Why Pray For Someone Else's Salvation?

One challenge that Calvinists issue to others is that only a Calvinist can consistently believe that prayer for the conversion of unbelievers is effective. As James White has argued when debating Michael Brown, non-Calvinists believe that God is work as hard as he possibly can in order to save as many souls as possible. If this is the case, why pray for someone else's salvation?

At first glance, this might look like a challenge. The problem is that ironically, it is Calvinism that cannot provide an answer to this question, while non-Calvinists have at least one way out.

Remember that one of the five pillars of Calvinism's TULIP is Unconditional Election. Monergism.com explains:

The doctrine of election refers to “that eternal act of God whereby He, in His sovereign good pleasure, and on account of no foreseen merit in them, chooses a certain number of men to be the recipients of special grace and of eternal salvation.” In order to emphasize the fact that God’s election or choice of certain sinners to be saved is not based upon anything that the sinner himself does, Reformed theologians refer to election to eternal life as unconditional election. 

Virtually all modern evangelicals and fundamentalists emphatically reject the biblical doctrine of unconditional election. They teach that election is based not solely upon God’s choice or good pleasure but upon God’s foreknowledge of man’s exercise of faith.

The key here is that unconditional election is a much stronger doctrine than many people realize. It is not only the case that people are divided into two categories (saved and damned) before the foundation of the world. This in itself is not problematic. The problem arises when we realize that this election is not in any way dependent upon the things that we will do or would do. If it was, then election would be conditional.

On this view, it makes no sense to pray for the salvation of anyone else. If the election of others is dependent upon whether or not you pray for their salvation, then election is conditional (conditional upon whether or not you pray for them). If election is unconditional, then your prayers are not a factor in it.

How might a Calvinist respond? An easy way out is to go for theistic determinism. This is to say that God determines each of our acts and choices. This would restore the compatibility between unconditional election and the effectiveness of prayer. God determines that your friend will be saved, and then determines that because of this, you will pray for your friend's salvation. So long as God's decree of election is logically prior to the means he ordains, then it is unconditional.

The problem is that this solution works too well. Under this definition, any system of salvation is compatible with unconditional election. God could ordain that we are saved by means of the Roman Catholic sacramental system, and it would still qualify as unconditional election (assuming theistic determinism). We can do even better. Rabbi Akiva taught that we are saved by works. If our good deeds outweigh our bad deeds, then we can go to heaven. Even this system can qualify as unconditional election, so long as God determines that your friend will be saved, and then determines that because of this, he will commit more good acts than bad acts.

What's even more ironic is that the non-Calvinist has ways out of this. If election is conditional, then God's knowledge of your prayers may have an influence on God's decree of election. The Calvinist may retort "Isn't God already working at 100% effort in order to save as many as possible?" The non-Calvinist can bite the bullet and say that this is not the case. However, the non-Calvinist has another solution as well.

God does all he can do without undue intrusion. When we pray, we affect what counts as an undue intrusion. Perhaps it would be unacceptably heavy-handed if God messed with an atheist's brain chemistry to make him more open to theism. However, if enough people prayed, such an act might no longer be heavy-handed.

Think of police involvement in civilian affairs. There are cases when police involvement is unacceptably intrusive if the police take the initiative, but not intrusive if they are called. Domestic disputes and noise complaints fall into this category.

What Christians Can Learn From Skeptics: Editing Wikipedia

This is a video that every Christian or Messianic Jewish apologist needs to see. Susan Gerbic is one of skepticism's greatest geniuses for developing this method. The lecture itself is only 27 minutes long, and is absolutely worth viewing multiple times. This is a lecture by Susan Gerbic, who is a skeptic and anti-paranormalist. She leads a group of Wikipedia editors in order to infuse her ideology into Wikipedia. From Gerbic:

We use Wikipedia to shape the public's view of paranormal topics. We already know that shouting and belittling believers is not the way to go about changing minds. Guerilla skepticism is the act of inserting well-documented well-cited information into Wikipedia. We still follow all of Wikipedia's guidelines. We are also trying to improve the history of the scientific skeptical movement and document it. It allows editors to edit from home without being confrontational with people.

From a fan: "I am amazed at what great ideas you and your team have with Wikipedia. It is the opposite of harm reduction. I'll bet that 99% of hits on Wikipedia pages you update come from non-skeptics. The best part is the sure fact that they are going to Wikipedia means that they are in the moment in that ever-so-elusive information gathering phase of thought. For typical laypeople, that phase is shockingly short, and once it's over, it's over for most true believers."

Gerbic is absolutely right. People generally trust Wikipedia, and do not view it with the same degree of scrutiny with which someone would view an atheist website.

If you are a rising Christian apologist, but don't have the time, money, or experience to publish in professional journals or debate atheists on stage, that's fine. The Internet is a great place to conduct apologetics. Instead of wasting your time arguing on message boards or social media (like Facebook), why not learn to edit Wikipedia? It costs nothing but time, and it reaches an audience far more open-minded than anyone you will debate online. Remember that people trust Wikipedia as a reliable source of information, something not lost on Gerbic.

Gerbic's tactics have worked due to organization. Wikipedia has mobs of tens of thousands of editors. Gerbic's group is a small, but highly focused army of 90 editors, and it has changed the face of Wikipedia's paranormal pages, as well as its pages on famous skeptics, creationism, and evolution. As far as I know, there is not one single Christian apologetics organization that focuses on Wikipedia. Not one. Zilch. Zip. Zero. This needs to be fixed.

Gerbic's Tactics

Working Backwards: Instead of starting with a Wikipedia article, look for an article in a well-documented source, such as a book by Lee Strobel or Josh McDowell, and find a home for the information on Wikipedia. You're not creating a page for the topic, but finding apologetics and research material related to the topic, and then finding an article or several articles in which to insert the information. Gerbic says that one issue of Skeptic magazine can give you 100 edits on Wikipedia. I assume that Craig Keener's book on Miracles can give you far more.

Inserting Links: Find ways of getting those nifty blue links to your favorite apologists on to different pages. An example is mentioning J.P. Moreland or Richard Swinburne on the Dualism (philosophy of mind) page, and making sure that the name is linked, so that someone who is browsing philosophy of mind may decide to visit the apologist's page. Wikipedia articles are like potato chips, you cannot read just one.

We've Got Your Wiki-Back: Improving the Wikipedia pages of Christian apologists, so that when people visit their pages, they will have easy access to their works and materials. We want the Wikipedia pages for apologists like J.P. Moreland, Frank Turek, Lee Strobel, and Sean McDowell to be as full, updated, and rich with information as the pages for James Randi and Richard Dawkins. We are not doing this project for us. We are doing this project for the world, and especially for people who are on the fence about these issues. If we don't respect our spokespeople, who is going to respect them?

Relevant Topics: Topics and people that are relevant to apologetics. We want to add information from apologetics sources to Wikipedia topics such as creationism, intelligent design, pseudoscience, philosophy of science, dualism-interactionism, historical Jesus, eyewitness testimony, the minimal facts argument, and various arguments in natural theology. We need to add links to criticism of opponents of apologists, especially the ones that are in the news. People who are in the news get a lot of Wikipedia hits.

Specialists: Gerbic's World Wikipedia Project recruits people from all over the world who speak different languages, so that she can insert skepticism into pages in Dutch, German, Portuguese, Spanish, and other languages. We need people who can translate, and closed caption apologetics lectures so we can get them into other languages, which can then be imported into foreign language Wikipedia entries. We need photographers who can take and upload better photos of apologists and apologetics events, which can then create better pages for apologists and their events. Some people specialize as researchers. Others track and post pages that need updates and expansion. Some even monitor Wikipedia pages to make sure that the right edits go on them.

Working as a Team: Gerbic's team coordinates their projects. They train new Wikipedians on how to edit Wikipedia so that the edits stay. They proofread each other's work, and make sure that all material cites its relevant sources properly. They share tactics, discussing what does and does not work.

Bonus: And for anyone who doubts how effective her team has been, check out the results of their major projects.

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 1

In this section, Troki writes 100 chapters aimed at attacking the New Testament. Most of them are short enough to be quoted in their entirety.

Matthew 1 contains an account of the genealogy of Jesus, and traces back the descent of Joseph, the husband of Mary, to Solomon son of David. The enumeration of his ancestors terminates thus (ver. 15, 16, 17), "And Eliud begat Eleazar, and Eleazar begat Matthan, and Matthan begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations."

In Luke 3:23, 24, however, the genealogy of Jesus differs from that given by Matthew; for he assigns the descent of Joseph, the husband of Mary, to Nathan the son of David. The parentage of Jesus is there described as follows: "And Jesus was the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli, which was the son of Matthat, which was the son of Levi, which was the son of Melchi, etc., etc. Thus while, according to Matthew, there are forty-two generations, reckoning back to Abraham, there are twenty-six according to the names mentioned in Luke. Besides this, the list of names given in Matthew is not calculated to afford a correct knowledge of the descendants of David, for three generations, Ahaziah, Jaos, and Amaziah, are omitted, and Uzziah is represented to be the son of Joram. See the correct genealogy in 1 Chronicles 3, and in the historical part of the Second Book of Chronicles beginning at chapter 22 etc.

It appears that the omission of three generations of kings was done advisedly, in order to make out Matthew's three series of fourteen generations. However, after all it must be owned, that contradictory accounts of the generations have no reference to Jesus, but only to Joseph. For, as Mary is stated to have remained a virgin, even after her marriage with Joseph, we do not see the use of putting forth a long string of names which had no relation to the founder of the Christian religion. 

So here are the genealogies laid out in an easier fashion:

 

 Luke's gospel was about Mary, and therefore the most likely solution is to say that Matthew was about Joseph (legal line) while Luke was about Mary (biological line). Troki's quote at the end seems bizarre. Mary is the biological ancestor of Jesus, so why would she have no relation to the founder of the Christian religion?

Michael Brown takes a slightly different stance, stating that Shealtiel and Zerubbabel were two fairly common names of their time. This is confirmed by Babylonian inscriptions during the Persian period. They have different parents. They have different children. They are descended from different sons of David. Their chronological placements are off by as much as a century. There simply is no reason to think that the Zerubbabel and Shealtiel of Luke's genealogy is the same as those in Matthew's.

Note also that Matthew's list contains three sets of 14. What is so important about 14? Hebrew letters also have numerical values, one can add the numerical values in a name to get a sum. This is called gematria. What is the gematria value of David's name? 14. Matthew is skipping generations, which is fine since the terms for "father" and "son" can also mean ancestor and descendant. The purpose of Matthew's genealogy is to show the royal lineage while encoding the gematria value of Israel's greatest king.

This objection seems strange coming from someone who believes in the Tanakh. The same genealogical issue for which Troki faults the New Testament occurs when one compares the genealogies in 1 Chronicles. For example, 1 Chronicles 2 states that Judah had five sons named Er, Onan, Shelah, Perez, and Zerah. In 1 Chronicles 4, the sons of Judah are Perez, Hezron, Carmi, Hur, and Shobal. Of five sons, only one has the same name. In 1 Chronicles 2, Perez has Hezron and Hamul. In 1 Chronicles 9, Perez has Bani as his son. In Nehemiah, the son of Perez is Mahalalel.

There are many more difficulties in 1 Chronicles alone. Those of you who have studied 1 Chronicles know that there are ways of harmonizing these accounts. All I am asking for is a little consistency.

Michael Brown concludes with this insight. "Common sense would also tell you that the followers of Jesus, who were totally dedicated to demonstrating to both Jews and Gentiles that he was truly Messiah and Savior, would not preserve and pass on two impossibly contradictory genealogies. In fact, this very suggestion directly contradicts the common objection that the New Testament authors rewrote the accounts of the Gospels in order to make Jesus look like he was the Messiah. The reality is that they accurately reported the story of his life and were careful to include two important genealogies in presenting the account of his ancestry and birth."

Chizuk Emunah Under the Microscope: Chapter 50

In this chapter, Troki challenges Christians for taking the New Testament as a substitute for the Mosaic Law. It largely repeats accusations that have been answered in other chapters. As a result, this article of response will be short.

Remember that monotheism is belief that there is one God. Unitarianism is the belief that God is one person. The Tanakh teaches monotheism, but is silent regarding unitarianism. We do learn that Jesus taught himself to be God, using divine prerogatives such as the forgiveness of sins. He freely accepted worship. He attributed deity to himself in numerous instances, such as John 8:58.

Troki objects to Christian worship of images, but this shows Troki's invincible ignorance. No denomination of Christianity worships images. Even the Catholic and Orthodox denominations merely pay homage to images, just as Jews payed homage to their king, and to the holy sites.

Troki is right in saying that Christians should not vilify the Jews for the death of Jesus. All instances of New Testament hatred toward the Jews are not an attack on the Jews as a people, but an attack on unbelief in general. If the New Testament had been antisemitic, then Jewish believers in Jesus would have been vilified as well, which did not happen.

Some of the things that Jesus taught were hyperbole, as was the custom among wisdom teachers in the first century. Followers of Jesus are not called to tear their eyes out, although some believers such as Origen took these teachings a bit too literally.

Finally, the New Testament does not abolish the law, but follows exactly the same doctrine to which the Talmud holds. The Torah is forever, but the mitzvot are temporary. Most of them are not binding in the Messianic age, as stated in Tractate Niddah 61a. Since Troki is a Karaite and does not hold to the Talmud, this is forgivable. For rabbis who use his material uncritically, it is not.

End of Chizuk Emunah Part 1.

חזק חזק ונתחזק
Chazzak, chazzak, v'nitchazek!

Be strong! Be strong! And may we be strengthened!

Chizuk Emunah Under the Microscope: Chapter 49

Again, this chapter is short enough to quote in its entirety:

An extraordinary degree of inconsistency presents itself in numerous points, when we compare the doctrine of the Christians with the teachings of Jesus and his Apostles.
In the first place, we find that Jesus does not, in any part of the New Testament, call himself "God" but continually calls himself "Man" or "the Son of Man." The title of Divinity attributed to Jesus is consequently conferred upon him without the sanction of that Book, the authority of which can alone be of value to the Christians. 

If Jesus had openly called himself God, that would have only confused the crowds. They believed that God is immaterial and in heaven. And in a sense, that is true. The Hasidic sects have noted that God is both a fountain of unity and of diversity. They see God's being like a branching tree. It is unified, and yet complex in its unity. I have answered this objection a previous post, so I will only go over a few points.

The earliest generation of the followers of Jesus considered him to be God (Philippians 2:9).
Jesus freely received worship.
Jesus freely took on divine prerogatives such as the forgiveness of sins.
Jesus applied Tanakh passages that describe the God of Israel and applied them to himself.
Jesus' teaching is the best explanation for why Paul, the other apostles, and the entire early church worshiped him as God in the flesh.

Again, Troki writes:

In the second place, we notice that Jesus expresses himself, in various places, that he did not come to abolish the law of Moses, but to uphold it. Thus we read in Matthew 5:17, 18, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil: for verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot, or one tittle, shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." In a similar manner, we find in Luke 16:17, "And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail." Nevertheless, the Christians persist in believing that the Mosaic dispensation is no longer in force, but; has been superseded by that of Jesus. 

This is a misunderstanding of what Jesus meant when he said that the law would not pass away. As N.T. Wright noted repeatedly in his material, the Tanakh does not answer the question "how do I go to heaven after I die?" All of the blessings and curses regarding the law were linked to rewards and punishments on this earth. It is only later, by people like Rabbi Akiva, when the teaching that obedience to the law is how you get to heaven. Being a Jew was no guarantee of salvation, nor was being a non-Jew any guarantee of damnation. Non-Jews like Job and Melchizedek were righteous in the eyes of God, while many of the kings were wicked and damned.

The purpose of the law was as a treaty between God and Israel as a collective whole. The nation as a single unit was rewarded and punished. Paul, Timothy, and other Jews who followed Jesus kept the law. The book of Acts is very clear about this. They knew that the law was not abolished. Why then do most Christians not follow the Mosaic law?

First, most Christians are not Jews, and hence would not be bound by the Mosaic law in the first place. For the majority of Christians, this objection is irrelevant. For the Jewish Christians, there was no need to follow the law once Israel was destroyed and scattered in the year 135. To follow the law today is something like trying to follow the United States tax law after the nation is obliterated.

The rabbis acknowledge this. In Midrash Vayikra Rabbah, all sacrifices except the thanksgiving offerings will be annulled, since there will be no need for them. In Midrash Schochar Tov, God will permit what is now forbidden. The Babylonian Talmud (Niddah 61b and Shabbat 151b) states that in the world to come, most of the mitzvot (commands of the Jewish law) will not be in force.

Troki again:

In the third place, we observe, from the words of Jesus, that he thought everlasting bliss depended on the obedience to the holy laws of Moses, for when asked by the rich man, what he was to do in order to earn beatitude in life everlasting, Jesus answered (Matthew 19:17, 18, 19, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. The rich man said unto him, Which commandment? Jesus answered, Thou shalt do no murder; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness; honour thy father and thy mother; and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." The Christian of our day adds, that the sole condition on which life eternal depends, is the belief in Jesus as the Saviour of the soul. Jesus moreover taught the young man (Matt 19:21) "If thou be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor." This precept we have never yet seen performed by any Christian.

 Troki makes a good point. If we manage to keep God's commands perfectly, we can inherit eternal life. This means that we do not inherit sin from Adam. We are not born guilty of sin. Instead, we commit sins, and are damned for it. This was still beside the point for the conversation in Matthew 19. In this story, Jesus was approached by a rich young ruler who thought he had it all together. The man thought he was righteous, and Jesus had to ask him a series of questions so that he might listen. Jesus then directly challenged the man's illusion of piety. If he was so perfectly righteous, he would value God more than any material possession. Of course, the ruler was unwilling to do this, and so his illusion of piety was dissolved in front of the whole crowd.

Jesus then makes his point in the next paragraph. It is very difficult for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God, since people who make a lot of money tend to make wealth the focus of their lives. Peter then asked Jesus "who can be saved?" Jesus replied "with men this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible." The rich young ruler represented the height of Jewish piety, the rich man that Tevye wanted to be. Jesus was making a point that even someone like that cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Humanity has too many weaknesses. Everyone has sinned, and continues to sin. No one can be perfect, and thus we need God's grace in order to have any hope of obtaining salvation.

Troki's fourth point:

In the fourth place, we do not anywhere find the Christian who submits to the humiliation enjoined by Jesus on his disciples, when he said (Luke 6:29) "And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid not to take thy coat also," etc.

 Apparently, Troki has not read Foxe's Book of Martyrs, or all the other stories of Christians doing just that. The Amish are pacifists and do take this advice literally, although the intent of Jesus was to teach through rabbinic hyperbole. This is similar to saying "tear out your eye and cut off your foot." The point of the passage is to love your enemies, and to be better than the surrounding world. Another way of summarizing this passage is "be proactive, not reactive."

Troki's fifth point

In the fifth place, we have to point out that, while the Christians believe that Mary, after having given birth to Jesus, still remained a virgin, Jesus himself was not of that opinion; for, according to John 2:4, he said, "Woman what have I to do with thee"?

Troki is right, although John 2:4 is not the best passage for this. Matthew 1:25 states that Joseph had no relations with her until she had a son. This implies that he did have relations with her afterward, otherwise the passage simply should have said "he had no relations with her."

And when Jesus had finished these parables, he went away from there, and coming to his hometown he taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.” And he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief. (Matthew 13:53-58)

Even Josephus notes this, mentioning in book 20 of his Antiquities about the death of James, the brother of Jesus, the so-called Messiah. Even if, somehow, the church used the term "brother" in this non-literal way, Josephus did not.

Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd. And he was told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, desiring to see you.” But he answered them, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.” (Luke 8:19-21)

Luke 8 seals the deal. Here, he is comparing his figurative use of mother and brothers to a literal use. If he was not told about his literal biological mother and brothers in the first part of this passage, then it would break the parallel and render it meaningless.

Troki's sixth point:

In the sixth place, we find the Christians at variance, not only differing from the Mosaic, or rather Noachic prohibition of eating blood, but even from the injunction we read in Acts 15:20, "But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood." See also ibid. 15:29 and 21:25.

Michael Horudmann answers this question quite well. "These four commands from Jerusalem to Antioch all dealt with pagan practices associated with idolatry. Most, if not all, of the Gentile converts in Antioch were saved out of paganism. The church leaders were exhorting the new Gentile believers to make a clean break from their old lifestyles and not offend their Jewish brothers and sisters in the church. The instructions were not intended to guarantee salvation but to promote peace within the early church." 

Paul writes in Colossians 2 that "Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath." The laws given to Noah were for his protection. He was for the first time allowed to eat meat, but God warned against eating it raw. Peter and Paul both recognized (in their letters and in Acts) that we have been set free from dietary restrictions, but must make sure that our actions do not cause others to stumble.

The Quest For Certainty

Chizuk Emunah Under the Microscope: Chapter 48

Chapter 48 is short enough that I will quote it in its entirety.

          We would submit to discussion the question whether the Christians have any foundation for the belief that Jesus wrought his beneficial works for the salvation of the souls of his believers, and through his sufferings and his blood, he saved the followers of his creed from everlasting perdition in hell? If that were the case, the Christians would be dispensed from doing good actions, and be irresponsible for evil deeds. A passage occurring in St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians (chap. 6:9,) will moreover show that the fall of Jesus was only of advantage to the upright, but not to sinners. "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God." Of this we find a detailed explanation in the subsequent verses. Now, if sinners devoid of merit cannot be saved, why should the righteous who have merits require any intercession in order to obtain the Divine favour? It would appear then that the death of Jesus serves neither for the salvation of the sinner, nor for the salvation of the righteous.
          Should the Christians argue that the death of Jesus was intended only to rescue from hell the souls of those who were involved in the sin of Adam, then we would refer back to the pages wherein we have fully proved that the prophets and the pious could not reasonably, and according to Scriptural evidence, incur damnation on account of the fall of Adam. 

Troki refers to 1 Corinthians 6

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
(1 Corinthians 6:9-11)

 As you can see, the passage says the exact opposite of what Troki intends. Many people are slaves to sin, and it is their salvation and regeneration in Jesus that frees them from this sin. Troki implies that we first have to be righteous in order to receive salvation. The New Testament says the exact opposite.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Romans 5:6-11)

 Troki is right in one sense: our salvation is not dependent upon our good and evil deeds. Instead, our salvation frees us from our addiction to wickedness. Those who grow in him find sin less and less appealing, until the day that we receive full restoration, and sin loses its appeal entirely.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:1-10)

 Paul also mentions this issue in Romans 6.

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:1-4)

 As to what the Rabbi says about original sin, the early church before Augustine, and Eastern Orthodoxy to this day, agrees with him. We are not guilty of Adam's sin. We do not have a sin nature. Instead, sin is something we do. I will leave the reader to my other article for the rest of the story.

Materialism, Dualism, and the Incarnation

Skeptics ask whether Jesus could be both omniscient and ignorant. How is it that God could retain his property of being all-knowing while also experiencing fear, doubt, and not knowing when he would return. The answer, surprisingly, comes from the Kalam Cosmological Argument.

In the Kalam argument, the proponent argues that the past cannot be infinite because an infinite number of things cannot exist in the real world (and to say that distances are composed of an infinite number of points is begging the question). When David Hilbert evaluated the role of infinite quantities such as . These quantities are used in abstract thought, so that we can make generalized statements that apply to all numbers. The problem is that as soon as you start performing operations with these numbers, you run into paradoxes like Hilbert's hotel.

Worse, operations like - or / are undefined. You cannot perform inverse operations on actual infinites, but if actual infinites existed in the real world, there would be nothing stopping you from performing these operations.

The question then arises: how is God omniscient? If God knows an infinite number of propositions, wouldn't that contradict these mathematical laws? It seems they would.

Therefore, we need to think of omniscience not as knowledge of distinct propositions, but as some kind of non-propositional super-thought, from which he can derive propositions.

Another question relates to the biblical teaching about the soul and how it relates to neuroscience. The Bible repeatedly teaches that the body and the immaterial soul are two distinct things. This view, called dualism-interactionism, has come under fire from philosophers. If our soul is different, then why do we lose consciousness when we are hit over the head? Why do things that damage the brain also affect memory, and why is it when you are knocked unconscious for surgery, that you have no recollection of the passage of time? There are also numerous instances of people able to obtain information and have conscious experiences at times when their are brain dead.

All of these problems are answered by a single solution. When the soul is left on its own, the soul has its own mental faculties, such as reason and memory. That is why people can know about conversations across the street even when they are brain dead. When the soul is connected to a brain, it relies on the brain's faculties, even if they are damaged. The soul will not rely on its own faculties until it is completely severed from the brain.

Think about how this applies to the incarnation. Jesus had the super-thought from which he was able to derive propositions, until he became incarnate, at which point he relied on the faculties of his human brain. Since the human brain does not have the ability to derive propositions from the divine super-thought, that is how he could be both omniscient and ignorant.

Chizuk Emunah Under the Microscope: Chapter 47

Troki presents us with a fun dilemma that you do not hear very often from anti-missionaries today. Was Jesus crucified with is will or against his will? If he was crucified against his will, then how could he be designated a God while he was incapable of resisting the power of those who brought him to the cross, and how could he be held as Savior of all mankind who had his will taken away from him?

For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.” 
(John 10:17-18)

If Jesus was crucified in agreement with his will, as the New Testament teaches, then how can the Jewish crowds be vilified for what they did? And also, why then did Jesus make the following statements?

And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” 

(Matthew 26:39)

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)

The answer is obvious: Jesus was crucified in agreement with his will. A. Lukyn Williams poses the following dilemma to Troki.

I will answer his dilemma fully when he will answer this, this very old one: Is the sin of any man committed with the will of God or against it? If he answers "with the will of God," then every sinner ought to find favor with God; if he says "against the will of God," then God is not supreme. In other words the dilemma proposed by the Rabbi is precisely the same as that of the existence of evil, and the commission of any act of sin. 

Of course, the dilemma is a little different as it relates to Jesus, who did not merely allow himself to be crucified, but had planned on it. These passages also stress the importance of two doctrines: the incarnation and the trinity. God is one being with multiple centers of self-consciousness, and this is the difference between unitarian monotheism and trinitarian monotheism. This passage is not compatible with the former, but it is with the latter. 

This passage also shows that Jesus felt the human emotions of panic and fear that we all feel, although he did not allow them to bring him to sin and disobedience.

The second problem is: how can the Jews of the time be blamed if Jesus was willing to be crucified, and that his crucifixion brought about the greatest good? The answer is that Troki is assuming a view of ethics called consequentialism, which states that the rightness or wrongness of a decision is based on the consequences it produces. Here is the problem: consequentialism is the moral system of a comic book supervillain. Every supervillain thinks that they can create a better world if only they could take it through a painful reshaping process. "If you want to make an omlette, you have to break some eggs" they will say. That seems well and good until you realize that your eggs get broken.

Furthermore, Judas's betrayal also brought about the greatest good for the world, yet Judas was still the villain. The New Testament teaches strongly against consequentialist morality.

Chizuk Emunah Under the Microscope: Chapter 46

In this chapter, Troki writes that there has never been a persecutor of the Jews who has been spared the wrath of God. Pharaoh, Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar, Haman, and other persecutors have faced retribution for their persecution. He quotes from Leviticus, Isaiah, Deuteronomy, Joel, Zechariah, and the Psalms to show that every group that has tried to destroy the Jews has failed. This did not merely take place in ancient times, but also in later times. Even Rome was overthrown. Nations like England, France, and Spain faced political and economic disaster when they tried to expel the Jews.

Israel was holy to the Lord,

the firstfruits of his harvest.

All who ate of it incurred guilt;

disaster came upon them,

declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 2:3)

I agree with A. Lukyn Williams that we can do nothing but agree with Troki on this one. God's promise to the Jews has been made good to this day.

As a minor gripe, Troki's argument regarding the enemies of Israel is a weak one. Of course the empires that oppressed Israel fell. Every empire that was around at that time has fallen, regardless of whether they oppressed Israel. Troki may be right, but his argument is trivial.

The Jewish people have not been eliminated despite being one of the most hated groups in the world. Covenantal theologies, which state that the church is the New Israel, have a hard time explaining why this is the case. Tens of thousands of tribal groups have come and gone, but the Jews have stayed. How could this be the case without divine intervention? And why would God preserve the Jews, allowing the creation of a secular Israeli state, if they are not still the people of the original covenant?

Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.” (1 Kings 19:18)

And Joab gave the sum of the numbering of the people to the king: in Israel there were 800,000 valiant men who drew the sword, and the men of Judah were 500,000. 
(2 Samuel 24:9)

 Out of close to a half million people, only 7,000 were loyal to God. Yet God did not remove his covenant with them, even though they were apostate. Again, the apostasy of most Jews is no reason to think that they are not still part of Israel. Not all who are part of Israel will go to heaven when they die. Instead, we should think of "the saved" as one group and "the people of Israel" as another. It was this way during the times of the Tanakh, so why shouldn't it be this way today?

Chizuk Emunah Under the Microscope: Chapter 45

Even the Jewish scholars at Bar Ilan University and the Hebrew University at Jerusalem mention that the New Testament legitimately interprets the Tanakh. They believe that the New Testament uses pesher interpretation. The writers of pesharim believe that scripture is written in two levels: the surface for ordinary readers with limited knowledge, the concealed one for specialists with higher knowledge. Pesher interpretation was a common form during the era when the Dead Sea Scrolls were written. In modern contexts, this interpretation is sometimes called a sensus plenior, or a fuller sense.

Troki spends chapter 45 going through New Testament interpretations of prophecies, but I will leave my analysis of this for the second section of Troki's book. The key point here is because of sensus plenior or pesher interpretations, and the fact that Second Temple Jews considered these to be legitimate uses of the Scriptures, Troki cannot demonstrate that the New Testament is false by showing that it does not quote the literal or pashat meaning of the original text.

Chizuk Emunah Under the Microscope: Chapter 44

In this chapter, Troki argues that in the days of Messiah, there will be one faith and one religion throughout the world. This is prooftexted in the following verses:

By myself I have sworn;

from my mouth has gone out in righteousness

a word that shall not return:

‘To me every knee shall bow,

every tongue shall swear allegiance.’(Isaiah 45:23)

Isaiah 45 is right in the middle of what scholars call Deutero-Isaiah, which comprises chapter 40-55. This section features Isaiah's written works, as opposed to his spoken oracles. In this section, he states that God alone exists, and that there are no other gods. Yahweh will triumph over his rivals until he alone is worshiped.

“For at that time I will change the speech of the peoples

to a pure speech,

that all of them may call upon the name of the Lord

and serve him with one accord.
(Zephaniah 3:9)

Awake, awake,

put on your strength, O Zion;

put on your beautiful garments,

O Jerusalem, the holy city;

for there shall no more come into you

the uncircumcised and the unclean.(Isaiah 52:1)

Also in Deutero-Isaiah.

“So you shall know that I am the Lord your God,

who dwells in Zion, my holy mountain.

And Jerusalem shall be holy,

and strangers shall never again pass through it.(Joel 3:17)

“Those who sanctify and purify themselves to go into the gardens, following one in the midst, eating pig's flesh and the abomination and mice, shall come to an end together, declares the Lord.

“For I know their works and their thoughts, and the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues. And they shall come and shall see my glory, and I will set a sign among them. And from them I will send survivors to the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands far away, that have not heard my fame or seen my glory. And they shall declare my glory among the nations. And they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the Lord, on horses and in chariots and in litters and on mules and on dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, just as the Israelites bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord. And some of them also I will take for priests and for Levites, says the Lord.

“For as the new heavens and the new earth

that I make

shall remain before me, says the Lord,

so shall your offspring and your name remain.

From new moon to new moon,

and from Sabbath to Sabbath,

all flesh shall come to worship before me,

declares the Lord.(Isaiah 66:17-23)

And the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be one and his name one.
(Zechariah 14:9)

As I have written in earlier posts, this is happening right now. Belief in the God of Israel has been growing for 2,000 years, to the point that over a tenth of the world worships him. This is contrasted with the time of ancient Israel, where a very tiny fraction of the population even knew who Yahweh was. Today, most of the world's population has some idea of the God of Israel, and this is directly due to the influence of his church.

BioLogos: The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

Faith and Science
Religious folk hold a variety of differing views on whether God used evolution in the creation process and if so, how it was used. My personal take on the issue is that of Old Earth Creationism, a view held by Gerald Schroeder and Hugh Ross, who have shared a platform together.
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/astronomer-hugh-ross-and-physicist-gerald-schroeder-give-trotter-lecture-tonight-at-tamu/

Both are extremely knowledgeable about both Biblical interpretation and the scientific evidence on how we got here. I recommend viewing as many lectures as possible from both of them. There are also those who believe that all life evolved from a single-celled life form and yet believe that there is good reason to believe that divine intervention was involved. Many of these people fall under the Intelligent Design camp, such as William Dembski and Michael Behe. ID is compatible with universal common descent, and hence can be a type of theistic evolution.

The Odd One Out
There is this one group, BioLogos which rejects any inference to divine design behind the evolutionary process. The model holds to mainstream, secular science regarding the origin and diversity of life, and yet posits God as a metaphysical topping. This approach has drawn the ire of Young-Earth creationist groups:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v6/n4/blurring-the-line

Evangelical Theologians:
http://www.albertmohler.com/2010/11/09/no-pass-from-theological-responsibility-the-biologos-conundrum/

Old Earth Creationist groups:
http://www.reasons.org/blogs/take-two/checking-out-the-menu

The Intelligent Design community:
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/09/why_did_one_theistic_evolution050621.html

And even atheists:
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/10/26/biologos-eliminates-reader-comments/

The best explanation as to why both creationists (of all stripes) and the secularist crowd despise BioLogos comes from creation.com.
http://creation.com/biologos-evolutionary-syncretism

Albert Mohler summarizes the issue beautifully:

The BioLogos approach to the issue is now clear. They want to discredit evangelical objections to evolution and to convince the evangelical public that an acceptance of evolution is a means of furthering the gospel. They have leveled their guns at the Intelligent Design movement, at young earth creationism, and against virtually all resistance to the embrace of evolution.

As one Christian blogger noted, the effect is virtually the opposite:

By your compromise, (A) you are not winning them over, but (B) are signalling to them that they are winning you over. They will simply wait you out, until you continue in your process of jettisoning everything the world hates about you as a Christian.

And yet Jerry Coyne disagrees with BioLogos as well. First, one commenter at the BioLogos blog cuts through the smoke and gets to the heart of the problem:

Why has there not been eve one BioLogos column in the past 6 years that directly tackles the question of God's involvement in the evolutionary process? If BioLogos is not interested in producing an account of God's role in evolution that is compatible with the orthodox Christian faith, it has no raison d'etre. The question of how God is involved in the evolutionary process is absolutely central, and more so than any subsidiary question about genomes or fossils. BioLogos has failed to respond to every challenge it has received on that question.

Coyne agrees and then offers this brilliant insight:

All that Templeton money, all those electrons expended in the service of accommodation, and what does BioLogos have to show for it? Have they offered a consensus view on how God works through evolution? (For example, does God make mutations? And why all those extinct species?) Have they brought even one evangelical and creationist Christian around to evolution? In terms of converts per dollar, I suspect that Richard Dawkins is infinitely more efficient than BioLogos.

The reason BioLogos won’t succeed is because they have no consensus view to offer evangelicals: just an array of speculative and untestable options which are in various degrees unpalatable to everyone. Templeton should stop throwing money down this empty well.

Slifkin, Stump, Enns
It's a similar issue with Nathan Slifkin, also known as the Zoo Rabbi. If the goal of these organizations were simply to express a worldview that holds to faith in the Bible and to theistic evolution, that would not be especially problematic. Dinesh D'Souza, for example, is a staunch theistic evolutionist and also a defender of the Christian worldview against secularism.

The question is: why would any of this matter to an Old-Earth Creationist who deals with Jewish apologetics issues? The dirty little secret among these theistic evolution think tanks is that most of them are opposed to apologetics. Not just apologetics against evolution. Apologetics in its entirety.

Let me explain. I have spent a good teal of time in the past year conversing with theistic evolutionists in general and with BioLogos in particular. One conversation with their content director, James Stump was particularly enlightening. I asked about Alvin Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism. Stump said he would be teaching about it at Bethel College in the coming semester, and arguing that evolution is indeed compatible with naturalism. When I asked why, he said that it certainly does seem that we are material beings who evolved through natural selection. I then asked about arguments for the existence of God, which he rejects as well. I then asked about what arguments he would use to show that the Christian worldview is rationally superior to atheism. He said that there are none. Atheism is fully a rational and defensible worldview.

Remember that this is James Stump, a self-professed Evangelical Christian who teaches philosophy at Bethel College, an Evangelical Christian university. He is also an editor for Philosophia Christi, the trade journal of the Evangelical Philosophical Society. In his speech to the EPS, he told the group how he resented the heat which came down on him from the parents of his students. He also complained about the leaders of Bethel College pushing him out of teaching and into a more administrative role, wondering why this is the case.

Another representative of this movement is Peter Enns, who was a Vice President at BioLogos. Enns holds a particularly skeptical position toward the historicity of the Exodus, the invasion of Israel, and the historical reliability of the Tanakh in general. He also calls himself an Evangelical Christian. However, his biggest complaint about Evangelicals is that they allow their theology to influence their view of history. In other words, if secular scholarship holds a certain position on an issue like the historicity of Adam, the Exodus, the Davidic Kingdom, and the like, Christians must accept that view and adjust their theology accordingly.

In fact, as Dr. Mark Sprinkle of BioLogos states their position: "our theology is descriptive, not prescriptive; it is our collective and halting attempt to describe in coherent terms what we know of God by what we have seen of His acts and what we have read in His Word." This is to say that their theology must not, in advance, influence what they believe actually happened in history. That is what it means to be descriptive and not prescriptive.

Would You Hire a BioLogos Lawyer?
Imagine that your son was arrested on charges of murder, theft, battery, and sexual assault on a minor. At the trial, the prosecution gives arguments and evidence that your son is in fact guilty. When it is your side's turn to present evidence, your son's attorney gives the following speech:

I do believe that my client is innocent, but I do not think we can demonstrate them (or discount them) empirically. There are things we are to believe, but they cannot be shown on empirical grounds to be more true. Whether my client committed these crimes is a grand mystery and not open to empirical support.

There are some things, of course, that are open to some sort of empirical support, such as: was my client raised in a good home? was my client guilty of crimes other than the ones that the prosecution is charging?

In other words, some things can be tested and potentially verified through empirical means, but some things cannot. The core of my case cannot be tested that way, in my opinion, and showing empirically that my witnesses spoke of the past in a more story-like than historicisitic way does not in any way neuter the core.

So, how do we "know" my client is innocent? In an evidentialist sense, we don't. But a "knowing" that accesses the whole being--such as the defendant's families understand--is what you call metaphysical, and I would call mystical, i.e., is trans-rational (not anti-rational).

Can I demonstrate empirically that my client is innocent? On some levels, I would say yes, but on a most meaningful level, that my client's innocence is Truth, we demonstrate to others as my client and his family tell us to--die, serve, love, embody his goodness in all we do. Against such things there is no argument.

 This is nearly a verbatim quote from a chat I had with one of the BioLogos folk. The only difference is that instead of the client's innocence, it is the truth of the Christian worldview. Apologists are called to defend the Biblical view in the same way that attorneys are called to defend a set of facts. I hope you would not spend your hard-earned cash on a lawyer who would not even try to argue your son's innocence. So why would anyone who holds to a Biblical worldview do anything to help such an organization?

The Takeaway
 BioLogos desires the same relationship between faith in the private realm and faith in the public sphere that Dan Barker publicly proclaims when he speaks for the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

"If people want to stand on their heads and worship Mother Goose and speak in tongues, I don't care. That is their own private thing, if they want to believe in two gods, or three gods, or the Virgin Mary. But when their actions, coming from their religious teachings, result in consequences that cause avoidable harm, then we as moral people have an obligation, I think, to speak out against those actions."

 This, I think, is the goal of the theistic evolution movement. If you want to believe in God in private, go for it. The problem is when you let your belief in God affect your views on the origin of life and of its diversity. Believe in God in private, but don't think you can use science to argue for your belief. You can believe that God had some metaphysical providence regarding the origin of life, but don't you dare infer that it was an act of special creation. And don't you dare let us catch you using Alvin Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism, either. Theistic evolutionists don't believe in that "scientific apologetics" nonsense.

Additional Objections to the Kalam Cosmological Argument

Do Things Come Into Being?
One might object that things do not come into being. That objection seems bizarre, since it certainly looks like things began to exist. Did my coffee mug always exist? Did the Large Hadron Collider always exist? Did I always exist? It seems that they did. The objector can then try to get out of this problem  by saying that there really are no such things as chairs, coffee mugs, and hadron colliders. There are only particles arranged chair-wise, tree-wise, and coffee mug-wise. This view is called mereological nihilism.

It is difficult to take mereological nihilism seriously. If it is true, then nobody holds to it, because there are no people, only particles arranged person-wise. Why answer the objection if nobody has ever raised it?

If there are no objects composed of parts, but instead are only fundamental particles arranged in different ways, then the following six statements are not just false, but necessarily false:
(1)     The handle is part of the mug.
(2)     This cap is part of my pen.
(3)     The left half is your part of the cake.
(4)     The cutlery is part of the tableware.
(5)     The contents of this bag is only part of what I bought.
(6)     That area is part of the living room.

Another challenge to mereological nihilism is the possibility of gunk. This is not the sort of gunk that you might find on your shoe or in your sink. If something is made of atomless gunk then it divides forever into smaller and smaller parts—it is infinitely divisible. Normal matter is not made of gunk, nor is any known object. The challenge that gunk presents is that if gunk exists anywhere, even outside our universe, then mereological nihilism is false, since gunk cannot be broken down to any sort of fundamental particles or simples. Worse, if gunk is even possible, then it is possible for there to be distinct objects which are composed of parts.

However, abandoning mereological nihilism means we have to accept that new things come into being all the time. We do not simply rearrange particles in different configurations, but actually bring new objects into existence. Every time this happens, we assign causes to it. Hence, we really can cause new things to come into existence.

Quantum Physics
Opponents have objected that quantum physics provides a counterexample. This is simply a misunderstanding of how virtual particles are described. When a Uranium atom (for example) decays, the fact that the atom decayed at that specific time has no known cause. It appears to be a random event. The radiation from the decay does not come into being uncaused. The decay of the atom caused the radiation. Hence, the radiation is caused.

What about virtual particles? David Alpert writes:

Relativistic-quantum-field-theoretical vacuum states — no less than giraffes or refrigerators or solar systems — are particular arrangements of elementary physical stuff. The true relativistic-quantum-field-­theoretical equivalent to there not being any physical stuff at all isn’t this or that particular arrangement of the fields — what it is (obviously, and ineluctably, and on the contrary) is the simple absence of the fields! The fact that some arrangements of fields happen to correspond to the existence of particles and some don’t is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that some of the possible arrangements of my fingers happen to correspond to the existence of a fist and some don’t. And the fact that particles can pop in and out of existence, over time, as those fields rearrange themselves, is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that fists can pop in and out of existence, over time, as my fingers rearrange themselves. And none of these poppings — if you look at them aright — amount to anything even remotely in the neighborhood of a creation from nothing.

Why a Mind?
An objector may ask: why do we need to posit a mind to explain the beginning of time? Furthermore, the objector may press my statement about timeless matter. Why, exactly, can't matter exist timelessly apart from time and then become temporal?

Let's assume there is a universe where there is quiescent matter. The entire universe is static—one timeless state of affairs. On what grounds could such a universe ever become temporal? A set of timeless necessary and sufficient conditions does not produce a temporal result. Water, for example, cannot exist eternally or timelessly in a liquid state and then begin to freeze.

Even random effects still require time. The breakdown of a Uranium atom is controlled by time and functions in time. If it did not, there could be no such thing as a half-life. Besides, it is self-contradictory to say that some object is both unstable and quiescent.

Therefore, we cannot rely on material stuff to transition between a timeless state and a temporal state. Yet, if time had a beginning, there was such a transition.

What about an immaterial mind? Can that do any better? I think so, and so did Muhammad Al-Ghazali. He was responding to the objection by the Aristotelians "Why didn't God create the world sooner?"

The world came to existence whence it did, having the description with which it came to exist, and in the place in which it came to exist, through will, will being an attribute whose function is to differentiate a thing from its similar. If this were not its function, then power would be sufficient. But since the relation of power to to contraries is the same, there would be an inescapable need for a specifying agent that would specify one thing from its similar. . .Hence, someone's statement "Why did the will specifically relate to one of the two similars?" is akin to the statement "Why does knowledge entail as a requirement the encompassing of the object of knowledge as it is?" For one would reply "This is because 'knowledge' stands as an expression for an attribute that has this as a function." Similarly, "Will stands as an expression for an attribute whose function—nay, its essence—is to differentiate a thing from its similar."

In plain English, Ghazali is saying that the world came into being when it did because God has this attribute called "will" which allows a person to act arbitrarily. One might ask why "will" does this, and Ghazali said that such would be like asking why bachelors are unmarried. It is true by definition.
Rival philosophers argued that all action is motivated, and that there is no such thing as "will" as Ghazali described. They invoke a version of the Buridan's Ass paradox.

Affirming an attribute whose function is to differentiate a thing fom its similar is incomprehensible—indeed, contradictory. . .This is shown to be true by the fact that the expression "will" as applied to God is a borrowing from our "will." It is inconceivable of us that we would differentiate through will one thing from its similar. Indeed, if in front of a thirsty person there are two glasses of water that are similar in every respect in relation to his purpose of wanting to drink, it would be impossible for him to take either. Rather, he would take that which he would deem better, lighter, closer to his right side—if his habit was to move the right hand-or some such cause, whether hidden or manifest. Otherwise, differentiating something from its like is in no circumstance conceivable.

They state that no one is capable of genuinely arbitrary action. There is always some reason that someone will choose between two equally good and mutually exclusive options. Ghazali responds that even if this were true of humans, we do not have good reason to say it is true of God.

The first is regarding that your statement that this is inconceivable: do you know this through rational necessity or through theoretical reflection? It is impossible for you to appeal to either of these. Moreover, your using our will as an example constitutes a false analogy that parallels the analogy between human and divine knowledge. God's knowledge differs from human knowledge in matters we have already established. Why, then, should the difference between the divine and human in the case of the will be unlikely?

Furthermore, humans are capable of genuinely arbitrary action.

Even so, in our own human case, we do not concede that the choice between similar things is inconceivable. For we will suppose that there are two equal figs in front of someone gazing longingly at them, unable, however, to take both together. He will inevitably take one of them through an attribute whose function is to render a thing specific, differentiating it from its like. All the specifying things you have mentioned by way of goodness, proximity, and ease of taking we can suppose to be absent, the possibility of taking one yet remaining. You are, hence, left between two alternatives. You could either say that equality in relation to the individual's purpose is utterly inconceivable, which is sheer foolishness (the supposition of this equality being possible), or else, that if the equality is supposed, the man yearning for the figs would ever remain undecided, looking at neither through pure will and choice that are supposedly disassociated from the objective of taking one. This is also impossible, its falsity known by rational necessity.

 This is a complicated way of saying that there are situations where people have to choose between two mutually exclusive options. Furthermore, the paradox holds so long as both options are equally desirable. Very often we are faced with analysis paralysis and it sure seems like we are forced to decide arbitrarily. In absence of some knockdown refutation, that appearance should be assumed to be true.

Back to the beginning of time problem. We have to make a choice regarding why time began. We have three available options placed before us, and need to choose the best one. Randomness will not work, since random occurrence is essentially a function within time. A static physical state will not work, as no set of necessary and sufficient conditions can be both timeless and produce a temporal effect.

That leaves us with an unembodied mind. The idea is certainly coherent. We can conceive of existence as non-physical entities. Many Eastern religions, in fact, believe that the physical world is illusory. It also seems conceivable that a mind can be in a timeless state. People do something close to this in deep meditation. They try to hold their consciousness in as unchanging of a state as possible. Since we have physical bodies that affect our minds, it might not be possible for us to hold a completely unchanging conscious state. But if meditation can get us most of the way there, then it is certainly conceivable that a mind without the burden of a body could go all of the way there. That mind could then arbitrarily change its conscious state, and bring reality into time.

Conclusion: The Conjurer
A final way that someone might object is to define "cause" in a way that does not allow us to talk about something causing something else to come into existence. After all, doesn't the caused object already have to exist before a cause can act upon it?

Imagine a wizard who could conjure up all sorts of things. He waves his hand, does a short incantation, and an object appears. The object comes into existence, and there is no material stuff from which the object came. Is the wizard causing the objects to come into existence?

Furthermore, imagine that this wizard is part of an entire order of wizards, and all of them have this ability. One day, during a parade for the king, one of the wizards (we'll call him Bob) does a chant, waves his hands, and all of a sudden, a dagger appears in the king's back. Bob is gagged and subdued, and put to trial.

Imagine Bob's lawyer at the trial saying that Bob could not have caused that knife to appear in the king's back because it is logically absurd to say that objects can be caused to come into existence. Furthermore, imagine the lawyer arguing that because you cannot bring something into existence out of nothing, there is no basis for saying that Bob is responsible for the knife, rather than any other member of his order. Do you believe the arguments of Bob's lawyer?

The fact that we can describe a scenario like this coherently indicates that the idea of causing something to come into existence is coherent, even if the object did not come from pre-existing material. The fact that we laugh at the arguments of Bob's lawyer shows us that we can assign causes to things that come into existence. We can even have rational grounds for inferring who brought what into existence.

Trivial Objections to the Kalam Argument
An Empiricist Objection to the Kalam Argument

An Empiricist Objection to the Kalam Cosmological Argument

The Objection
On the Reasonable Faith page, Dr. Craig periodically gets this obnoxious objection, not from professional scholars, but from Internet Atheists. These atheists will argue that the reason we believe premise 1 of the Kalam argument is that we see things come into existence all the time. However, everything that we see beginning to exist does not come into being ex nihilo, but comes into being from pre-existing material stuff.

Therefore, the objection goes, we have no experience of things coming into being out of nothing, and therefore have no reason to believe that if something comes into being out of nothing, it has a cause.

Rationalism, Empiricism, and Neo-Kantianism
Before getting into this objection, we need to be clear regarding the different theories of knowledge proposed by philosophers.

Rationalism - Some of the ideas we have are innate, and may even be hardwired.

Empiricism - There is nothing in the intellect that is not first in the five senses.

Neo-Kantianism - The mind is hardwired with a categorical structure, and all sense experience is filtered through it.

Rationalism was the view of Plato and Descartes. Aristotle, Aquinas, and Hume all held to types of empiricism. Modern proponents of Neo-Kantianism include Stuart Hackett and William Lane Craig.

If rationalism is the case, then this objection may not even be relevant. One could state that our knowledge that things need a cause is innate knowledge. This is an objection from an empiricist viewpoint. An empiricist could say that the reason we know that things cannot come into existence without a cause is that we see things come into existence all the time, and always with a cause.

Efficient Cause vs. Material Cause
Aristotle wrote in his works on metaphysics, that there were multiple kinds of causation. For the purpose of this article, we will focus on two: efficient cause and material cause. A material cause is the stuff of which things are made. The bronze of a statue is the statue's material cause. The artisan's act of making the statue is the statue's efficient cause.

The objection to the Kalam argument is that all the reasons we have for positing an efficient cause of the universe apply equally well for a material cause. That objection may seem powerful at first blush.

The first thing one needs to note is that the objection doesn't actually defeat the argument. Even if successful, it would simply mean that we have to posit a material cause for physical reality, in addition to an efficient cause. In that case, we would have to bite the bullet and say that God created the universe Ex Deo instead of Ex Nihilo. There are many problems with an Ex Deo creation, but none are as severe as saying that things came into being by nothing and from nothing.

Such an inference might even be needed if we had no more reason to believe that the physical world lacked a material cause than we had to believe that it lacked an efficient cause. If we discovered that the universe (or multiverse) began to exist, and had no good reason to deny that it had a material cause, we would need to posit a material cause. This is because our experience indicates that when things begin to exist, they have a material cause and an efficient cause.

But do we really have to bite that bullet? I do not think so. Consider that arguments for the second premise of the Kalam argument are also arguments that the material stuff from which the physical world is composed is also finite in the past. The material stuff from which the physical world is composed is never quiescent (unlike an immaterial mind, which conceivably could be). Because of this, one cannot say that the material stuff from which the universe is made existed timelessly apart from the universe and entered into time with the origin of the unvierse. If the material began to exist, it could not have a material cause. This is because any material cause, by definition, is made of that material stuff. The same cannot be said of efficient causes.

This means that we are not on the same footing regarding the two causes. If we do not have any such argument against the existence of an efficient cause, the way that we do have arguments against a material cause. It might be more intuitive to posit a material cause, but the arguments for premise 2 do not allow us to do so. Hence, we are faced with a dilemma. Either:

A. The universe (or multiverse) had an efficient cause and not a material cause
or
B. The universe (or multiverse) had neither a material cause nor an efficient cause

Does our inability to posit a material cause eliminate the warrant we have to posit an efficient cause? I do not think so.

Thought Experiments for Why I Don't Think So
Suppose that you lived on a planet which had numerous periodic electrical storms. Every single time in your life that an electrical storm approached, you would smell the scent of ozone, feel the ground vibrate, see a flash of light in the sky and heard a crack of thunder. Furthermore, no other known thing could possibly produce that kind of smell, ground vibration, flash of light or crack of thunder except an approaching storm. Then, one day, you hear the crack of thunder, feel the ground vibrate, and see the flash of light but do not smell the ozone. Are the crack of thunder, flash of light, and feel of vibration evidence that an electrical storm is approaching?

Suppose you are at a camp. Every time that it is time for dinner. A siren goes out and three beacons flash from the top of the main building. Again, no other known thing produces a siren sound at that pitch or flashes of light at just that frequency. One evening, you hear the siren but only see two of the three beacons flashing. Are you still warranted in thinking it's time for dinner?

Suppose you are part of a primitive tribe. One day, you meet an outsider for the first time. You chat and he gives you a cellular phone to keep in contact and shows you how to use it. Every time the phone vibrates and rings, you receive a call. The phone does not vibrate or ring unless you are receiving a call. One day, you hear the phone ring. Is the ringing alone reason to believe that you are receiving a call?

Suppose that every time you observe something begin to exist, you observe a material cause and an efficient cause. One day, you learn that the world you inhabit began to exist without a material cause. Are you justified in inferring an efficient cause?

Trivial Objections to Kalam 
Additional Objections to Kalam

Trivial Objections to the Kalam Cosmological Argument

The Kalam Cosmological Argument is the most hotly debated argument for the existence of God in the philosophy of religion literature. The argument has gained its current level of popularity because it has recently received scientific confirmation that space itself began to exist. Here is a short introduction to the argument.


1. If something begins to exist, it has a cause of its existence
2. The universe (or multiverse) began to exist
3. Therefore the universe (or multiverse) had a cause

This has generated a lot of press, and with the introduction of the DrCraigVideos YouTube channel, it has taken a lot of criticism by YouTube atheists. Because the scientific evidence for the beginning of the universe is so powerful, Internet atheists have resorted to attacking Premise 1 of the argument.

There are two kinds of objections that I have noticed: non-trivial and trivial, at least in the way I am categorizing it. The philosophy of space and time gives arguments for different views of things like time and beginning to exist. The Kalam argument can be modified fairly easily in order to accommodate different theories. Objections that cannot be defeated by these accommodations are non-trivial. They affect any build of the argument, and hence need to be addressed. Trivial objections, on the other hand, can be handled pretty easily.

This is different than what Dr. Craig calls "stupid" objections to the Kalam argument, which are not in the professional literature but are on YouTube.



The objections addressed in this article are not "stupid" in that sense. They do not betray an amateurish misunderstanding of what is needed to understand Dr. Craig's argument. Instead, trivial objections are pretty easily defeated my modifying non-essential assumptions made by the argument. These trivial objections all have one thing in common: they presuppose the truth of one theory of time, while critiquing a version of the Kalam argument which holds to the opposite view.

Reductionism vs. Platonism
What if one day things everywhere ground to a halt? What if birds froze in mid-flight, people froze in mid-sentence, and planets and subatomic particles alike froze in mid-orbit? What if all change, throughout the entire universe, completely ceased for a period of, say, one year? Is such a thing possible? The answer depends on whether time is reductionist or Platonist. On a reductionist view, time is simply events. This position has been held by Aristotle and others, who have argued that time does not exist independently of the events that occur in time. There is no such thing as time without events or time without changes in the state of affairs. On Platonism, time is like an empty container. Platonism is something closer to the view of Richard Swinburne or Brian Leftow.

Dr. Craig's version of the argument assumes a reductionist view of time, in the tradition of Aristotle and Augustine, as well as Alvin Plantinga. On this view, the universe does not exist within time, but instead, time exists within the universe. This means that time does not contain events. Time does not have to exist in order for an event to occur. Instead, the event and the change in the state of affairs creates time. It is not possible, on reductionism, to argue that time has to exist first in order for an event to occur.

On this view, "x Begins to exist" can be defined as "x exists at time t, and there is no time immediately prior to time t when x exists, and there is no state of affairs when x exists timelessly." That last part is important because until events occur, the state of affairs would be timeless.

So on this model, God exists timelessly, and the existence of time emerges from his act of creation.

Objections to the idea that God could create time assume a Platonic view of time, but the Kalam argument is easily modified to accommodate a Platonic theory. On the Platonic view, time either has a beginning or it does not. If it does, then time does not have to exist in order for events to occur, since the beginning of time would be an event, whether or not it is created. Skeptics may argue that it is incoherent to say that time has to exist in order for God to create time. If that is true, then it is equally true to say that time cannot have a beginning, since the beginning of time is just as much an event as the creation of time.

On Platonism, we can re-define "x Begins to exist" as "x exists at time t, and there is no time immediately prior to time t when x exists."

The definition is simpler. There is only one caveat with this theory of time. Since general relativity describes time according to the reductionist view, (1 second is defined as 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom.) we then have to posit a metaphysical time within which physical time exists. This metaphysical time cannot be defined in terms of seconds or minutes, and therefore apart from a physical world, it would be meaningless to talk about the passage of minutes and seconds. There would be nothing to differentiate minutes from seconds from centures, and hence it would be gibberish to say something like "why didn't God create the physical world sooner?"

In this view, God creates physical time from within metaphysical time. Since the past does not contain an infinite number of events, but instead only contains an undifferentiated and changeless existence, it is compatible with the arguments against the existence of an actual infinite.

Hence, the Kalam argument is compatible with both the reductionist and the Platonist theories of time.

A-Theory vs. B-Theory
One of the naive theories of time describes time as a train (the present) running along a set of tracks (the timeline). If we pick a point on the timeline, and ask "is this point in the past, present or future."One can answer "When the present has not yet reached that point, it is future. When the present has reached that point, it is present. When the present has passed the point, it is past." The problem with such an answer is that no point can be past and then be present and then be future, since we are talking about the same point in time!

This means that time has to be viewed either as the train, in which case only the present exists (A-Theory), or as the tracks, in which case the passage of time is not an objective feature of reality (B-Theory). Time, on the latter view, is more like space.

The Kalam argument, contra Dr. Craig's claims, is fully compatible with either theory of time. On the A-theory, objects begin to exist in exactly the way we think they do. There is no object, and then there is an object.

The B-Theory is the trickier part. A ruler does not really come into being at a certain point in space. It has a front edge to it. On the B-Theory, time is more like a fourth dimension of space, and objects that are not eternal in the past would have a front temporal edge.

We can then restate the argument:
1. If something has a temporal front edge, it has a cause of its existence
2. The universe (or multiverse) has a temporal front edge
3. Therefore the universe (or multiverse) had a cause

On this view, the denial of premise 1 would have exactly the same wacky consequences as it would on the original version of the argument. The B-Theory has to explain why there is continuity in the timeline. It has to explain why the configuration of reality at one point on the timeline depends on the configuration of reality at previous points on the timeline. There has to be some sort of connection that allows the past to cause the future to happen. In short, the B-Theory needs to explain why the timeline is like a single broomstick and not like pieces of different broomsticks glued together. A denial of premise 1, even on the B-Theory, would violate these explanations.

Hence, the Kalam is just as effective an argument on the B-Theory as it is on the A-Theory.

Continuous vs. Atomistic Time
Time is divisible. We can divide hours into half-hours, and minutes into half-minutes, and so on. The question is: can we continue to divide time, or is there a minimum unit of time? If time is infinitely divisible, then time is continuous. If there is a minimum unit of time, then time is atomistic (or discrete).

Victor Stenger objected to Dr. Craig's view of the big bang singularity because Craig holds that time is continuous, while Stenger's objection assumes that time is atomistic. Dr. Craig rightly noted that the objection is irrelevant to the Kalam argument.

In general relativity, it is assumed that space and time are continuous. Because of this and only because of this can we talk meaningfully about singularities. As space approaches a singularity, its curvature increases without limit. A singularity is not considered part of the spacetime but is considered an edge to the spacetime.

On the standard Big Bang model, one can trace time backwards, approaching the singularity as a backward edge, or stopping point. On atomistic views of space and time (e.g. loop quantum gravity), there can be no singularities. Instead, one simply traces time backward to the first unit, which serves as the beginning of time. As an aside, loop quantum gravity cannot rescue an infinite past, due to an effect called BKL chaos.

The arguments for the beginning of the universe are just as effective on atomistic time as they are on continuous time. The only difference is that the definition of a beginning has a very slight, but ultimately irrelevant difference.

Hence, the Kalam is just as sound an argument on atomistic time as it is on continuous time.

Conclusion
In conclusion, critics of the Kalam argument need to first recognize where they stand on these issues before beginning their critique. An objection to the reductionist version of the Kalam argument from the perspective of a Platonist isn't an objection to the Kalam argument at all. It is an objection to reductionism. Similar principles apply to other areas discussed here.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument is a much stronger argument than one might first think, since it is compatible with so many different views of space and time.

An Empiricist Objection to the Kalam Argument 
Additional Objections to Kalam

Chizuk Emunah Under the Microscope: Chapter 43

Chapter 43 is so short, that I am going to quote this passage in its entirety.

    Some small portion of Christians have reproached the Jews with the disbelief in the Apocryphal books; but such persons have been confuted by scholars of their own creed. The works comprised under the collective title "Apocrypha," were composed at a late period after the dispersion of Israel, when prophecy was totally extinct, and when inspiration no longer elevated the compositions of religious writers. The Apocrypha has, therefore, no claim on our religious reverence. Some of those books may have an historical foundation, others are based on fiction and mere invention; and the whole of the Apocrypha was composed in the Greek language, which language does not bear the stamp of authority in the mind of the Jew; we may therefore dismiss this subject without entering into further detail.

 Troki is absolutely correct, but there are some Christian sects, such as the Eastern Orthodox, who believe that the Apocrypha is canonical. The rest of this post will explain why these sects are wrong, and Troki is correct.

The Jewish tradition speaks of an era of prophecy lasting from Moses to Malachi. Since prophecy did not return until the age of the Apostles, book written in between cannot be inspired Scripture.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14162-synagogue-the-great

One of the key marks of Scripture is its historical authenticity. As archaeology advances, and we learn more and more about the ancient world, our understanding conforms to the Bible's picture of that world. Even books like Daniel are increasingly being shown to be historically accurate regarding the kingdom of Babylon.

Judith, on the other hand, contains a massive historical blunder. "Now in the twelfth year of his reign, Nabuchodonosor king of the Assyrians, who reigned in Ninive the great city, fought against Arphaxad and overcame him (Judith 1:5)."Nebuchadnezzar was neither an Assyrian nor did he rule in Ninevah.

Secondly, books like the Maccabees recognize that the era of prophecy, and hence the era of written Scripture, has ceased. "And there was a great tribulation in Israel, such as was not since the day, that there was no prophet seen in Israel" (1 Maccabees 9:27).

The reference in Luke implies that the Hebrew Scriptures end with 2 Chronicles. "from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation." (Luke 11:51). Abel was the first to be killed in Genesis, and Zechariah the son of Jehoiada was the last to be killed in 2 Chronicles. This implies that the Hebrew Bible ends with 2 Chronicles.

The Jewish traditions all point to an acceptance of the Tanakh, but not to the Apocrypha. The Dead Sea Scrolls feature commentaries on many books from the three divisions of the Tanakh, but not from the Apocrypha. Philo created a commentary on the Pentateuch, citing references from the Torah, Neviim, and Ketuvim. However, the Apocrypha was not cited.

Also, many of the church fathers did not accept the Apocrypha as canon. Jerome as just one example, writes in his introduction to the books of the Kings:

This preface to the Scriptures may serve as a helmeted  introduction to all the books which we turn from Hebrew into Latin, so that we may be assured that what is outside of them must be placed aside among the Apocryphal writings. Wisdom, therefore, which generally bears the name of Solomon, and the book of Jesus the Son of Sirach, and Judith, and Tobias, and the Shepherd are not in the canon.