Things I like: Part 2

In this series, I will recommend things that I happened to come across that I like.  That's about as simple as it gets.

Political Discourse in America

David French writes a good piece on the bad state of political discourse in America today.  People overreact to the smallest things, especially as people replace religious commitment to political commitment.  Political Overreaction is the New American Way.

The SJW

Nathan Robinson writes an interesting piece giving criticisms and concerns about the extreme leftists that are often pejoratively known as "Social Justice Warriors."  Nathan considers himself a leftist, but is critical of this more extreme group.  I don't agree with everything he says, but I find his post fair and balanced for the most part.

Slavery in the Bible

J. Warner Wallace, a cold-case detective and apologist, answers a question on the issue of slavery in the Bible, which is often used to undermine the moral legitimacy of the Bible.

Apologist Recommendation: Timothy McGrew

In this series, I will recommend certain scholars and apologists to our readers and listeners.  These are people that I believe are worth listening to because they are informed and give good arguments and insights into the subjects that they study, which helps intellectually equip Christians so that they can grow in their own faith and their outreach towards non-Christians.  I am not claiming that these scholars and apologists have everything correct, but I think they are intellectual powerhouses that we can learn much from.

Timothy McGrew

Timothy McGrew is a philosophy professor at Western Michigan University.  His philosophical specialties are epistemology, probability theory, logic, and the history and philosophy of science.  When it comes to Christian apologetics, he frequently speaks and writes on the meaning of "faith" and the possibility and actuality of miracles.  Don't let his credentials as a philosopher fool you, however, he is also very competent when it comes to biblical studies.  Dr. McGrew has spent years researching the reliability of the Bible and he has shared his knowledge in numerous talks and debates over the years.  In the next section, I will provide resources on the various topics McGrew has been involved in over the years.

Miracles

Dr. McGrew has said a lot over the years on the possibility and actuality of miracles and the rationality in believing miracles.  Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, a fantastic source for learning philosophy, features Dr. McGrew's helpful article on miracles.  McGrew has given helpful talks on how to think about miracles and has participated in debates on the rationality of believing in miracles.  I also highly recommend this talk on the history of the discussion of miracles among philosophers over the centuries.  Many people make it seem like David Hume basically closed the issue of miracles, but Dr. McGrew shows that Hume has had his critics over the centuries.  Tim and his wife, Lydia, who is also a scholar, also have an article defending the resurrection of Jesus Christ in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (chapter 11).

Faith

Many people claim that faith is believing without evidence.  Being a philosopher who regularly thinks of evidence and rationality, Dr. McGrew has spent a lot of time showing that faith is not against the evidence.  In Tom Gilson's book, True Reason, Dr. McGrew and Dr. David Marshall respond to the charge that faith is unevidential belief by giving a historical perspective on how faith was understood and defined by thinkers in the church (chapter 11).  McGrew has also debated the atheist Peter Boghossian, who wrote a book arguing that faith is an unreliable way of knowing things because it doesn't rely on evidence.

The Reliability of the Bible

My favorite stuff from Dr. McGrew is his material on the reliability of the Bible.  He has spent a lot of time researching the subject and has helped to resurface an old argument for the Bible's reliability that, while good, has been forgotten for some time.  Dr. McGrew has an excellent series responding to alleged historical errors and contradictions in the Gospels.  He has debated the well-known biblical critic, Bart Ehrman, on the reliability of the Gospels.  The most interesting thing that Dr. McGrew has brought back into the apologetic discussion is the issue of Undesigned Coincidences.  An undesigned coincidence occurs when two or more people give completely different details about the same event, but despite the details being different, they fit together and explain each other like pieces of a puzzle, which gives a full picture of the event.  Undesigned coincidences are marks of reliability and truthfulness because they are subtle and unlikely to be made up or planned by the group of people giving the details, but despite this, the details still fit together well.  The kicker is that these undesigned coincidences are found all over the Bible.  Tim McGrew has spoken extensively on these things, but it is actually his wife, Lydia McGrew, who has put the most work into bringing this argument for biblical reliability back.  Lydia's book, Hidden in Plain View, explains undesigned coincidences and details a massive number of them in the Bible.  You can also find a number of her posts on various undesigned coincidences in the blog, What's Wrong With the World.

The Existence of God

I have not seen Dr. McGrew talk as much about the arguments for God's existence, but he does have some material on it that I think is worth looking into.  Here is a talk by him giving three arguments for God's existence and answering questions and criticisms from people.

I hope Dr. McGrew's materials are helpful to you all.

Ambiguity, Context, and Biblical Interpretation

This article was originally featured on ResistanceTV.

Definitions in Context

The SAT is a standardized test that many students have to take.  One type of question in the reading section is called a vocabulary in context question.  These questions will ask the reader what a particular word in the passage “most nearly” means and it will provide four different answers to choose from.  The tricky thing about these types of questions is that, often times, all four options are legitimate definitions of the word in question.  To know which meaning of the word is being used in the passage, the reader has to read the context that the word is in, usually by reading a few lines or even an entire paragraph of the passage.  Only by looking at the context can the reader figure out which of the answer choices provides the correct meaning of the word in that passage.  Context is important in everyday life too.  If you walk into a room and hear me say “I killed that guy” to a friend, that may sound like I committed a crime.  However, if you heard the whole context, you would know that I’m talking about a video game I played earlier.  By “kill” I didn’t mean “murder,” I meant that I took out the avatar that he was controlling.  The phrase takes on a whole new meaning in your mind when you learn the context.  Context is also important when it comes to the Bible.  As many people have pointed out when teaching hermeneutics (the art and skill of proper interpretation), one must know the context of a word or verse in the Bible to really understand it.  This helps with apologetics and our personal devotions.

Context in the Bible: Apologetic Usefulness

This graphic claims to show all of the contradictions in the Bible. Here are two verses that contradict each other according to this graphic.

Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
(Isaiah 40:28)

Your new moons and your appointed feasts
my soul hates;
they have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
(Isaiah 1:14)

One verse says that God does not get weary.  The other one says that God is weary.  Is this a contradiction?

If we pretend that these passages are in an SAT test and it asks us “What does the word ‘weary’ most nearly mean in the passage?” what would the right answers be?  If, in both cases, “weary” means “fatigued,” then we do have a contradiction.  However, it is clear that “weary” is being used in different senses in each passage.  In Isaiah 40, it is saying that God does not get physically tired.  We can tell this because the next few verses say

He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.

In Isaiah 1, when God says He’s “weary” of bearing Israel’s religious festivals, He most nearly means that He cannot tolerate them.  The popular English phrase “sick and tired of” fits best in this passage.  This becomes clear when we look at verses 11-13

“What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?
says the Lord;
I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams
and the fat of well-fed beasts;
I do not delight in the blood of bulls,
or of lambs, or of goats.
“When you come to appear before me,
who has required of you
this trampling of my courts?
Bring no more vain offerings;
incense is an abomination to me.
New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations—
I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.

Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be if, say, an atheist used the two verses above as an example of a contradiction in the Bible when just reading a couple of verses of context reveals that there is no contradiction?  That is exactly what the graphic does.  How many more mistakes does it make?

Context in the Bible: Devotional Usefulness

There are many verses in the Bible that people use for inspiration and knowledge of God, but they may be using them incorrectly.  For example, Philippians 4:13 says “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”  People often think this verse means that God will help them accomplish any goal as long as they have enough faith, like win a football game or get the girl.  However, this verse is talking about something else.  Look at the context

I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me.  You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity.  Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.  I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound.  In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (v. 10-13)

When we look at the context, we see that v. 13 has less to do with God helping us accomplish goals and more to do with God helping us through whatever situation we are in, whether that situation is joyful or tough.  This verse is still just as inspirational and comforting when we know the context, but our inspiration and comfort is based on the truth of what the passage says instead of a misunderstanding and it gives us more accurate knowledge of God.

Context is Key

The chapter and verse divisions in our modern Bibles are very helpful for us because they allow us to find content easily.  The drawback, however, is that people tend to isolate each verse from their contexts.  Issues like this are why the popular apologist, Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason, say “Never read a Bible verse.”  This provocative-sounding phrase tells an important hermeneutical truth: one should never simply read a verse of the Bible if they want to know what it means, they should at least read a paragraph in order to understand it.  Context helps illuminate meaning.

The lesson here is clear: If you want to understand the Bible, do not just read each verse in isolation.  Reading chunks of the Bible instead of individual verses is one of the most important and simplest rules in hermeneutics.  Recognize that everything that is said in the Bible is part of a whole and understanding context can help clear up ambiguities.

Faulty Assumptions in Biblical Interpretation

This article was originally featured on ResistanceTV.

I’ve noticed that, when non-Christians point out certain apparent contradictions or alleged historical errors in the Bible, those contradictions or errors only appear that way because of some unwarranted assumptions they are making.  Here are a few.

And these you shall detest among the birds; they shall not be eaten; they are detestable: the eagle, the bearded vulture, the black vulture, the kite, the falcon of any kind, every raven of any kind, the ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, the hawk of any kind, the little owl, the cormorant, the short-eared owl, the barn owl, the tawny owl, the carrion vulture, the stork, the heron of any kind, the hoopoe, and the bat. (Leviticus 11:13-19)

God says that a bat is a bird!  Apparently he’s too stupid to know the difference between a bird and a mammal.

The assumption a person is making when he points this out is that the ancient Hebrews had the same species categories that we do today.  There is no reason to think this.

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. (John 20:1)

Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. (Matthew 28:1)

When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. (Mark 16:1)

This seems to be a plain contradiction.  They clearly disagree with each other on how many women went to the tomb.  This is another reason to distrust the Biblical accounts.

The assumption a person is making when stating this challenge is that the Gospel writers were trying to give a complete account of every single detail of the event.  There is no reason to think this.  Different people emphasize different things or might leave information out that they do not think is important to the point of the story. I do this when I tell the same story multiple times.

Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. (Matthew 2:16)

Herod had kids in an entire village killed, and yet no historical sources from the time even mention this event.  This means that the Gospel writer here likely made up the whole story.

The assumption here is that 1) no extrabiblical writers wrote about it and 2) any historians at the time would have written about it.  As for (1), we still have very little  information on the first century.  We have very few writings from that time.  How do we know that no one wrote about it?  It is simply an argument from silence.

As for (2), why would anyone have written about it?  While the murder of children is a horrible event, Bethlehem was a small, backwater village and it’s not likely that there were more than a dozen children below the age of two.  This would not have been a huge event.  The fact that historians didn’t mention it isn’t shocking. The eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79 was a very large event, but we only seem to have one written account on it from Pliny the Younger.

When people point out historical errors or contradictions in the Bible, try to see if there are any unwarranted assumptions they are making.  In some cases, the passages only appear mistaken or contradictory because of these assumptions.

Note: A good resource responding to alleged historical errors and contradictions in the Gospels and Acts can be found in this series of lectures by Timothy McGrew.

Does Hebrews 11:1 Teach that Faith is Belief Without Evidence or Reason?

This article was originally featured on ResistanceTV.

Faith, what is it?

In our modern context, many people think that “faith” means to believe that something is true without evidence or without adequate evidence.  This is something many skeptics will say in order to invalidate the legitimacy of faith.  In The God Delusion, Dawkins says

The dictionary supplied by Microsoft Word defines a delusion as ‘a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence, especially as a symptom of psychiatric disorder’. The first part captures religious faith perfectly. (p. 28)

In A Manual for Creating Atheists, Peter Boghossian says

If one had sufficient evidence to warrant belief in a particular claim, then one wouldn’t believe the claim on the basis of faith.  “Faith” is the word one uses when one does not have enough evidence to justify holding a belief, but when one just goes ahead and believes it anyway. (pg. 9)

To be fair, a reason why many skeptics believe this is because many Christians also perpetuate this view of faith.  In Love Your God With All Your Mind, J.P. Moreland gives this account

A few years ago I conducted a series of evangelistic messages for a church in New York.  The series was in a high school gym, and both believers and unbelievers attended each night.  The first evening I gave arguments for the existence of God from science and philosophy.  Before closing in prayer, I entertained several questions from the audience.  One woman (who was a Christian) complained about my talk, charging that if I “proved” the existence of God, I would leave no room for faith.  I responded by saying that if she were right, then we should pray that currently available evidence for God would evaporate and be refuted so there would be even more room for faith! (p. 26, emphasis added)

Sadly Christians Believe Faith is Shallow

Unfortunately, many Christians do believe that faith is believing something without evidence, but many Christians, especially the ones in apologetic circles, will rightly point out that this is not what faith means.  Faith is compatible with evidence and reason.  Skeptics, however, will respond by citing Hebrews 11:1

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (ESV)

This verse, according to the skeptic, shows that the Bible agrees with their definition of faith, not with the definition of the Christian apologist.  If the Bible itself says that faith is belief without evidence, then that means the Christian is incorrect to say that faith can and even should involve evidence.

The skeptic, however, grossly misuses this verse when she uses it to support her case.  Hebrews 11:1 does not say that faith is belief without evidence, what I will call “blind faith” from now on.  I will give two reasons why this verse does not mean what the skeptic says it means.  First, taking the verse by itself without context does not lead us to the conclusion that it is talking about blind faith.  Second, when we look at the textual context that the verse is in, it cannot be talking about blind faith.

When one reads this verse critically, it is not clear how it means or implies blind faith.  Which part of the sentence suggests blind faith?  Is it “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for” part?  Being assured of things that you hope for is not a necessarily unevidential thing.  Is it the “conviction of things not seen” part?  This is probably what makes the skeptic think that this verse is talking about blind faith, since it says “not seen,” but “not seen” does not mean “no evidence.”  For example, many philosophers and mathematicians believe that numbers actually exist as abstract objects.  They cannot see, hear, taste, or touch numbers, but they still believe they exist because they think there are very good reasons to believe that numbers exist.  Seeing is not the only form of evidence.  Also, astronomers know that there are many other planets in the galaxy revolving around other stars.  These astronomers do not see many of these planets, but they know they are out there because there is good evidence that those planets are there.  They can see the effects the planets and their gravity have on other heavenly bodies that can be seen, like stars.  In both of these cases and in many others, people believe something exist because they have good reasons to believe them, but the evidence does not involve actually seeing the things in question.  The fact that Hebrews 11:1 says “not seen” at the end does not necessarily or automatically mean “no evidence,” so simply citing this verse does not prove that the Bible has the same definition of faith as the skeptic is proclaiming.  This gives us reason to doubt the skeptic’s claim that this verse confirms their belief, but it does not give positive evidence that the verse does not affirm blind faith.  If we look at the context of chapter 11, however, verse 1 clearly does not affirm blind faith.  

If one continues through chapter 11 or Hebrews, one will come across what is called the “Hall of Faith,” where the author of Hebrews lists off a number of people in the past who exhibited great faith in God.  This list of people includes Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Rahab, David, Gideon, and others.  The author of Hebrews would have believed that all of these people saw manifestations of God’s presence, examples of His power, and His faithfulness in keeping promises.  So, to the author of Hebrews, these people would have had a lot of evidence that God exists and is who He says He is.  If the author of Hebrews is teaching blind faith in verse one, he would not be using these people as examples of great faith.  Since he is using these people as examples of great faith, he must not be teaching that faith is blind in verse one.

Since blind faith does not fit into the context of chapter 11 and blind faith is not implied by the language of the verse, this means that the skeptic is wrong to use it as a response to Christians when they say faith is compatible with evidence.