Evidence Unseen (and probably unavailable)

Back in September I posted about James M. Rochford’s Evidence Unseen — Exploring the Myth of Blind Faith, which was free on Kindle at the time. Here’s my brief review of the introduction. I should make it clear, however, that I’m probably not the intended audience for this book. Over the years I’ve become fairly settled in my atheism, though I’m still on the lookout for new arguments for the existence of any gods. So far I’ve not found anything that’s convincing, but I don’t want that fact to shut me off from considering additional arguments.

Unfortunately the book does not start off well. The acknowledgements are couched in enough obsequious faux humility to induce a bout of nausea. But maybe that's just a style issue.

We begin with “Introduction: Who Needs Faith?” Essentially this is an argument implying the “god-shaped hole”, and it’s in three sections, the first being “Don’t Dump Your Brains Out”. Immediately we come up against the irony of claiming that Jesus used evidence, when the evidence that he did so is merely asserted:

Throughout his life on Earth, Jesus appealed to evidence—such as his miracles, his resurrection, and his fulfillment of messianic prophecy—in order to validate his divinity (Lk. 24:25-27; 44-46)._{[Location 154]}

Rochford is arguing against fideism, which he attempts to refute mostly by quoting from the New Testament. This, to me, is putting the cart before the horse, but Christian apologists seem to do this a lot — placing their evidence for the truth of the Bible subsequent to arguments based on Biblical texts, as if they know the evidence for the truth of the Bible is flimsy but will be more readily accepted after substantial prior grooming.

The second section of the Introduction is “Don’t Be Afraid To Take A Step Of Faith”. Here Rochford is equating “faith” with “trust” — presumably based on evidence — but also claiming there’s a choice involved. There isn’t. If you are disposed to believe things on evidence, then you’ll believe something when sufficient evidence is available, not before. It all depends on what you consider "sufficient", but again, that's not something you can choose. (Check out doxastic voluntarism on Wikipedia.)

The third and final section of the Introduction, “Don’t Give Up The Search”, contains arguments that appear strictly binary: either God doesn’t exist, or the Christian God as described by Jesus in the New Testament does. This is the false dichotomy of Pascal’s Wager, which Rochford fully invokes in the following passage:

According to Jesus, our Creator loved us so much that he died for us. 

Can you even imagine a more egotistical thought? I can’t. God died for us. This is the very height of egotism. If human beings invented this message, then they have imagined the most conceited concept in human history. God died for us. It’s absurd! Hundreds of years ago, people believed the entire universe circled around Earth. While this is pretty self-centered, it doesn’t hold a candle to the message of the Bible; God died for us. How narcissistic would you have to be to believe something like this?

Unless, of course, it's true._{[Location 258]}

The problem here, of course, is that if it's not true, what is? The non-existence of any gods is not the only alternative. What if Islam is true, or Hindu polytheism?

At the end of the introduction Rochford fires this parting shot:

If you’re a close-minded person, then I doubt any of the evidence in this book will persuade you of the truth of who Jesus was and claimed to be._{[Location 315]}

The implication is clear (and vaguely insulting), which is why I don't think this book is aimed at atheists. But Rochford seems to be arguing against apatheism here, which is odd, because apatheists won’t be reading his book.

So that’s the introduction. Is it going the same way other apologetics books seem to go? Pretty much, but stay tuned while I continue to read.

Reviewing James M. Rochford's Evidence Unseen

With a blurb like this:

In my opinion, this is the perfect book for the skeptic as well as the person who is just starting to learn about the role of Christian apologetics. I have already handed out some copies to people in our campus ministry and I continue to give some to seekers as well. I don’t want for one second to say this book is strictly for the young seeker. It can be used as a resource for any age group. My advice is to pick up a copy and give it to a friend. Time’s a wastin! (Eric Chabot—Founder and Director of Ratio Christi at OSU)

...or this:

“In showing the credibility of Christianity, Rochford effectively argues that it is worthy of serious consideration by honest thinkers. By providing so many references to thinkers on both sides of the issue, he invites his readers to explore and play fair with the facts.” (Lee Campbell–PhD Neurosciences)

...or this:

“Aimed especially at college students and seekers, Evidence Unseen shows us that Christian faith is not a blind leap in the dark, but a humble dependence on the God of the Bible, who has revealed himself through substantial evidence. The author presents this evidence quite readably under four headings: internal evidence, external evidence, and evidence from Scripture, divided into fulfilled prophecy and the historical reliability of its message. He shows us that humans need God in order to be able to function consistently in this world; that nature universally and locally points to its creator and designer; that this designer has also controlled history to fulfill the predictions of the biblical prophets; and that the biblical narratives (here, the narratives about Jesus) show themselves to be fully trustworthy. I highly recommend Evidence Unseen for your own search for what life is all about, and for helping others in their searches. (Dr. Robert C. Newman—Emeritus Professor of New Testament & Christian Evidences—Biblical Seminary— PhD Theoretical Astrophysics, Cornell University)

...this book seems like it might actually be persuasive. Additionally it's free on Kindle at the moment (I don't know for how long), so I've decided to read it and (if in my opinion it merits a review) to review it here on the blog. I've not seen any reviews so far, and I don't intend to look at any until I've finished at least the first draft of my own.

Be aware, however, that my encounters with supposedly persuasive apologetics books has to date been less than positive, as you will see if you check out my previous reviews of such tomes:

• Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God
• Cold cases solved by magic? — J. Warner Wallace's Cold Case Christianity

God's not dead, he just doesn't believe in confirmation bias

Last night I got caught up with the latest Unbelievable? podcast. It was billed as "Evidence, atheism and the case for God" featuring Rice Broocks, who has written a book titled God's Not Dead. From his description this tome sounds like a standard apologetics portmanteau covering various arguments and evidences for the existence of the Christian God.

Opposite him was atheist David Beebee, a listener to the show who had read the book and who politely stated that he found it unpersuasive. In fact it was politeness all round, including Broocks' physicist-in-tow Brian Miller. Justin Brierley acted as neutral host and it was all very civil (which — along with last week's show featuring Keith Ward and Michael Ruse — made for less stressful listening than the previous two Unbelievables).

Rice Broocks is an American preacher, so he has the apologetic delivery honed to a fine art, and Brian Miller had clearly mastered the exposition of his subject. In contrast David Beebee wasn't the most articulate of atheists, but he made an excellent point about Broocks' double standards with regard to evidence and the acceptance of consensus. The point must have struck home, because neither Broocks nor Miller answered it. So Beebee repeated it later in the show, and still they didn't answer it. It was probably the only point he needed to make; he stuck to it, and it appeared to expose a crucial flaw in the book's reasoning.

Beebee's point was this: In God's Not Dead Broock accepts evidence and consensus when they support what he believes, but denies it when they don't. I think it's unlikely Broocks and Miller haven't heard this criticism before, and equally unlikely they didn't understand Beebee's point — he made it more than once, at different times in the programme. But they dodged it every time.

Who needs truth when you have apologetics?

Last week's Unbelievable? aired a talk given by Premier Radio's favourite Christian apologist William Lane Craig, at the 2011 Bethinking conference as part of the Reasonable Faith Tour of the UK.

I understand that this talk was given to Christians, so I was concerned to hear Craig begin by misrepresenting the meaning of secularism. In fact he seemed to base his whole talk on an incorrect premise: that the "secularisation" of Britain was a bad thing because it was based in a naturalistic philosophy that denies God. But secularism is merely the idea that matters of religious belief should be independent of government (and vice versa) — and as such is as beneficial to those who hold religious beliefs as it is to those who don't.

Later on — in what might be classed as an appeal to non-authority — Craig quoted Satan, further damning any credibility he might have otherwise retained in my view. Perhaps he just doesn't see how risible his arguments sound when he plumbs such depths; he seems happy enough blowing his own trumpet about how easily he can fill a hall with an audience. Sure, he's preaching to the converted and trying to inspire them, and I appreciate that a little hyperbole can go a long way.

But Craig shouldn't be let off the hook for playing fast and loose with facts. He describes the Crucifixion as the one historical fact about Jesus of Nazareth that is universally acknowledged among historical critical scholars. This is of course true, so long as your definition of "historical critical scholars" includes only those who acknowledge the Crucifixion as a historical fact.

Craig also seems very fond of referring to "The Church" as if it were a single homogenous entity, when we all know that this couldn't be further from the truth. During the Q & A he was asked about evangelising to Darwinists and postmodernists, and he advised skirting around such issues:

My evangelistic strategy is to set the bar as low as you can; make it as easy as possible to become a Christian. There are very few things you need to believe to be a Christian: you've got to believe that God exists, that Jesus Christ is divine, that he died for your sins and rose from the dead, and that you will be saved by grace, through placing your faith in his atoning death — and really that's about it, you know?

Huh? Is that all?

The final question was about Christ being the "second Adam", and how this could be true if Adam didn't actually exist as a real person. Craig said he affirmed the historical Adam, but for those who don't, the phrase "second Adam" would be purely symbolic. For me, this lackadaisical attitude to facts exemplifies so much of Christian apologetics, and is why I find it utterly unconvincing.

Obscure reasons to believe

Two weeks ago it was the second Unbelievable? conference. Premier are now taking orders for the DVD set, for those who were unable to attend, or who did attend but want to hear the sessions they inevitably missed in a single-day, multi-track event.

Here's what Premier are saying is on the DVDs:

"God & Science: Cosmic Reasons For Christ"
"Whose worldview? C.L.E.A.R. reasons for Christianity"
"Gunning For God: Why the new atheists are missing the target"
"Evangelism remixed: new models for evangelism in the 21st Century"
"Evangelism in a sceptical world"
"Evangelism in a multifaith world"
"Confessions of a compulsive thinker"
"Confessions from the mission field"
"Confessions of a former atheist" 

I can't work up much enthusiasm for anything listed above, so I won't be sending an order. I bought last year's DVD set — for reasons I set out in the first of my three blogposts about it:
http://www.evilburnee.co.uk/2011/09/unbelievable-punishment.html
http://www.evilburnee.co.uk/2011/10/unbelievable-conference-disc-2.html
http://www.evilburnee.co.uk/2011/11/unbelievable-conference-big-questions.html

This year's conference was in association with "Reasons to Believe", and Hugh Ross — the President of Reasons to Believe — was a guest on Unbelievable? prior to the conference. He was also on Revelation TV opposite Malcolm Bowden, a Young Earth Creationist, which by comparison made Ross's views seem fairly conventional. But Ross, and Reasons to Believe, strike me as leaning further towards the fundamentalist side of Christianity than Premier — or at least Unbelievable? — have so far appeared to do.

As an atheist curious about the prevalence of religious belief, I've been interested to learn what makes religious people tick, but my investigations to date have been disappointing and inconclusive. As part of those investigations I read and reviewed a recommended book purporting to offer scores of arguments for faith, and I watched and reviewed the whole of last year's Unbelievable? conference DVDs. Both were underwhelming. That John Lennox was promoted as a star attraction at this year's conference leads me to conclude that it was more of the same — a notion reinforced by the inclusion of someone from the Alpha course.

The conference itself may have been inspiring and invigorating for its participants, but I imagine the vast majority of them were believers — and if they want to spend a day in the company of like-minded people and listen to Christian apologetics that's fine by me, but judging by last year's DVDs I'm not sure what influence the talks will have outside the conference and the circles of its attendees.

For the present, I tend to agree with former Unbelievable? (and recent Skepticule Extra) guest James Croft, when he says, "Apologetics is a waste of time."

Unbelievable?: The Conference — Big Questions Stream

The Big Questions Stream is the last of three DVDs in this boxed set of Premier Christian Radio's one-day apologetics conference held in May this year. (I have already reviewed Disc 1 and Disc 2.)

Disc 3 begins with Mark Roques and his talk entitled: "Is Jesus the only way?"

It's a dynamic lecture, if a little unfocussed and with iffy sound. Roques claims that all people live by faith, giving as an example some rat-worshippers in India. He says there are four types of response to rat-worship, each conforming to a specific type. The first is that of, for example, James Bond, who would describe rat-worship as irrational. Roques claims this is a "modernist", secular worldview and what he describes is essentially a materialist worldview that denies the existence of anything supernatural. But as a first example it shows how ill-advised it is to use fictional examples to explain what you are claiming as fact. Religionists seem to do this a lot, as if they can't see how it's likely to be interpreted. By picking a fictional example you are essentially basing your factual claims on something that has been made up. If Bible-believers want to convince people that scripture is more than "made up" they should stop doing this.

The second example is the response of Paul Merton, who visited some rat-worshippers during a TV documentary. Merton apparently described rat-worship as "true for them" — which Roques says is a post-modernist worldview, in which everyone is entirely autonomous.

The rat-worshippers' response, however, is that rat-worship is "true" — which is Roques' example of the third type of response.

Roques' fourth type of response is exemplified by Christianity: "Don't worship rats, worship Christ."

He then goes on to list four views of salvation. The first is the "exclusivist" or "restrictivist" view, in which only those who have been called by God will go to eternity in heaven, while everyone else goes to eternal punishment. The second is an "inclusionist" but not "universalist" view, which allows even some people with no knowledge of Christ to be saved. The third is "theological pluralism", which holds that all religions can lead to God, and the fourth is the "universalist" view where everyone will be saved. Unsurprisingly there's disagreement on the matter, but as it's theology there's no way of conclusively resolving the issue — because theology is mostly fabrication. Incidentally Roques says he holds to the "inclusionist" view of salvation.

During a Christian apologetics conference there's bound to be a good deal of dissing of other religions, but some of those other religions have their own conferences, and what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Mark Roques is also guilty of conflation when he claims that for James Bond the god is science, and when later on in his talk he claims people have made "money" their god. Many religionists seem to do this, giving the impression that they are locked into a mindset in which it is impossible for anyone not to believe in a god of some kind. For such religionists, there's no such thing as a true atheist.

Roques is very big on story-telling (likening this to the parables of Jesus), but he needs to be clearer on the distinction between factual and fictional stories, otherwise people will be inevitably drawn to the idea that the whole of scripture and theology is just a series of stories. For myself I'm glad that in this lecture he used his faux "common" accent only once.

---

Next on Disc 3 is a two-hander with John Lennox and David Robertson on the question "Is there evidence for God?", and it has the assertions, the atheist-bashing, and what I can only describe as self-congratulatory smugness — coupled with attempts at mitigating false modesty — coming thick and fast. I found it difficult to keep up, abandoning my use of the pause button for note-taking purposes and just let the whole thing roll over me.

The usual canards are in abundance: atheists have no grounding for moral judgements, they are closed-minded to evidence by a priori assumptions, and they don't understand the meaning of faith. But throughout their discussion neither Lennox nor Robertson explain what precisely their subjective experience of God is. It's all a tacit admission of mysterious ineffability. They say much but convey little, and I found it frustrating waiting for either of them to deliver even one thing that might be a serious challenge to atheists — either "new atheists" or the plain vanilla variety.

Lennox makes a good point, however, about "nothing buttery" when decrying materialism, but I don't think he realises that he is actually validating the materialist view when he makes it.

So in response to the question "Is there evidence for God?" the answer must begin with "It depends what you mean by evidence." And if you're after compelling evidence, rather than just a subjective feeling, forget it.

---

Finally we have (again) Mark Roques, with "What about suffering?" beginning with the tale of Cornish Christian boy Thomas Pellow, captured by Turkish pirates and forced to be the slave of the Sultan. He converted to Islam (to save his own skin), and returned to his parents 30 years later. He was, we are told, sustained by his Christian faith.

Roques quotes David Hume's distillation of Epicurus's paradox — according to which an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God is an incoherent concept. Roques goes on to say, "I want to try and respond to this with some perhaps fresh material." This sounds promising but ultimately leaves us high and dry, as in delivering his talk he often seems to get diverted down side alleys, never returning to the place whence he came.

Asking the question, "Is it possible to be an atheist and also affirm the existence of evil?" Roques then examines materialism, quoting Richard Dawkins in River Out of Eden on the "blind, pitiless indifference" of the universe, as well as Dawkins' response to the 2006 Edge Annual Question — "What is your dangerous idea?"

Dawkins' contribution was "Let's all stop beating Basil's car" in which he floats the (not original) idea that just as Basil Fawlty's defective car is not to blame for its deficiencies, neither are we as material humans "at fault" for our own shortcomings. Given that these essays for the Edge were supposed to be radical and iconoclastic, it's disingenuous of Roques to point to Dawkins and claim that materialists deny that humans have any moral responsibility. The problem — as usual with debates of this kind — is that key terms haven't been properly defined. What does Roques mean by "evil" or "moral"? He's speaking to a largely Christian audience, so he may consider these terms don't need defining. But this is an apologetics conference and the audience will be going out to defend their faith. Without rigorous definition of terms, their efforts could well come across as unconvincing or even sloppy.

Here's an example of what I consider egregious sloppy thinking:

"Materialism declares that only physical things exist and so it is not possible to speak about purpose, goodness and wickedness. Evil is an illusion."

First off, we need to know what Roques means by purpose, goodness, wickedness and evil. By this measure we could claim that thoughts, being "non-physical", don't exist — when they clearly do.

"Evil does not exist. It is an illusion. A delusion. A toothfairy. This is what many atheists believe. It's their religion."

This is the worst kind of straw man fallacy, and teaching it at an apologetics conference is doing nobody any favours. Roques belabours his "no responsibility in materialism" point, but without saying what he means by responsibility. When we consider ideas of materialism and determinism in human action we must be careful what we dismiss. It is possible to hold to a materialist, determinist worldview in which free will does not depend on substance dualism, and still maintain that we are responsible for our actions. The question then becomes not what do we mean by "responsible"? but what do we mean by "we"? The entity — the human — held to be "responsible" comprises the sum total of who "we" are — our current thoughts and disposition, our memories, our experiences, our genetic make-up, our education, even our present environment. Such questions are way deeper and more subtle than Roques portrays in his talk.

Roques may even be going out on a limb relative to his religionist cohorts. He claims that Anselm and Aquinas were wrong about goodness, and that Plotinus — and Plato before him — were bad influences on early Christianity. He makes this challenge:

"If naturalism/materialism is true, then surely both goodness and evil are illusions. So where do you get your notions of evil and goodness from as you rail against God?"

See how disingenuous his approach is? "Rail against God?" This may be a reaction to Dawkins' deliberate caricature of the Old Testament God in The God Delusion, but such emotive language is inappropriate to an honest examination of the problem of evil.

Roques may be a dynamic speaker (despite seeming to lose his way several times in this talk), but the thrust of his argument is superficial. When pressed he is revealed — as far as I could see — to have nothing original or indeed useful to add to the morality debate. In the Q&A the first questioner asks why God allowed evil in the first place:

"There's a sense in which I don't know the answer to that deep question."

And as he offers nothing more of substance in response, there's a pronounced lack of any other sense in which he did know the answer.

---

So what did I get out of these three DVDs? I could have attended the conference itself, but I would still have needed the DVDs in order to see the parallel streams. The cost of the DVD set is comparable to the cost of the conference, but if I'd attended I would have needed to add the same again in travelling expenses. In any case I think I might have felt uncomfortable in an audience of mostly believers.

On the whole I found the talks as presented on the DVDs disappointing, but also — on another level — heartening. Much was made of equipping Christians for defending their faith in the wider world, but the armoury provided here appeared clumsy, outdated and ineffective. Not once did I find myself thinking, "Gosh, there's an argument I really must look into further." Maybe these evangelicals will be effective in converting teetering agnostics who are confused by recent new atheist literature — or maybe not. It's seems clear, however, that anyone who is happy to self-identify as an atheist on the basis of honest enquiry into the God-question will not find anything challenging on these DVDs.

Is it worth arguing with theologians?

Over at Daylight Atheism there's a discussion about original sin. This is one of those fascinatingly odd ideas of Christianity that defies logic, though it's endlessly debated by earnestly learned theologians. I piped up in the comments to the effect that I didn't see the point of the discussion, and was roundly rebutted. Such debates can be interesting in a "let's see how far we can get with this puzzle" kind of way, but I don't see how they could sway those taking part. People who are prepared to argue at length about these issues are probably already fairly entrenched in their views.

Maybe the idea is to say something like "OK, let's for the sake of argument assume that God exists, and explore the ramifications of that assumption." But in what way is pointing out the logical inconsistencies of those ramifications likely to lead theists to question the initial assumption?

Let's assume for the sake of argument that there are fairies at the bottom of my garden. What is the point of discussing what they eat in the winter or how long it takes to dry off the dew from their wings in the morning before they are able to fly? Can you really have a useful discussion with someone who believes they have rational answers to such questions?

My fear is that by conceding the initial assumption, albeit temporarily, we also concede the legitimacy of the subsequent arguments, when such legitimacy is clearly unwarranted.

I'm an equal-opportunity sceptic. My stance is that we should deal even-handedly with creationists, alt-med proponents, psychics ... and theologians. It was pointed out to me, however, that though the participants of such discussions are unlikely to be persuaded from their respective positions, it is likely that there are others observing the discussion, and therefore it's useful to pursue the arguments for the simple reason that many agnostics - and even firm believers - have come to doubt their previously unchallenged beliefs by hearing them questioned.

This fits with my established opinion that religious fundamentalists (creationists, for example) should be publicly challenged because it alerts the religious moderates that nonsense is being promulgated in their name. So in response to the question posed in the title of this post, I hereby revise my answer to "yes".

Black and white circularity - the transcendental proof

During a recent search for information about the transcendental argument for the existence of God I came upon this website, "Proof That God Exists". Click on that link and you will be taken to an intimidating page of four large grey buttons that allow you to choose between four options:

• Absolute Truth Exists
• Absolute Truth Does Not Exist
• I Don't Know If Absolute Truth Exists
• I Don't Care If Absolute Truth Exists

Follow through this series of choices and you will inevitably arrive at the point where you will be invited to admit that you believe that God exists:

"To reach this page you had to acknowledge that immaterial, universal, unchanging laws of logic, mathematics, science, and absolute morality exist. Universal, immaterial, unchanging laws are necessary for rational thinking to be possible. Universal, immaterial, unchanging laws cannot be accounted for if the universe was random or only material in nature."

Which leads to:

"The Proof that God exists is that without Him you couldn't prove anything."

And then, via a choice between "I believe that God exists" and "I do not believe that God exists" you reach a page of FAQs, amongst which is this:

"By what authority do Christians claim the Bible as their ultimate authority?"

I pick this one out as it illustrates the particular circularity of the argument:

"Any claim to ultimate authority must be self-authorizing. If we use any other authority by which to authorize the Bible, THAT authority then becomes our ultimate authority. For instance, if we say that we will accept the Bible as our ultimate authority only if %100 of literary scholars say it is true, then those scholars become our ultimate authority, not the Bible. Christians therefore claim the Bible as our ultimate authority by its own authority as the word of God. I'm sure many people will say: "But that's using circular logic!" (using what is to be proven in the proof). What you must realize though, is that any claim to ultimate authority uses circularity, but not all can be valid."

Following this paragraph is a discussion of circular argumentation. It goes something like this: the believer's argument is criticised as being circular, but the unbeliever's argument is also circular, therefore the believer's argument is true. Unfortunately for this so-called proof, such reasoning also "proves" that the unbeliever's argument is true, because it is also circular, or "self-authorizing".

This section goes on at length about ultimate authority, completely missing the point that there is an assumption here that there must be an ultimate authority. The whole point of a worldview derived from atheism (meaning "lack of belief in a god or gods") is that there is no ultimate authority.

The problem with all of this is that the terms were not defined at the outset. Immaterial, universal, unchanging laws of logic, mathematics and science, absolute truth and absolute morality are the basis of the choices that are printed on the big grey buttons, but at no time are you able to question the definitions of these terms. The website's authors clearly have some simplistic notions as to what these terms mean, and these notions do not admit of any subtlety, preferring to railroad the hapless agnostic into an admission he or she may not really agree with.

Ultimately (a favourite word of this website), I take issue with their use of the word "immaterial", which they imply means that something is outside of the natural world, or to put it another way, supernatural. This simply isn't the case. Laws of logic, science, mathematics, even morality, may be immaterial in the sense of being abstract, but that doesn't make them supernatural.

(This so-called proof claims not only to prove the existence of God by use of a series of strict binary dichotomies, but also claims that the God it thus proves can only be the Christian God. All other gods, by this token, are false. This I didn't get - maybe I need a few more of those big grey buttons - or a course in philosophy.)

(Yay! my 100th Evil Burnee post! Shouldn't I celebrate or something?)

UPDATE 2009-02-27:

Today I listened to the latest Atheist Experience podcast, in which Matt Dillahunty engaged at length with another Matt (Matt Slick) about the Transcendental Argument for God. There is also a video version:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3652946085883130463