Maydole's Temporal Contingency Argument

In 2009, Blackwell publishing release the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, which is the gold standard on arguments for the existence of a personal God. Since the book was written for professional philosophers, you should not get frustrated if the book seems challenging to read. Just a fair warning.

The book delivers a series of
1. cosmological arguments - arguments that the nature of the physical world requires an ultimate being
2. teleological arguments - arguments that the design in our world requires a designer
3. moral and axiological arguments - arguments that objective value, beauty, and obligation requires an ultimate being
4. ontological arguments - arguments from the definition of God to his existence

I believe there are sounds arguments for God in all of these categories. The one argument in this book that really piqued my interest, since it blends the strongest parts of different cosmological, axiological, and ontological arguments. Let me show you the argument first and then I'll go through it. The argument comes in two parts: the first section with all the T statements are premises with T15 as the conclusion. The second half of the argument is the full, technical version, which I will translate into plain English and explain in the rest of this post.



Here is what's going on: Robert Maydole is using a version of Thomas Aquinas' Third Way, his third argument for the existence of God, but Maydole is updating it to accommodate advances in both science and philosophy. It uses alethic S5 Modal logic, which is used to derive metaphysical truths. This is the system Alvin Plantinga uses in his works, such as in The Nature of Necessity. In order to understand the argument, you will need to be familiar with some of the terms such as being, necessity, possibility, sufficient reason, possible world, and the like, so here goes.

Being - anything that exists. Examples of beings include chairs, keyboards, phones, atoms, quarks, photons, cars, people, souls (if they exist), God (if he exists), books, computers, space, stars, galaxies, the universe, and your mom. Basically, the two criteria for a being are: (1) does it exist? and (2) can you name it?

Necessity and Possibility - Maydole uses Alvin Plantinga's definition of broad logical possibility and broad logical necessity. This is expressed in what's called possible worlds semantics. A possible world is a way reality might be or might have been. the actual world is the way reality is. A statement is possibly true if there is a possible world where the statement is true. A statement is necessarily true if it is true in all possible worlds. What's strange and confusing about this argument is that it uses BOTH metaphysical necessity AND temporal necessity, which are different terms entirely. Maydole does a good job of keeping the terms separate. He does not confuse the two and I will try my best to avoid mixing them as well.

Without limitations - It appears that, according to Maydole's use, a being is without limitations if it is the metaphysical ultimate. That is, the greatest metaphysically possible being. If we could describe a being greater than the metaphysical ultimate, then THAT would be the metaphysical ultimate. Such a being would have to be, at minimum, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent in all possible worlds. This means that it would have to exist in all possible worlds. This means that a being without limitations would exist necessarily.

One objection to possible worlds semantics is that it is inconsistent with actualism. Acutalism is the belief that everything that exists is actual, and therefore merely possible worlds do not really exist. This is not a problem, however, as most actualists, such as Alvin Plantinga, still use possible worlds semantics, so there is no inconsistency here.

Sufficient reason - The principle that everything that exists has an explanation for its existence. This principle is not as controversial as it might at first seem. Science presupposes this principle, that there are reasons why the physical world works the way it does. It is also impossible to accept this principle for some things and reject it for others. Events without an explanation cannot be governed by probability so anyone who denies this principle cannot even say that unexplainable things are possible but improbable.

Equivalence - "A is equivalent to B" is the same as saying it is true that ("If A, then B" and "If B, then A")

The universe - for the sake of this argument, "the universe" means "all of physical reality" so if there are multiverses or other universes or other planes of existence, all of physical reality in its entirety is being defined, for the sake of this argument, under the title "the universe."

Remember that the premises of the argument are the 14 T statements (T15 is the conclusion) at the top of the chart. Every other step of the argument is a logically airtight deductive argument. If you want to deny the conclusion, you have to dispute at least one of the premises. But the real power of the argument lies in the following: because this is a modal argument, as long as there is ANY possible world where the 14 premises are true, even if it is not the actual world, then the argument is sound. Let me repeat that: as long as the 14 premises are even POSSIBLE, then the argument goes through.

The first part of the argument lays out the first 7 premises (T1 through T7)

1. (premise) Something presently exists
2. (premise) Only finitely many things (or beings) have existed to date
3. (premise) For every x, if x is temporally contingent, x begins to exist at some time and ceases to exist at some time
4. (premise) For every x, if x begins to exist at some time and ceases to exist at some time, then x exists for a finite period of time
5. (premise) for every x, if x exists for a finite period of time and only finitely many things have existed to date, then there was a time when nothing existed
6. (premise) if there was a time when nothing existed, then nothing presently exists
7. (premise) for every x, "x is temporally necessary" is equivalent to "x is not temporally contingent"
8. suppose that for every x, x is temporally contingent
9. then if the universe is temporally contingent, it begins to exist at some time and ceases to exist at some time
10. suppose the universe is temporally contingent
11. then the universe began to exist at some time and will cease to exist at some time
12. if the universe began to exist at some time and will cease to exist at some time, then the universe exists for a finite period of time
13. so the universe exists for a finite period of time
14. then for every x, x exists for a finite period of time
15. then everything exists for a finite period of time and only finitely many things have existed to date
16. therefore, there was a time (or state of affairs) where nothing existed
17. therefore, nothing presently exists
18. but something does presently exist!
19. therefore, it is not the case that for every x, x is temporally contingent
20. therefore there is something that is not temporally contingent
21. let's call this being that is not temporally contingent THE NECESSARY BEING (TNB).

This first section is basically Aquinas' section of the argument. Objects (or beings) either begin to exist or they do not. Also, there are either an infinite number of objects that have existed in the past or there are not. Since the existence of an actual infinite number of objects would violate the laws of set theory (you would be able to perform invalid operations such as subtraction and division of actual infinites), it follows that there are only a finite number of objects in the past.

If everything that exists began to exist, and there are a finite number of objects, then it follows logically that there was some state of affairs where there was not anything that existed. However, such a state of affairs would lack even the potential for something to exist, so that nothing could ever come into existence. But something did come into existence. Hence, there is at least one object (or being) that did not begin to exist.

22. "TNB is temporally necessary" is equivalent to "TNB is not temporally contingent"
23. therefore, if something is temporally necessary, it is not temporally contingent, and vice versa
24. therefore, if TNB is not temporally contingent, TNB is temporally necessary
25. hence, TNB is temporally necessary
26. therefore, TNB exists

This conclusion may seem to jump out at you. How did we established that a TNB exists? Maydole made the assumption that all beings are temporally contingent, showed that it leads to a contradiction. If not everything is temporally contingent, then something is temporally necessary and 22 through 26 just show the coherence of such a concept.

The next section is going to add the rest of the premises.

27. (premise) for every x, there exist a y such that y is a sufficient reason for x
28. (premise) if for every x, there exists a y such that y is a sufficient reason for x, then there exists a z such that [z is a sufficient reason for x and z is a sufficient reason for z]
29. (premise) for every x and for every y, if x is temporally necessary and y is a sufficient reason for x, then y is temporally necessary
30. (premise) for every y, if y is temporally necessary and y is a sufficient reason for y, then y is without limitations
31. (premise) for every y, if y is without limitations then necessarily [for every z, if z is not y, then y is greater than z]
32. (premise) it is not possible that there is a y such that y is greater than itself
33. (premise) necessarily, for every x and every y, if x is greater than y, then y is not greater than x

Most of these premises are pretty uncontroversial. 27 is just a statement of the principle of sufficient reason, which needs to be presupposed in order to make sense of empirical investigation. 28 states that explanations are not circular. Hence, something has to be self-explanatory. 30 states that only an ultimate being i.e. a being without any limitations could explain why it exists.

34. therefore, there exists a y such that y is a sufficient reason for TNB
35. therefore, if there exists a y such that y is a sufficient reason for TNB then there exists a z such that such that z is a sufficient reason for TNB and is a sufficient reason for z (z is a sufficient reason for itself)
36. therefore, there exists a z such that z is a sufficient reason for TNB and z is a sufficient reason for z
37. hence, there exists TNB such that TNB is a sufficient reason for TNB and TNB is a sufficient reason for itself

To prevent an infinite regress, which would render everything inexplicable, there needs to be some sort of explanatory stopping point. That stopping point cannot be a temporally contingent being, because it could not explain any temporally necessary beings.

38. if TNB is temporally necessary and is a sufficient reason for itself, then it is not temporally contingent
39. TNB is a sufficient reason for itself
40. TNB is temporally necessary and is a sufficient reason for itself
41. TNB is not temporally contingent
42. "TNB is temporally necessary" is equivalent to "TNB is not temporally contingent"
43. if TNB is temporally necessary then TNB is not temporally contingent, and if TNB is not temporally contingent, then TNB is temporally necessary
44. if TNB is not temporally contingent, then TNB is temporally necessary
45. so TNB is temporally necessary
46. hence, TNB is a sufficient reason for itself

I may have messed up the interpretation here. 39 and 46 seem to be identical, but I am not sure if there is a distinction in the formula between v and v1.

47. TNB is temporally necessary and is a sufficient reason for itself
48. if TNB is temporally necessary and is an explanation for itself, then TNB is without limitations

Only the metaphysical ultimate, or that than which nothing greater can be conceived can serve as the ultimate explanatory stopping point.

49. if TNB is without limitations, then necessarily, for every z, if z is not TNB, then TNB is greater than z
50. therefore, necessarily, for every z, if z is not TNB, then TNB is greater than z
51. necessarily, for every z, either z is not TNB or TNB is greater than z
52. necessarily, for every z, either z is not TNB or it is not the case that TNB is not greater than z

If TNB is the metaphysical ultimate, and therefore the greatest possible being, then any other object you pick cannot be greater than TNB.

53. necessarily, for every z, it is not the case that [z is not TNB and TNB is not greater than z]
54. necessarily, it is not the case that there is a z such that [z is not TNB and TNB is not greater than z)
55. therefore, it is not possible that there is a z such that [z is not TNB and TNB is not greater than z]

These steps deliver implications from 49, that all other objects besides TNB are inferior to TNB.

56. necessarily, there is no y such that y is greater than y
57. therefore, necessarily, for every y, it is not the case that y is greater than y
58. for every y, y is not greater than y
59. it is not the case that the universe is greater than the universe
60. either the universe is not greater than the universe or TNB is not the universe
61. either TNB is not the universe or the universe is not greater than the universe

60 and 61 are the same statement in reverse order. This is to set up the next steps of the argument.

62. if TNB is the universe, then the universe is not greater than the universe
63. if the universe is TNB, then TNB is the universe
64. if TNB is the universe, then the universe is not greater than TNB
65. for every y, if y is not greater than y, then here is what follows: [if the universe is TNB, then the universe is not greater than TNB]
66. necessarily, for every y, y not being greater than y implies that if the universe is TNB then the universe is not greater than TNB
67. necessarily, if the universe is TNB, then the universe is not greater than TNB

Here comes the hard part. It is technical and hard to understand, but I will state it and then explain it.

68. necessarily, for every x and for every y, if x is greater than y, then y is not greater than x, also, for every z, if z is not TNB, then TNB is greater than z
69. "necessarily, for every x and for every y, if x is greater than y, then y is not greater than x, also, for every z, if z is not TNB, then TNB is greater than z" implies that "necessarily, for every x and every y, if x is greater than y, then y is not greater than x, also, for every x, if z is not TNB, then TNB is greater than z"
70. necessarily, for every x and every y, if x is greater than y, then y is not greater than x, also, for every z, if z is not TNB, then TNB is greater than z
71. necessarily, the fact that "for every x and every y, if x is greater than y, then y is not greater than x, also, for every z, if z is not TNB then TNB is greater than z" implies that if the universe is not TNB, then the universe is not greater than TNB
72. necessarily, if the universe is not TNB, then the universe is not greater than TNB

So we've established the dilemma. Look at 72 and 67. The universe is not greater than TNB, regardless of whether or not the universe is TNB. This seems obvious just by looking at the two statements, but Maydole is thorough and will prove this deductively in steps 73 through 79.

73. necessarily, if the universe being identical with TNB means that the universe is not greater than TNB and if necessarily the universe not being identical with TNB means that the universe is not greater than TNB, then necessarily, the fact that either the universe is TNB or is not TNB means that necessarily, the universe is not greater than TNB
74. necessarily, the universe being identical with TNB means that the universe is not greater than TNB, and necessarily, the universe not being identical with TNB means that the universe is not greater than TNB
75. necessarily, whether or not the universe is TNB, the universe is not greater than TNB
76. necessarily, the universe either is or isn't TNB
77. therefore, necessarily, either the universe is not greater than TNB or the universe is not greater than TNB (damned if you do or damned if you don't)
78. therefore necessarily, the universe being either not greater than TNB or not greater than TNB means that the universe is not greater than TNB
79. therefore, necessarily, the universe is not greater than TNB

Now we go into the home stretch. we have established that the universe is not greater than The Necessary Being and cannot be greater than The Necessary being. Maydole will also establish that TNB has nothing greater than it and also has no equal. Something that has no equal and nothing greater is by definition supreme.

80. for every z, necessarily, no z is greater than TNB
81. if, for every z, necessarily there is no z greater than TNB, then necessarily, for every z, z is not greater than TNB

81 uses the Barcan formula, which is somewhat controversial. Graham Oppy has objected to it in the journal Philo. Yet I do not think his objections apply to this version of the argument. Both the if and then statements in 81 are basically the same thing re-worded. They both state that it is a necessary truth that nothing is greater than TNB.

82. necessarily, for every z, z is not greater than TNB
83. necessarily, there is no z that is greater than TNB
84. therefore, it is not possible that there is a z such that Z is greater than TNB
85. therefore, it is not possible that there is a z such that z is greater than TNB, and it is not possible that there is a z such that [z is not TNB and TNB is not greater than z]

This is the same as saying that it is not possible for anything to be greater than or even equal to TNB. The second half of 85 was derived from 55.

86. therefore TNB is supreme
87. Therefore, there exists a being that is supreme

Therefore, some being is supreme. It is either the universe or something distinct from the universe. This commits us to either theism or pantheism, and I think the latter is indefensible. If the universe is God (the metaphysical ultimate) then it follows with logical certainty that the universe cannot be improved upon, as it is the greatest conceivable being. This would mean that evil and any other deficiencies in the universe are illusory, and that the universe is temporally necessary. This would mean that the universe never began to exist, and will never go out of existence.

Hence, God exists, and is distinct from the universe.

The Madness of Wikipedia

Just a brief update before my next real post and video. I want to warn users on the use of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a good source of information if the issues you are researching are relatively uncontroversial. As long as the task for the Wikipedia entry is simply to gather information, such as related to general historical information, chemistry, food, and mathematics, Wikipedia does an excellent job.

When the task is to present information on a controversial issue, however, Wikipedia is a terrible source of information, as we can observe from the article on Dr. William Lane Craig.


Not only is the article biased, but any attempt to change the article to make it more informative, objective, and relevant, but it is under the control of several of Dr. Craig's intellectual opponents, who want to make Dr. Craig look as bad as possible.

The webcomic XKCD makes great fun of our excessive trust in Wikipedia:

Wikipedia may be useful, but please take its information with a hefty bit of salt.

Happy Hanukkah Everybody!!

Why No Theist Should be a Compatibilist

Theologians often ask the question: if God is sovereign over all creation, is it possible for humanity to be free? And if so, how? One of the recent attempts to reconcile divine sovereignty with human freedom is called the compatibilist approach, whereby determinism and free will are considered compatible. This approach is embraced mainly by theologians in Reformed Protestant or Calvinist denominations, such as John Frame and James White. Compatibilism is not the view of Augustine and may not even be the view of John Calvin. I intend to explain why no one who believes in an omniperfect God should ever take a compatibilist view under any circumstances.

The arguments presented here are ripped from Volume 1 of the 2011 Philosophia Christi, which is the trade journal of the Evangelical Philosophical Society. This video will be about free will, which is the view that people are capable of making choices and being held responsible for those choices.

First, let's define our terms:

Determinism - Determinism is the view that all events are governed by laws, which are statements of conditions under which certain effects must occur. For a determinist, Conditions + Laws = Decision.

Simple Indeterminism - Simple Indeterminism is the view that a part of human choice is randomly determined, much like rolling dice or spinning a roulette wheel. Some interpretations of quantum physics view subatomic particles as exhibiting this type of random behavior. For a simple indeterminist, Conditions + Laws + Random Variables = Decision.

Compatibilism - is the view that all events are governed by laws, which are statements of conditions under which certain effects must occur. This is the same definition as determinism, except that the compatibilist believes that such decisions can be considered free choices of which we can be held responsible. For a compatibilist, Conditions + Laws = Decision (which we can call a free choice).

Libertarian Free Will - This is sometimes called self-determinism. Libertarian free will is the position that humans are agents who are able to self-determine some of their behaviors. The libertarian holds that for an action to be free it must be caused by the agent who performs it, and must be done in such a way that no antecedent conditions determine the act. A libertarian agent who makes a choice in a situation could have chosen otherwise, even in the same circumstances. For a libertarian, Conditions + Laws + Agency = Decision.

I will be arguing for libertarian free will and and against compatibilism on two grounds:

1. Reasoning can only be done by an agent with libertarian free will.
2. The problem of evil cannot be resolved without libertarian free will.

One series of arguments against libertarian free will that I have read over the year is the argument that libertarian free will is incoherent or unintelligible. If God exists, then there has to be at least one agent who has libertarian free will, and, presumably, is able to reason. Here's why. Theism is the belief that there is an omniperfect God who is distinct from the physical world, and from all creation. If God did not have libertarian free will, then he would not be sovereign, but would be controlled by outside forces. Hence, one must believe in a God with libertarian free will in order to be a theist. Therefore, no theist can ever argue that libertarian free will is an incoherent idea. That would be inconsistent.

First argument: Reasoning can only be done by an agent with libertarian free will. Compatibilists will argue that reason does not require free will, but can be performed by anything with rational causes. To the compatibilist, what matters is not whether or not you are being controlled (that is a given), what matters is what controls you. If you are pumped full of drugs and it causes you to have a certain set of beliefs, those beliefs are not considered rational. However, if a persuasive philosopher delivers arguments and it causes you to have a certain set of beliefs, that is considered a free and reasonable choice.

One problem with compatibilist theories of reason is that they do not tell why some reasoning belongs to a particular agent. Because compatibilists deny the existence of autonomous agents, they cannot argue that reasoning belongs to an agent if that reasoning comes from that agent's autonomous will. Instead, the compatibilist usually argues that an agent is reasoning if that agent is reasons responsive. This does not really work. A mathematician's notepad may be responsive to the reasoning of a mathematician, and is being controlled by a rational agent. Are we then to say that the notepad is reasoning? A computer is responsive to a rational programmer's instructions, but the machine is not reasoning. Using someone else's reasoning is not the same as reasoning for yourself.

Compatibilists will respond to these types of manipulation arguments by altering their definition of what it means to be rational. They say that subjects are responsible for their decisions when they issue from a mechanism that is moderately reasons-responsive and is also the agent's own mechanism. An agent is moderately reasons-responsive if that agent has two things:
1. A regular pattern of reasons receptivity. This means that the pattern of receptiveness to reasons forms a coherent and intelligible pattern.
2. The agent must at least sometimes act based on his or her best reasons.
A Mechanism is the agent's own if the agent takes responsibility for the mechanism by seeing himself as the one that made the decision.

Suppose Jill, a logic professor and also a neuroscientist who is frustrated with her student Dan, plants a logic chip in his brain. The chip causes Dan to form beliefs based on logic that he otherwise would not have formed himself. For example, if Dan comes into class very tired, and is shown that A=B and B=C, he does not reason that A=C. The chip, however, registering that Dan has A=B and B=C as beliefs, causes Dan to believe that A=C. If the chip caused the belief to form in Dan, can we say that Dan reasoned to that belief? Is Dan responsible for that belief, even though it was caused by the logic chip? Suppose that the logic chip causes Dan to think that he made the decision and that he (Dan) is responsible for praise and blame. Does that even make any difference? I think not. For suppose that Jill programmed an error into the chip, and instead of forming the true belief that A=C in Dan's head, the chip's malfunction causes Dan to believe that A≠C. Can we say that Dan is the one who committed those mistakes? Can we hold Dan responsible for that false belief? The above scenario fulfills all the compatibilist criteria for reason, yet no one would say that Dan is responsible for the beliefs formed by the chip in Dan's head.

Compatibilists may also argue that reasons are causes and that a person's behavior is determined by the best and strongest reasons. If compatibilism is true, and then the bundle of reasons that support a decision must also compel a decision in an irresistible way. However, we know that people do not always make the reasonable decision. People reject conclusions that their best arguments support.

Here is an example: Suppose James came to believe that if reason requires libertarian free will, then compatibilism is false. After reading a number of books, James now believes the antecedent of this argument. He doesn't want to conclude that compatibilism is false, so he converts the modus ponens into a modus tollens. He claims to have learned from the undeniable truth of compatibilism that reason must be redefined so as to exclude the need for libertarian free will. The fact that we can reject a conclusion that our best reasons support is powerful evidence that reasons do not compel a conclusion.

The compatibilist account of reason fails to distinguish between compulsive actions that are occurring within the brain from reasoning that the agent does. Compatibilists have tried to get around it by altering the definition of reason. These new definitions fail because they either attribute reason to inanimate objects such as a notepad, or they deny reason to human beings. Without a distinction between free choices and compulsive acts, there can be no such thing as human reasoning. Compatibilism cannot make such a distinction, and therefore cannot account for human reasoning.

Second argument: The problem of evil cannot be resolved without libertarian free will. The definition of God is "that than which nothing greater can be conceived." God is the metaphysical ultimate, and is by definition an omniperfect being. Such an omniperfect being would be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. Any being that lacks these attributes would be deficient, and therefore would not be God.

The classical objection to the existence of God is called the problem of evil. Evil is by definition a violation of a moral ought, and therefore a deficiency. God is perfect and can have no evil in him, yet our world is filled with evil. How can an omniperfect God co-exist with a non-omniperfect creation? The traditional free will defense of this view, supported by Augustine, has to find some way of severing God's omniperfect desires from the morally imperfect desires of created beings.

Any solution to this problem, short of denying the existence of moral evil, will require that the morally deficient wills of the creatures be autonomous from the omniperfect will of God. If it is better for some creatures with autonomous wills to enter relationship with God than it is for an entire universe to be free of evil, then we may have an explanation as to why evil exists in the first place. The very definition of autonomy restricts which possible worlds are created by God. Such is not in any way a restriction on God's omnipotence, as omnipotence is defined as maximum ability to actualize different states of affairs. To say that God could make an autonomous creature freely choose to act differently than the creature would have acted is as incoherent as saying that God should be able to make a square circle.

Compatibilism, on the other hand, faces one insurmountable obstacle which Jerry Walls calls CI.

CI: If freedom and determinism are compatible, God could have created a world in which all persons freely did only the good at all times.

This world wouldn't just be some logically possible world, uncreatable due to creaturely freedom, but a fully actualizable and creatable world. I will be arguing that any being who would not prefer to create such a world cannot be omnibenevolent. I agree with Antony Flew when he said: "Certainly it would be monstrous to suggest that anyone, however truly responsible in the eyes of men, could fairly be called to account and punished by the God who has rigged his every move. All the bitter words which have ever been written against the wickedness of the God of predestination--especially when he is also thought of as filling Hell with all but the elect--are amply justified." Jerry Walls illustrates this by asking us to imagine the following scenario:

Suppose a preschool is run by a woman who is a master of psychology, neuroscience, and human manipulation. Unbeknownst to their parents, she deliberately conditions the children who attend her preschool. Some of the children she conditions to behave virtuously and live productive lives. Some of the children she conditions to behave in a wicked manner, and sometimes even to become thieves, rapists, and murderers. Let us assume that she succeeds perfectly in her project and each child turns out exactly as she intends.

She avoids detection, and leaves the preschool to go to law school, become a lawyer, and eventually become a judge. One day, a man who once attended her preschool is brought to trial on child molestation charges. Sure enough, overwhelming evidence is brought in, including a confession by the man that he did in fact molest many children. The judge condemns him as a menace to society and sentences him to life in prison with no possibility for parole.

In prison, the man realizes that the judge was his preschool teacher and that she deliberately conditioned him to be a child molester. She could have just as easily conditioned him to be a well-adjusted person and an upstanding citizen. How could we possibly avoid concluding that this woman is evil and directly responsible for the evil acts of these former students? I do not think there is any way. If compatibilism is true, then the situation parallels our situation with God. If humans commit acts of evil, and there is no autonomous will, how can we avoid declaring God evil for making humans act in such a way?

The compatibilist might object that God needs evil to exist in order for him to be maximally great. If we do not sin, how can God show forgiveness? This view makes God dependent on creation in order to be a maximally great (omniperfect) being. If this is the case, then God is dependent on creation, and his creative decree was not a free act, but a necessary act. If God is dependent upon creation, and if his creative decree is not a libertarian free act, then classical theism is false. Such a view is not classical theism, but more of a pantheism, as it closely resembles the theology of Baruch Spinoza.

The compatibilist might fire back that evil needs to exist in order for conscious creatures to appreciate the good. This is nonsense. First, experiencing evil is not necessary to appreciate the good. Otherwise, God himself could not appreciate the good until he experiences evil.

On compatibilism, God is the great puppeteer, and there is no autonomous will. God could either instill with a sense of appreciation anyone who thinks of the good. Another option is for God to hardwire us with an appreciation of the good, the way we are hardwired to believe in other minds, to believe in the reality of the past, and to believe that objects that go out of sight continue to exist when we are not observing them. In either case, God can just make people appreciate the good. Evil is not needed to do that.

In conclusion then, we have two reasons that no one can consistently believe in God and in compatibilism. First, libertarian free will is necessary to account for human reasoning. Second, libertarian free will is necessary to reconcile God's morally perfect will from our morally imperfect wills. Moses Maimonides said that anyone who believes in God must believe in both God's sovereignty and in libertarian free will, even if that person cannot explain how both can be true. It might be explainable, or it might be a divine mystery beyond human comprehension. One thing, however, is for certain. No theist can rationally believe in compatibilism. It simply is not an option for anyone who believes in God.

Yad L'Achim = Frum Hamas?

I have been reading about anti-missionary terrorist organizations like Yad L'Achim in Israel, who harass and sometimes murder fellow Jews should they ever come to believe in Jesus. If you think about the excuses Yad L’Achim makes for its actions, the reasoning is also pretty ridiculous. It goes something like this:

Messianics are a threat to Israel. Their presence in Israel is a corrupting influence on our society. They come to the area on false pretensions and attempt to Christianize us, undermining our values, our communities, and stealing our children’s souls. We have a right to defend our beliefs and act against those who would destroy them. Their very existence in our land is a threat to us. It would not have bothered us of those Messianics had lived anywhere else, but their encroachment into our territory is an act of aggression and must be stopped by any means necessary.

This sounds familiar for some reason. What happens if we replace Messianics with Jews, Israel with The Middle East, and Christianize with Westernize?

Jews are a threat to the Middle East. Their presence in the Middle East is a corrupting influence on our society. They come to the area on false pretensions and attempt to Westernize us, undermining our values, our communities, and stealing our children’s souls. We have a right to defend our beliefs and act against those who would destroy them. Their very existence in our land is a threat to us. It would not have bothered us of those Jews had lived anywhere else, but their encroachment into our territory is an act of aggression and must be stopped by any means necessary.

Wow. That sounds like the exact same reasoning that Palestinian terrorist organizations use to justify their actions! I guess that explains a lot.

Answering Tovia Singer: Was There a Conspiracy?

One of Singer's most effective techniques is his use of conspiracy theory reasoning. Specifically, the central claim of his Let's Get Biblical series is that the New Testament authors deliberately and maliciously changed the Tanakh so that they could paint Jesus into it. Singer also claims that the New Testament writers altered and fabricated events in the life of Jesus in order to strengthen the case for his messiahship, and that the church conspired to cover it all up. Seeing how conspiracy theories seem to be all the rage these days, it is no surprise to me why Tovia Singer is the most successful of the anti-missionaries.

Conspiracy theorists make heavy use of three techniques:

Technique #1. Arguing from coincidence. Conspiracy theorists love to exploit the phenomenon called pareidolia. Pareidolia is what happens when our minds impose patterns on randomness. Ink blot tests are an example of this, so is our tendency to see faces in rocks, trees, and clouds. Did a politician cancel a flight at the last minute, right before a disaster such as 9/11? There are a lot of politicians and they tend to travel a lot. Flight cancellations are not that uncommon, so it could be a coincidence. But not if you're a conspiracy theorist! No. That cancellation is proof positive that the politician is deeply involved in an elaborate conspiracy of evil masterminds!

Technique #2. Use of explanatory gaps as proof of their theory. Conspiracy theorists recognize that almost any explanation will have "errant data" i.e. facts or alleged facts that do not fit the official explanation. Errant data are the currency of conspiracy theorists, the proof that their pet theory is correct. The problem with this technique is that it often fails to properly weigh the criteria for justifying historical explanations.

The fact that a conspiracy theory perfectly fits all the errant data, and fills all the holes left by the official explanation is not in itself proof, or even strong evidence that the theory is correct. Explanations are judged by a wide range of criteria, primarily the ability to explain future discoveries. Other criteria include the ability to imply other statements describing present, observable data, as well as how ad hoc the explanation is (it must include fewer new suppositions which are not already implied to some extent by existing beliefs). Conspiracy theories tend to have strong explanatory scope, but also tend to be very ad hoc, or contrived.

Technique #3. Exploiting the audience's ignorance. I love speakers who ask questions. It helps to engage the audience. It makes the audience feel they are part of a two-way dialogue. It helps the audience take interest in the subject, and feel that they are the ones arriving at the speaker's conclusion. All of this is good. What is not so good is when a speaker abuses this technique to derive his or her own conclusions from the often ill-informed assumptions of the audience members.

Here is a series of errors that conspiracy theorists often make, all of them ripped from Dr. Jeremy Goodenough of the University of East Anglia.

Error #1. Moving from the accepted fact that X once lied to the belief that nothing X says is trustworthy. This is a favorite of Holocaust deniers. If there is just one demonstrable mistake in for instance a witness statement, the whole statement is rejected as a forgery. The deniers argue that since there are several historical interpretations of the Holocaust, therefore it never happened. In other words: If one historian suggests that only 4 million Jews fell victim to the Nazi persecution, and another historian suggests 7 million, it means the Holocaust must be a false construction.

Error #2. An inability to make rational or proportional means-end judgments. Conspiracy theorists argue that some group of conspirators has been acting to further some aim or to prevent some action taking place, but often fail to ask whether such a group of conspirators could further their aim in some easier or less expensive or less risky fashion.

Error #3. Treating evidence against the theory as evidence for it. Conspiracy theorists do not just argue that the evidence could point toward a different conclusion. Rather, they claim that the evidence supporting the official verdict is suspect, fraudulent, faked or coerced. And because this fraudulent evidence exists, that further proves that the conspiracy theory is right!

Error #4. The classic logical fallacy of post hoc ergo proper hoc (after this, therefore because of this). The conspiracy theorist claims that because event B occurred after, or even as a result of event A, therefore, event A was caused to bring about event B. For example: The First World War happened after the death of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and there is clearly a sense in which it happened because of his death: there is a causal chain leading from the death of the Archduke to the first World War. Though these effects of the assassination may now appear obvious, that is no indication that such a progression was obvious to the people involved in these events at that time. There is no evidence that the people who assassinated the Archduke had any clue that it would bring about a world war. Hindsight is overwhelmingly clearer than foresight.

We observe these techniques and errors all the time in Singer's tape series. For example, he commits error #1 when he argues that the New Testament accounts contradict each other in certain details, and therefore cannot be trusted to represent history. Quite the contrary. Livy and Polybius give two irreconcilable accounts of Hannibal's campaign as he crossed the Alps and invaded Rome. Yet no historian doubts that Hannibal did mount such a campaign.

Singer dismisses the Septuagint as a church invention. Singer claims as his evidence that that in the book of Acts (Acts 7:14, to be exact), Stephen described the entrance of the patriarchs into Egypt, but Stephen got the number wrong, claiming that seventy-five souls went down from Canaan to Egypt rather than 70, which is stated by the Masroetic text in Genesis 46:27, Exodus 1:5, and Deuteronomy 10:22.

Singer then makes the claim that the church altered the Septuagint so that the text in those three locations would fit Stephen's speech! The Septuagint, or at least the Pentateuch, was translated from Hebrew into Greek under Ptolemy Philadelphus around 250 years before the birth of Jesus. Singer claims that the church changed the numbers to cover Stephen's error. How does he deal with the fact that the Septuagint still reads seventy souls in Deuteronomy? Obviously the church blundered when the altered the text and missed it. How is it we have no manuscript evidence of the alleged tampering, such as ancient fragments that read "seventy" in all three places? The church was powerful and thorough in covering its tracks.

This argument utilizes technique #2, where Singer concocts his elaborate tale of fraud and conspiracy. He then goes to the text to imply that the textual evidence perfectly fits his theory's predictions. In reality, he looked at the differences in the texts, and contrived a story to fit. In his argument, Singer commits errors #2 and 3. It would be a lot easier for the church to cover Stephen's alleged error by altering his speech in the book of Acts, over which the church had far greater control than it had over the Greek Pentateuch. He also paints the church as an entity crafty, organized, and powerful enough to obliterate all manuscript evidence of its alterations, and yet careless enough to forget to alter Deuteronomy.

By the way, the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran agree with the Septuagint, so Stephen might have been quoting a variant of the text. Regardless, Singer's explanation is one of the Rube Goldberg variety. It is woefully and unnecessarily fanciful.

One of the best ways to prepare yourself for dealing with people like Tovia Singer, is to learn the methods and fallacies behind conspiracy theorists by reading the articles in the links below:

A Quick Introduction:
http://www.fontcraft.com/idiotwars/?p=8

A List of Conspiracy Theorist Fallacies:
http://warp.povusers.org/grrr/conspiracytheories.html

Critical Thinking About Conspiracies (long, but worth it):
http://www.uea.ac.uk/~j097/CONSP01.htm

Answering Tovia Singer: Did God Create Evil?

In page 395 of his study guide, Let's Get Biblical, Tovia Singer answers a question about the Rabbinic doctrine of Satan. The questioner asks how a God who is good and holy can possibly be the author of evil, not just in the sense of allowing for evil to exist, but in the sense that God actively creates evil.

Singer responds that God placed both good and evil into the world. He cites two verses the first is Deuteronomy 30:15 which states:

"See, I [God] have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil."

The second is Isaiah 45:7 which states:

"I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I the Lord do all these things."

Singer then goes on to attack Christian doctrine.

The two verses, Isaiah 45:7 and Deuteronomy 30:15, however, pose a serious theological problem for Christians who maintain that God did not create Satan, the angel of evil. According to Christian doctrine, as you suggest in your question, Satan was the highest-ranking angel who, through is own act of spiritual defiance and outright disobedience, became the chief adversary and slanderer of God and the embodiment of evil in this world. In Christian theology God never created evil; He is only the author of righteousness and perfection, as you maintained in your question. Therefore, God could never create something as sinister as the devil himself. Rather, Satan's unyielding wickedness is the result of his own spiritual rebellion.

Singer then compares the Christian view of good and evil to the dualism of Zoroastrianism, where the God Ahura Mazda has two equal manifestations, Spenta (good) and Angra (evil). Singer then states that angel means "messenger," and that no angel in the Tanakh ever opposes God's will, Satan included.

Singer then mentions the book of Job, where Satan appears before God to test the faithfulness of Job. God allows Satan to do so as long as the latter does not kill Job. According to Singer "Satan obediently follows his Creator's instructions" a statement which implies that God actually ordered Satan to torment Job, rather than giving Satan permission. Then Singer states:

Still, by the end of this unparalleled biblical narrative, Job's virtue prevails over Satan's unyielding torment. While in Christian terms Job's personal spiritual triumph is a theological impossibility, in Jewish terms it stands out as the embodiment of God's salvation program for mankind.

Singer then goes on to attack the NIV translation as a skewed understanding that conceals Isaiah's original message in order to preserve a Christian doctrine that contradicts what the Jewish scriptures so clearly teach.

I have to give Rabbi Singer points for rhetoric. When read by an average individual, his argument implies that the NIV translators deliberately mistranslated Isaiah 45, that Deuteronomy 30:15 states that God actively creates evil (and therefore we have two passages to support the claim instead of merely one verse), that the King James translates Isaiah 45:7 as moral evil, and that God actively ordered Satan to torment Job. When pressed by an apologist on these claims, Singer can rightly say that he never explicitly stated any of them. Pretty clever, huh?

First off, a little background about the book of Job. Christian theology does not state that God and Satan are in any way equals or counterparts. All angels, including Satan, are inferior created beings who are as helpless to resist God's omnipotence as we are. This is why Satan has to ask permission in order to torment God's servant Job.

The narrative then continues where Satan destroys Job's entire estate, kills his family, and if that was not enough, inflicts plagues and illnesses upon the poor man. Job's friends try to comfort him by offering Job a theodicy, an explanation as to why a good God is allowing Job to suffer.

After Job continues to complain, God finally appears, rebukes Job and his friends, and then tells Job that God does not owe anyone an explanation to why they suffer. We do not have God's vast perspective and extraordinary knowledge. We were not there at the creation of the world. We are weak, short-lived creatures who may not even be able to comprehend God's reasons for his actions.

The focus of Job is the problem of evil. The fact that we have no explanation for why a good God allows evil to exist and may never have such an explanation does not in any way indicate that there is no explanation.

God does restore Job's fortunes at the end of the book, but there is no indication that this is a reward for Job's faithfulness. In fact, it probably isn't, considering what Job says at the beginning of the chapter:

“I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
‘Hear, and I will speak;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.’
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”
(Job 42:2-6)

In Deuteronomy 30:15, the text seems to indicate that Israel is given two options: be faithful, loyal and good, and you will have life and prosperity. Be apostate, disloyal and evil, and you will have death and ruin. Where is the indication that God actively created evil? I can't find any, but maybe Tovia is drawing his ideas from the Rabbinic tradition. What does said tradition say about this verse?

R'Yochanan said of this verse: From the day that God made this declaration, goodness and evil did not emanate from His mouth; rather, evil comes of its own accord to one who does evil, and good comes to one who does good.

What about Isaiah 45:7 where God states that he creates evil? The word "evil" has more than one meaning, and those alternate (non-moral) meanings were in greater use during the time that the King James Bible was written. I was curious which definition of evil Tovia meant in this context. Here are five definitions of evil I found in the dictionary.

1. that which is evil; evil quality, intention, or conduct: to choose the lesser of two evils.
2. the force in nature that governs and gives rise to wickedness and sin.
3. the wicked or immoral part of someone or something: The evil in his nature has destroyed the good.
4. harm; mischief; misfortune: to wish one evil.
5. anything causing injury or harm: Tobacco is considered by some to be an evil.

Is this talking about evil in a moral sense, or in one of the non-moral senses? Let's look at the Hebrew to see if it helps us:

יֹוצֵר אֹור וּבֹורֵא חֹשֶׁךְ
עֹשֶׂה שָׁלֹום וּבֹורֵא רָע
אֲנִי יְהוָה עֹשֶׂה כָל־אֵלֶּה

Forming light and creating darkness
establishing peace and creating ra,
I, the LORD create all these

The word in question is: רָע (ra, Strong's H7451) which can mean bad, evil, distress, misery, injury, or calamity. Basically, it's the same as our English word "bad" and carries a lot of the same meanings. Which meaning? Let's look at the context. The verse features two parallel lines, each line comparing two opposite ideas. God creates light, and its opposite, darkness. God establishes peace, and its opposite, chaos.

The next question is: is this just my interpretation, or is there Rabbinic support of this? I found one comment from Redak in the Judaica Press Tanach, who stated that in this context, רָע means "the opposite of peace, war with Babylon." Redak seems to indicate that this isn't a statement that God creates moral evil, but a statement that God creates peace and breaks peace, or that he both calms and agitates.

Oh, I almost forgot. Singer complains that some Christians believe Isaiah 14:12 is about Satan. I will admit that the oracle delivered by Isaiah is addressed to Nebuchadnezzar, but there is one part of this oracle that seems different:

How you are fallen from heaven,
O Day Star, son of Dawn!
How you are cut down to the ground,
you who laid the nations low!
You said in your heart,
"I will ascend to heaven;
above the stars of God
I will set my throne on high;
I will sit on the mount of assembly
in the far reaches of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High."
But you are brought down to Sheol,
to the far reaches of the pit.
(Isaiah 14:12-15)

I'm not sure if you can apply this to Nebuchadnezzar. What pagan king, after all, tried to supplant God's rule over heaven, only to fall from it?

Answering Tovia Singer: An Introduction

Today, we begin our answering the anti-missionaries series. I intend to focus on specific anti-missionaries, give their backgrounds, and show you their arguments and rhetorical tricks, so that you can better debate them.

Perhaps the most famous anti-missionary is Tovia Singer. He is a charming and charismatic speaker, sort of the Rabbinic version of Ahmed Deedat. Neither is much of a scholar, but both are fantastic showmen, able to stir up crowds with their golden-tongued rhetoric.

I heard from a Messianic Rabbi who apparently was a long-time friend of Rabbi Singer, that Singer at one point in his life almost became a Messianic Jew. After rejecting this option, its seems that Singer decided to pursue a career to keep his fellow Jews away from Jesus at any cost. He is now the director of Outreach Judasim. He has his own radio show in Israel and his own tape series and study companion, both titled Let's Get Biblical.

As Michael Flanigan gives in his testimonial for Singer's book: "Check all the references to Strong's Driver and Briggs, or any other resource you have." I couldn't agree more. Two resources I recommend for a more in-depth study are biblos.com which has the Bible in almost every conceivable language, interlinear versions, and Strong's numbers for further research. The other is the Blue Letter Bible, which gives you access to word study tools. Both are completely free, and don't even require you to register!

In fact, I recommend that every Biblical apologist go through Singer's material with a Bible study group. Nearly all the apologetics disasters come from Lone Ranger apologists.

That said, go slowly through Singer's tapes and his study guide and thoroughly research answers to his objections. This will take a lot of time, a matter of years. Be patient and keep plugging along, because if you can finish this monstrous series, you will be prepared to obliterate almost any Biblical skeptic in debate.

For the rest of you who do not want to engage in such a humongous chore, you can just cheat. James Trimm has released an audio series with a lot of the answers to Singer's objections in his Let's Get Truthful audio series. Michael Brown has also released his own audio series called Countering the Counter-Missionaries. He also gives even more detailed responses in his five volume book series Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus.

My series will not attempt to provide any sort of an exhaustive answer to Tovia Singer's objections, which may at first glance seem overpowering, but take heart. Singer is a powerful speaker, but a weak Biblical scholar who makes a lot of basic errors. I intend to not only expose some of his errors but I also intend to bring something unique to the table: an explanation of how Tovia uses his rhetorical skills to make a relatively weak argument sound much, much stronger than it actually is. So yes, Tovia. Let's get Biblical.

Abusing Sources: Tovia Singer on Biblical Hebrew

On my list of least favorite anti-missionaries, I think Tovia Singer ranks #1, at least right now. The guy has a charming personality and is a great speaker, no doubt. But he also reminds me a lot of a used car salesman. He will butter you up, tell funny stories, and get you to like him. If you are a Jew, he is out to get you by hook or by crook.

One of Tovia's favorite tricks is his arbitrary use of translations. If the English helps his case, he will us that. He will say something like, "The King James Bible, which is not the slightest bit sympathetic to Judaism, says such and such." When the Hebrew is more convenient, he uses the Hebrew. Generally, he prefaces it with "You don't read Hebrew very well, do you?"

What's worse is when he uses the fact that he knows Hebrew and his audience does not, so that he can give a sort of argument from authority. Here is an example:

In his answers to audience questions section of his book: Let's Get Biblical (page 283), Singer responds to a question regarding Isaiah 53:10. The questioner asks about the phrase: "his days will be prolonged" and wonders why this phrase cannot apply to Jesus. Since Jesus was raised from the dead into an immortal body, and is technically still incarnate (as he will be when he returns), he has been alive as a human for about 2000 years. Were his days not prolonged?

After bellyaching about Christian misinterpretation of the Psalm which represents Israel, and after mentioning that the Hebrew word זָ֫רַע (zera, Strong's 2233) means only literal children and never metaphorical children, such as in Isaiah 57:4:
"Are you not children of transgression,
the seed [ זָ֫רַע (zera)] of deceit," (oops)

and of course before his attack on Nicaea and the divinity of Jesus, there is a paragraph where he gives a response to the question that is actually being asked!

This response, however, does little to relieve their problem. To begin with, the Hebrew words יַאֲרִיךְ יָמִים (ya'arich yamim), meaning "long life" in this verse do not mean or refer to an eternal life which has no end, but rather a lengthening of days which eventually come to an end. These Hebrew words are therefore never applied in Tanach to anyone who is to live forever. In fact, the words ya'arich yamim appear in a number of places throughout the Jewish scriptures, including Deuteronomy 17:20, Deuteronomy 25:15, Proverbs 28:16, and Ecclesiastes 8:13. In each and every verse where this phrase appears, these words refer to an extended mortal life, not an eternal one. When the Jewish scriptures speak of an eternal resurrected life, as in Daniel 12:2, the Hebrew words לְחַיֵּי עֹולָם (l'chayai olam) are used.

This is a butchery of grammar. The term יַאֲרִיךְ יָמִים (ya'arich yamim) does not mean long life, as the word יַאֲרִיךְ (ya'arich) is not an adjective. It is the imperfect tense or prefixed conjugation of the verb אָרַך (arach, Strong's 748). So the term יַאֲרִיךְ יָמִים (ya'arich yamim) does not mean "long life" but "will prolong [his/her/its] days." It means exactly the same thing in Hebrew as it does in English. It means that the days will be made longer. How much longer? Generally, when the term is used in English it refers to a lengthening of days which eventually come to an end. It is very rarely the term we use in English to mean "make someone live forever." Generally we use the term "give eternal life" or perhaps "immortalize" to mean that.

When someone has an extra year to live, we say their life has been prolonged. When someone has an extra ten years to live, we say their life has been prolonged more, right? So if God wanted to prolong someone's days to the maximum extent, what would he do? He would give the person eternal life, right?

Besides, if Tovia Singer is right and Isaiah 53 is about Israel, does this mean that Israel is supposed to experience a lengthening of days which eventually come to an end? I hope not.

Abusing Sources: Benjamin Blech on the New Testament

Today, we are going to be looking at a section of Understanding Judaism by Benjamin Blech. Most of the book is a decent introduction to Orthodox Judaism. I say decent because there are better books out there on the subject. If you want an introduction to Orthodox Judaism, To Be A Jew by Hayim Donin is the best one on that subject. Now back to our topic. Understanding Judaism takes the occasional jab at Christian doctrines. However, near the end of the book, the author goes seemingly into a rage, accusing Jesus of desecrating and abrogating the laws of Moses.

One technique the anti-missionaries (and conspiracy theorists and college professors) use is called smuggling assumptions. In a normal presentation about a controversial topic, the presenter will first introduce the issue with statements that are generally undisputed by all sides of the debate. The presenter will then tell his or her side of the argument and respond to objections. The less honest presenter, however, will smuggle statements that are in fact disputed by the other sides into his or her introduction statements, which are assumed to be uncontroversial. See how many smuggled assumptions you can catch in the following passage.

It was Jesus who, when walking with his disciples on a Sabbath through the wheat fields, allowed his companions to pick and eat ears of wheat. When rabbis censured them for desecration of the Sabbath law, Jesus replied, "The son of man is master of the Sabbath" (Matthew 12:1-8). This was not a case of mortal danger legitimizing the violation of the Sabbath. There was no emergency, and yet Jesus permitted the desecration of the Sabbath. The old law could be replaced with the new. The Old Testament would be dismissed as secondary and nonbinding in light of the New Testament, which stressed faith over law.

There is an unresolved discrepancy between Jesus' practice and his claim "Do not suppose that I have come to do away with the law or the prophets. I have not come to do away with them but to enforce them. For I tell you, as long as Heaven and earth endure, not one dotting of an 'i' or crossing of a 't' will be dropped from the law until it is all observed. Anyone, therefore, who weakens one of the slightest of these commands, and teaches other to do so will be ranked lowest in the kingdom of Heaven; but anyone who observes them and teaches others to do so will be ranked high in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:17-19).

When Jesus and his disciples failed to observe a fast, the justification was: "No one sews a new patch of unshrunken cloth on an old coat; for if he does, the patch tears away, the new from the old, and makes the hole worse than ever, and no one pours new wine into old wine skins; for if he odes, the wine bursts the skins. New wine has to be put into fresh skins" (Mark 2:21-22). The law was the old, and had to be done away with. If it had any justification, it was only for sinners: "I agree that the law is excellent--provided it is legitimately used, with the understanding the law is not intended for upright men, but for the lawless and disorderly, the Godless and irreligious, the irreverent and profane, men who kill their fathers or mothers, murderers, immoral people, men sexually perverted, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, or whatever else is contrary to sound teaching, as set forth in the glorious good news of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted" (1 Timothy 1:8-11). The righteous of faith do not need law. The dietary laws could be disregarded: "All foods are clean" (Mark 7:19). Clearly stated biblical laws could be disregarded: "They [the Jews] were told, 'Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a Certificate of Divorce,' but I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife on any ground except unfaithfulness, makes her commit adultery, and anyone who marries her after she is divorced commits adultery" (Matthew 5:31f).

The list is long. The facts are incontrovertible. The one who claimed he came not to do away with the law or the prophets acted contrary to this assertion. By his deeds he taught that what God had said long ago could be revised, amended, and improved.

Blech then quotes anachronistically from Maimonedes, who, having Jesus in mind when he wrote this, said that the Mosaic law as understood and interpreted by the Rabbis is eternal and absolutely unchangeable. If anyone challenges the Rabbinic understanding of the Mosaic law, no matter how many miracles he conjures up to support his claims, is a false prophet.

In short, Blech's case is that Jesus violated the law of Moses, knew that he was violating the law of Moses, and then made excuses for his disobedience afterward. The main smuggled assumption in this section is that all sides agree that Jesus did violate the laws of Moses, and the debate is over whether his reasons for violating the law was justified. But did Jesus even violate the Mosaic law?

First, let's take a look at different Rabbinical views of this issue. Remember that Benjamin Blech's objection is not that Jesus' view is inconsistent within the Christian system. His objection is that it is inherently wrong to abrogate the law of Moses or to violate it in any way outside of a life-or-death emergency.

When I was listening to a presentation by a Kollel Rabbi regarding the rulings in tractate Eruvin of the Talmud, page 13B. In it, the sages discuss what to do with contradictory rulings. Their solution was eilu v' eilu, both are the word of God.
To solve the problem of eilu v' eilu, one of the sages says this: Torah was given on 98 different levels. That means there are different levels in Torah. At each level, the practical manifestation will be different. If there is an argument between the house of Hillel and the house of Shammai, in 49 levels up there, the halacha follows Shammai. In 49 levels, we do like Hillel, and all levels are 100% right. We can only follow one of those 98 levels at any given time, but those other rulings and interpretations are not wrong. They are just attached to a different level.

So even according to the Rabbis, there are many different, coherent bodies of law. That way, Israel can follow one set of rulings in one age and another set of rulings in another age. If this is the case, what is the problem with Jesus interpreting the law of Moses? On this system, perhaps Jesus' rulings are one of those levels. So I don't even see why a Rabbi would even give such an objection.

What about the idea that all of the "forever" laws in the Pentatuch are eternal and immutable? Let's take a look at the Bible.

It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations, in all your dwelling places, that you eat neither fat nor blood.
(Leviticus 3:17)

And the context does not restrict this to the priestly class, either. This is a command for all of Israel. No cholent for you!

But of course, we have to ask the question. Did Jesus even resort to something as drastic as changing the law? Let's examine the claims in order.

First up, Matthew 12. The passage says nothing about whether or not Jesus gave his disciples permission to pluck the heads of grain, but just that the disciples did so. No explicit violation of the Mosaic law has occurred. Instead the disciples are violating a Pharisaic interpretation of the law, and not the law itself. Also, nobody is stealing from the fields. Leviticus 19 allows people to take the grain from the edges of the fields.

In Mark 2, there is no indication that it was a fast day on the Jewish calendar. Mark states that the Pharisees and disciples of John were fasting, not the whole of Israel. This was a voluntary fast. No law was broken here.

In Mark 7, Jesus is declaring that it is not food that makes someone spiritually unclean, but wicked speech. The side comment that Jesus declared all foods clean is Mark's interpretation, if it was even in the original text at all (and there is strong reason to doubt this). Even if it was, it could easily be interpreted as Mark's suggestion to his gentile readership that they need not follow the Jewish dietary laws, which would have cut these gentiles off from their families and communities.

And besides, Midrash Tehillim 146:4 asks: "What is meant by '[The Lord] frees the prisoners'?" The answer given is: "Some say that every creature that is considered unclean in the present world, the Holy one blessed be He will declare clean in the age to come." So the idea of changing the dietary laws is not foreign to the Rabbis themselves. Remember that Blech's objection is not that changing the dietary laws is inconsistent within the Christian system. Blech's objection is that it is inherently wrong to change the dietary law. And to any follower of Rabbinic tradition, this objection is untenable.

The reference to 1 Timothy is an attack on Paul, not Jesus, and it misunderstands Paul's view of the law. Here is the whole paragraph:

Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.
(1 Timothy 1:8-11)

Paul did not hate the law. He explicitly said that the law is good. He also mentioned that the laws of Moses, as well as law in general, exists because of human wickedness. If we were all perfectly righteous, perhaps life would be more like it was in Eden, where a very simple body of law was all that was needed.

When you read passages such as the long passage I cited in Understanding Judaism, remember that the Rabbis and skeptics alike take a lot of creative liberty, quoting short passages and adding a whole lot of their own personal commentary, until the passage they are quoting doesn't even resemble its original meaning in the context of the New Testament. Watch out for this when reading Rabbinic literature.

Internet Infidels Cannot Argue Consistently

In a previous video, I argued that Jewish anti-missionaries often argue inconsistently, holding the New Testament to a level of skepticism to which they would never hold their own writings.

At least the Internet Infidels do not have the same problem. They are willing to hold any religious text to the same level of scrutiny. Yet I still think that these skeptics are just as inconsistent, and deceptively so, as the anti-missionaries.

Skeptic John Loftus loves to bash Christian apologists for doing what he calls a "retreat to the possible." Instead of offering an answer to the skeptic's objection, the apologist will instead insist that as long as a solution to the problem is possible (e.g. the problem of evil), then the objection fails.

This complaint, I believe, is unwarranted. It confuses two different types of possibility: epistemic possibility and metaphysical possibility. If something is epistemically possible, then for all we know, it could be true. If something is metaphysically possible, then it is both logically coherent and does not contradict a known necessary truth. If our retreat to the possible is a retreat to epistemic possibility, then I agree that this may very well be an argument from ignorance. If it is a retreat to metaphysical possibility, then the argument is not from ignorance. It is a demonstration that two concepts (e.g. God and evil) are not logically incompatible.

However, many skeptics will give the same argument from ignorance, a retreat to the epistemically possible, of which they accuse Christian apologists. Just think with me a minute about some of the arguments for God. There's the Leibnizian Cosmological Argument, where everything needs an explanation for its existence, and demonstrates that God's existence is self-explanatory while the physical world's existence is not. There's the Kalam Argument where the physical world's origin entails its cause. There is the Teleological Argument where the fine-tuning of the constants and quantities at the beginning of the universe point to design. There are moral, aesthetic and is-ought arguments which demonstrate that certain values that we have to believe in to live out our lives are both mind-dependent and objective. Hence, only an eternal and perfect mind can explain them. There are entire families of epistemic arguments which show that our beliefs in inductive reasoning, the reliability of our mental faculties, and the reliability of our sense perception are unjustified without God. Finally, there is the Ontological Argument, of which I have made two videos, which shows that our modal intuitions entail the existence of God.

Alvin Plantinga's Two Dozen or so Theistic Arguments

The responses from skeptics are numerous. They object to the fact that the second law of thermodynamics gives us a finite past, by arguing that someone might hypothetically be able to construct a perpetual motion machine based on Brownian motion. They object to the expansion of the universe entailing its beginning by appealing to wildly speculative scenarios based on certain variations of string theory. They argue that teleological arguments are invalid because you cannot calculate the probability of an event after it has occurred. They argue that moral values are either not mind-dependent after all, or that they they are not objective. All of these objections seem to be pretty desperate and implausible. the question is: how do we show the absurdity of these objections?

I think the solution is simple: Ask the skeptic if he or she would accept the same line of reasoning for Young Earth Creationism. This is not to knock Young Earth Creationism (although I myself am an Old Earth Creationist), but to use it as an example. Because if there is one thing that atheists and other "non-prophets" hate, it is Young Earth Creationism!

If the skeptic says that the physical world came into existence uncaused and not out of anything and just happened to have the fine-tuning of values such as the expansion, argue that perhaps the world came into existence 6,000 years ago, uncaused and out of nothing. Or perhaps our solar system came into existence 6,000 years ago as a result of a random collision of particles. The probability that our solar system formed this way is not zero. If they object and say that the universe or the world looks older, tell them that all possible configurations are unlikely, the way any given hand in poker is as unlikely to be dealt to you as a royal flush. Besides, you cannot calculate the probability of an event after it has occurred.

Some skeptics in response to the scientific evidence for the beginning of the universe will say that it's possible that we may one day come up with a new model that proves the eternality of the universe. Well, science is always changing. It's also possible that scientists may one day come up with a discovery that proves the universe is 6,000 years old and that all species were created in their current form.

If they object to the existence of objective moral values, saying that they are mere instincts, tell them you intend to convince your family and friends of Young Earth Creationism by any means necessary. Who cares if you intend to be less than honest in giving all the facts? Our ideas of morality are just evolved instincts, anyway. It's not like they are obligatory.

One skeptic objected to the Ontological Argument by stating that I have not proven beyond a doubt that my premises are true. He argued that the premises need to be known with certainty in order for the Ontological Argument to be a sound argument. This is a terrible misunderstanding of the nature of arguments.

In a valid deductive argument, it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false, therefore it is irrational to believe the premises and deny the conclusion. You do not need to be certain of the premises in order for the argument to be sound. If certainty was the criterion for a good argument, there would be almost no good arguments. Instead, the premises of the argument merely need to be more plausible than their negations. As long as you believe the premises, you cannot deny the conclusion.

Always ask yourself whenever you face a skeptic's objection: what if it was the other way around? Would they tolerate this kind of reasoning if it was used against them? If not, then their objection is untenable, as inconsistency is a sure sign of a failed argument.

Abusing Sources: Immanuel Schochet on Galatians

Counter-missionaries are a slippery bunch, often willing to quote Scriptures out of context in hopes that you will not call their bluff. Immanuel Schochet in his debate against Michael Brown is guilty of a particularly grievous form of source abuse. He argues from Galatians that:

The New Testament goes so far as saying that Jews have nothing to gain from accepting Jesus. "If you are circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. I bear witness to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole law." Galatians chapter 5. So if you have the misfortune that at eight days old you are circumcised, forget about Jesus. He is not going to help you anyway.

Schochet is making it sound like Paul hates his own people! The idea that Paul is condemning anyone who has been circumcised seems really odd, since Paul wrote in his letter to the Philippians:

If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Messiah. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Messiah Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Messiah and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Messiah, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
(Phippians 3:3-11)

Even stranger is that Paul circumcised Timothy as an adult.

Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.
(Acts 16:3)

Interesting aside that this passage implies that Jewish ancestry is inherited through the father, not the mother. So we have to ask: what exactly is Paul saying in Galatians 5, where he states:

For freedom Messiah has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Messiah will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Messiah, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Messiah Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
(Galatians 5:1-6)

So what exactly is Paul saying in this passage? The letter is addressed to a gentile congregation in an area in Modern day Turkey. In chapter 1, Paul quickly cuts to the heart of the problem. The circumcision party, also known as the Judaizers believed that all believers in Jesus had to do more than repent and put their faith and trust in Jesus. These Judaizers believed that in order to be saved and have a share in the world to come, the follower of Jesus had to follow the laws of Moses. Paul did not merely tell the people of Galatia that accepting the Judaizer view made life unnecessarily difficult, Paul said that Judaizers were unsaved unbelievers.

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Messiah and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Messiah. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
(Galatians 1:6-9)

Notice how Paul continually emphasizes faith as the means of salvation. What he does not say in this letter, is that observances such as baptism and confession are necessary for salvation, and that the problem with the Judaizers is that they demand the wrong observances. Instead, Paul emphasizes that salvation comes through repentance and trust, and if your view of salvation demands observances, then you do not really have faith, and are an unsaved unbeliever.

Paul then further shows the distinction between Gentiles and Jews. The Judaizers were so powerful in Galatia, that they even managed to intimidate Peter.

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”
(Galatians 2:11-14)

Paul then continues by emphasizing that salvation comes through faith, and not through works.

We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus the Messiah, so we also have believed in Messiah Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Messiah and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
(Galatians 2:15-16)

This is important to note. No one is ever justified by the law. Now when we read Galatians 5, the thrust of Paul's letter should become obvious.

Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Messiah will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Messiah, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.

Since we have already established that the law does not justify, this means that anyone who cooperated with the Judaizers and their "faith plus" view of salvation is, in fact, damned.

This is an issue that I have not only with Sacramentalist denominations of Christianity, but also "Torah Observant" denominations of Messianic Judaism. I do not mind that groups desire to follow different lifestyles, but once those observances become necessary to earn a share in the world to come, then those groups do not have a saving faith.

In fact, when we look at the promises given to Israel for observing the Torah, we notice that this is a covenant between God and a theocratic nation. The rewards do not mention life after death, or anything about heaven and hell. Instead, the rewards and punishments are earthly and material. So let's not pretend that New Testament theology alters that of the Tanakh. Observance of the Torah never brought about salvation, but since day one, salvation was always a function of repentance and trust.

Furthermore, it really throws into question the trustworthiness of counter-missionaries like Immanuel Schochet. Why would he so deliberately misquote Galatians in debate? Did he think no one would call him on it? Why are you playing with my Bible, Dr. Schochet? Why are you messing with the word of God? And if you do, do you think I want to have anything to do with what you are trying to sell me? When someone is resorting to this kind of deception, I get out of there as soon as possible. I leave skid marks!

The Ontological Argument and the S5 Objection

The Ontological Argument for the Triune God is the most popular video I have released so far. Generally the feedback has been positive. And even many skeptics have admitted that they cannot find a flaw, but simply choose to be unconvinced. And that is their right. You can get out of the conclusion of any argument in philosophy if you just bite the bullet and deny one of the premises. The job of the proponent of the argument is to make that intellectual price as high as possible. What do you have to give up in order to rationally deny the conclusion?

One skeptic has decided to avoid the conclusion of this argument by attacking the entire system of modal logic (called the S5 system) upon which this argument is based. This is so incredible that at first I thought it was a joke. S5 is well-accepted as a fully coherent logical system by logicians, and an accurate representation of certain kinds of modality in the philosophy journals. I mentioned to potential detractors that it is just about impossible to avoid the conclusion of this argument unless you are willing to deny the laws of logic themselves. This guy apparently took me up on the offer!

So let's go through a recap of modal logic. This is a formal logic which adds two additional truth qualifiers. Something can be true (T), something can be possibly true (◊T), and something can be necessarily true (□T). The diamond denotes possibility and the box denotes necessity. Modal logics use a semantic called "possible worlds." A possible world is a description of the way reality might be, kind of like a hypothetical situation. The actual world is a possible world where the entire description is true. In other words, it is a description of the way reality is.

There are different systems of modal logic, where the axioms are different. There are also different modal logics, where the application is different. The term possible and the term necessary have different meanings in different modal logics. So the first question is, what modal logic are we using for the Ontological Argument, and which of the available systems should we use?

Modal logics include deontic logic (logic of obligation), temporal logic (logic of time), epistemic logic (logic of knowing things) and alethic logic (logic of truth). Since the argument is an ontological or metaphysical argument, we are going to use an alethic logic, and deal with metaphysical modalities. Alethic modalities and epistemic modalities are often expressed in English using the same words. "It is possible that bigfoot exists" can mean either "Bigfoot could exist (it is metaphysically possible), whether or not bigfoot does in fact exist" (alethic), or more likely, "For all I know, bigfoot exists" (epistemic).

In alethic modal logic something "necessary" is true in all possible worlds, something "possible" is true in at least one possible world. To say a statement (we'll call this statement X) is possibly necessary (◊□X) is to say that in at least one possible world it is true that X is true in all possible worlds. This is the same as saying that X is true in all possible worlds. And this means that saying possibly necessarily X is equivalent to saying necessarily X (◊□X → □X). This means that when we pick a system of modal logic, it must account for this. It must be able to derive this formula in order to accurately represent metaphysical possibility and necessity.

To think of it another way: when we are dealing with metaphysical possibility and necessity, we are dealing with ultimate (absolute) possibility and necessity. By ultimate, I mean possibilty and necessity that does not vary over different possible worlds, for there has to be at least one truth that holds for absolutely all possible worlds without exception (if it didn't, then the statement "there is no truth that holds for all possible worlds" would hold for all possible worlds). So we know that there is at least one of these truths that has this ultimate necessity. Hence, the proposition "necessarily T" (□T) and the proposition "necessarily necessarily T" (□□T)have to mean the same thing (□T is equivalent to □□T). If it didn't, then the term "necessarily" isn't talking about ultimate necessity.

Same goes for possibility. If we say that something is metaphysically possible, we are talking about ultimate possibility, and therefore "possibly possibly T" is equivalent to "possibly T" (◊◊T is equivalent to ◊T). Otherwise, we are not talking about ultimate possibility. And not only is this true, but is must be necessarily true in order for us to be talking about ultimate possibility. If "possibly T" did not entail "necessarily possibly T" in all worlds (◊T → □◊T), then we would not be talking about ultimate possibility. In short, only systems of modal logic that have what is called a universal accessibility relation can represent ultimate metaphysical truths.

Another way of saying it is that in order for our system to reflect metaphysical truth, it must define necessity and possibility in the following way:
□P holds if and only if ∀w(P is true at w)
(Necessarily P holds if and only if for every world, P is true in that world)
◊P holds if and only if ∃w(P is true at w)
(Possibly P holds if and only if there is a world where P is true in that world)

S5 is the only system that can do this. Now S5 is not appropriate for all modal logics. It would not represent temporal modal logic, for example. But regarding the ultimate possibility and ultimate necessity needed to address metaphysical statements, only S5 will do. It is the only system that can address ultimate modality.

It states that under S5, you can stack modal operators (diamonds and boxes) as much as you want and they collapse into the last operator.
◊◊□◊□◊□◊□◊◊□□□□□□◊P → ◊P
But it is essential that this does happen if we are really talking about the fundamental laws of metaphysics.

To quote Alexander Pruss:
Broad logical possibility cannot have been different, since it is a matter of what propositions follow from what propositions, and what follows from what could not have been different. . .
. . .the collection C0 of all the fundamental laws of metaphysics could not have been different from what it is – that is central to its being the collection of the fundamental laws of metaphysics – and the ‘could not’ here surely is metaphysical. Moreover, what C0 allows cannot have been different. If it were different, that would presumably be because a collection of laws might permit different things in different circumstances. Suppose that C is some collection of fundamental laws that permits different things in different circumstances. But then there would need to be further metaphysical laws as to what the laws in C collectively permit under what circumstances, and barring a vicious regress of more and more basic laws, there would have to be fundamental laws specifying what laws in C permit. And these laws couldn’t be in C, since then the laws in C would not permit different things in different circumstances. Therefore, if C permits different things in different circumstances, then C does not contain all the fundamental laws, in the way that C0 does. Thus, what C0 permits could not be different, and hence modality could not have been different, and this is what S5 says.
-Actuality, Possibility, and Worlds: (pp. 16-17)

There has to be at least one fundamental truth that does not vary over possible worlds. Because if there are none of these truths, then that truth is the fundamental truth that does not vary over possible worlds.

This backwards E (∃) represents the existential quantifier. Whatever comes after this symbol is said to exist. When the modal operator is placed before the quantifier, we are talking about existence de dicto. So with the diamond before the quantifier (◊∃xAx), we can say it is possible that an alien exists. When the modal operator is placed after the quantifier, we are talking about existence de re. An example would be "A possible alien exists." (∃(x)◊Ax) De dicto modality states that the proposition is necessarily true or possibly true. De re modality states that a certain state of affiars possibly holds or necesarily holds. De re is about the thing itself.

Quine objected to de re modality, because he believed it that it could not be expressed without resulting in absurdities. Quine believed in what's called the substitutivity of identity, meaning that given a statement of identity (x = y), the two terms (x and y) are interchangeable. Susan Haack cites his objection in her book: The Philosophy of Logics. Quine objects to de re modality with the following argument which I will call Quine's Argument:

1. Necessarily, 50 is greater than 7
2. 50 = the number of states in the US
3. Necessarily, the number of states in the US is greater than 7

Quine states that 1 and 2 are true, while 3 is false. Yet if 50 is equal to the number of states, then we should be able to substitute one term for the other with no change in the resulting statement's truth value.

Quine says that the only way to get these equal terms to substitute for one another is to accept a premise which I will call Quine's Solution.

Quine's Solution: necessarily, terms are identical if and only if all conditions specifying them are equivalent:
(∀y (Fy ≡ y = x) & ∀y (Gy ≡ y = x)) → □∀y (Fy ≡ Gy)

I would like to point out here that there are no independent reasons for accepting Quine's Soltuion as a valid principle. It is a formula contrived specifically to address Quine's Argument. It would be an ad hoc solution even if it worked without any negative repercussions. The problem is, even if we were to accept Quine's solution, it would lead to modal collapse.

Let p be any true sentence, and let F be ' p & y = x' and G be 'y = x'; then from Quine's Solution it follows that:
□∀y (p & y = x ≡ y = x), whence, in particular
□(p & x = x ≡ x = x) and so p → □p and all truths become necessary truths!

When people talk about de re modality leading to modal collapse, this is what they are talking about. The collapse only occurs if we accept Quine's Solution. So obviously we can't accept Quine's Solution!

The problem with Quine's Argument, as Saul Kripke pointed out, is that there is a difference between rigid and non-rigid designators. A rigid designator picks out the same thing in all worlds. "The square root of 16" picks out the number 4 in all possible worlds. "The number of states in the US" picks out different values in different possible worlds (if it is indeed a proposition about states, and not about a specific number; more about this later). When we are doing modal logic, two equal terms can only be substituted for one another only if either one is a rigid designator for the other, or if they are both rigid designators for a third term. Once we recognize the distinction, the problem disappears.

This is why Genoveva Marti concludes:
Quine's argument does not succeed in proving that modal distinctions collapse. A crucial step in Quine's reasoning relies on the assumption that whenever two expressions determine the same object, those two expressions should be intersubstitutable [exchange one for the other] salva veritate [with no change in truth value] even when they occur under the scope of a modal operator.
-Quine and Modal Distinctions, p. 289

*Also note that Plantinga in The Nature of Necessity writes that Quine's case is based on a flawed view of identity.
Quine believed that: "Two terms are the same (eadem) if one can be substituted for the other without altering the truth of any statement (salva veritate)."
Plantinga noted that principle does not hold for such excellent examples of language such as English. Instead, identity should be defined as: For any property P and any objects x and y, if x is identical with y, then x has P if and only if y has P.
x=y → ∀P(Px ↔ Py)

Once we correct Quine's definition of identity, Quine's entire objection crumbles.

What's even worse for Quine is that even under his own criteria, his argument commits a fallacy of ambiguity (technically, a fallacy of amphiboly). It is like the joke: "I once met a man with a wooden leg named Smith and asked him 'what is the name of the other leg?'"

It appears the statement "50 = the number of states" is a statement about a number while the statement "the number of states in the US is greater than 7" is about states. If we interpret the third statement so that it is about numbers, then the third statement is equivalent to "Necessarily, the number that numbers the states (as things in fact stand) is greater than 7." And this is a true statement, as it is a statement about numbers. If we instead leave the third statement as it is and reinterpret the second statement so that "50 = the number of states" is about states, then the second statement is equivalent to "however many states in the US there happen to be, that's what 50 is" and this is clearly false. Either way, Quine's objection fails.

Furthermore, Quine's most significant blunder in his argument is that he tries to draw metaphysical conclusions out of an argument that only addresses semantics. This is one reason that Quine's argument against de re modality has been almost universally rejected in the philosophy journals, even by philosophers who themselves reject de re modality.

For further reading on this subject, Alvin Plantinga also shot down the Quine's objection in chapters 2 and 3 of The Nature of Necessity.

For a very thorough and technical critique of Quine's argument, please see Genoveva Marti's article.

So there is no problem with de re modality. It is fully consistent with the S5 system, and does not lead to any sort of modal collapse. Objections surrounding it have been answered half a century ago, which is why Richard Swinburne could say confidently:

If a state of affairs is necessary, then the proposition which states that the state of affairs holds will be necessary; and conversely, if a proposition is necessary, then the state of affairs which it states to be the case is necessary. Necessity de re entails necessity de dicto, and conversely.
-Richard Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism, p. 235

It's sort of a backhanded compliment, that someone would go to such extraordinary lengths to avoid believing in the Triune God. It's not every day that someone decides to jettison an entire system of logic just to avoid the conclusion of one argument. I wonder what the New Atheists would say if we resorted to such extreme measures to avoid a conclusion of one of their arguments. I am sure it would not be nice.


Bonus Section
A simpler argument for divine necessity is this. The term being means: something that exists. If abstract objects like numbers and universals really do exist, then these beings have to exist in every possible world. If this is the case, then God, defined by the philosopher as the metaphysical ultimate or the ultimate being or the greatest (metaphysically) possible being would have to exist in every possible world. After all, it would be really strange to think that some beings exist in every possible world but the ultimate being does not.

This also answers the objection that the Ontological Argument mixes de dicto and de re modality. It does not. God is defined as the metaphysical ultimate. If you could coherently describe something that is greater than God then that something would be God. If a being had omnipotence, but only existed in some possible worlds, then we could describe a greater being: one that has omnipotence in all possible world, which entails that such a being exists in all possible worlds. Only a being that exists necessarily can have maximal greatness.

Notice the definition of God here. We are using the philosopher's definition. I do not mean a tribal deity that I am specifying. I do not even mean Yahweh, the deity of Israel. People often get this confused when discussing the moral argument. They ask, Why would the existence of a deity make the difference as to whether objective moral values exist or not? Zeus was not morally perfect. This is, of course, an equivocation fallacy. I am not using the word God as a proper name, but as a term meaning the metaphysical ultimate.

The inquirer may then ask: why believe that Yahweh is this God? And I would answer that given God's moral perfection, he would want to intervene in human history and reaveal himself to someone. Of all the deities in the ancient world, only Yahweh's description is compatible with him being the metaphysical ultimate. Hence, Yahweh is the only candidate for such at title.