not conform to one’s hopes. Pointing such facts out, however, simply makes atheists a bunch of spoilsports in the minds of those who would prefer to indulge these hopes. But in fact, it is better for man’s life and his need for values that he conform his hopes to reality as much as possible (e.g., I hope the business meeting I have this afternoon goes smoothly), rather than breaking from reality in preference for hopes which are simply untrue and have their basis in mystical fantasies (e.g., I hope an invisible magic being will guide my steps and vanquish all my enemies). With the latter he invites the cognitive hazard of confusing his fantasies with reality, and such misidentification of reality can easily lead to destruction. But perhaps destruction does not concern Christians; after all, they are taught to pray “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (cf. Mt. 6:10), which of course - on most interpretations - would entail the wholesale destruction of the earth as it is now. And as I have already pointed out, the lesson of the story of Abraham and Isaac from Genesis chapter 22 shows just how dangerous faith in invisible magic beings can be.

Also, Lord Oda’s interpretation of Hebrews 11:1 as suggesting that “faith is the possession of the thing hoped for,” seems difficult to harmonize with Paul’s understanding of the essence of hope, which he gives us in Romans 8:24-25, where he writes:

For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

Now first off, it should be clear that this verse is entirely compatible with my interpretation of Christian faith as “the hope that the gospel story is true.” But is it consistent with the view that “faith is the possession of the thing hoped for”? It would not at all be unnatural, in light of what Paul writes here, to suppose that “hope that is possessed is not hope: for what a man possesseth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we possess not, then do we with patience wait for it.” This would be a natural reading because both Paul's version as given in Romans and the version I have proposed here reduce to the same common principle: we don't hope for what we already have in hand. Ironically, what Paul says of hoping, the same can be said of coveting. For one does not covet what he already possesses.

So Paul and the author of Hebrews – if Lord Oda’s interpretation of Hebrews 11:1 is correct – seem to be quite out of sync with each other. But this would not be a first by any means.

Lord Oda then states:

So, the bible is not "painfully ambiguous." It is exacting, expansive, extensive in its definition.

Unfortunately for Lord Oda, parsing Hebrews 11:1 is not sufficient to remove ambiguity from the bible’s use of the notion of faith. When I say that “the bible is painfully ambiguous in its use of the word ‘faith’,” I mean the bible as a whole. I am certainly not restricting my evaluation to merely one verse of one chapter of one book of the bible (e.g., Hebrews 11:1) as Lord Oda seems to think. And it’s true, various passages in the bible use the word ‘faith’ to indicate a wide assortment of things. So explaining how just one passage in the bible conceives of faith, does nothing to address the larger picture as I have indicated.

For instance, some bible verses treat faith as an act of will (e.g., the examples of faith given in Hebrews 11), while others as a kind of force endowing believers with some special power or ability. Examples of this would include the episode in Mt. 9 where a woman who “was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years” (vs. 20) was healed when she touched the hem of Jesus’ robe; the author of the gospel has Jesus say to her, “thy faith hath made thee whole” (v. 22; see also Mk. 5:34, 10:52, Lk. 8:48, et al.); elsewhere the ability to receive miraculous healing is affirmed as an expression or result of faith (e.g., Mt. 9:29, Acts 14:9); or the ability to cast mountains into the sea (cf. Mt. 17:20). Peter’s ability to walk on the sea with Jesus (cf. Mt. 14:28-30) is also suggested to be made possible because of faith, for when Peter grew frightened and began to sink as he was trying to walk on the sea, Matthew has Jesus rebuke Peter with the oft-repeated slogan “O thou of little faith,” indicating that had Peter more faith, he wouldn’t have been able to walk on the sea just as normally as Jesus did.

Other passages suggest that faith is a kind of epistemic faculty. For instance, in II Cor. 5:7 the apostle Paul famously notes that Christians “walk by faith, not by sight.” Let’s hope they stay off the streets if that's the case. This is how faith seems to be understood in much common parlance among Christians themselves in their daily walk as Christians. Very frequently I have myself heard Christians speak as if they “know” some truth on the basis of faith. Lord Oda’s own interpretation of Hebrews 11:1, where he suggests a semantic kinship between “faith is faith is faith” and “knowing is knowing is knowing” indicates that he may be this kind of Christian himself. Just how faith is supposed to work as an epistemic faculty is never explained, either in the bible itself (which tends not to explain much of any use of the word in the first place) or by Christians who employ the term in this manner. Faith is thus used as a kind of non-cognitive putty which shores up gaps of ignorance in order to underwrite one’s affirmations with an air of piety. Often the goal is to fetch a series of "Amen, brother!" exclamations from one's peers, thus signaling the verification of club membership. Agreement with other minds is often more valuable to the devoted believer than actually validating his verdicts.

Sometimes ‘faith’ seems to denote an entire belief system taken as a whole. For instance, we read in Romans 1:5 where the apostle Paul writes of “obedience to the faith”; and in Acts 6:7 where “a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.” In Acts 13, we read of a sorcerer who sought to turn a believer away “from the faith” (v. 8).

Interestingly, according to some gospel passages, faith is something that can be seen (cf. Mk. 2:5, Mt. 9:2).

And yet other passages use the word ‘faith’ to indicate the degree of commitment adherents might have to the devotional program of the religion (cf. II Cor. 1:24, I Thes. 3:5, James 1:3, Rev. 13:10).

Of course, there are times when ‘faith’ seems to equate ‘belief’ – especially belief that is approved and commanded to be accepted as true (apparently the command of an invisible magic being is supposed to serve to “justify” such beliefs). For instance, it is telling that some versions (e.g., the KJV) translates Mk. 6:6 to say “he marvelled because of their unbelief,” where others (e.g., the NIV) translate the same passage as saying “he was amazed at their lack of faith.” Similarly, in Jn. 20:27 (the only verse in the KJV version of this gospel to come back as a result in a search for the keyword ‘faith’), the evangelist has his Jesus console Thomas the doubter with the words “be not faithless, but believing.” Apparently on this view, faith as "believing" is subject to command.

What’s clear, however, is that Hebrews 11:1 is the only point in the whole bible where an author attempts to provide an explicit understanding of what faith is supposed to mean. Virtually all the other passages, while contextually indicating a wide variety of meanings, clearly assume that the reader “just knows” what is meant by the term in question. Many passages simply repeat faith-based slogans (e.g., “O thou of little faith”), and others similarly emphasize the supposition that there are various degrees of faith; faith can be great or weak, increased, etc. Such passages offer nothing in the interest of understanding just what faith is supposed to be, thus perpetuating the ambiguity I and many other active-minded critics have observed.

So in fact the meaning of the notion of faith is indeed shrouded in ambiguity throughout the bible, and this ambiguity is a result of varied usage in widely disparate contexts conveying different meanings which no single definition (e.g., the one found in Hebrews 11:1) can suit. In fact, the variety in meanings of ‘faith’ is a result of many authors working from different theological assumptions and backgrounds contributing works which were later stitched together as if they were all affirming the same “truths.”

Lord Oda also wrote:

Calvin in his Institutes takes an entire book, along with many references elsewhere to explore the meaning, not obliquely, but rather exegetically, with incurrence, understanding the critical nature of faith's percise definition and operational application.

I'm aware of the fact that various theologians throughout history can spend volumes slicing and dicing words and phrases ad nauseum as they contend for their desired outcome in the battle to see who can fit the most angels on the head of a pin. But that just underscores the problem here: If the bible were so “exacting” as Lord Oda asserts, why would Calvin need to devote a whole book to “explore the meaning” of faith? The volume that a theologian seems to need to get to the bottom of an issue only suggests that the issue in question is not quite as simplistic as popular defenders might like to make them out to be.


Personally, I see faith as a covering term for a most unsightly symptom which is inherent particularly to religious practice. That symptom is the believer’s devotion to the primacy of consciousness metaphysics as expressed in various religious talking points, such as mystical belief in the supernatural, prayer, affirmation of so-called “religious truths” like the resurrection, the afterlife, the existence of invisible magic beings and places like heaven and hell, etc. As a covering term, its function is to disguise the fact that such mystical beliefs and practices have their basis in hopes which make a sharp departure from reality and turn inward into one’s own imaginative fantasies. Passages such as Mk. 11:22 where Jesus commands his disciples to “have faith in God,” suggest that faith is a kind of make-believe switch that the believer can flip on when things get emotionally difficult. The word ‘faith’ thus acts as a kind of signal for the believer to disengage from reality and turn on his religiously-infiltrated imagination to effect the mood swing that is Jesus. Corporately, use of the word ‘faith’ is a signal for other believers nearby to retreat into the imaginary realm of religious devotion, for only in that realm will they see “the truth” of what is being spoken; for what religion considers "truth" is not of this world, not of this reality, but of a fantasy that has no basis in fact. Faith is thus the doorway to the cartoon universe of theism.

by Dawson Bethrick