The Messianic Drew

Sunday, September 27, 2015

Why Orthodox Judaism is a Cult - Part 4

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 62

Acts 7:7, "And the nation to whom they shall be in bondage will I judge, said God, and afterwards shall they come forth and serve me in this place." From this quotation it appears, that the disciples of Jesus were but superficially versed in biblical knowledge. For in Genesis (chap. 15) no such words as "in this place," are to be found; and in Exodus 3:12, the expression is, "When thou shalt bring out this people from Egypt, ye shall serve God on this mountain."

Again, this is from Stephen's speech. Again, Luke is recording the words of Stephen, and the accuracy of Acts depends only on whether these words are recorded accurately, not on whether Stephen's speech was accurate.

Let's look at the passage in Acts:

And God spoke to this effect—that his offspring would be sojourners in a land belonging to others, who would enslave them and afflict them four hundred years. ‘But I will judge the nation that they serve,’ said God, ‘and after that they shall come out and worship me in this place.’ (Acts 7:6-7)

Let's look at Exodus:

Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.” (Exodus 3:10-12)

And the passage from Genesis:

As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. (Genesis 15:12-14)

Direct quotation is a modern invention, and quotation marks are an artifact of the printing press. This makes it difficult to decide in ancient literature whether someone is quoting someone else, or if that person is paraphrasing the other. Stephen gets the main theme right: Israel was foreordained to be captured, sent into slavery, and then to come out and worship God in a designated location.

As Stephen Farade states about the Talmud:

Most often, however, scriptural verses are paraphrased; that is, they are not explicitly cited at all, but are rather "retold," with varying degrees of expansion, reduction, reordering, and combination with other retold scriptural verses. (The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud and Rabbinic Literature p. 106)

Citing pieces of two passages is quite common in rabbinic literature, and the rabbis have no justification for faulting New Testament writers or speakers for doing so.

Again, let me quote Williams:

No Jewish scholar is likely to find fault with him for shortening a quotation, for it is in full accordance with the principle laid down in Pesachim, 3b: "Rab Huna said that R. Jehudah said in the name of R. Meir: A man should always teach his pupil the shortest way."

Further, it is doubtful if a single Jewish writer of ancient times can be found who is punctilious about the exact accuracy of his quotations from Scripture. What does R. Joshua haLevi say (after 1467 A.D.) in his Halikoth 'Olam, II. 2? "The method of traditional teaching is to shorten the passages of Scripture, and it does not bring them forward as they are." Thus, for example, a Mishna-teacher of the school of R. Ishmael quotes: "and the priest shall come again, and the priest shall come in," as though one sentence followed the other, whereas in reality they are separated by four verses (Lev 14:39, 44). Makkoth, 13b. In fact, R. Isaac's objection to this part of Nepheri's speech is frivolous and ignorant.*
* The curious reader will find several other examples of the same kind in Surenhusius, Biblos Katallages, 1713, pp. 45 sq. Let him consult also Strack, Prolegomena Critica, 1873, pp. 65 sq., from which the reference to R. Joshua haLevi is taken.

Sunday, September 6, 2015

Kosher Jesus is Crank History

I have recently picked up Shmuley Boteach's book Kosher Jesus. In this book, Shmuley re-invents Jesus in a way that is more like the Jesus of Islam than the Jesus of history.

Historical Method
History is not simply the practice of figuring out what happened in the past. It would be nice to do that, but the past events of which history talks are not directly observable. So we have to treat history more like a crime scene. We see pieces of data currently available to us, and the challenge is to come up with the best possible explanation for our current data.

The discipline for how history is done is called historiography, and one of the most important books in that field is Justifying Historical Descriptions by C. Behan Mccullagh. In this book, McCullagh explains what criteria historians use to determine what counts as the "best" explanation for historical data. The explanation must have great explanatory power and scope, must cohere with already accepted beliefs, should preferably have the power to predict new pieces of evidence, and should not be ad hoc.

Ad hoc-ness to a historian, is what happens when you posit something that has little or no independent support. If I say that the airplanes that hit the World Trade Center did not cause it to collapse, but that thermite bombs planted inside the building did, I am now positing that there were thermite bombs inside the building. Without strong independent evidence that there were such bombs, the explanation is an ad hoc move.

Often, one has to posit unknowns in order to explain something. If I read about a patient who comes to his doctor complaining about a fever and stomach pains, I have to come up with an explanation for what seems to be the most plausible cause. If I suggest that the patient came down with a cold, and that the patient was also a martial artist who took a kick to the stomach, such an explanation is more ad hoc than saying that the patient has appendicitis. I am positing two unknowns rather than one to explain the symptoms.

Conspiracy theories generally suffer terribly from ad hoc stipulations. 9/11 truthers have to posit thermite bombs to take down the buildings, special advanced thermite that no one has seen to explain how thermite bombs could cut that much steel, a cruise missile to explain the damage to the Pentagon, communication between United States personnel and groups like Al-Qaeda. Moon landing hoaxers have to posit advanced video technology to explain how we got a live feed of slowed-down video, cranked at much too high a frame rate for cameras at that time. They also have to posit additional probes sent to the moon in order to explain the moon rocks. Black helicopter theorists have to posit all sorts of advanced technology, such as magic helicopter fuel to explain their theory. In short, these theories can explain the historical data as well as the official story, but they require positing additional entities for which we do not have independent evidence.

The Data to be Explained
In Kosher Jesus, Shmuley has a daunting task ahead of him. He wants to argue that Jesus was an observant practitioner of Orthodox Rabbinic Judaism, who hated the Roman Empire, and was caught and killed by the Romans for it. On Shmuley's view, Jesus never claimed to be God, never accepted worship, never thought of himself as more than a wise teacher, whose death was not instigated by Jewish authorities, and who never was raised from the dead.

Shmuley has a lot of hard data to explain. The 4 Gospels and the writings of Paul are accepted almost unanimously among historians as having been written in the first century. We have ample manuscript evidence that the copies we have have less than 1% variance from what the original document said. There is also strong archaeological corroboration that the people and places described in the New Testament are described rather accurately.

Shmuley appears to accept most of this, and now has to explain the passages by either accepting them as historical and interpreting them in a certain way, or coming up with explanations as to why they were fabricated. On a side note, Shmuley does claim that the New Testament documents were altered in an effort to placate Rome, even though all manuscript evidence points to the contrary.

Shmuley also gives explanations for the following data:

Why the Gospels say that Jesus accepted worship
Why Paul keeps calling Jesus "God"
Why Paul and the Gospels have stories of the resurrection of Jesus
Why Judas is mentioned
Why Paul converted
Why Peter and James went along with Paul in proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus

Shmuley's Explanation
Shmuley explains this pretty concisely in the introduction.

He states that the residents of Galilee had yearned to overthrow Roman rule. Jesus emerges on the scene and says that the Jews can overthrow Rome if they just keep all of God's commandments. Jesus then becomes convinced that he is to lead the people of Israel to overthrow Rome through force, and gathers his disciples to storm and overtake the Jerusalem Temple. The Romans catch Jesus and execute him.

With Jesus now dead, the movement disappears, and only a few disciples remain, meeting in secret, and longing for freedom from Rome. Paul then arrives, sent as an agent of Rome, but turns and claims to be on the side of Jesus. Paul then completely twists the teachings of Jesus to the shocked disciples, making up the doctrines we think of as Christian. Paul invents the deity of Jesus, the resurrection and the purpose of Jesus' mission as one of spiritual redemption. He also invents that the death of Jesus led to nullification of the law.

The disciples then banish Paul, but Paul disseminates his view of Jesus among the gentile Romans, and sells the idea that you can have the benefits of the God of the Jews without having to follow the stipulations of Torah. As Paul brings more followrs to the church in Jerusalem, the original disciples of Jesus protest, but Paul slowly wins them over. They do this because Paul has brought new life to the movement, and most importantly, Roman gold.

Shmuley also says that Paul was a Sadducee and a convert to Judaism. Peter abandoned the kosher laws based on a dream, which was a type of wish fulfillment.

A Quick Look
A few of the ad hoc stipulations required for Shmuley's theory:

Paul's conversion to Judaism
Paul as a Sadducee
Paul as mentally unstable, and prone to manic extremes
Paul's intentions to deliver the Jews from obedience to the Jewish Law
Paul as a pathological liar
That Peter and James were initially opposed to (and not just afraid of) Paul
That there was a separate set of Noahide laws for Gentiles during the Second Temple era
Jesus' secret meeting with his disciples, planning an attack on the Jerusalem Temple
Paul changing the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday
Paul's claim that he was sent by Gamaliel to hunt down the church
That the apostles' treasury was nearly empty before Paul arrived and then overflowing with Roman gold after Paul joined
That the disciples were impressed by increased wealth, and impressed enough to let all the other apostles be bullied by Paul into accepting his radically changed theology

In order to support this view of Paul as a convert, Shmuley says that the Ebionite documents record this. Unfortunately, there are no Ebionite manuscripts available to us. The only clue we have that such a manuscript existed is that Epiphanus wrote a short passage about it in the Panarion.

Nor are they ashamed to accuse Paul here with certain fabrications of their false apostles' villainy and imposture. They say that he was Tarsean—which he admits himself and does not deny. And they suppose that he was of Greek parentage, taking the occasion for this from the (same) passage because of his frank statement, 'I am a man of Tarsus, a citizen of no mean city.' They then claim that he was Greek and the son of a Greek mother and Greek father, but that he had gone up to Jerusalem, stayed there for a while, desired to marry a daughter of the high priest, and had therefore became a proselyte and been circumcised. But since he still could not marry that sort of girl he became angry and wrote against circumcision, and against the Sabbath and the legislation.

The Panarion was written in 375, and therefore long after the events described in the New Testament. It contains legendary material, such as a passage that Peter abstained from eating meat, and that he underwent daily baptism. According to Epiphanus, the Ebionites also rejected the Pentateuch, and embraced some sort of Gnosticism. Legendary writings about Jesus, Paul, and the other apostles were quite plentiful by the late 4th century, and involved all sorts of wild legend and inventions. In short, this document comes far too late to provide any historical support for Paul being a convert to Judaism.

And this is the problem with Shmuley's other stipulations, he either asserts them without evidence, or what he claims as evidence is far too weak to substantiate any of these claims.

There are also plenty of other questions. For one, if Paul was so fiercely opposed by Jesus' original apostles, why do the church fathers only say good things about him? Paul was not the last apostle to die, nor was he the only apostle to be executed. Why did the other apostles go to their executions for such a blatant falsehood, when they could have saved their skins by denouncing it? Why did Paul travel so frequently from Jerusalem, enduring hardship and poverty, and repeatedly receiving lashes, beatings, stonings, being shipwrecked, undergoing starvation when he could have been like most cult leaders and enriched himself in Jerusalem? How did the story in Mark arise with women followers as the discoverers of the empty tomb? If Paul was a Sadducee, why pretend to be a Pharisee and risk getting called out?

Silver Bullets
The conspiracy theorist's approach to arguing is what I call the "silver bullet" approach. In this kind of argumentation, you argue that if some fact is observed, then it is impossible for the official explanation to be true. For example, young earth creationists will point to soft dinosaur tissue and say that such evidence makes it impossible for these dinosaurs to live millions of years ago. After making that argument, they will claim that the official explanation can now be taken off the table while we look for the real explanation.

That is not how history or forensic science is done. Any explanation for the current data will have problems in it. It will require us to posit one or more things for which we don't have independent evidence. It will fail to explain some features. There will be questions it cannot answer. Neither of these is a disproof of the official theory, but simply a reminder that our knowledge of any past event is limited, and that we have to search for the best explanation, since we might not have access to a perfect explanation. So it's better to go with a cumulative case approach rather than letting one argument serve to completely dismiss a theory.

We need to subject conspiracy theories to the same scrutiny that we give the official explanation. When we do this, the official explanation tends to look a whole lot better than the alternatives. The degree of ad hoc-ness in Shmuley's theory shows why it never gained traction among historical Paul scholars (even atheists), either now or back when Maccoby advanced the same theory back in 1986.

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 61

Acts 7:4, "Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Charran, and from thence, when his father was dead, they brought him into this land wherein ye now dwell." We have already pointed out that this statement of Abraham's departure from Charran, after the death of his father, is erroneous. It is true that the death of Therah, though happening after the departure of Abraham, is mentioned before it; but that is the frequent mode of Scripture narrative. In the same way we find the death of Isaac recorded before the selling of Joseph, although a brief calculation would show that he survived thirteen years after the selling of his grandson.

Here, Troki is quoting Stephen's speech in Acts. Remember that the accuracy of the New Testament only requires that Luke recorded Stephen's speech correctly. Critics will point out that the Holy Spirit came upon Stephen, but this is also not quite accurate. Acts states that "Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people." After doing these signs and wonders, Stephen was caught and arrested. When Stephen was brought before the council, "all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel."

None of this guarantees the accuracy of Stephen's speech. Stephen was a spiritual man, but having a face like an angel is not the same as saying that the Holy Spirit spoke through him. Any inaccuracies in Stephen's speech are no blight on the New Testament, just as inaccurate statements by Job's friends are not evidence of error in Tanakh. There is no need, then, to defend Stephen for accuracy. Still, an educated Jew like Stephen was not the kind of person to make blatant errors.

Philo also ignores this same calculation in his Migration of Abraham, Chapter 33:

And "Abraham," says Moses, "was seventy-five years of age, when he departed out of Charren." Now concerning the number of seventy-five years (for this contains a calculation corresponding to what has been previously advanced,) we will enter into an accurate examination hereafter. But first of all we will examine what Charran is, and what is meant by the departure from this country to go and live in another. Now it is not probable that any one of those persons who are acquainted with the law are ignorant that Abraham had previously migrated from Chaldaea when he came to live in Charran. But after his father died he then departed from this land of Chaldaea, so that he has now migrated from two different places.

Philo also rejects the notion that Abraham took Terah with him. According to Philo, Terah died and then Abraham left Haran. Regardless of whether Philo was right, his rejection of this calculation was a deliberate decision. We should not make the mistake that Shmuley Boteach makes and try to read the Mishnah and Talmud into Second Temple Judaism. To do so is just to commit a fallacy of anachronism.

Friday, September 4, 2015

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 60

Acts 5:34, 35, 38, 39, "Then stood there up one in the council, a pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, and said onto the Jews, Ye men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what ye intend to do as touching these men; for if this council, or this work, be of men, it will come to nought, but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest, haply (perhaps) ye be found even to fight against God." The subject is cited here for the purpose of following the order of the passages which claim a refutation. We have already noticed that the duration of a sect does not constitute a proof of the veracity of their tenets, otherwise, the Mahommedan faith would be entitled to nearly the same belief as that of the Christians.

Gamaliel I is one of the most important figures in Pharisaic Judaism. Outside of the New Testament, the earliest records we have of Gamaliel are in the Mishnah, which only mentions him a few short times. The Babylonian Talmud, written almost 500 years after the New Testament, gives the oral traditions and legends surrounding this fascinating teacher.

This leads to another important point: mainstream historians consider the New Testament a much more reliable source for information about Second Temple Judaism than they consider the Talmud. This is because the New Testament was written at the end of the Second Temple era, while the Mishnah, and even more the Talmud were written long afterward.

Troki is also misunderstanding the argument of Gamaliel. he is not suggesting that every movement which is not from God will fail. Let's look at the passage.

When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them. But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while. And he said to them, “Men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men. For before these days Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered. So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!” (Acts 5:33-39)

In the Second Temple era, there were many leaders who wanted to stir up the Jewish people, free Israel from the bonds of Roman law, and establish the nation of Israel as a glorious kingdom as in the days of Solomon. These movements inevitably generated fervor, and then burned out.

Gamaliel was requesting of his people the same patience. The Sanhedrin was not technically allowed to execute anybody, and Peter (unlike Stephen) was a bit too popular for the Sanhedrin to kill illegally and get away with it. Eventually, they did start acting in a way that conflicts with Roman law, and this eventually led to the revolts in the 60s which led to the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70, and the complete expulsion of the Jewish people after the failed Bar Kochba revolt of 135.

The rise of Islam is irrelevant to Gamaliel's argument, since Islam did not arise in this fashion. Instead, Islam arose in much the same way that Communism arose in the 20th century. A charismatic leader sells his people on a utopian state whereby he is the supreme commander. He rallies an army of fanatics, which he uses to take over his government, and then suppress not only opposition, but all thought that leads to opposition. If Orthodox Judaism is a cult, Islam is an Orwellian fascist police state. There is a reason that the novel 1984 is banned in Islamic countries.

Monday, August 31, 2015

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 59

Acts 1:6 and 7, "When they [the Apostles], therefore, were come together, they asked of Jesus, saying, Lord wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? and he said unto them. It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has put in his own power." The enquirers were evidently awaiting the restoration, and learnt from his own avowal, that he did not consider himself the restorer of the kingdom of the Jews. At the same time he owned, that the termination of Israel's exile is only known to the Almighty. If Jesus had considered himself divinely inspired, he would have given an answer in unison with his supernatural knowledge.

In Acts 1, Jesus encounters his disciples for the last time before his ascension:

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:6-11)

It's true that the disciples were awaiting God's restoration of Israel. In Jeremiah, God promised the Jews eventual supremacy over the world.

“For thus says the LORD: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, and the Levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to make sacrifices forever.”

The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: “Thus says the LORD: If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night will not come at their appointed time, then also my covenant with David my servant may be broken, so that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne, and my covenant with the Levitical priests my ministers. As the host of heaven cannot be numbered and the sands of the sea cannot be measured, so I will multiply the offspring of David my servant, and the Levitical priests who minister to me.” (Jeremiah 33:17-22)

God says that only if you can break the day/night cycle can this covenant be broken. What is the covenant promising, that there will be a Levitical (Jewish) priestly system making animal sacrifices on the altar forever. Even the Catholic priests do not pretend to be Levitical, nor do they make burned offerings or grain offerings. This makes me very skeptical of any view that says the Church is now Israel.

Troki makes 3 arguments in this chapter:
1. Israel has yet to be restored
2. By not saying that he will restore the kingdom, Jesus denies being Messiah
3. It is impossible for Jesus to know when this will take place, and therefore Jesus is not God and did not get this information from God.

The first point is unobjectionable. We still await the full restoration of the Jewish nation of Israel. The second point is a giant leap in logic. All Jesus said is that the timing is not for the disciples to know. He does not deny that he will restore the kingdom. In order to give a positive argument that Jesus is not Messiah, the anti-missionary will need to show that Jesus is in some way disqualified from fulfilling Messianic prophecies in the future.

One might punt to Maimonides and say that if the person dies, then he cannot be Messiah. First, this puts the cart before the horse. Maimonides came in the Middle Ages, and wrote in reaction to Christian doctrine. He could easily stipulate theological criteria that directly conflict with Christian teaching because they conflict with Christian teaching. Secondly, this criterion flies in the face of Jewish tradition. The rabbis had a Messiah ben Joseph who died for the people. I was listening to an Orthodox Union podcast called Nach Yomi, and the rabbi mentioned that there were traditions describing Messiah ben David as poor and afflicted, and that the influence of Christianity caused the rabbis to suppress this tradition.

The third objection is also multiple leaps in logic. Jesus did not say anything about not knowing the day or hour of his return, the way he did during his trial. Troki also assumes, without argument, that if Jesus did not tell his disciples the time of his return, that he did not know it. There are plenty of good reasons for him not to give this information.

Jesus himself said this in Matthew 24:

"But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into."

Even the Talmud seems to agree in principle with this idea.

Targum of the Prophets was composed by Jonathan ben Uzziel under the guidance of Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, and the land of Israel [thereupon] quaked over an area of four hundred parasangs by four hundred parasangs, and a Bath Kol came forth and exclaimed, Who is this that has revealed My secrets to mankind? Jonathan b. Uzziel thereupon arose and said, It is I who have revealed Thy secrets to mankind. It is fully known to Thee that I have not done this for my own honour or for the honour of my father's house, but for Thy honour l have done it, that dissension may not increase in Israel. He further sought to reveal [by] a targum [the inner meaning] of the Hagiographa, but a Bath Kol went forth and said, Enough! What was the reason? — Because the date of the Messiah is foretold in it.
(Megillah 3a)

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 58

John 20:17, "Jesus saith unto her [Mary Magdalene], Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God." Jesus showed here clearly that he was no God, but was in the same subjection to God as his brethren. It cannot, therefore, be asserted on the authority of this passage, that Jesus meant anything more by styling himself "the Son of God," than the Holy Scriptures indicate by such passages as Deuteronomy 14:1, "Ye are children of the Lord your God." The expression "Son of God" has not the slightest reference to a Superhuman Being.

Again, what do we expect Jesus to say? You, Father, are just one of many Gods? Troki continues to read the book of John without taking verses 1-18 into context. So let's get to the more important part: Jesus as Son of God. What, exactly, did that mean in the time of Jesus?

The term has many uses. It is often used of kings. Psalm 2 declares the reigning king to be God's son.
I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.” (Psalm 2:7-9)

Daniel mentions the Son of God in the furnace episode:

Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up in haste. He declared to his counselors, “Did we not cast three men bound into the fire?” They answered and said to the king, “True, O king.” He answered and said, “But I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.” (Daniel 3:24-25 ESV)

This reference did have superhuman implications. The term "son of" implied that someone was in that category. The Tanakh had sons of valor (valorous people), sons of wise ones (wise people), sons of rebellion (rebellious people), sons of murder (murderous people), sons of foolishness (foolish people), sons of smiting (those who deserved to be beaten), and sons of tumult (those who were in tumult). S. Herbert Bess goes through more detail in his esssay.

Son of God can mean king of Israel. It was also used of Roman emperors have been decared as "Son of God" in their emperor cults, which was a title of divinity.

Again, I punt to Williams:

Lastly, may one word be added with regard to the teaching of the passage as a whole? Mary Magdalene, when she recognized Jesus after this His resurrection from the dead, fell at His feet saying, "Rabboni!" and, as it appears, was clinging to them. But Jesus saith to her: "Do not stay clinging to Me thus; there is more for thee than this. I am ascending to the Father; then thou shalt have perfect communion and fellowship." Even at that moment of blissful thankfulness at His resurrection, Jesus would draw her thoughts away from the earthly and visible to the unseen, with its promise of intercourse closer than she then enjoyed. The ascended Christ is nearer to believers than He could ever have been on earth. If Christ were reigning as king in Palestine, He would not be as nigh to His servants as He is now, when He is seated in glory.

Son of God is not a prooftext that Jesus was God. The idiom had multiple uses. The phrasing we see in this chapter of John is precisely what the author would convey if he wanted to affirm monotheism (there is one God) and deny unitarianism (God is one person).

Sunday, August 30, 2015

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 57

John 19:15, "The chief priests answered. We have no king but Caesar." Those who are of opinion that the Jews lost their independence on account of their putting Jesus to death, find here a complete refutation. The Caesar alluded to was the Emperor Tiberius, who had, according to Luke 3, placed Pilate over Jerusalem

John 19 covers the trial of Jesus. Here is the larger part of the passage:

So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic Gabbatha. Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, “Behold your King!” They cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” So he delivered him over to them to be crucified.

Interestingly enough, Maimonides agrees with the notion that the Jews lost their independence on account of putting Jesus to death. He says in Hilchot Melachim: "He who thought he would be the Messiah and was slain by the Sanhedrin . . . caused Israel to be destroyed by the sword, and their remnant to be scattered."

This makes sense, as Jesus and Paul both agreed that Jews should pay their tribute to Rome. If the Jews of the day had followed Jesus, the Zealots and Sicarii would never have gained a foothold within Israel, and Rome would never have obtained its reason for waging a war against the Jews and destroying the Jerusalem temple.

One might think that John's portrayal of Pontius Pilate is out of character, since he had quite a history with Israel. Pilate was the procurator of the region from 26 to 36. He was a tough leader, which led to a few scandals, the last of which ended his career.

First, Pilate carried medallions bearing the Emperor's image into Jerusalem. This led to unrest and a five day demonstration in Caeserea. Pilate eventually backed down. Secondly, Pilate built an aqueduct to improve Jerusalem's water supply, but used Temple funds to do it, which sparked another incident and a bloody riot. Later, Pilate set up golden shields in his residence, which caused the populace to protest to the Emperor Tiberius. The emperor then sent a nasty letter back to Pilate telling him to respect the religious customs of the Jews, or else. This was five months before the incident described in John.

Pilate was in hot water with Rome, and was willing to do anything to save his own hide. He hoped that by dealing with Jesus in a way that would appease the crowd, it would save his hide. Unfortunately for him, just a few years later, he attacked a group of Samaritans and was reported to the Emperor and recalled to Rome to stand trial for cruelty and oppression, ending his career.

Pilate may have been cruel and unfair, but he was not stupid.

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 56

John 18:3-5, etc., "Judas Iscariot having received a band of men from the chief priests and pharisees, cometh with lanthorns," etc., and was asked by Jesus, "Whom seek ye? and they answered and said, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am he. And Judas also, who betrayed him, stood with them." This account of the betrayal differs from that given in Matthew 26:47; Mark 14:43; and Luke 22:47; for according to those authors of the respective parts of the Gospel, Judas gave a secret sign to his companions, saying, "Him whom I shall kiss, that same is he, hold him fast.

Now we get to a better objection. From Mark's account:

And immediately, while he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, “The one I will kiss is the man. Seize him and lead him away under guard.” And when he came, he went up to him at once and said, “Rabbi!” And he kissed him. And they laid hands on him and seized him.

John's account differs in the details:

Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, for Jesus often met there with his disciples. So Judas, having procured a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, went there with lanterns and torches and weapons. Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, “Whom do you seek?” They answered him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am he.” Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. When Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground. So he asked them again, “Whom do you seek?” And they said, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus answered, “I told you that I am he. So, if you seek me, let these men go.”

Again, John' account has a great deal more explanation from the narrator. Let me state the response from A. Lukyn Williams before giving my own

To a reader of history, and, we venture to say, much more to a writer of history, it seems absurd to argue from these verbal differences that the narrative is untrustworthy. Differences in unimportant details are rather the proof, not the denial, that the testimony of witnesses is true (cf. par 298). Here both sets of persons testify to the all-important point that Judas was guide to them that took Jesus. Whether he actually did, or did not, carry out his proposal to kiss His Master as a sign to the soldiers, matters very little. According to John, our Lord seems to have forestalled him, and to have made the kiss which followed only an act of hypocrisy towards Himself, and no longer also a sign to the soldiers. Why blame the Synoptic Gospels for not stating this at length? It is to be feared that Jews treat the New Testament with wilful injustice. They do not accord to it the same measure of reverent study, of historical common sense, which they pay to the Old Testament. Yet every Jew will grant that when two passages of the Law speak of the same thing, one passage may be fuller than the other, without either being wrong. What says R. Nehemiah in T. J. Rosh haShanah, III. 5 (58d)? "The words of the Law are poor in one place and rich in another." So, too, we find, in Bemidbar R., Chapter 19, towards the end (on Num 21:21) "All the words of the Law need each other; for what one closes, another opens." See also Tanchuma on the same passage, ed. Buber, p. 129. If this be granted to the Law, why refuse it to the Gospel?

Williams is right about the inconsistent double standard. When God says "remember the Sabbath" in Exodus and "guard the Sabbath" in Deuteronomy, the rabbis do not take this to be a contradiction, but say that God said both at the same time.

If you read the two accounts closely, there is no explicit contradiction. It could have been the case that Judas came up and kissed Jesus. The soldiers then marched toward him and initiated the conversation we read in John.

For futher viewing, I recommend Mike Licona's lecture about the gospels as ancient Greco-Roman biographies. Skeptics complain about differences between the gospel accounts, but Licona mentions that Plutarch's own accounts of different people's lives contain many of the same kinds of differences, even though they are all written by the same author. Plutarch, for example, tells of the assassination of Julius Caesar 5 different times, and it is not easy to come up with a harmonization which allows all of them to be interpreted literally.

Licona notes that ancient biographies gave a general idea of the historical figure, rather than giving exact details. Think of this as the difference between painting a portrait vs. taking a photograph. Portrait artists are allowed creative liberties without being criticized as erroneous.

So if you insist that these books have to be harmonized down to the minute detail, this account is pretty easy to harmonize with the other gospel accounts. If you do not require such adherence to detail, recognize that these differences would not have been seen as errors by ancient readers, but more like creative liberties taken by the authors.

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 55

John 17:3, Jesus says, "And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." In this verse, Jesus acknowledged himself to be merely a messenger, and not an integral part of the Deity. The awe and worship due to the Almighty is also, in 1 Timothy 1:17, declared to belong to God alone; for we find there, "Now unto the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever, amen." If Jesus does not share the glory of God, he must be dependent on the will of his Creator, like every other creature.

Troki gives an allusion to Isaiah 42:

“I am the Lord, I have called You in righteousness,
I will also hold You by the hand and watch over You,
And I will appoint You as a covenant to the people,
As a light to the nations,
To open blind eyes,
To bring out prisoners from the dungeon
And those who dwell in darkness from the prison.“I am the Lord, that is My name;
I will not give My glory to another,
Nor My praise to graven images.“Behold, the former things have come to pass,
Now I declare new things;
Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you.”

Again, Troki reads John while ignoring the first 18 verses, which give the background needed to understand this book. A key verse is 14

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Let's look at John 12:

These things Jesus spoke, and He went away and hid Himself from them. But though He had performed so many [n]signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him. This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet which he spoke: “Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” For this reason they could not believe, for Isaiah said again, “He has blinded their eyes and He hardened their heart, so that they would not see with their eyes and perceive with their heart, and be converted and I heal them.” These things Isaiah said because he saw His glory, and he spoke of Him. Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.

John is quoting Isaiah 6, which speaks of God's glory and says that Isaiah saw the glory of Jesus. This can only make sense if Jesus is God.

Regarding John 17, what exactly did we expect Jesus to say? Did we expect him to say that you, Father, are just one of many gods? If the Jehovah's Witnesses were right that this verse teaches that only the Father is God, then they would have to reject Jesus as a false God, because even the New World Translation translates John 1:1 as saying that Jesus was a god.

Again, Troki's answer is a straw man attack on the idea of Trinitarian monotheism. This is to say that there is one God, but that God is not one person. I think of this as one mind with multiple centers of self-consciousness. Since there is one God, any of the three persons could say to another "you are the only true God" and the statement would be true.

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 54

John 13:34, Jesus asserts, "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another," etc. This commandment was by no means a new one. Moses had inculcated it in the words, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self." Matthew 19:19, and 22:39, admit that Moses was the first who promulgated this precept

Again, it's hard to pinpoint Troki's exact objection. He argues that by calling it a "new" commandment, Jesus was contradicting himself and the book of Leviticus. In fact, the objection is pretty silly given the context of the two verses:

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Jesus is not just telling his disciples to love one another. He is saying that they should love one another as Jesus loved them. They should love one another in the way that they have been loved by their master. Jesus repeats this command two chapters later.

This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

This is the meaning of the statement. Jesus is telling his disciples to love one another to the point of self-sacrifice. This is in stark contrast to the conventional Jewish wisdom of the day. Bava Metzia 62A states:

If two are travelling on a journey [far from civilization], and one has a pitcher of water, if both drink, they will [both] die, but if one only drinks, he can reach civilization, - The Son of Patura taught: It is better that both should drink and die, rather than that one should behold his companion's death. Until R. Akiba came and taught: 'that thy brother may live with thee:' thy life takes precedence over his life.

Jesus taught to the contrary: you are to lay down your own life for your companion.

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 53

John 13:3, "Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands," etc. See also ibid. 16:15, "All things that the Father hath are mine"; and Matthew 28:18, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." This assumption of Supreme dominion is in total opposition to the often-quoted passage of Mark 13:32, "But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the son, but the Father only." A like inconsistency in ascribing to Jesus at one time the possession, and at another a deficiency, of Supreme dominion, is perceptible in Matthew 20:23 where Jesus owns that it is not within his power to allot to the meritorious certain distinctions in future life. We have before quoted from Matthew 8:20, that Jesus confessed he had no place on which to rest his head, and was poorer than the fox in the field and the bird of the heavens. In John 14:28, he states, "The Father is greater than I." Such repeated discrepancies must deprive the New Testament of all title of a genuine and an inspired work.

All four gospels are compilations of different stories in the life of Jesus. In each one, the different stories follow one another like pearls on a string, until we get to the Passion narrative, where there is one continuous story beginning at the last Passover meal. John 13 is where Jesus assumes the lowliest of a servant's duties by washing each of his disciples' feet. The passage in question is as follows:
The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God. One might object here that this passage distinguishes Jesus from God and therefore imply that Jesus is not God. I would direct any such person to the first 18 verses of John.

The passage that Troki quotes in Mark speaks about future destruction; first of the temple, and then of the eventual return of Jesus.

At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.

It is this day or hour that Jesus does not know, nor does anyone know but the Father. Preterists will argue that all the events in this chapter already occurred at the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in the year 70, but notice that Mark says that people will see the Son of Man at that time. Remember what the angel said in Acts.

They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:10-11)

Did people visibly see Jesus descend? No? Then at least some of the events have not yet occurred.

Back to Troki's objections. He states that the New Testament books contradict one another by stating that in one passage, the Father gave full ownership and dominion over all things to Jesus, and in another passage, not only does Jesus not know when he will take over, he doesn't have a place to lay his head.

The objections can be dissolved quite easily through the same reasoning that the rabbis use in the Talmud. The idea of having or owning something has different applications. It can mean that someone has the legal right to it, and it can also mean that the person has the thing in his or her possession.

Imagine an ancient kingdom which is taken over by an empire, which drives the king of the nation into hiding. One generation later, the empire crumbles, and the kingdom regains its independence. The deposed king's firstborn son enters the kingdom, but is quickly robbed and then has nothing on his person. In this scenario, the king's son has nothing, and yet in another sense he owns the whole kingdom. He both has nothing and has everything at the same time, but not in the same sense.

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Foundationalism

Ancient Greek skeptics held to the view that nothing could be known. One of their arguments was known as Agrippa's Trilemma:

We are told to state a belief and ask "how do you know that?" Whatever justification we give for that belief, we repeat the question. This line of questioning will eventually lead one of three ways:

1. An infinite regress
2. A circle of beliefs
3. Beliefs which do not have any further justification

Option 1 is like the story of the woman who said the world is on the back of a giant turtle. When asked what the turtle is standing on, she said "Sorry, but it's turtles all the way down"

Option 2 is a simple fallacy of circular reasoning. When someone says something like "miracles are impossible because they never happen, and we know they don't happen because they are impossible" they really aren't giving a justification. What they are doing is asserting those two statements.

With option 1 and option 2 out of the way, this leaves option 3 as the only option left, which is called foundationalism. On foundationalism, certain beliefs are considered "basic" meaning that they form the foundation of one's belief system and do not require any additional justification.

The first flavor of foundationalism, and the one people think of when they hear the word, is hard foundationalism. On this view, beliefs have to meet one of three criteria to be eligible for the category of "basic." They are:

Infallible beliefs - Beliefs that cannot possibly be false
Indubitable beliefs - Beliefs that cannot possibly be doubted
Incorrigible beliefs - Beliefs that cannot possibly be corrected

An example of an infallible belief is the law of non-contradiction. To deny the law of non-contradiction is to affirm it, so one cannot possibly be wrong about it. An example of an indubitable belief is one's belief in one's own existence. One cannot assert the doubt if one does not exist. An example of incorrigible beliefs are my beliefs in my subjective experiences. I may be wrong that what I am seeing is a white shirt, but I cannot be corrected about my belief that what I am seeing looks like a white shirt.

Descartes held to hard foundationalism in his Meditations on First Philosophy. He said to imagine a situation where a demon was constantly deceiving his senses, his reasoning, his beliefs. Even if he were being deceived in such a way, Descartes would have to exist in order to be deceived.

"After having reflected well and carefully examined all things, we must come to the definite conclusion that this proposition: I am, I exist, is necessarily true each time that I pronounce it, or that I mentally conceive it."

These indubitable propositions formed the basis for Cartesian epistemology. Descartes build his system on the foundation of his own existence, which he cannot rationally deny. He then argued for the reliability of sense experience based on his idea of God, which could not have been built in his mind by anyone but God. With God as a guarantor of sense perception, Descartes could then build a system of knowledge, trusting his senses and his reasoning.

Hard foundationalism has fallen on hard times recently. The difficulty with hard foundationalism is that one is forced to justify all beliefs on the basis of the very limited number of beliefs that we can hold with certainty.

A second problem with hard foundationalism is that we do not think in this manner. We form most of our beliefs on sense experience, intuition, and heuristic devices. We do not check our beliefs for adherence to this kind of structure. This means that hard foundationalism is at best an ideal for how we ought to form our beliefs, not a description of how we do form our beliefs.

Moderate foundationalism rose in the second half of the 20th century in response to objections that our infallible, indubitable, and incorrigible beliefs are too sparse to form an adequate foundation for knowledge. Moderate foundationalism allows as basic any belief that has a strong presumption of truth. The biggest problem with moderate foundationalism is the problem of arbitrariness. What keeps us from stipulating any belief which we cannot support with other beliefs as basic? It seems like any belief could theoretically be justified on this system.

Foundherentism is a system invented by Susan Haack to combine the strengths of foundationalism and coherentism. There are certain beliefs which are considered basic, and which form the basis of our knowledge. Coherentism states that beliefs are justified by their relationship to other beliefs, like a spider's web. Systems of belief that best hang together are the most justified.

One problem with coherentism is that works of fiction and conspiracy theories can be highly coherent, and even connect with our current system of beliefs. There can be independent webs which are each fully coherent within themselves and yet contradict one another. Basic beliefs can serve to anchor that web of beliefs into reality.

Haack asks us to think of our belief systems like a crossword puzzle. Certain answers form the foundation for other answers, and yet the answers have to cohere as well. Beliefs are not built on a purely vertical system. Not every justified belief is justified on the basis of more basic beliefs. Some beliefs are basic, and we then build a web of beliefs by adding beliefs which best cohere with that belief system. This system has coherence as its basis for justification, but basic beliefs keep the web from being arbitrary. Any web consistent with itself must also be able to accommodate our basic beliefs. Critics like Laurence Bonjour argue that foundherentism is just another label for moderate foundationalism.

Reformed Epistemology gives many of the benefits of coherentism and foundherentism, and places them within a foundationalist framework. Plantinga's project seeks to provide justification for our common sense beliefs and to avoid the problem of arbitrariness. On reformed epistemology, beliefs are justified if they are produced by properly functioning mental factulties in an appropriate environment.

On Plantinga's Reformed Epistemology, most of our beliefs are foundational. Traditional foundationalism looks at our belief structure like a skyscraper. There is a narrow foundation of beliefs which supports the entire structure. On reformed epistemology, our belief structure is like bricks scattered throughout a parking lot. A few beliefs are stacked on top of one another, but most lay at the ground level. Most of our beliefs are basic.

What keeps contradictory beliefs from being considered basic is the notion of a defeater. A defeater is something that causes a belief to lose justification and/or warrant. If I see what looks like a sheep in a field, I have justification that I actually am seeing a sheep in a field. However, if I talk to someone who says that his dog is out in the field, and when seen from a distance looks like a sheep, then I have a defeater for my initial belief that there is a sheep in the field. Most of our beliefs may be basic, under this view, but they are also defeatable.

One implication of Reformed Epistemology is that belief in God can be considered justified until proven otherwise. Plantinga thinks of this as analogous to the problem of other minds. How do I know there are other minds besides my own? Philosophers have tried to give arguments for this principle, especially arguments from analogy, but they end up either being question-begging or being logically invalid. There simply are no good arguments for the existence of other minds, yet we all believe we are justified in believing in the existence of other minds.

Some beliefs are unjustified even if true. I could believe that the universe has an even number of stars, and be correct, and yet be unjustified in believing this because it is due to nothing but a random guess. Under reformed epistemology, this cannot be the case for belief in God. If a good God exists, then he could plant knowledge of his existence in some individuals.

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

If this is the case, then one cannot argue that belief in the existence of God is unjustified even if God existed. In order to argue against the rationality of belief in God, one has to argue against the existence of God.

Foundationalism is the axiomatic solution to Agrippa's Trilemma, grounding our knowledge in a more basic set of axioms. Coherentism and infinitism cannot form a basis for formal systems of reasoning such as logic or mathematics, since they either form an infinite vicious regress or result in circular reasoning. This leaves us with foundationalism

Hard foundationalism is difficult to accept since it allows for too narrow a foundation to give us any real justification for our ordinary knowledge. Moderate foundationalism is too arbitrary to work. Foundherentism looks quite promising, but it might degenerate into moderate foundationalism. Reformed epistemology makes the best sense of our every day experience and coheres the best with our common sense beliefs.

Saturday, July 25, 2015

Why Orthodox Judaism is a Cult - Parts 2 & 3

Again, here are 8 criteria that groups use to identify a group or organization as a cult:

1. Love Bombing - Instant friendship, extreme helpfulness, generosity and acceptance...Group recruiters "lovingly" will not take "no" for an answer-invitations impossible to refuse without feeling guilty and/or ungrateful. "Love", "generosity", "encouragement" are used to lower defenses and create an ever increasing sense of obligation, debt and guilt.

2. Schedule Control & Fatigue - Study and service become mandatory. New member becomes too busy to question. Family, friends, jobs and hobbies are squeezed out, further isolating the new member.

3. Submission - Increased submission to the leadership is rewarded with additional responsibilities and/or roles, and/or praises, increasing the importance of the person within the group.

4. Intense Study - Focus is on group doctrine and writings. Bible, if used at all, is referred to one verse at time to "prove" group teachings

5. Totalism - "Us against them" thinking. Strengthens group identity. Everyone outside of group lumped under one label.

6. Isolation, Separation & Alienation - Group becomes substitute family. Members encouraged to drop worldly (non-members) friends. May be told to change jobs, quit school, give up sports, hobbies, etc.

7. Secrecy - Group hides inner workings and teachings from outsiders. Sophisticated cults may curry media interest or even employ public relations consultants and ad agencies to manage their image.

8. Information Control - Group controls what convert may read or hear. They discourage (forbid) contact with ex-members or anything critical of the group. May say it is the same as pornography making it not only sinful and dangerous but shameful as well. Ex-members become feared and avoidance of them becomes a "survival issue."

Years ago, I decided to see what it was like to get sucked into an Orthodox Jewish group. I posed as a secular Jew and lett the kiruv (Orthodox Jewish outreach) rabbis rope me in to this learning experience. I spent one year full-time in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community before moving away, and then studying with a different community, but only part time. To this day, I spend 2-3 nights a week studying with Orthodox rabbis. Occasionally, one of them finds out the truth about me, and I inevitably get kicked out, and have to find another group. This has happened several times so far, and I predict it will continue to happen in the future.

So far my most notable experience has come when one Modern Orthodox rabbi, who identifies himself as the most liberal and tolerant of Orthodox rabbis in the area, found out about my beliefs. At first, he seemed intrigued. We talked for a few hours about my beliefs regarding God, Israel, and the public education system. He was absolutely shocked to find that a fellow Jew could believe in Jesus as God. He also asked me about my feelings about Jews for Jesus, and I said that I like their intentions but believe they are not terribly successful.

About a week later, I got a phone call from him, where he said that he would not allow me to attend any of his shiurim (lectures) and pretty much wanted to break all contact with me. I asked why he seemed to have such a change of heart. He said that even though I never had any affiliation with any missionary organization. In all my years of studying with Orthodox rabbis, I have not attempted to sway their audience. I just sit and listen. The rabbi said that he could not allow me to do that, because I might in the future, encounter a secular Jew and use this rabbinic information to persuade him or her to accept my beliefs.

Several things are of note here. First, this rabbi has been known to invite people who are not Orthodox and have no intention of becoming Orthodox to dine with his family or to spend the night for the Sabbath, or to attend religious events with them. He is sharply critical of the Hasidic group Chabad, which is a very outreach-focused organization. He brags that he accepts all Jews for who they are and provides no pressure for them to conform to his beliefs. This is the rabbi who would not even let me listen in on his lectures because "you could use them against us."

Second, it was during his phone call where I heard him repeat so many slogans that I had heard a bunch of times from Orthodox Jews, and repeating them word for word. This rabbi was not thinking for himself, but was spouting the propaganda that he had been force-fed in yeshiva many years ago.

Third, his attitude toward letting outsiders know his beliefs resembles Gnosticism and other secret societies more than it resembles a defensible belief system. I have studied under Eastern Orthodox theologians, letting them know my beliefs openly. They had no problem with teaching me. I have studied Roman Catholic theology under very theologically conservative Roman Catholic theologians. They openly welcome me, even though they know I have major issues with their theology. Reformed Protestants also have openly welcomed me and even atheists and agnostics to learn their belief systems. In all cases, I asked whether they were afraid I could use their beliefs against them. They all responded that if I used these teachings to criticize them, they would be happy that at least I would be criticizing what they actually believe.

People who have confidence that their belief systems are true are not afraid of criticism. Alvin Plantinga has phoned many of his colleagues, telling them that he wanted clarification on what they believed so that he could more accurately criticize them. These colleagues were only too eager to oblige! They believed that their beliefs had the best arguments for them, and would be happy to change them if other beliefs had better arguments. I agree with this sentiment. I would only be too happy to accept the belief system and even the lifestyle of Chabad or the Aish Hatorah or Jews for Judaism rabbis if they presented strong enough arguments. But I think the feeling is really not mutual.

Years ago, when I was living undercover as an ultra-Orthodox Jew, I studied in the kollel (community learning center) pretty much on a nightly basis. I particularly enjoyed studying with adolescents and even older children who were raised Orthodox, because they gave me the raw teachings that they were taught in the day schools, without filtering out any of the teachings which might look bad to outsiders.

I was reading through the latter chapters of the book of Daniel (ArtScroll translation) with one 14 year old boy, who said that he had never read the book of Daniel before. I let him do most of the reading and discussing of the commentaries on the text. When we got to Daniel 12:2 he froze up. He said that he could not believe what he was reading.

"Many of those who sleep in the dusty earth will awaken; these for everlasting life and these for shame, for everlasting abhorrence."

He said "but we don't believe this. We believe that the wicked will suffer for up to 12 months but no longer."

I was later told by the rosh kollel (head of the kollel) that I should not be reading prophets with the kids. They are not taught these books until later on because they can be easily "misunderstood." He gave an example that he believed strongly in marital fidelity, but a cursory reading of 2 Samuel or 1 Kings makes it look like David was guilty of having an affair with Bathsheba and arranging the murder of Uriah to cover it up, or that Solomon was violating his marital vows by having 700 wives and 300 concubines. The rosh kollel told me that he thought Bill Clinton was a despicable individual for having an affair with one intern. There was no way he was going to let the kids just read these books of the Bible for themselves.

Defenders of Orthodox Judaism will claim that cults do not allow questioning while Orthodox Judaism thrives on questioning. This is one of those dangerous half-truths. It is true that the rabbis do allow lots of questioning from the laity. They are more than happy to answer questions when they know they have the questioners intellectually out-gunned. They will answer questions from people who do not have the education to pose powerful, thoroughly researched questions backed with citations from top scholars.

Michael Brown said that when he was a teenager, the Chabad rabbis would gladly allow him to ask them questions about their interpretation of Scripture. Once Brown started becoming an expert in Semitic languages and was able to challenge their interpretations on philological grounds, they quickly stopped letting him ask those questions.

I have repeatedly contacted anti-missionary organizations such as Jews for Judaism to ask if they would be willing to engage a Christian scholar in oral debate. They have consistenly refused to do so, stating "we do not believe in debates." I have asked Dovid Gottlieb, the founder of the modern Kuzari Principle argument if he would publish it in a peer-reviewed journal, and he refused. These rabbis do like to entertain questions, but not from professional scholars, lest their followers realize that the Rebbe has no clothes.

Why Orthodox Judaism is a Cult - Part 1

Evangelical Christians often use the word "cult" to describe any group that claims to be Christian but is guilty of one or more major heresies. This is not the definition I will be using. I am going to define a cult as an organization or group that seeks to control its members through indoctrination and then isolate its members from any outside influences that might threaten this control.

Organizations such as UC Berkley have criteria for what makes a group a cult. An organization is a cult if it has many of the following features:

1. Love Bombing - Instant friendship, extreme helpfulness, generosity and acceptance...Group recruiters "lovingly" will not take "no" for an answer-invitations impossible to refuse without feeling guilty and/or ungrateful. "Love", "generosity", "encouragement" are used to lower defenses and create an ever increasing sense of obligation, debt and guilt.

2. Schedule Control & Fatigue - Study and service become mandatory. New member becomes too busy to question. Family, friends, jobs and hobbies are squeezed out, further isolating the new member.

3. Submission - Increased submission to the leadership is rewarded with additional responsibilities and/or roles, and/or praises, increasing the importance of the person within the group.

4. Intense Study - Focus is on group doctrine and writings. Bible, if used at all, is referred to one verse at time to "prove" group teachings

5. Totalism - "Us against them" thinking. Strengthens group identity. Everyone outside of group lumped under one label.

6. Isolation, Separation & Alienation - Group becomes substitute family. Members encouraged to drop worldly (non-members) friends. May be told to change jobs, quit school, give up sports, hobbies, etc.

7. Secrecy - Group hides inner workings and teachings from outsiders. Sophisticated cults may curry media interest or even employ public relations consultants and ad agencies to manage their image.

and most importantly

8. Information Control - Group controls what convert may read or hear. They discourage (forbid) contact with ex-members or anything critical of the group. May say it is the same as pornography making it not only sinful and dangerous but shameful as well. Ex-members become feared and avoidance of them becomes a "survival issue."

Speaking from experience, Orthodox Judaism has many of these features. There is an outreach industry called kiruv which seeks to turn non-Orthodox Jews into Orthodox Jews, regardless of how manipulative the organization has to be. They invite people in by offering community, fellowship and meals. They open their homes to strangers and offer the arms of friendship. This friendship comes with a price, subtle pressure to conform to the group's behavior.

One favorite tactic is called the BT yeshiva. A normal yeshiva is a place where Jewish men around college-age, live and spend 12-14 hours per day studying Talmudic law for a few years. The BT yeshiva is a similar idea. Young, single Jews, especially those on trips such as Birthright, are invited for a free meal and a place to stay. They can live and study for years on end at no cost to them, with the only condition being that they spend a good amount of their time studying in classes which focus on how to conform to Orthodox Jewish law, and also indoctrination as to why Orthodox Judaism is true.

The real magic about this approach is that people in yeshiva are pretty isolated from the outside world. Social psychology sets in, and the beliefs and behaviors of the yeshiva culture seep into these new recruits, with little outside contact to hold this transformation in check. Their worldviews become manipulated in an almost Truman Show -esque fashion. By time they are finished with a few years, they are ready to live and believe like a proper ultra-Orthodox Jew, always living in an Orthodox community, so that the indoctrination can be maintained.

The idea is to make it as easy and as pleasant as possible to become more and more dependent upon the Orthodox Jewish community for emotional, social, spiritual, and eventually financial support. This community becomes one's entire world, and that gives the community tight control over its members. The more integrated one becomes, the more difficult and painful it is to get out.

Orthodox Jews who come to believe in Jesus often lose everything as a result. The Orthodox community is very good at getting everyone, including the person's own family, to shun the individual. All support is cut off, and their own families will not speak to them. These Orthodox families sometimes even hold funerals for Jews who leave the community, especially if they come to believe in Jesus.

The reverse is almost never the same. I have met people raised in hardcore, homeschool, Fundamentalist Christian backgrounds who have become atheists, Jews, and even Muslims. Very rarely do these Christian families shun them or cut them off from support.

For those still unwilling to accept the idea that Orthodox Judaism is a cult, ask youself the following question. Why is it that those who apostatize from Orthodox Judaism, particularly those born into the system, require halfway houses in order to make the transition? This is not true of Catholicism, Evangelical Christianity, or even Reform or Conservative Judaism, but it is very true of Orthodox Judaism.

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 52

John 10:38, "That ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in Him." The same is repeated in chapter 14:11. In chapter 17:21, it is said, "That they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that Thou hast sent me. And the glory which Thou gavest me, I have given them, that they may be one even as we are one. I in them, and Thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one," etc.

The junction of Father and Son is conferred also upon the twelve apostles. If, therefore, the Christians thought it necessary to change their belief in the Divine unity, they were not justified in adopting the term "Trinity," inasmuch as the twelve apostles are placed on an equality with Jesus, and they might, with the same latitude of argument, be well included in the coalition of Divine personages.

This is an area where I have good agreement with Troki. In John 10, Jesus confronts the Jewish authorities. The crowds challenge him to proclaim himself as Messiah, but Jesus does one better than that. He says "I and the Father are one." The crowds then accuse him of blasphemy, for who could be unified with God but God? Mohammad was quite right to assume that no creature could assume partnership with our Creator, and that seemed to reflect Second Temple Jewish sentiments as well.

Troki argues that in Chapter 17, Jesus says that the disciples are to be one, just as the Son and Father are one. Therefore, Jesus' claim to be one with the Father is not a claim of deity. This, I think, is to misunderstand the passage. Jesus did claim to be one with the Father in the sense that he wanted the disciples to be one. In John 17 Jesus gives his high priestly prayer over his disciples, desiring that they would be united in their mission. Jesus claims that his own mission with the Father is one of the same unity. Jesus and the Father are one in their mission to redeem humanity, bringing about salvation. Jews knew that only God is the source of salvation, and this sentiment is still in the siddur to this day.

The kicker is the Jewish reaction. Why stone Jesus for blasphemy if he was only claiming to be an important prophet or exalted creature? Claiming to be Messiah is not blasphemy. Claiming to be exalted is not blasphemy. Claiming to be God, however, is grounds for being stoned. And if that isn't enough, remember verse 33:

The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.”

Sunday, May 24, 2015

E.P. Sanders on Messiah

"The second source that sheds light on the title 'Messiah' is the library found near the shores of the Dead Sea. In some of these documents there are two Messiahs, one a son of David and one a son of Aaron, the first high priest. The second, the priestly Messiah, is in charge. The other Messiah does nothing. There will be a great war (according to one scroll), but the Messiahs play no part in it."

-E. P Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, p. 241.

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Errors & Anachronisms in the Talmud: Dating Darius

Recently, I have been listening to the OU's Nach Yomi. This is an audio series put forth by the Orthodox Union, where each day, a rabbi gives a summary and commentary on one chapter from the Prophets or the Writings.

Seder Olam Rabbah is a rabbinic midrash which the Talmud quotes repeatedly. The Talmud and rabbinic tradition after it treat this book as the authoritative timeline of the history of the world. You can find Seder Olam Rabbah translated to English freely available online, such as here.

So here is the interesting 5 minute segment where this Orthodox Rabbi admits an error in the rabbinic chronology.

Here is the audio file

Haggai begins with "In the second year of Darius the king," which Seder Olam Rabbah interprets as Darius, the son of Xerxes. BibArch gives us a pretty good timeline of the Persian rulers during this time.

According to history, the successor of Cyrus close enough to implement his reforms was Darius I Hystapses. Seder Olam rabbah places Darius as the son of Xerxes as the Darius who ruled when the temple was built. Here is the relevant section of Seder Olam.

(Ezra 1:1-3) “In year one of Cyrus, king of Persia, when the word of the Eternal through Jeremiah was fulfilled, did the Eternal enlighten the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia. He had a public announcement made in all his kingdom and also by letter, as follows: “So says Cyrus, king of Persia: All kingdoms of the earth the Eternal gave to me, the God of Heaven, and he ordered me to build for Him a Temple in Jerusalem that is in Judah. Anyone among you from all his people, may his God be with him and may he return to Jerusalem in Judah.” (Ezra 1:5) “The heads of the families of Judah and Benjamin, the priests and Levites, supported everybody whose spirit was enlightened by God to return and build the Temple of the Eternal in Jerusalem.” (Ezra 2:64-65) “All the community together, 42,360. In addition, their male and female slaves, 7,337 …” These numbers are the totals; the sum of the details is only 29,450. Where are the missing 12,360? These are the returnees from the other tribes. (Ezra 3:3) “They prepared the altar on its foundation while they were afraid of the Gentiles …” (Ezra 3:7) “They gave money to the stone masons and metal workers, food, drink, and oil to the Sidonians and Tyrians to deliver to them cedars to the harbor at Jaffa, following the permit issued to them by Cyrus, king of Persia.” Cyrus ruled incomplete three years. (Ezra 4:6) “In the reign of Ahasuerus, at the start of his reign, they wrote accusations against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem.” (Ezra 4:24) “In the meantime, the work at the Temple in Jerusalem stopped and was idle until year two of Darius, king of Persia.”

(Esther 1:3) in the year 3 of his (Ahasuerus’s) reign he made a feast …” For four years, Esther was hidden in the fortress Susa. (Esther 2:16) “Esther was taken to the king, to his palace, in the tenth month, that is Tevet, in the seventh year of his reign.” For five years, Haman amassed riches for Mordecai. (Esther 3:7) “In the first month, that is Nisan, in the year 12 of king Ahasuerus, they threw the lot before Haman …” On the 13th of Nisan did Haman write letters (Esther 3:13) “to destroy and kill all Jews …” On the 15th of Nisan did Esther appear before the king. On the 16th of Nisan was Haman hanged. On the 23rd of Nisan did Mordecai write to countermand the missives of Haman. On the 13th of Adar (Esther 9:5) “did the Jews slay all their enemies,” (Esther 9:12) “and in the fortress Susa the Jews slew 500 men” and they hanged the ten Sons of Haman who had written incitements against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. (Esther 9:11) “On that day, the king was informed of the number of the slain.” About the same time the next year it is said (Esther 9:29) “Queen Esther and the Jew Mordecai wrote…”

Lo, it says (Jer. 29:10): “When Babylon will have filled 70 years I shall remember you and fulfill My good word to return you to this place”; (Dan. 9:2) “I checked the books for the number of years, about which the word of the Eternal was to the prophet Jeremiah, that 70 years were fulfilled since the destruction of Jerusalem.” Israel was 52 years in the kingdom of the Chaldeans, then they were remembered and returned, three years in the reign of Cyrus, 14 of Ahasuerus, and in the second year of Darius the Temple was built. And so says Zachariah (Zach. 1:12): “The angel of the Eternal declaimed and said: O Eternal of Hosts, until when will you not have mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, about which You are angry now these 70 years.” The Temple was built for four years as it is said (Ezra 6:15): “This temple was finished at the third of Adar in the year six of the reign of Darius.” At the same time the next year did Ezra come up from Babylon and other deportees with him as it is said (Ezra 7:6-10): “He is Ezra, who came from Babylon, a scribe quick in the Torah of Moses that the Eternal, the God of Israel had given… There came from the Israelites and from the priests, Levites (singers, doorkeepers), and temple servants to Jerusalem, in the seventh year of king Artaxerxes. He arrived at Jerusalem in the fifth month of the king’s seventh year. Really, of the first of the first month was the begining of the voyage from Babylon, and on the first of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem since the hand of the Eternal was good over him. Because Ezra had concentrated on studying the Torah of the Eternal, to do and to teach laws and judicial rules in Israel.” He came to separate Israel from the foreign wives.

Seder Olam confuses the two Dariuses, giving us a Darius far too late in history to match the timeline given to us by Persian records and archaeology. I am not surprised to find such an error, but I am surprised that an Orthodox Rabbi working for the OU would admit that his holy and authoritative rabbinic tradition would make such a glaring mistake.

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

West Morriston and the Kalam Argument

Abstract

The Kalam Cosmological Argument is perhaps the most widely discussed of the theistic arguments. With the revival brought about by William Lane Craig and its popularization brought about by the Internet in general and YouTube in particular, there is no shortage of objections. What seems most fascinating is the degree to which objectors to the argument, even in the professional philosophical literature, misunderstand the assumptions about the ontology of time upon which the argument is built. Specifically, Craig’s version of the Kalam argument assumes a relational or reductionist view of time, and yet so often the objectors assume (without argument) a Platonist view of time. One might try to repair these objections by giving an argument for a Platonist view. The problem is that the Kalam argument is robust enough that it can be adapted to almost any view of time’s ontology. In short, Platonism regarding time serves as no threat to the Kalam Cosmological Argument.

A Brief Overview of Kalam

The Kalam Cosmological Argument can be stated quite simply with two premises and a conclusion.

(1) If something begins to exist, it has a cause

(2) Material reality began to exist

(3) Therefore, material reality had an immaterial cause

This paper will focus on the properties of the first cause. According to their article in Blackwell, Craig and Sinclair state that the cause of material reality must be uncaused and beginningless. Given the impossibility of an infinite number of past events, this cause must be changeless and immaterial, since material things change incessantly at the microscopic level.[i]Craig and Sinclair also note that on a technical level, the Kalam argument only demonstrates that metric time had a beginning. If there were an undifferentiated time before creation, God would be temporally prior to creation, but there would be no moment one second, one hour, or one year before creation.

Discussions surrounding this argument often involve what it means for something to begin to exist, and whether the arguments against the sufficiency of the material world apply equally to God. If the past has to be finite, then how is it that God is not also finite in the past? A better way to rephrase the question is: “If the past is finite, how can God be eternal in the past? How can God be from everlasting to everlasting?”

Craig answers this through a careful definition of what it means to begin to exist. The definition goes something like: “A being b begins to exist at time t if and only if b exists at t, there is no time interval immediately prior to t at which b exists, and there is no state of affairs in which b exists timelessly.”[ii]This is to say that a being can be both eternal and finite in the past as long as there is a state of affairs when (or where) the being exists timelessly. When talking about the finitude or infinitude of the past, we need a definition that allows us to state coherently “time began to exist” and “time did not begin to exist.” Otherwise, the beginning of time becomes a matter of arbitrary stipulation rather than a matter of thorough philosophical investigation.

Morriston objects to this idea, yet does not state his assumptions explicitly. He argues that it is not possible for God to be apart from time “prior” to creation.[iii]He takes the view of Grunbaum and Swinburne stating that something does not begin to exist unless there is a prior time in which that thing does not exist.

A Brief Excursion Regarding Premise 2

It is puzzling the way that some objectors are so quick to dismiss the philosophical arguments against the infinitude of the past. Take the argument that an actually infinite number of things cannot exist. Morriston, Oppy, and others suggest that if transfinite arithmetic violates intuition, then one should say “so much the worse for intuition.” This seriously underestimates the problem presented by Hilbert and others. The real problem is not that the existence of actual infinites would allow people to build weird and spooky hotels that defy intuition, but that it would allow us to perform, in reality, mathematically invalid operations. Inverse operations with infinite cardinals are every bit as invalid as division by zero or taking a base 1 logarithm. If one’s ontology allows for such operations, then that should serve as a reductioagainst any such ontology.

Worse, the transfinite cardinals such as ℵ₀seem far more problematic than set theorists are generally willing to admit. Consider Cantor’s formula for dealing with infinite cardinals. He stipulated that two sets A and B have the same cardinality if they can be put into a bijection. Think of a philosophy class where every student is sitting in a chair and every chair has exactly one student sitting on it. Cantor would say that the set of students and the set of chairs has the same cardinality. This comports without our intuitions about the size of groups, but it is not a complete description. In order to fit with our intuitions about size, we need to state that in order for the number of students and chairs to be equal, not only do we need to be able to pair one student to one chair so that there are no chairs or students left over, but we also need to be unable to pair our students and chairs so that each student is sitting in one chair apiece, and yet there are chairs left over. Transfinite sets fail this criterion, and hence the set of all natural numbers (for example) is not equal in size to anything, not even to itself. Set theorists might be able to ignore these problems and proceed anyway for utility’s sake. David Hilbert was a non-realist regarding mathematical objects, which may be why he allowed for mathematical discussion of these objects. The ontologist does not have such a luxury. Ontology has no place for such useful fictions, since the subject of ontology deals with what literally is the case.[iv]

Christ Rescued Us from Platonic Hell

The argument against actual infinites also serves as both an argument against a realist view of abstract objects, the B-theory of time on Christianity, and a formalized propositional view of omniscience. As a bonus, it can help us understand Christ’s ability to be both ignorant and omniscient. The issue of abstract objects has already been addressed at length by Craig, Azzouni, and others. The short answer to those who would object based on abstract objects is that it does not seem at all obvious that mathematical objects literally exist, or that our idea of truth be based on a view that forces us to believe that every noun in our vocabulary corresponds to an object in our ontology. Likewise, the existential quantifier seems more like a linguistic device than a symbol of ontological commitment.

On the B-theory of time, all moments in time are actualized. There is no objective passage of time, which means that there can be no such thing as a potentially infinite future. If one holds to a robust doctrine of immortality, one is committed to the view that humans will live with God in a temporal state for eternity. On presentism, this doctrine can be believed without commitment to actual infinites, since the number of events will be always finite and always growing. On the B-theory, one is committed to an actually infinite number of events.

Similarly, the argument against actual infinites requires us to think of divine omniscience in qualitative rather than quantitative terms. God’s omniscience is not an actually infinite collection of propositions. Instead, it can be thought of as a type of superthought, or super conscious state from which he can derive any true proposition. This may provide a helpful solution to the problem raised in Matthew 24, where Jesus says “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” How can an omniscient being say such a thing? If we think of omniscience as a non-propositional thought, then we can suggest that in his incarnate state, Jesus used his human brain to think. If his human brain had access to that thought, but was not able to derive propositions from it, Jesus would possess both omniscience in a qualitative sense and yet simultaneously not know about that day or hour.[v]

Stopping Infinite Hammertime

Objections that an infinite future has the same problems as an infinite past also seem inadequate. Let’s use an illustration that Thomas Aquinas used to hammer out the details. Imagine an immortal smithy who uses a hammer for his work. Over time, the hammer wears out, and he throws it into a pile and then obtains a new hammer. Such a smithy who begins his work at and never stops would never have an actually infinite number of hammers in the pile. The number of worn out hammers will always be finite but growing without limit. A smithy who has been hammering for an eternal amount of time would in fact have an actually infinite pile of hammers. A thought experiment like this shows that the concept of an infinite future, given the A-theory of time (or presentism, for that matter) does not have the same potential difficulties as the concept of an infinite past. Even under presentism, the possibility of an infinite past at least presents the potential of an infinite accumulation effect. Such a difficulty cannot even in principle exist with an infinite future alone.

Platonism vs. Reductionism

Imagine a world containing nothing but a void filled with a dark aether. The world undergoes no change – it is completely static. Can we say that such a world can have a passage of time? In other words, can there be such a thing as time without events? If not, that is the reductionist view, also known as the relational view. If so, that is the Platonist view, also known as substantivalism or absolutism with respect to time. Another way to ask this question is: “Which has logical precedence, time or events?” On the reductionist view, events are logically prior to the passage of time. Time is not an independently existing entity or structure. Given the impossibility of an infinite number of past events, and that an event requires a change in the state of affairs, a reductionist is committed to the fact that some state of affairs exists prior to the first event. Since time comes into existence at the first event, we cannot say that the initial state of affairs is temporally prior to the first event, but that it is logically prior to it. Since, on this view, time comes into existence, no reductionist can coherently state that a being b does not come into existence unless there is a prior time when bdoes not exist. Any argument against the coherence of the previous view is not an argument against Craig’s view per sebut an objection to the reductionist view of time.

Many objections to the Kalam argument implicitly do just that, yet fail to state it explicitly when they argue against Craig’s view of time.[vi] Wes Morriston holds this unstated assumption in his critiques of Craig’s argument. He writes “You might wonder how long he thinks God has existed. Since God does not begin to exist, mustn’t he have existed forever? And wouldn’t that be an actual infinite of the very sort that Craig says is impossible?” Morriston also objects that God’s choice to create a finite temporal world cannot be an eternal choice, since an eternal sufficient choice entails an eternal effect. Such arguments misunderstand the concept of “eternal” on a reductionist view of time. Instead, the word “eternal” in regards to the past should be defined as “an object o is past eternal if and only if o exists and o did not begin to exist.” Therefore, the word can mean either “temporal and infinite” or “timeless.” God is eternal in that he exists changelessly in that initial state of affairs. God is needed for creation because no deterministic being can turn a changeless state of affairs into a temporal state of affairs. An eternal sufficient cause can indeed produce a non-eternal effect if the cause can act arbitrarily. Any argument against this will either collapse into an argument against libertarian free will or into an argument against the reductionist view of time.

It is easy to imagine a divine consciousness bringing time into existence on the reductionist view. In the initial state of affairs, God exists changelessly, holding one single, static state of consciousness. God acts, changing the state of affairs, and bringing time into being as an emergent phenomenon. In such a world, God exists timelessly apart from or “before” (in a highly metaphorical sense) time, since time supervenes on events, or on changes in the state of affairs. This is how “God’s life in time, so to speak, begins with creation. Subsequent to creation, God has a past and that past has a beginning, since it began with the creation of time and the universe.”

Two Ships Passing in the Night

Suppose that the objector is not bothered by any of this. The objector holds to a Platonist view of time and argues that Craig’s view of God and time is therefore incoherent. How might the defender of Kalam respond to such an accusation?

It does seem that the idea of bringing time into existence is, or at least might be, incoherent on the Platonist view. Indeed, it is difficult for the temporal Platonist to think of any event or act as logically prior to time. All acts require time, and on the Platonist view, time is the container within which events occur. The creation of time, if it is anything, is an event. On reductionism, the creation of time is unproblematic, since time is a byproduct of events. On Platonism, the creation of time is still an event, yet time is logically prior to all events. In order to create time, time has to already exist, and so the creation of time on temporal Platonism seems incoherent. Worse, the beginning of time would itself be an event, meaning that on temporal Platonism, time has to precede time, giving us an insoluble bootstrapping problem. It seems that this is the real objection coming from the likes of Morriston and others. Objectors who take this line of argumentation fail to state that they are rejecting a reductionist view of time, and hence, their discussions with defenders such as Craig involve both sides talking past one another.

The Kalam Argument on a Platonist View

The Platonist view of time has numerous problems on its own, which themselves might shut down any temporal Platonist objections to this argument. One of them concerns the ordinary view of time. Physical time is generally defined in terms of events. One second, for example is currently defined by the International System of Units as 9,192,631,770 transitions within a cesium atom, a reductionist definition if I ever heard one. One who objects to Kalam from a temporal Platonist view must deny that this is what time really is, or at least accept that time’s metric is reductionist, even if time is not. There are still potential problems with an actually infinite past, such as an infinite regress of nested temporal intervals, even if they do not have a metric. However, this is more of a problem for temporal Platonism than it is for the temporal Platonist view of the Kalam argument.

Can a temporal Platonist use the Kalam argument? It seems so, as long as the argument is modified slightly. The premises and conclusion are fine, but we need to modify the definition of beginning to exist. We can say that on temporal Platonism, an object o begins to exist at time t if and only if o exists at t and there is no time immediately prior to tthat t exists. The idea of being timeless apart from time does not seem coherent on temporal Platonism unless one wants to abandon presentism and fall right into the jaws either of the problems with the B-theory or McTaggert’s Paradox if one wants to adopt something like the growing block view. Because of the bootstrapping problem, temporal Platonism will require time that is eternal in both directions, meaning that an argument for the finitude of the past will not establish that the past is finite, but only that the number of past events is finite. One can argue, as Richard Swinburne does, that time is undifferentiated without a metric. Without events, an infinite past does not entail an infinite number of minutes or hours. Like divine omniscience, time is qualitatively infinite without being composed of an infinite number of parts, or containing an infinite number of events.

On a temporal Platonist view, one can say that God exists temporally prior to the material world. Since there cannot be an infinite number of past events, this means that there is some first event. If all causes are temporally prior to their effects, this does no damage to the Kalam argument. One can just say that God’s cause of the universe coming into existence is the first event, and the origin of the universe is perhaps the second event. One might object that on this view, why is it that God did not create the universe sooner? This argument does not help the objector because it applies to any view which contains a Platonist view of time and a finite number of past events. Why did the first event not happen sooner? This is not an objection to the Kalam argument, but an objection to temporal Platonism, and I will leave it to the temporal Platonist to answer it. One might wonder why we need to posit God on such a view, and the answer is that without a being who possesses libertarian free will, it seems impossible to connect an infinite past that lacks events with a future that contains events. No impersonal set of conditions can do this, since no deterministic entity can be entirely quiescent and then begin to change. Simple indeterminism will also not work, since the only candidates we have for random events are decaying particles and fluctuations in the quantum vacuum. Both of them are constantly in a state of flux, and governed by probability relative to metric-based time.

Conclusion

The reductionist-Platonist distinction is one of the most essential issues to understanding Craig’s version of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. If one wants to object to this first cause argument, the objector will need to be more explicit as to whether the Platonist or reductionist view of time is being assumed in the objection. Furthermore, the objector should be giving an objection that is not simply reducible to a criticism of the other position. Most Calvinist criticisms of Molinism are not really attacks on the specific doctrine of Molinism, but are instead arguments against libertarian free will. If the Calvinist wants to give such arguments, that is fine, but let us be upfront in what the Calvinist is critiquing.

Hopefully, the preceding article was able to shine some light on issues surrounding the Kalam Cosmological Argument. The key is that those who object to Craig’s model of the Kalam argument need to state that either his view fails even under a reductionist view of time and definition of coming into being, or show that both the Platonist view of time is correct and that the temporal Platonist version of the Kalam argument also fails. Unless and until the objector does that, I think that Craig’s view is the more plausible one.

[i]William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland, eds., The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 192.

[ii]Paraphrased, but it gets the idea.

[iii]Wes Morriston, “Must the Beginning of the Universe Have a Personal Cause?: A Critical Examination of the Kalam Cosmological Argument,” Faith and Philosophy (vol. 17, No. 2, April 2000) 151.

[iv]A similar problem arises regarding the Riemann Zeta Function. This function is supposed to give us a solution to converging sequences of fractions such as ((1/2)+(1/4)+(1/9)+(1/16). . .) Riemann then used complex analysis to extend this function even to divergent sequences. This leads to odd results, implying that (1 + 2 + 3 + 4. . . = -1/12) and also that (1 + 4 + 9 + 16. . .= 0) The Riemann Zeta Function is a very useful tool in mathematics, but it is absurd to think that these divergent sequences literally have these sums.

[v]This view of divine omniscience also might help us escape from problems that plagued Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing. Consider the proposition B: God does not believe B. One can rework the proposition to remove all direct self-reference and all indexicals, as Gödel did in his incompleteness theorem, and still wind up with a paradox. If God believes the statement, he believes a falsehood. If he does not believe the statement, he lacks a belief in a true proposition. A non-propositional account of omniscience may be of help here.

[vi]Kant himself may have failed to appreciate this distinction. In his Critique of Pure Reason, the first antinomy assumes that time is a series of differing conditions. This assumes a reductionist view of time, since temporal Platonism can contain different times with the same conditions. Kant’s antithesis that “a beginning is an existence which is preceded by a time in which the thing does not exist” itself assumes a Platonist view of time, since a reductionist account of time can make perfect sense of time beginning to exist.