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Abortion Advocate Quotes

Rather than offer commentary, I’ll let the quotes speak for themselves. Read these quotes, they will challenge you to decide for yourself if this is the logic you’d like to use.

“The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.” – Margaret Sanger.

“We are failing to segregate morons who are increasing and multiplying . . . a dead weight of human waste . . .an ever-increasing spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all.” -Margaret Sanger

“”We really need to get over this love affair with the fetus and start worrying about children.”- Jocelyn Elders

“…A pro-choice advocate sees abortion as a decision to be made in accordance with the best scientific opinion as to when the beginning of life, as we know it, occurs.”

…followed by “I should have known better. Pro-life arguments are now based on scientific evidence and the pro-choice arguments are not. That is a cultural, historical fact.” -Stanley Fish

“When the death of a disabled infant will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life, the total amount of happiness will be greater if the disabled infant is killed. The loss of happy life for the first infant is outweighed by the gain of a happier life for the second. Therefore, if killing the hemophiliac infant has no adverse effect on others, it would, according to the total view, be right to kill him.” -Peter Singer (emphasis mine)

“The status of her fetus and any moral value accorded to it is entirely her call. A fetus becomes a human being when the woman carrying it decides it does. ” –Joyce Arthur (her emphasis)

“…what he says really doesn’t matter because he’s a man…  In short, when men start choosing to be fathers, that’s when they will have the right to pipe in on whether women can choose to be mothers. Until then men, your opinion just doesn’t matter.” -Stella Ramsaroop (emphasis mine, here, an article entitled “Why Men Should Have No Say On The Abortion Issue”)

“I do think abortion is murder–of a very special and necessary sort”- Magda Denes

“Not everybody is meant to be born. I believe, for a baby, life begins when his mother wants him.” -Jim Newhall

“As a woman who is staunchly pro-choice I have never denied ‘personhood’ to the fetus… One might then make the leap of logic that I would agree that abortion is murder. I do not. The killing of another human being, murder if you will, is judged by degrees based on intent. There is first degree murder, which is considered the most heinous and premeditated. There is second degree murder which is less heinous than first degree but will still get you life. There is manslaughter which is a heat of passion defense and, in this society, punished to a lesser extent than first or second degree murder. Then there are those catagories [sic] of killing that are not considered ‘crimes’ at all. These include killing during times of war or killing in self defense. I contend that abortion is always a killing done in self defense, and, therefore, morally justified.” – A customer review of a pro-life book here.

“Abortion liberates women from the life of a whore/slave and allows her to control her own life and decide for herself when and with whom she will have children. ” Here

Jesus: The Living God

The life of Jesus is the single most important event in human history. If Christianity is true, then salvation is available to all who believe in Him. If not, then billions of people have been deceived for millennia. This is part of a series of posts on Jesus, the Living God. I’ll be exploring apologetic, theological, and Biblical works that discuss Jesus.

This post serves as a place to collect links to this series.

The Covenant and Christ.

The Morality of God: Christ at the Center.

The Tools for the Task.

Jesus and the Stable: A Theory.

Jesus, Dedication, and Wise Men.

The Virgin Birth?

The Historicity of Jesus: The Tools for the Task

This is part of a series I’ve entitled “Jesus: the Living God,” which explores Jesus from Biblical, theological, and apologetic levels. View other posts in the series here.

For now, let us focus on the “tools for the task” (Wright, 29 and following). What kind of historical, textual means are used to talk about Jesus? I’ll be outlining views made by N.T. Wright in his The New Testament and the People of God, (hereafter NTPG) and Blomberg in The Historical Reliability of the Gospels. First, I should outline my presuppositions. I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, whose salvation is freely available to all who believe by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). There is no other name by which we are saved (Acts 4:12). I believe that the Bible is the Holy, Inerrant Word of God. It is infallible in its teachings.

Wright argues for a “critical realist” view of history. This view describes a “process of ‘knowing’ that acknowledges the reality of the thing known, as something other than the knower… while also fully acknowledging that the only access we have to this reality lies along the spiralling path of appropriate dialogue or conversation between the knower and the thing known” (Wright, 35 emphasis his). This acknowledges that observers have their own point of views, that they have their own interpretations, and that metaphysical beliefs will influence interpretation of data (36). This is vitally important throughout not just Wright’s body of works, but any historical (or other field) study–one’s presuppositions will influence how one interprets the same data.

Wright argues that one primary function of worldviews is to tell “stories” (38). This doesn’t mean these stories are fiction, rather, Wright is arguing that these stories form the basis of a worldview as well as the ways the worldview will interact with other views (38-40). In the context of the New Testament, “They [first-century Jews] never expressed a worldview in which the god in question was uninterested in, or uninvolved with, the created world in general, or the historical fortunes of his people in particular” (41). It is this worldview that, upon reading more of Wright, I think Wright not only acknowledges but agrees with. God is not uninterested or uninvolved, rather, the opposite is true–God is intimately involved and interested in His creation and creatures.

Wright emphasizes the “impossibility of ‘Mere History'” that is wholly divorced from any worldview (82). This doesn’t mean there are no facts… rather, it means there is no such thing as an uninterpreted fact (88). These interpretations are generally used in conjunction with historical hypotheses. Thus, it is important to note what composes a good historical hypothesis:

1) The historical hypothesis must include the data. One cannot, for example, simply drop the eschatology which was clearly part of Jesus’ teachings as well as the rest of the New Testament, in order to make one’s hypothesis easier to produce. The data must all be included (99).

2) “It must construct a basically simple and coherent overall picture” (100).

3) The hypothesis must show that it is useful in related areas, it must explain other problems (100).

It is important to realize that a simply enormous amount of material has been produced on Jesus and the Gospels, not to mention the rest of the New Testament. Thus, I will turn to Craig Blomberg’s work, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (hereafter HRG) to analyze some of the ways this study has been done. The tools for our task (to borrow Wright’s terminology) should utilize the best available evidence from New Testament scholarship, while discerning everything in light of the truth of Scripture.

Craig Blomberg wonderfully summarizes the various methods of historical criticism and analyzes them for usefulness  in HRG. Note that I’m not endorsing historical criticism, rather, I’m endorsing taking what is useful from historical criticism and use it as part of the toolbox. In my summing up, I’m leaving out much of Blomberg’s task of pointing out flaws in these criticisms (which is not only in-depth, but also illuminating), but rather emphasizing his ways to use them in the presuppositions that I’ve outlined above.

1) Form Criticism- Form criticism emphasizes the genre of the work being viewed (Blomberg, 50). It also discusses how a text was transmitted or brought into being. Christians can find this useful as it can be readily implemented in the “historical grammatical” type of reading of Scriptures. The background of the text is indeed important, as well as realizing the genre involved (i.e. the historical telling of what Jesus did, as opposed to His parables, which are not literal history).

2) Redaction Criticism- Redaction criticism views the writers of the Gospels as “editors” of the New Testament, “selecting, arranging, and rewording their sources to highlight particular theological and stylistic emphases” (Blomberg, 67). Christians can utilize this not to break down the reality of the Gospels, but rather they can use it as they realize there are indeed differences in the portrayal of Jesus in the Gospels (i.e. Mark’s suffering servant and Matthew’s son of David), not as contradictions, but as parts to a whole picture of Christ as suffering servant, son of David, compassionate teacher, and Word Incarnate (74).

3) Midrash- Midrash criticism of the Gospels focus on the “relationship of the Gospels to various [Hebrew Scripture] passages to which they may refer” (75). Clearly, this has uses for the Christian. How did the writers of the Gospels utilize Hebrew Scriptures to make their arguments or draw their conclusions about who Jesus was and what He did? This is vitally important to Christological study–who did Jesus say He was, based on the passages He cites, and who did others say He was?

4) Literary Criticism- this discipline is broken down into three types, though the most useful type for the Christian is the “narrative criticism” which analyzes characters, symbolism, figures of speech, etc. within the Gospels (87).

I’ve left out much of Blomberg’s analysis in order to simply sift off what we can use from these various methods, in light of the presuppositions I’ve outlined above. There is much more that could be said about either of these fantastic works (NTPG or HRG), and there is much more that could be said about the “tools for the task”, but for now, these are our tools, and I shall soon move into some of the historicity of Jesus.

Sources:

Blomberg, Craig L. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels. InterVarsity Press. 2007.

Wright, N.T. The New Testament and the People of God. Fortress. 1992.

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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from citations, which are the property of their respective owners) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author.

Evil and God: Analytic Counters to the Problem of Evil

The problem of evil is one of the most commonly pushed objections to the existence of God.There have been, historically, two major ways this problem is presented. The first way is to suggest that evil and God are logically incompatible. The second way argues that evil reduces the probability of God’s existence.

The suggestion that evil and God are logically incompatible has been largely abandoned in recent scholarship due to the writings of theistic philosophers such as Alvin Plantinga. Atheistic philosophers who had pressed such a problem have largely abandoned such argumentation in favor of the second method–the probabilistic problem of evil (see Rowe, Draper, Mackie, etc. to see atheistic turnabout on this subject). It is widely acknowledged that there is no logical incompatibility (in the sense that it is a logical contradiction) for there to exist an omni-benevolent God and evil (Plantinga, 461).

Thus, the argument has turned to probabilistic arguments against the existence of God. These arguments often are something like, “Given the great amount of evil in the world, it seems unlikely that God [here meaning the God of Classical Theism] exists.” Given some amount of evil, E, it seems as though the probability that God exists is lower than .5 (50%). There are many problems with such arguments. I have argued this elsewhere (see here) , but there are further arguments I’d like to expand upon.

First, one major problem with such arguments is to figure out some way to measure evil (hereafter E). How do we objectively measure the amount of E in the world? But then this leads us to a second problem: if we can measure the amount of E in the world, what amount of E is such that the existence of God (call it “T” for theism) is unlikely? Where is the mark at which T is more likely than not, given E?

But apart from even these problems, there is the fact that some rather simple explanations or defenses can be used by theists. For example, the theist could assert that as long as there is any amount of good in the world, T is more likely than not. This doesn’t seem quite fair, so the theist could rather assert that given any E, there is the possibility that God utilizes E for good. But this may be unconvincing as well. There are still other “outs” for the theist.

Perhaps the most interesting and insightful defenses from this kind of problem of evil was made by Alvin Plantinga in the essential work, Warranted Christian Belief. He argues, utilizing a “multiverse” type of scenario:

“…a theist might agree that it is unlikely, given just what we know about our world that there is such a person as God. But perhaps God has created countless worlds, in fact, all the worlds… in which there is a substantial overall balance of good over evil. In some worlds there is no suffering and evil; in some a great deal; as it happens, we find ourselves in one of the worlds where there is a good deal. But the probability of theism, given the whole ensemble of worlds, isn’t particularly low” (Plantinga, 473).

This defense is almost joyfully simple, yet it reveals a looming problem for the anti-theist wielding the problem of evil. There are indeed countless scenarios just like this, or at least similar to it, in which theism has a “way out.” Plantinga mentions these throughout the same work (see pages 458-499).

There are other ways to defend against such arguments, however. The assertion is that the existence of some amount of E lowers T, given E. But of course the theist can easily grant this and simply argue that on the basis of their own background knowledge (hereafter “k”), the probability of T given E and k is quite high. Plantinga argues for the internal witness of the Holy Spirit, an assertion with which I stand in agreement (Plantinga, 290 and following). But we need not even appeal to a notion that will be as highly disputed as this.

For perhaps the theist has the belief that the cosmological argument seems plausible, or the ontological argument is quite convincing (as here), or perhaps they believe that the other alternatives (the other theistic religions, pantheism, naturalism, paganism, spiritualism, etc.) are even less likely than T. But then the theist has a high probability of T given k, even if the theist acknowledges that T’s probability given E is lower than before.

It then follows that the theist is justified in maintaining such theistic belief even in light of the problem of evil, for on k and E, they still believe there is a high probability that T is true.

Source:

Plantinga, Alvin. Warranted Christian Belief. Oxford. 2000.

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The Life Dialogue: Theistic Evolution 2

This is part of a series of posts on the means by which life came about within Christianity. See other posts on the topic here.

Last time I wrote about theistic evolution I mentioned I was quite excited to get into some the scientific side of the debate. I delved into that a bit with my first post on old earth creationism as well as in my post on young earth creationism. While I think that perhaps the biggest problem with theistic evolution from a Christian view is theological, I do believe it is important to examine the scientific aspect of all sides of the debate as well. Thus, I turned to Perspectives on an Evolving Creation, a work full of essays on theistic evolution, to give me the scientific aspects of theistic evolution.

Common descent is central to the notion of atheism. Often, common descent is the source of objections to the theory of evolution (Miller, 152). Common descent is the assertion that all life on earth is descended from an “unbroken series of ancestor-descendant relationships to a single ancestral life form” (Miller, 152). Perhaps the most frequent objection to this is the sparse distribution of the fossil record.

Miller argues that the fossil record, rather than being incapable of demonstrating common descent, provides “persuasive evidence for macroevolutionary change and common descent” (153). He quickly qualifies this statement, pointing out that most often people either assert that the fossil record is so sparse that nothing can be demonstrated by it or that it is so complete that all details can be brought to light.

Miller then points out the vast problems with trying to fill in a fossil record which, according to evolutionary theory, covers hundreds of millions of years. Some of these problems include the infrequent fossilization of soft bodied or thin-shelled organisms, environmental factors such as weather, scavengers, or water levels, erosion, irregular sedimentation, etc. (154-156).

Transitional forms also encounter the problems of classification. The way species are categorized can directly affect whether a species is seen as a transitional form. “The grouping of organisms in a classification scheme does more than describe nature: it also interprets it” (158). Miller goes on to discuss two types of classification: the Linnean and cladistic classification. Linnean classification views species as types. One individual is seen as the ideal “archetype” of the species, while all others are compared to this “archetype” and then seen as types or offshoots of this individual. This, argues Miller, “exclude[s] transition[al fossils] by definition” (158, emphasis his). Cladistic classification, by contrast, assumes an evolutionary scheme and places animals into overarching schemes based on such assumptions. Thus, species may not be grouped so much by common characteristics as they are grouped by characteristics seen as having a common ancestor (159).

Interestingly, this section seems to echo one of the statements I remember from a talk on Young Earth Creation I listened to on campus, in which the speaker stated that often scientists can look at the same evidence and come up with completely different interpretations–even though the evidence is the same. I’ll be keeping this in mind in my future interactions with the varied positions in this dialogue. Here, it seems the cladistic classification is preferred, though one may ask whether this is because one wants to presuppose evolution and move from there, or if it is because the fossil record points more readily towards evolution. Did the evidence lead to the classification or did the classification lead to the evidence?

Transitional forms often are attached to misconceptions. Miller warns against assuming that such a form would appear as a logical step from one type of animal to the next. Rather, he states that “Such forms will be unlike anything living today”. This is because “transitional forms are found by moving down the tree of life into the past, not trying to jump from limb to limb” (161). Thus, when thinking of transitional forms, rather than seeing a kind of orthogenesis (one step at a time) that would suggest, perhaps, species 1 => species 2 => species 3, the view should be a branching phylogeny which looks more like a tree than a straight line. Thus, transitional fossils could be radically different from the species to which they gave rise (163).

After this point in his chapter, Miller goes into some examples of just these types of transitions viewed in the fossil record. His examples include reptile-to-mammal evolution, a land creature-to-whale evolution, horses, tapers, rhinos, etc. having a common ancestor, and others (164-180). Due to such transitional evidence in the fossil record, Miller concludes that “transitional fossil sequences between higher taxonomic groups are a common feature of the fossil record” (180).

One may question Miller on a number of points in this chapter. The different classification systems is one presupposition that must be made. Another objection that came to my mind as I was reading was the definition of transitional fossil. Again, it seems as though the definition may be changed to fit the theory, rather than the theory changed to fit the definition or the evidence. Why couldn’t it be that transitional fossils are just what intuition suggests, and there really aren’t too many? Rather, the assumption seems to be that other fossils may be used for the transitions. Why make such an assumption? Is there any reason to push the transitional definition to the usage Miller is endorsing? I don’t know.

I enjoyed Miller’s chapter greatly. It is always nice to get a breath of fresh air amidst my readings of analytic philosophy or epistemology. I have enjoyed this series greatly, and I can’t wait to continue.

Finally, in closing, I would like to note two things again. The first is my stance on this whole debate: I believe the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, I believe that God did and does directly intervene in creation and the universe, and I believe that God has been and always will be the creator and sustainer of the universe. Thus, I am biased, just as anyone who approaches such questions is. Second, I have noted before that this series is meant to be for the in-house Christian debate on these matters. I’ve had a number of caustic comments thrown my way from those uninterested in such a debate. I welcome non-Christians to the discussion, but only if they can participate in a civil manner.

Miller, Keith. “Common Descent, Transitional Forms, and the Fossil Record.” Edited Keith Miller. Perspectives on an Evolving Creation.  Wm. B.Eerdman’s. 2003.

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Science: “Thanks, Christianity”

I remember recently I was talking to someone and they asserted that Christianity and science simply don’t mix. Often I run into the idea that somehow Christianity hinders science (and a great many people seem to believe science can hinder Christianity as well!).This is not only wrong, it is historically and demonstrably wrong. Science as it stands today would not exist if it were not for Christianity.

Christian presuppositions allowed science to develop. Science was built on the presupposition that God was rational. Because the universe was created by this rational God, “Christian Philosophers linked rationality with the empirical, inductive method” (Schmidt, 218). These philosophers included such giants as William of Ockham (1285-1347) and Francis Bacon (1561-1626).

Lynn White states that “From the thirteenth century onward to the eighteenth, every major scientist, in effect, explained his motivations in religious terms” (Quoted in Schmidt, 222). But it wasn’t just the motivations that were explained in religious terms. Too often it is the case that people argue, fallaciously, that they were only Christian because of the time these scientists were born into. They were too afraid, it is alleged, to state their true beliefs. Not only is this utterly without evidence, but it could not be farther from the truth. Many of these scientists spent as much time on theology as they did on science. They credited God with their discoveries. They believed that God had set the universe up in such a way as to be explored by His people. These convictions permeated the writings of scientists.

Alvin Schmidt, in his monumental work, How Chistianity Changed the World, outlines how Christianity changed science on every level. Gregor Mendel, Leonardo Da Vinci, Andreas Vesalius, Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo, Isaac Newton, Liebniz, Pascal, Ohm, Andre Ampere, Kelvin, Boyle, and Pasteur are just a few of the almost limitless examples. All of these were Christians. It is wholly fallacious to assert that science and Christianity do not mix.

Some might immediately attack Christianity when names like Galileo are brought up. The problem with this is twofold:

1) In the case of Galileo or Copernicus, Christians were actually supporting these astronomers, just Christians of a different variety (Lutherans backed Copernicus financially and offered encouragement and support, while Roman Catholics, still basing their assumptions on Aristotelian astronomy, persecuted him [Schmidt, 231])

2) These men were, themselves, Christian. It’s easy to argue that Christians were putting down science when one can point to cases of persecution, but these men were Christians!

Perhaps it is now, however, that Christianity is opposed to science. Perhaps in the modern day, Christians are not scientists. This is not true. Take the case of Francis Collins, for example. He is the scientist who was the head of the human genome project. He is also a devout Christian and the author of The Language of God, in which he argues that science has lead him even more into his belief in God.

It is simply not the case that Christianity and science do not mix. Christian presuppositions allowed for the development of the empirical method. Christian philosophers and scientists were the “giants” on whom people like Newton (and modern scientists) built their theories (Newton himself asserts this). Science is just another of the many areas Christianity has helped transform for the better. Science can rightly say, “Thanks, Christianity.”

Sources:

Collins, Francis. The Language of God. 2007.

Schmidt, Alvin. How Christianity Changed the World. Zondervan. 2004.

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The Dialogue Continues: Intelligent Design

This is another post in my series on the origins of life, the debate/argument within Christianity. See other posts in this series here.

I recently finished reading The Making of an Atheist by James S. Spiegel and while the book was by no means about the origins of life, one quote in particular made me think about this series I’ve been doing. Spiegel writes, “Once life appears, the only remaining rational debate should be among theists–as to how God did it, whether through special creation, natural selection, or some combination of these means. The issue of origins should be an in-house theistic debate” (50, emphasis mine).

I tend to agree. This series of posts seeks to foster that very in-house debate. Intelligent Design is another option I will explore in this ongoing series.

Intelligent design (hereafter ID) is often dismissed outright in discussions of this sort. Creationists see it as evolution-in-disguise, while theistic evolutionists view it as creationism-in-disguise. So what is it? Some of this aversion may be due to the fact that the modern ID movement suffered greatly in its definitions. Initially, due to the wide range of scholars involved, it weakened its scientific position in favor of a more theological one. Recently, however, this has been turned about.There is much discussion among theists and non-theists alike about the viability of ID, but it seems clear that ID is here to stay. Books like Signature in the Cell by Stephen Meyer continue to draw flak from all sides, but they also continue to push thinking minds to stretch and consider the ideas contained therein.

William Dembski is seen by some as the father of the modern ID movement. His book, Intelligent Design is a good introduction (though it is quite heavy both scientifically and philosophically) to the movement.

“Intelligent design is three things,” according to Dembski, “a scientific research program that investigates the effect of intelligent causes; an intellectual movement that challenges Darwinism and its naturalistic legacy; and a way of understanding divine action” (Dembski, 13). ID is based on empirically testing for design within systems (109). According to ID, mutation-selection mechanisms cannot account for the diversity of life (113).

How exactly is design discovered empirically? It is based on probability calculus, among other means (130). Central to ID is the notion of “irreducible complexity”. “A system is irreducibly complex if it consists of several interrelated parts so that removing even one part completely destroys the system’s function” (147). Dembski argues that this is a fully empirical question, “individually knocking out each protein constituting a biochemical system will determine whether function is lost. If it is, we are dealing with an irreducibly complex system. Protein knock-out experiments of this sort are routine in biology” (149).

Another important notion is complex specified information. This needs explanation, and it is explanation that naturalistic evolution cannot provide (167-169).

Dembski’s book is monumentally important for those Christians wanting to explore the origins debate. In the appendix he answers many of the objections to ID (God of the gaps, not science, etc.).

Theologically, ID could be subject to the same objections I would raise against theistic evolution. Why death before sin? Specifically, why human death before sin? Interestingly, ID can serve of an example of what a friend of mine suggested in my first post on Old Earth Creationism: combining various explanations as one sees fit. Take Hugh Ross’s RTB model, which argues that humans are specially created. One could easily combine this model with ID to make the model even more challenging to standard evolutionary models. Not only that, but this avoids the theological error inherent in theistic evolution (more on theistic evolution and possible ways to solve this problem in an upcoming post).

I have never claimed to be a scientist. The more science I read, the more I realize that in such a vast ocean of work, I can never even begin to unearth the tip of the iceberg. Thus, my scientific analysis of ID amounts, basically, to only being able to judge it on what I know. I have read rebuttals to arguments for irreducible complexity, but I remain unconvinced by these rebuttals. I find Dembski’s argument rather convincing, though some examples he uses may need to be rethought.

Thus, after my first go-round, in which I explored theistic evolution, old earth creationism, young earth creationism, and intelligent design, I must say that my mind is less muddled than before. Picking and choosing from these theories can be quite fun. Not only that, but it can expand one’s faith walk. I encourage fellow Christians to expand their borders. Think about these hard questions. Most importantly, judge all things by God’s Word, the Bible. The Word of God stands, unchanged, forever. Jesus has died for our sins once for all. This does not change. Science continually changes (not an argument against science). The Christian should base his/her worldview on the foundation: Christ the Cornerstone.

I’m looking forward to round two!

Dembski, William. Intelligent Design. IVP Academic. 1999.

Spiegel, James. The Making of an Atheist. Moody Publishers. 2010.

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