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.

Creation as Science

A lecture by Dr. Hugh Ross. As an Old Earth Creationist, I appreciate and endorse the work of Ross and his organization: Reasons to Believe.
http://www.reasons.org
for more info.

Genesis 1 vs. Rashi

Those of you who are interested enough to watch my videos (or read this blog) know that Genesis 1:1 reads: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth." in Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ׃ What you might not know is that Jewish translations treat this verse differently. Artscroll translates the first three verses as "In the beginning of God's creating the heavens and the earth – when the earth was astonishingly empty, with darkness upon the surface of the deep, and the divine presence hovered upon the surface of the waters – God said, "Let there be light, and there was light."

Artscroll translates this passage so that the first two verses describe the situation and nothing happens until verse three. Artscroll's justification is that "in the beginning God created" would indicate that the Torah is giving the sequence of Creation – that God created the heaven, the earth, darkness, water, light, and so on. However, Rashi and Ibn Ezra maintain that this verse cannot be chronological.

Rashi argues that we cannot translate רֵאשִׁית as a beginning simpliciter, since it always means "beginning of." He cites Genesis 10:10 "beginning of his kingdom" Jeremiah 26:1 "beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim" and Deuteronomy 18:4 "first of your grain." Hence, the Hebrew word בָּרָא which is a verb, has to become a gerund in order for the verse to make sense. He justifies this with Hosea 1:2 "When the LORD first spoke to Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea..." which uses תְּחִלַּ֥ת as a sort of "in the beginning of" and the verb דִּבֶּר as a gerund as well.

Rashi admits that "In the beginning God created" is not a forced interpretation of the Hebrew. He just rejects it because he believes that such an interpretation would suggest that God created the earth before he created the water. And to Rashi, this is unacceptable. Hagigah 12a of the Talmud says that the water preceded the earth because the heavens were created from fire and water.

I think you can see already, Rashi is letting rabbinic tradition mess with his interpretation of this verse. This is one problem with the rabbis. They know the verses in their original Hebrew, and what the Hebrew means, but they sometimes derive their interpretations independently of what the words are actually saying.

Like some of the modern scholars, Rashi denies the prima facie reading and places verse 1 as a subordinate clause modifying verse 2. Claus Westermann, one of the leading Old Testament scholars of the 20th century, who specialized in Genesis, disagreed with Rashi. Westermann notes that there is no evidence that בְּרֵאשִׁית cannot be used in the absolute sense as רֵאשִׁית is used to denote an absolute beginning in Isaiah 46:10. So it can mean "in the beginning" or "in the beginning of" depending on the context. While Hosea 1:2 does use the same structure as a subordinate clause, this verse is atypical. The normal construct for circumstantial ideas is the infinite construct, as is used in Genesis 5:1. Hence, Hosea is the exception, not the rule. Also, our oldest textual witnesses of Genesis 1:1: the Masoretic punctuation, the oldest translations, and the New Testament all took 1:1 as designating an absolute beginning.

As Franz Delitzsch pointed out, not only does "the heavens and the earth" serve as an idiom to mean "the whole universe" as the ancient Hebrew language has no word for universe, but the grammatical relation of verse 1 to verse 2 entails that 1 cannot be a mere heading, because the vav connects the two verses, indicating a relation of connection between God's primary and subsequent acts of creation. Computer analysis has also shown what scholars like Delitzsch noted—that whenever there is a vav plus a non-predicate plus a predicate, then the preceding clause furnishes either background or circumstantial information. Whenever this construction precedes a main verb, as it does in verse 2, then it is always background information that is given.

Finally, the real nail in the coffin the fact that the next verse וְהָאָרֶץ הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ וְחֹשֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵי תְהֹום וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים מְרַחֶפֶת עַל־פְּנֵי הַמָּיִם׃ begins with a vav, which always means "and" and is used extensively in Genesis to signal the beginning of a new sentence. As Artscroll notes, Rashi's interpretation forces the interpreter to translate the vav as "when" even though it is not translated as such anywhere else. If translating רֵאשִׁית as "the beginning" simpliciter is problematic, then translating וְהָאָרֶץ as "when the earth" is a thousand times more problematic. When the text is allowed to speak for itself, it testifies strongly against Rashi's rabbinic eisegesis and in favor of the standard translation: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth."

What Christians Can Learn From Judaism: The Sabbath

Orthodox Rabbinic Judaism celebrates the Sabbath in a very different way than the different flavors of Christianity as well as Reform and Conservative Judaism. The Sabbath for most Christians as well as for non-Orthodox Jews usually means attending a religious service for an hour or two, meeting, greeting, and eating with the community afterward, driving home, and then usually proceeding as though it was any other day of the week.

The Orthodox community treats the Sabbath differently, however. Since the Rabbis enforced a highly legalistic system with a gazillion and one laws regarding the Sabbath, any conceivable form of productive work becomes impossible for anyone in the community. Since driving is forbidden on the Sabbath, the entire Orthodox community must live within walking distance of the Synagogue. This has the added benefit of making all the members of a synagogue live within walking distance of each other, making it much easier for them to get to know one another. Imagine if everyone at your church lived within walking distance of each other.

The Sabbath is a 25 or so hour experience, from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. As a single adult, let me tell you about my Sabbath experience with the Orthodox community. It begins with the Friday evening service. Technically, it is supposed to begin with lighting candles, but as a single guy who at this time lived outside the community, it began at the synagogue. Anyway, after a relatively short evening service, I was walking outside the synagogue and one of the Orthodox people, I think his name was Ben, asked me "do you have a place to eat and a place to stay" at this point, not knowing exactly what he meant by it, I shrugged my shoulders and he said to me "Ok, you're coming with me." Already, I knew that this experience was different than the other denominations of Judaism, where you simply leave after the service.

Ben led me to his house, where he was having several other guests for his obligatory Sabbath meal. I got to meet his guests and made several friends even in that evening. After the extended meal was over, he let me spend the night in an extra bedroom, as Jews are not allowed to drive on the Sabbath, and I got to better meet his wife and several children.

The next morning I was awakened fairly early, and walked with his family to the synagogue. After making it through the three hour Shacharit morning service, I visited another man named Ari and his family for the midday Sabbath lunch. He pointed me in the general location of his house beforehand, but because I did not walk with him to his house, I had to sort of guess which one it was. During lunch, I made the joke that I knocked on the door and hoped that it was the right house. He told me that almost anybody on his street would have been happy to have me over for the meal. It was at this point that I realized being part of an Orthodox community is like being part of a large extended family.

He, too was having several guests, including Josh, a young college student who became Orthodox a few years prior. During the afternoon, we walked around the neighborhood and dropped in on many of the other families in the community. Since everyone was under the restrictive Orthodox Sabbath laws, no one had the excuse of being too busy to meet with us. So I got to meet a lot more people in a very short period of time.

In our cold and somewhat paranoid modern society, we have forgotten the art of hospitality toward strangers. Have you ever been to a church where people you don't know invite you over to their house for a meal with their family? No church that I have ever attended has extended that type of hospitality. Can you imagine what would happen if a group of volunteer families at a church actually did that? It would make single men like myself, who are a very non-churchgoing demographic more likely to attend church in the first place, because it would make it so much easier to get to know everyone. Introverts like myself have a much easier time when meeting in these settings rather than in large crowds.

There is also something to be said about being unplugged from our connected world for a full day. It helps to reduce the stress a great deal. Because the Orthodox view of the Sabbath is to cease from any sort of productive activity, including the use of electronics, it helps people take their minds off of their concerns and helps them enjoy the moment. And that is the point of the Sabbath, to be an island in time, where for one day we can take our focus off our constant planning for the future and simply enjoy the moment.

Separate But "Equal" Weights And Measures

The antimissionary Moshe Shulman of Judaism's answer has been kind enough to respond to Michael L Brown's article called "Unequal Weights and Measures." In this article, Dr. Brown explains the gross double standard by which anti-Missionaries operate. Dr. Brown's article is here. My video summary of it is here.

In short, Jewish antimissionaries are willing to grant leniency when evaluating issues in the Tanakh which they are not willing to grant when evaluating the New Testament. They are quick to harmonize Exodus 20:8 which states "Remember the Sabbath" and Deuteronomy 6:4 which states "Guard the Sabbath" and harmonize them by saying "God said both at the same time."

However, these same anti-missionaries complain about the baptism of Jesus. Matthew 3:17 reads "This is my beloved son" while Mark 1:11 reads "You are my beloved son." They will shout: "holy crap. This is a major contradiction. How could you possibly think this is the word of God?" This reeks of a fallacy called special pleading, when you are willing to hold other views in extreme skepticism without applying it to your own.

Shulman has responded here, on his website. It's a short article, one that will only take a few minutes to read through. But let me give you a quick summary of his article in my own fake New York accent (which is apparently a really bad Joe Pesci impersonation):

Dr. Michael Brown has written an article stating that anti-missionaries criticize the New Testament in ways that they would never criticize their own Tanakh or Rabbinic literature. Brown argues that we should hold one standard for criticizing both the Tanakh and the New Testament. But that's no fun! Rabbinic Judaism came first. Therefore, we should begin with the assumption that Rabbinic Judaism is innocent until proven guilty, and that Christianity is guilty until proven innocent. There is nothing unfair about this method.

Secondly, Rabbinic Judaism and Evangelical Christianity interpret the Bible through different means. Because Rabbinic Judaism has a set of authoritative interpreters, they can address Biblical problems, such as harmonization, alledged misquation, and hyper-literality issues, and come up with solutions which can be accepted without question. However, because Christianity holds to a doctrine called "sola scriptura" which means that only the Bible is written by God, we can be as skeptical as we want to be regarding any Christian solution. After all, we, the Rabbis, get to decide how you Christians are allowed to interpret Scripture.

I'm then going to go through several sections of Michael Brown's article with this methodology.

For example, Judaism has an interpretation to reconcile "an eye for an eye" Evangelical Christianity has no authoritative teaching magesterium, and therefore is not allowed to give a non-literal interpretation. Judaism has a harmonization in its teaching magesterium for reconciling Geneis 1 and 2. Christianity does not. So Judaism wins again! Who killed Goliath? Judaism has an answer in Rabbinic Tradition. Christianity has no Rabbinic Tradition, so Christianity has no answer!

That's right, Christianity is bound to a literal interpretation because it doesn't have Rabbinic Tradition. Christianity is not allowed to harmonize. Christianity is not allowed to engage in non-literal interpretation. Christianity is not allowed to engage in textual criticism. Why? BECAUSE I SAID SO!!

I am not kidding when I say that this is basically how the article goes. Shulman is admitting that he is indeed holding a double standard, but then saying that it's okay for him to do that, because Rabbinic Tradition says it is. And since we all know for a fact Rabbinic Tradition is the absolute word of God, it is not even possible to argue that Rabbinic Tradition is incoherent or that any part of it is false. Shulman's case against Dr. Brown is circular. It assumes that the Tanakh and Rabbinic Tradition are from God, while the New Testament is not from God, in order to establish that the Tanakh and Rabbinic Tradition are from God, while the New Testament is not.

In the interest of charity, I am going to assume that Shulman is engaging in a type of presuppositional apologetics, specifically, a system where you hold up your worldview as a whole and then hold up your opponent's worldview as a whole. You then compare the two for internal consistency and correspondence with reality. I think that Shulman is taking the Rabbinic interpretive system as a whole, including its presupposition of an authoritative Rabbinic Tradition, and testing it against Biblical problems. Because this interpretive system begins with the assumption that the Tanakh and Rabbinic tradition are from God and are therefore infallible, it cannot be falsified from within the system. Shulman is then attempting to hold up Evangelical Christianity, testing it as well for internal consistency and correspondence with reality. Problem is, he is engaging in a straw man fallacy by misrepresenting the Evangelical position.

To those who read books on Evangelical Bible interpretation, such as in Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology, you'll notice that we bring several presuppositions to the text itself, which are considered authenticated by the inner witness of the Holy Spirit.

1 All 66 books of the Bible are Scripture
2 All Scripture is infallible and inerrant (incapable of being wrong)
3 Textual criticism, harmonization, and non-literal are perfectly valid as long as there is some justification for using them

And when you include these assumptions when evaluating the Christian system, all the Biblical problems posed by the anti-missionaries just disappear in a poof of logic. However, we soon realize that this system, too, is unfalsifiable when evaluated from within the system. So that when we compare the to systems, granting each its own internal assumptions, we quickly realize that there is no way of falsifying either.

But the two systems are irreconcilable. They cannot both be true, yet neither can be falsified from within. So how do we break the deadlock? By abandoning the assumptions of both systems, and holding both to some third standard. Problem is, when we do that, when we stop assuming divine authorship of our own texts, all of Dr. Browns arguments come right back on the table. It really is hypocritical to use liberal criticism of your opponent's worldview without letting your opponent use it of your view. It really is deceptive to say that the Tanakh gets a free pass for all its Bible difficulties, but the New Testament does not. There is no getting around it. If you want to compare the Rabbinic and Christian systems, the only way to do so fairly is to hold both systems to the same standard.

In short, Shulman's case is that Rabbinic tradition has an authoritative answer to every conceivable objection, while the New Testament does not. This response collapses the entire anti-missionary case into a single accusation: "You need a divinely inspired authoritative oral tradition in order to make sense of Scripture."

If this really is the anti-missionary case, is seems strange that they concentrate all their attacks on the New Testament. If the only problem is that Christianity lacks the authoritative Rabbinic tradition, as these Rabbis claim, then why not spread out your accusations over the entire Bible? There is plenty to attack in the Tanakh, and pointing out its difficulties as well will help the audience understand that the Rabbinic objection to the New Testament is not that there is anything inherently wrong in the text itself, but that the book does not have authoritative Rabbinic answers to its difficulties.

We know why the Rabbis do not do this. They avoid mentioning the Tanakh difficulties because they want to make it look like it is the text of the New Testament, not the lack of Rabbinic tradition that is the problem.

The Ontological Argument for the Triune God

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The Ontological Argument is a purely a priori logical argument that operates like a mathematical proof. It derives the existence of a perfect being from the laws of modal logic themselves. It's a technical argument for the existence and properties of God. That's why this is my favorite argument for the existence of God, because it goes beyond fallible evidence and when understood correctly, is virtually impossible to argue against.

In the field of philosophical theology, there are two competing definitions of God. In creator theology, God is defined as "the creator of all that is not God." In perfect being theology, God is defined as "A Maximally Great Being" which means that God possesses all great-making, properties such as love, knowledge, and power, and possesses each in a maximal way. He also possesses no flaws, such as immorality. He would be all-powerful, all-loving, and all-knowing. I intend to show you three things about this Maximally Great Being:

This video will present and defend three points:
1. A Maximally Great Being Exists (hence, perfect being theology is correct)
2. Only one Maximally Great Being can possibly exist (hence monotheism is true)
3. A Maximally Great Being must be multipersonal (the being must exist in two or more persons)

Let's start defining things before we get into the argument. First up: possible world. A possible world is basically a hypothetical situation. Calling it a possible world is not to say that such a world actually exists. It's just a description of what reality might be; a way for philosophers to see what ideas are coherent and what ideas are not. If something is possible, then we say that it exists in some possible world.

In metaphysics, the term "possible" has a different meaning than in epistemology. In epistemology, you could look at a difficult math problem and say "it's possible that there is a solution for it" which is like saying "for all I know, there is a solution to this problem." In metaphysics, something is possible if it is logically coherent. For example, my wearing a red shirt is possible, but the existence of square circles is not metaphysically possible.

If something is possible, it exists in a possible world. Rolling a six on a die is one example. If something is necessary, it exists in all possible worlds. The laws of mathematics are examples of this. If something is contingent, it exists in some possible worlds but not in others. If something is impossible, then it exists in no possible worlds. A square circle would be an example of this.

Next up entailment. Entail means "to imply necessarily." For example, shape entails size. If something has a shape, it necessarily has a size. After that: Great-making properties. A great-making property is a property that it is better to have than to lack. A lesser-making property is a property that it is better to lack than to have. A neutral property is one that is neither. Maximal greatness is the state of having all great-making propertries, and to their maximal extent. It also means having no lesser-making properties. One of these properties is necessity. Nothing that exists contingently can be maximally great. This is not to say that something has to exist to be maximally great. Instead, if something maximally great exists, then its existence is either necessary or impossible.

Now one Immanuel Kant's objections to an obsolete version of this argument is that existence is not a property. This is true. And this argument does not assume that it is. It is immune to the classic criticisms of Anselm's ontological argument.

Necessity is a property. Existence is not. Necessity does not entail existence. Necessity just means that if something exists, it exists in all possible worlds. Numbers have this property.

Now on to the Ontological Argument itself. This argument has five premises, which if true, entail the conclusion.

Premise 1: It is possible that a Maximally Great Being (MGB) exists
Premise 2: If it is possible that a MGB exists, then a MGB exists in some possible world
Premise 3: If a MGB exists in some possible world, then a MGB exists in all possible worlds
Premise 4: If a MGB exists in all possible worlds, then a MGB exists in the actual world
Premise 5: If a MGB exists in the actual world, then a MGB exists
Conclusion: A MGB exists.

Premises 2 through 5 are pretty uncontroversial in academia. They are just restatements of the laws of modal logic, accepted by theist and atheist philosophers alike. The controversy is in Premise 1. Is it possible (metaphysically) that a Maximally Great Being exists. I think that on the face of it, we have good reason to believe that it is true. As long as the concept of a Maximally Great Being is coherent, and does not violate any known necessary truths, then Premise 1 is true. A school of philosophy called "natural atheology" has attempted to build arguments against the coherence of a Maximally Great Being, but this project has been all but abandoned. Richard Swinburne explains why in his book: The Coherence of Theism.

But I think we can advance an argument in favor of Premise 1, that will make it airtight. It was developed by Robert Maydole and is called the Modal Perfection Argument. For the sake of this argument, we can go with the following definitions:

Great-making property: A property that an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and metaphysically necessary being must have.
Lesser-making property: A property that an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and metaphysically necessary being cannot have.

Here is how it works:

1. If a property is a great-making property, its negation is a lesser-making property
2. Great-making properties do not entail lesser-making properties
3. Maximal Greatness is a great-making property
Hence, Maximal Greatness cannot entail its negation of non-Maximal Greatness.

It is perfectly within the laws of modal logic for a property (which is not a perfection) to entail its negation. If a property is an incoherent (or impossible) property (square-circleness is an example, so we'll call this S), then it's necessary that everything has the negation of S (we'll call this ~S) as a property. That's what it means for a property to be impossible. But if everything has ~S, that means that every property entails ~S. If it didn't, then something could have some other property and not have ~S, which means it would have S, which means S would be a possible property. But if every property entails ~S, then S also entails ~S. This is consistent with the Principle of Explosion, which states that if you assert a contradiction, you can logically infer anything from it.

Hence, if it is impossible that a Maximally Great Being exists, then necessarily, nothing has Maximal Greatness. Hence, all things have non-Maximal Greatness. Hence, all properties entail non-Maximal Greatness, including Maximal Greatness. But we just established that Maximal Greatness cannot entail non-Maximal Greatness.

For the minority of philosophers who deny the principle of explosion, here is another way to view the argument. If Maximal Greatness is an impossible property, then all properties entail non-Maximal Greatness. Hence, no property can be a great-making property. But this is absurd. It would mean that some properties such as goodness, intelligence, and wisdom are not better to have than to lack. So again, there is no way that Maximal Greatness is an impossible property.

But that would mean that its is possible that a Maximally Great Being exists. And therefore such a being exists in some possible world, and therefore in every world, and therefore in this world. And since some of these properties such as omnipotence, omniscience, and moral perfection entail personality, then it follows that this Maximally Great Being must be personal. But that's the definition of a personal God. Hence, perfect being theology is correct.

Let's go through a few of the common objections. The first is Dawkins' own delusional objection. In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins attempts to use this argument to disprove the existence of God. He says that if God is the greatest possible being, then wouldn't it be greater for God to not exist and still bring the universe into being? But far from undermining the Ontological Argument, it shows its coherence.

To answer Dawkins: Greater? Maybe. Possible? No. For in what possible world does a non-existent being exist?

What about a Maximally Great Pizza or a Maximally Great Bird? The problem with positing anything physical, is that physical things are dependent on space for their existence. And we know from modern cosmology that space once existed as a singularity, and no bird or pizza in such a state would even be a bird or a pizza. So the idea of a necessarily existing physical thing is undercut.

But how do we know that only one Maximally Great Being exists? Some of the properties possessed by a Maximally Great Being cannot exist in more than one being in any possible world. Omnipotence is one example. If multiple beings are omnipotent, then a logical contradiction follows if their wills come into conflict. If one omnipotent being chooses to bring about a state of affairs where a green elephant exists, then such a state of affairs will be actualized. But if another omnipotent being in the same world wants to bring about a state of affairs where a green elephant does not exist, then that state of affairs will be actualized. So in this world, a green elephant would both exist and not exist, but no possible world can contain such a contradictory state of affairs. So no possible world can have multiple omnipotent beings. Hence, there can only be one God.

Alexander Pruss presents the same idea worded differently: "Omnipotence requires perfect freedom and an e fficacious will. But there cannot be two beings with perfect freedom and an e fficacious will. For if they are perfectly free, they will be able to will incompatible propositions to be true, and then one of their wills shall have to fail to be e fficacious. (This argument assumes that we are individuating beings in such a way that distinct beings with will have their own will. If God is a Trinity, the persons of the Trinity do not have distinct wills, and hence will not count as distinct beings in our sense.)"

Robert Maydole's solution is to add the premise:
4. Being Supreme is a great-making property
Since being supreme entails that all other beings are inferior, only one MGB can exist! Again, there can only be one God.

Finally, what about a unitarian or uni-personal God? I'm afraid such a being, too would not be Maximally Great. For at least one of the properties of such a being, love, is problematic. In order to be necessarily loving, God must be loving in all possible worlds. Since all that is not God is subject to the creative and destructive power of the omnipotent one, God can be the only necessarily existing being. This means that there are possible worlds where God alone exists. But is God loving in those worlds? It would make no sense to say that God is loving in a state of affairs where only he exists. Does he love himself? Self-love doesn't sound like love. Love has to be expressed between one person and another in order to be true love. But that means that God must exist in at least two persons, if not more. Hence, unitarianism is false.

I want to remind all my viewers that both of these arguments are logically valid deductive arguments. You cannot avoid the conclusion of this argument without denying at least one of the premises. And in order to justify that denial, you have to show that the negation is more plausible than the premise itself. But I think to any fair-minded individual, all premises presented are pretty obviously true. And with this sequence, we have a logical proof of the existence of God. The Triune God of Scripture lives, and atheism is toast.

Part 2 (The S5 Objection and de re modality) is here!
Part 3: The Greatness Objection

What Christians Can Learn From Judaism: The Language

Children raised in Orthodox Rabbinic Judaism generally do not depend on translation for reading the Bible. They are able to read it in the original tongue.

From the time Orthodox Jews are very young, they learn the Hebrew alphabet and Hebrew phonics alongside their education in English subjects. As a result, they learn Hebrew as a second language, and reading it becomes more natural for them than for a seminary student who picks up the language in his twenties. One Modern Orthodox Rabbi I spoke to told me that his Rabbinic contemporaries have vastly superior command of the ancient Hebrew language than do the Old Testament professors at divinity schools such as Yale. This does not surprise me. The Rabbis read all their ancient and medieval literature in Hebrew and use it in the prayers every day.

In the Middle Ages, Clergy from the church could not read Hebrew. They were dependent on Jerome's Latin Vulgate. It was sufficient for most cases. But for difficult hermeneutics, the clergy had to ask nearby Jewish Rabbis to interpret the Hebrew. However, it was not just the Rabbis who knew Hebrew. All Jews in that era were required to learn the language and engage in at least some level of Biblical and Talmudic scholarship. They didn't divide their people into classes the way Christianity has historically done, between the educated clergy and the uneducated lay people. Instead, they put the knowledge and power in the hands of the average Jew.

The New Testament was written in Greek and when it quotes the Tanakh, the authors usually quote the Greek translation called the Septuagint. Hence, it is Greek, rather than Hebrew that is the most important Biblical language for a Christian to learn It makes me wonder: why is it that Evangelicals can go through twelve years of Christian school without learning any Biblical Greek?

Getting the average Christian, and not just the clergy literate in Greek will open tremendous opportunity. It will give Evangelicals more confidence in reading their Bibles for themselves. It will make the task of misrepresenting the Bible very difficult for the cults to accomplish. And it would give us a deeper and richer understanding of the text in its original language.

How can this be accomplished? I believe a Christian elementary school would be able to pull this off. Children are especially skilled at learning new languages, and what they learn tends to stay with them longer. If they start learning Greek in Kindergarten and continue through the sixth grade, they should be able to at least translate some short, basic passages, which will provide a tremendous foundation for later learning. It will help future generations better understand the New Testament, and make it easier for future pastors to transition into seminary. And while it is true that kids who enter these Greek-teaching schools in the fourth or fifth grade will have to play catch-up, Orthodox day schools have coped with a similar situation thanks to families that become newly observant. The kids adapt much faster you expect. So let's get on board and expand our children's horizons.

What Christians Can Learn From Judaism: The Kollel

The Kollel is a place where married adult Jewish men gather to study Talmudic law full-time. The kollel is supported by donations from the community and fundraising programs such as selling raffle tickets. The kollel functions as a power pant for Rabbinic culture, generating the proverbial electricity to keep a community Orthodox and unassimilated.

During the day, the kollel learners study full-time. In the evenings, the rest of the Orthodox community comes in to the kollel to learn from the full-time learners. In this way, everyone gets some level of personalized instruction from men highly learned in Jewish law. Children in the day schools get extra help in the religious portion of their homework, and adults get to continue learning even into their old age.

The kollel functions as a social hub for the community, helping members network and find a place in it. Celebrations such as the 8th day circumcision, the greeting of holidays, and even bar mitzvahs can take place in a kollel. On summer mornings, schoolchildren will often come to the kollel for morning prayers, have a donut or two, and then learn with their friends and their rabbi for a few hours before playing the rest of the day.

The kollel functions as another home away from home, making sure that no one feels too isolated. Like the Sabbath, dependency on the kollel for learning Talmud is another way that Orthodox Rabbinic Judaism finds strength in weakness.

The Evangelical community can take a hint from this. Many Evangelicals, especially nerdy intellectuals like myself, experience strong isolation and loneliness even within the community. While there are apologetics groups and bible study groups that perhaps meet one per week or once per month, we still feel a great deal of isolation.

I would challenge an Evangelical community to borrow from the concept of the kollel and experiement with it. Perhaps a seminary school or even a local church could renovate a large room, fill the middle with chairs and tables, and cover the wall with bookshelves packed with Bibles and reference material. Then, the room could open a few nights per week for Bible study groups to meet. That way, groups that study on the same night could meet and network and interact with each other. They can form the same close-knit relationship with each other, and with pastors and seminary professors that Orthodox Jews have with their Rabbis.

It would help Evangelicalism become more closely knit and more intellectually vibrant, and would also solve two problems at once. To paraphrase the apologist James White: two of the biggest problems in apologetics are that the people socially involved in the Churches tend to be not well trained in apologetics. Yet the apologists tend to be loners, not connected to a Christian community. Many of the biggest apologetics disasters could have been avoided if the apologists had been a part of a Christian community. The kollel idea would take care of both problems with a single solution.

What Christians Can Learn From Judaism: The Shtiebel

This is the first video in a series of short videos called: What Christians Can Learn From Judaism. It goes into some of Judaism's best practices, and tells you what Evangelicals can learn from them.

When the Hasidic sects came to America, they noticed how most Jewish communities were liberal, superficial, and in a state of decay. They went into the synagogues and noticed that these synagogues were large and expensive. When they asked about the day schools, the American Jewish leaders responded that the communities that even had a day school in the first place usually had small ones. Most Jews went to public schools.

The Hasidim decided to do the opposite. They invented the Shtiebel, which is a very small and basic synagogue, and invested the rest of their money in the day schools, making sure that everyone in the community could send their kids to the day schools. Their justification is that kids learn their worldview in their schools which they attend every day, much more so than the synagogues, which they visited once a week. The Synagogues might be great places for Jews to connect and network, but it is in the day schools that the next generation learns its worldview.

As a result of this action, the Hasidim experienced growth while the rest of American Jewry experienced decay. This effect is still going on to this day. Most sects of Judaism are shrinking, while Orthodox Judaism is growing.

It makes me think: is the Christian community guilty of the same thing? Are we spending too much money on our churches and not enough on Christian schools? Can we in one day a week compensate for the politically correct, secularizing influence being pushed on our children five days per week? Is it worth having more sports programs for our children, if it means we have to send our kids to secular college, whose professors are experiencing a 70% or so success rate at deconverting Evangelical students? Is this the right investment of our money? Perhaps it is time that we took a page out of the Hasidic playbook, and focused on small churches, large schools.