The Secular Frontier

The idea of being washed by the blood of Jesus is popular among conservative Christians who adhere to the “paying our sin debt” interpretation of Jesus’s death.  Recently, Jessica Brodie (mostly from sources outside Paul or the 4 Gospels) summarized it this way: In fact, it was the shedding of Jesus’ blood, his “blood sacrifice,” that paid the price of our own sin-debt forever in the eyes of God. The Bible tells us the blood spilled as a sacrifice by Jesus ensures we are forgiven and redeemed from our sins (Ephesians 1:7). That blood reconciles us to God (Colossians 1:20) and gives us direct access to God, the “Most Holy Place” (Hebrews 10:19) without need for an intermediary priest. As the apostle Peter wrote to the early church, “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” (1 Peter 1: ... Read Article

WHERE WE ARE For the sake of being able to evaluate the second DILEMMA in Kreeft and Tacelli’s series of four dilemmas, I am going to temporarily set aside the serious problem of the historical UNRELIABILITY of the Gospel of John, and pretend (assume for the sake of argument) that the historical Jesus actually spoke the words attributed to Jesus in quotations from the Gospel of John presented by Kreeft and Tacelli in support of the view that Jesus claimed to be God. The question at issue concerning our evaluation of the second DILEMMA is thus whether Jesus meant these statements LITERALLY, and whether in making them he was LITERALLY claiming to be the eternal creator of the universe and the omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good ruler of the universe. Here are the six verses from the Gospel of John that Kreeft and Tacelli quote in the opening pages of Chapter 7 of their Handbook of Christian Apologetics (hereafter: HCA): John 8:12John 8:46John 8:58John 1 ... Read Article

No Mental Life after Brain Death: The Argument from the Neural Localization of Mental Functions Gualtiero Piccinini and Sonya Bahar  (Martin, Michael; Augustine, Keith. The Myth of an Afterlife . Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Kindle Edition.) For today’s post on The Myth of an Afterlife, I wanted to unpack some thoughts from Piccinini and Bahar’s chapter regarding the physical grounding of mystical experience.  They comment: In 1983 Michael Persinger suggested that religious and mystical experiences in general might be artifacts of temporal lobe microseizures (Persinger, 1983). More recently, a wealth of brain imaging studies have complemented the early EEG studies, confirming the temporal localization of such events (Hansen & Brodtkorb, 2003). Other studies suggest that mystical experiences are not solely localized to the temporal lobe, however, and that they may involve a large and complex network of activations in the brain. Cosimo Urgesi, Salvatore M. Agliot ... Read Article

Today I wanted to think a little about the difference between the kinds of lenses theological hypotheses provide in comparison with secular lenses in science and even literature.  In his introduction to the book, Augustine points out that regarding the secular framework for viewing death: "Because we are built from the same flesh and blood and DNA that forms nonhuman animals, and share their evolutionary origins, their mortality implies our mortality."- Martin, Michael; Augustine, Keith. The Myth of an Afterlife . Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Kindle Edition.  Theistic explanations of reality are indifferent to the reality they are trying to color.  In response to horrific animal and human suffering, the theist responds "God promises justice in the next life, not this one."  This means through the theist lens the world looks exactly as it would if there was no omnipotent, omnibenevolent God.  Similarly, in response to empirical scientific experiments that show the in ... Read Article

It is sometimes said that the only difference between Paul and the Jerusalem bunch on Jesus is that Paul didn’t think gentile converts needed to be circumcised (become fully Jewish).  This hardly makes Paul historically interesting, and seems to miss a key distinction. In previous posts I talked about Jeremiah’s prophecy that the law would be written on people’s hearts, which seemed to have been fulfilled in Jesus who redefined love from Greek eros (Honor seeking Achilles) to Christian agape (love of enemy).  The key event post-Jesus was the realization of God’s chosen one being horribly tortured and killed by the sins of the enraged crowd, corrupt religious elite, and crowd placating, indifferent to justice Pilate, which were also the sins in all of us.  This slap in the face of his beloved followers was a catalyst to realize how corrupt we and the system were and inspire change, which was particularly important because the end of the age and hence judgment was imminent.  The ... Read Article

One of the topics I explore in my penal substitution essay is the question of Isaiah 53 influencing the New Testament writers. One topic I didn't include in the Isaiah 53 section of the essay is Matthew and Isaiah 53:4 of the Septuagint (The Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures the NT writers used) Matthew, though appearing first in the bible, was written after Mark and incorporates a great deal of Mark into itself. It shows itself to be a Judaizing of the gentile gospel of Mark, so it is notoriously difficult to trace material back from Matthew's narrative to the historical Jesus. It seems to incorporate early material, the hypothetical Q source, which is the material common to Matthew and Luke that didn't come from Mark. In my penal substitution essay, I try to show that Conservative Christians are wrong to think the NT writers used Isaiah 53 to suggest penal substitution, the idea Christ suffered/died in our place to pay our sin debt. Today I am going to look at Mako Nagasawa's arguments w ... Read Article

Inquiry Question: "If Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet predicting the soon end of the age, why the major emphasis on personal and societal growth and transformation?" "meretrix pudicam:" “The harlot rebuketh the chaste.” (proverb referenced by Athenagoras of Athens) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIKc3oxMjNc Here is an abridged transcript of the interview: Q1 – Why do you think that Luke goes against the standard model of the atonement (or penal substitutionary model)? I tend to think Luke is actually the most conspicuous case of what is generally going on in Mark and Paul.  Ehrman writes: It is easy to see Luke’s own distinctive view by considering what he has to say in the book of Acts, where the apostles give a number of speeches in order to convert others to the faith. What is striking is that in none of these instances (look, e.g., in chapters 3, 4, 13), do the apostles indicate that Jesus’ death brings atonement for sins. It is not that Jesus’ death is unimport ... Read Article

WHERE WE ARE In Chapter 7 of their book Handbook of Christian Apologetics (hereafter: HCA), Christian philosophers Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli make a case for the divinity of Jesus. Here is the main argument they present in Chapter 7: 1A. Jesus was either God, liar, lunatic, guru, or myth. 2A. Jesus could not possibly be a liar, lunatic, guru, or myth. THEREFORE: 3A. Jesus is God. In Part 3 of this series, I analyzed and clarified a series of four dilemmas (four EITHER/OR statements) that they use to support premise (1A). The four dilemmas are used to try to prove that there are only FIVE possible views that can be taken on this issue. I summarized the clarified version of their four dilemmas in this decision tree diagram: In Part 4 of this series, I argued for some key points about the first dilemma in the above diagram: Here are those key points: When Kreeft and Tacelli added two more possible views to the TRILEMMA to make their QUINTLEMMA, they unknowingly changed ... Read Article

Some Thoughts On Keith Augustine's Introduction to "The Myth of an Afterlife" Today I wanted to think a little about the difference between the kinds of lenses theological hypotheses provide in comparison with secular lenses in science and even literature.  In his introduction to the book, Augustine points out that regarding the secular framework for viewing death: "Because we are built from the same flesh and blood and DNA that forms nonhuman animals, and share their evolutionary origins, their mortality implies our mortality."- Martin, Michael; Augustine, Keith. The Myth of an Afterlife . Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Kindle Edition.  Theistic explanations of reality are indifferent to the reality they are trying to color.  In response to horrific animal and human suffering, the theist responds "God promises justice in the next life, not this one."  This means through the theist lens the world looks exactly as it would if there was no omnipotent, omnibenevolent God.& ... Read Article

WHERE WE ARE In Chapter 7 of their book Handbook of Christian Apologetics (hereafter: HCA), Christian philosophers Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli make a case for the divinity of Jesus. Here is the main argument they present in Chapter 7: 1A. Jesus was either God, liar, lunatic, guru, or myth. 2A. Jesus could not possibly be a liar, lunatic, guru, or myth. THEREFORE: 3A. Jesus is God. In Part 3 of this series, I analyzed and clarified a series of four dilemmas (four EITHER/OR statements) that they use to support premise (1A). The four dilemmas are used to try to prove that there are only FIVE possible views that can be taken on this issue. I summarized the clarified version of their four dilemmas in this decision tree diagram: In this current post, we will examine just the first dilemma: THE TRILEMMA VS THE QUINTLEMMA In Chapter 7 of Evidence that Demands a Verdict (1972), Josh McDowell presents a TRILEMMA in support of the divinity of Jesus: "Lord, Liar, o ... Read Article

I have the book now, and so will start formally blogging through it. I hope you'll join me. It should be fun. In today's short post, I would just like to share a brief passage from the book where the authors address what they will be arguing: "We show that there are, in fact, situations in which people will judge that time does not exist when presented with certain discoveries about the world. This begins to drive a wedge between time and agency... According to the general theory of relativity, spacetime is a basic constituent of reality. However, we argue that recent developments in physics present a serious challenge to the existence of spacetime in at least some sense. Next we argue that causation and the folk notion of time come apart. This sets the scene for our return to agency. Because the folk notion of time and causation come apart, it is possible to have agency in the absence of time in the folk sense. We can use causation in the absence of time as a new foundation for agency. In this way, ... Read Article

In Part 1 of this series, I showed that the main argument for the divinity of Jesus given by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli in Chapter 7 of their Handbook of Christian Apologetics goes like this: 1A. Jesus was either God, liar, lunatic, guru, or myth. 2A. Jesus could not possibly be a liar, lunatic, guru, or myth. THEREFORE: 3A. Jesus is God. In this post I will analyze and clarify the argument given by Kreeft and Tacelli in support of premise (1A). FOUR DILEMMAS GIVEN TO SUPPORT PREMISE (1A) The reasoning supporting premise (1A) is spelled out in a chart near the end of Chapter 7: I. Jesus claimed divinity ...A. He meant it literally ......1. It is true___________________________________Lord ......2. It is false .........a. He knew it was false_______________________Liar .........b. He didn't know it was false_________________Lunatic ...B. He meant it nonliterally, mystically______________Guru II. Jesus never claimed divinity__________________ ... Read Article

In Part 1 of this series, I showed that the main argument for the divinity of Jesus given by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli in Chapter 7 of their Handbook of Christian Apologetics goes like this: 1A. Jesus was either God, liar, lunatic, guru, or myth. 2A. Jesus could not possibly be a liar, lunatic, guru, or myth. THEREFORE: 3A. Jesus is God. In this post, we will analyze and clarify the first premise of this argument. PREMISE (1A): THE FIVE ALTERNATIVES The first premise of Kreeft's argument for the divinity of Jesus asserts that there are only five logical possibilities: 1A. Jesus was either God, liar, lunatic, guru, or myth. The five alternative views are as follows: Jesus was God.Jesus was a liar.Jesus was a lunatic.Jesus was a guru.Jesus was a myth. None of these claims is clear as it stands. Each claim needs to be clarified and made more specific. JESUS WAS GOD In Part 1, I have already clarified the meaning of the claim "Jesus is God", ... Read Article

"Out Of Time" is scheduled to be released May 14th, so while we wait I wanted to do one more background post that may be helpful as we try to think of fundamental cause and effect relationships without time. Kant is perhaps helpful here because he makes a distinction between a kind of temporal causality which pertains to the natural world, and a kind of causality of freedom that pertains to human beings. What did Kant mean? Causality is that which "makes possible," so Kant draws a distinction (which is what philosopher's do) between temporal causality that makes scientific causal judgments and experiences possible, and timeless causality of freedom that makes moral judgments and experiences possible. For Kant, the temporal causality we experience in nature is going to be positive, comparative, or superlative in degrees of temporal irreversibility. So, positively, a ball hitting another ball is irreversible in the sense that the thrown ball hitting the other once causes the second ball to move forward ... Read Article

So, I've been putting together some introductory thoughts in preparation for blogging through the new book on the philosophy of physics and time "Out of Time (2022)." Helpfully, one of the authors did a short article teasing the book here: https://theconversation.com/time-might-not-exist-according-to-physicists-and-philosophers-but-thats-okay-181268 Here are some highlights from the article to whet your appetite: In the 1980s and 1990s, many physicists became dissatisfied with string theory and came up with a range of new mathematical approaches to quantum gravity. One of the most prominent of these is loop quantum gravity, which proposes that the fabric of space and time is made of a network of extremely small discrete chunks, or “loops”. One of the remarkable aspects of loop quantum gravity is that it appears to eliminate time entirely. Loop quantum gravity is not alone in abolishing time: a number of other approaches also seem to remove time as a fundamental aspect of reality. We ... Read Article