L 4.3

Michael Shermer is quoted on p. 70 saying “smart people...are able to give intellectual reasons justifying their beliefs that they arrived at for non-intelligent reasons.” Further, “there are several social reasons for leaving the faith that a person was born into.” (p.72)

First, Loftus should be careful citing this quote because it could be used against atheism. Many people believe that former Christians are merely mad at God for some selfish reason. They didn’t get their burning bush audience with God or they think that being a Christian makes them maintain a lifestyle that prevents certain indulgences or they think God unfairly took someone/something from them. In fact, the journal-like first chapter of Loftus’ book suggests that he might fit neatly into those categories.

Second, who gets to decide which reasons justifying a belief are intelligent and which ones aren’t? Making the claim that certain reasons are non-intelligent requires smuggled-in authority. The person making the claim should validate their authority in order to substantiate their position.

Third, “non-intelligent reasons” is really code for “non-scientific reasons”. Science isn’t really the question in this matter. The belief should be judged on rationality, especially of the metaphysical, philosophical variety. Christian beliefs have been shown to be rational for centuries. A good article on the topic is Alvin Plantinga’s “Should Methodological Naturalism Constrain Science”.

The second statement implies that moving from one faith to another only happens as a result of social pressures, not rationality. While this might be true of Loftus himself, several notable atheists who are now Christian claim that they followed the evidence in investigating Christian beliefs and they became followers of Christ. They give no indication that their conversion was due to social or cultural factors.

L 4.2

Richard Dawkins claims that “the overwhelming majority [of people] just happens to choose the one [religion] that their parents belong to...The religion we adopt is a matter of an accident of geography.” (pp.67-68)

This assertion might not be as true as it seems on the surface. There are examples to the contrary.

David Nassar has an incredible story

There is evidence that the Church in China is growing.

Christianity in the Middle East is an interesting topic.

Information about Christianity in Iran is very limited but, fascinating.

Analysis of Christianity in the Persian Gulf yields interesting results.

Epicenter: Why the Current Rumblings in the Middle East Will Change Your Future By Joel C. Rosenberg explores Christian trends in Islamic cultures.

L 4.1

Loftus advocates what he calls an outsider test. The idea is for a person to step outside of their belief, particularly Christianity, to objectively and impartially evaluate it. On p. 66 he says "But from the outside, the adherent of a different faith seems blind." What he is saying is that religious people are all saying the same thing about each others’ beliefs; that they’re false. If those same people could remove themselves to a position of non-belief, then they would be better able to appropriately assess the validity of these non-scientific worldviews and most likely would abandon them since they are the product of ancient superstitions. What Loftus fails to mention is that no one, not even agnostics, are devoid of faith.

Non-theism is the belief that naturalism is all there is. It is the faith that science can ultimately explain everything. Scientific methodology is the ultimate authority. Agnostics try to paint themselves as having non-belief or a-belief but, that is in itself a belief. It is belief in restraint from making a statement on either extreme of God’s existence. Agnostics use various means to determine that we either don’t have enough information or can’t know if God exists. That is faith in the means to make such a determination. In one sense, the outsider test for faith is a sham. Does Loftus advocate that a person remove themselves to a position of non-belief in anything in order to assess a worldview? If so, that’s an impossible task. Epistemology just doesn’t work that way. In order to assess beliefs, there has to be a method of doing so. A method is based on beliefs in certain things. Is Loftus saying a person should look at a belief through the eyes of someone who is not an advocate of that worldview? This isn’t much better because if you want to learn how to paint, you don’t ask an engineer. You ask a painter. If you are looking for God, you don’t ask an atheist because they don’t believe God exists.

In another sense, the outsider test for faith is a good idea in that people should constantly evaluate their beliefs objectively. The best way to do that is to be able to accurately reproduce objections to that belief. For the Christian, this means being educated in non-theist thinking so that those points can be paraphrased accurately back to a non-theist and they would agree that the objection has been adequately captured. In fact, the Bible exhorts believers to “test the spirits” in 1 John 4:1. There certainly have been people who don’t follow this admonition but, they do so contrary to what the Bible says.

The outsider test for faith isn’t quite as unique of an idea as Loftus seems to think it is and many, many people have employed it frequently in their lives. If Loftus were honest with himself, he probably wouldn’t be so confident in it’s ability to make atheists out of brainwashed Christians. There have been atheists who investigated Christianity from the “outside” and found Christianity to be too convincing to resist.

L 3.9

On the subject of God’s method for revelation, Loftus says "if God chose to reveal himself in the past, he chose a poor medium and a poor era in the ancient superstitious past to do so". (p. 61)

First, Loftus is using a ridiculous standard to ascertain the existence of God. Any era is ancient and superstitious when looked at from the future. Even contemporary scientific methods will be outdated as they are constantly refined. We know that in regards to intent, it has been demonstrably shown that the Bible has been faithfully transmitted. Also, his application of this standard assumes that God isn’t still revealing Himself to us today. It has already established in the preceding post that He does still reveal Himself. Aside from general revelation, Biblical revelation is just one avenue of special revelation. So, God is working in other ways that supplement revelation in the Bible.

Second, use of the word poor requires smuggled-in authority in that the observer is assuming an omniscient vantage point. Clearly, this isn’t the case. There is no way for any person to know that there isn’t an ultimate purpose in how revelation has occurred.

L 3.8

"Science has taught us to assume a natural explanation for every event based upon methodological naturalism.” (p. 61)

What Loftus overlooks is that God can operate through secondary causes. A primary cause is when God directly intervenes in the natural order to part the sea or turn wine into water. A secondary cause is when God is not the proximate cause of change. We don’t directly control the temperature in the room but, we do so through a medium like a thermostat. We are ultimately in control but, we aren’t the proximate cause of change. We control the thermostat. The thermostat in turn directs the devices that change the temperature. God can work this way and, to us, this would look natural although suspicious at times. An example of this might be a circumstance or string of circumstances occurring against great odds like a person getting cured of a fatal disease for no readily apparent reason. This is what many people would consider a modern day miracle. Since there isn’t a direct, proximate intervention by God, all empirical events could just look like normal, everyday operations of the physical universe not guided by any divine process. Science can certainly provide empirical explanations for many aspects of our existence but, science will never be able to guarantee that there isn’t a supernatural being behind it all pushing the buttons and twisting the dials.

Non-theists clamor for God to work in primary causes since we now have more sophisticated noetic sensibilities and empirical equipment. We would be much more astute in assessing God's activity than our predecessors. To not do so means that God is unfairly concealing Himself from us or just doesn’t exist. This problem is referred to as the "divine shyness" problem. The Christian case is that biblical style miracles are not necessary after the completed work of Christ’s ministry. Unfortunately, the non-Christian who is asking for God to work as a primary cause does not accept the authority of the Bible or the divinity of Jesus. Therefore, their request stands as an enabler to belief. Without God’s role as proximate cause, they do not accept the biblical injunction. However, the dynamic expressed in the Bible means that God works more as a secondary cause now whereas in the past, He worked as a primary cause. He is much more subtle today.

God's work as a primary cause is inversely proportionate to our scientific knowledge [qualitatively, not quantitatively]. Obviously, the non-theist will object that there is no empirical proof of this and that this explanation is either ad hoc or an excuse for God’s lack of presence in our lives. The flaw in this objection is that as God's direct intervention in natural affairs increases, His activity becomes more compelling which leads to less freedom. This means that God was much more coercive in the past than today. While this prima facie seems like a violation of freedom of our ancestors, Loftus has adamantly pointed out that ancient people were more superstitious and less scientific than we are today. This means that God had more room to operate in the past without being coercive because to them, there were many events that seemed incredible to our ancestors that to us, seem mundane and standard operating procedure of causality. Even though people had a cursory understanding of causality, our ancestors did not have prior scientific endeavors to draw from as we do. They did not have the tools to seek scientifically empirical explanations for events like we do today as a result of the Scientific Revolution. Consequently, God was not contradicting their thought processes in the same way as He would be today. Granted, people had a general sense that seas don’t part on their own without some extraordinary force acting on them but, they didn’t have the scientific experience to know it is as certainly as we do today. If God were to perform proportionately miraculous actions in the modern/postmodern age, He would violate physical laws of causality in a way only He could which would in turn dramatically diminish, or extinguish altogether, our freedom. Keeping in mind that God’s quantitative activity has probably not changed over time, we have a condition in our lives that ancient people did not have; that of scientific advancement. This is a dynamic that is rarely, if ever, allowed for by critics of Christianity. Concordantly, non-theists are not able to justify why God’s modus operandi should remain the same throughout time despite changes in human epistemology. Non-theists want to criticize ancient people for being gullible and not seeking scientific causality for events but, don’t want to acknowledge that moderns would be enraged at the devastating effect God would produce if He did violate the laws that our present epistemology is based on thus mortally wounding our freedom. Essentially, atheists want to be coerced yet free which is logically absurd.

Another perspective on this issue is basically a rephrasing of the previous point of inverse proportionality. It comes from the testimony of many people who say that the less they have tried to manipulate their circumstances, the less they have tried to figure out truth on their own, the more God has revealed Himself to them. The more we lean on our own understanding, the more we occlude our ability to perceive God. This is an incredibly powerful point in regards to non-theism because of the irony that the more non-theists try to discover truth, the more they are not able to grasp it. Keep in mind that this has nothing to do with the intelligence of a person. There are smart people who are Christian and non-Christian alike. It’s about the motivation of a person, genius or not. The sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22 made no sense to Abraham but, he did not rely on his own rationality and the divine presence was revealed to him. Moses recognized his limitations that he wasn’t worthy of being God’s ambassador and Exodus 3 records Moses in direct contact with YHWH. Job fought off the temptations of his friends and family and was granted an audience with God. The Psalms are replete with examples of God’s presence being revealed to the penitent. In Matthew 19, Jesus illustrates this truth to the rich young man when Jesus tells him to relieve himself of his worldly accoutrement insinuating that such solipsistic attachments prevent us from having fellowship with the Almighty.

In the Pensees (577), Blaise Pascal points out that “There is sufficient clearness to enlighten the elect, and sufficient obscurity to humble them. There is sufficient obscurity to blind the reprobate, and sufficient clearness to condemn them, and make them inexcusable…If God had permitted only one religion, it had been too easily known; but when we look at it closely, we clearly discern the truth amidst this confusion.”

What we see from Pascal’s “thoughts” is a truth that has been well known for a long time. The issue isn’t one of evidence as atheists claim. That is obfuscation. It’s a matter of the heart; the motivation of the individual. Atheists need to ask themselves in regards to the perception of God’s presence, why their standards are so much less reasonable than that of theists.

In the final analysis, Loftus’ statement should at least be amended to say “Science has taught us to assume a natural explanation for every natural event based upon methodological naturalism.”

L 3.7

A comment made by Loftus needs to be clarified. He mentions Christian apologist Norman Geisler and refers to his method of argumentation for the truth of Christianity. Geisler's apologetic method doesn't start "from below" as Loftus states on p. 60. Geisler follows the classical apologetic method which starts out "from above" as Loftus then outlines in Geisler's 12 step approach that begins “high” with truth and works "down" to Jesus' ministry on earth. I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist is a good example of this apologetic method. There is a thorough explanation of 5 different apologetic methods in Five Views on Apologetics.

L 3.6

Loftus says on p. 59 that he has "an antisuperstitious bias". What he really means is that he has an antisupernatural bias. Having an antisupernatural bias is basically a dogma. So, when he says he has "an antidogma", he is not being honest. Since no person can guarantee there is nothing supernatural, remaining closed to the supernatural is tantamount to intellectual surrender.

As stated previously, there is no “belief vacuum” from which an impartial investigation of beliefs can be conducted despite what Loftus says. A critique of a belief is born out of another belief. Otherwise, there would be no frame of reference for the critique to be created from, no basis for comparison. A person wouldn’t even know how to evaluate a belief system without already subscribing to another one.