Book Plunge: Why Christianity Is Not True: Chapter 1

[Apologiaphoenix]

Chapter 7 asks if God exists.

The link can be found here.

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Does God exist? Let's plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

We return again to David Pye's book and this time he has a chapter on the existence of God. Pye is not ready to say he's an atheist yet, but he does lean more towards that side. This isn't a really long chapter, though it does seem longer than others. The downside is that real evidence is not engaged. There's more thought experiments than anything else.

Pye starts by talking about how The God Delusion came out which presented the case for atheism with great force and clarity. With great force, we can agree. With clarity, we cannot. Dawkins did not write a convincing work at all and a number of atheists even agree with that one. It will be agreed that he at least brought a debate mainstream, but even now the new atheists seem to be a thing of the past.

One of the first pieces of evidence for theism that Pye presents is people saying that they know God. "Jesus indeed rose from the dead. I spoke with Him this morning!" I really do not take arguments like that seriously any more than I take the Mormon claim of the burning in the bosom seriously.

I agree with Pye also that this seems to be the inside language in the church. I don't think it does any good and wish that older Christians would stop because I think it just confuses younger ones. Go look in your Bible and see all the passages where it tells you how to hear the voice of God. Oh wait. They're not there.

From here, Pye goes on to the rise of science. He says that over time religious explanations have been replaced by scientific explanations. It's a shame no examples are given. We can be sure that there were many people in a polytheistic context who tried to explain such things, but did they invent deities to do that, or were the deities already there believed to do the things that needed explaining?

As for Christianity, the Christians were the ones trying to find the scientific explanations many times. Science was being done often in the Middle Ages. Finding a natural explanation for something was not seen as removing God from the picture. It was seen as a way of demonstrating how the mind of God works.

The idea of science removing faith might work if you have an idea of a God who must be constantly doing miracles or such to maintain reality. That is not the Christian position. It is true that God upholds all existence by His power, but He also does it through many instrumental means and not through a constant working of the miraculous.

He tells a story about a little boy seeing the sun and realizing no man made that. He points out this story would be convincing 30 years ago, but not today, but why? What did we discover? There is often this idea that if you find a natural explanation for something, there can be no greater explanation. I see no reason to think such a thing. A natural explanation can show the genius of the creator.

Pye then goes on to ask if disbelief in God is evil. He compares it to the Loch Ness monster. Perhaps someone is not convinced by the evidence. Does that mean their denial is evil? Unfortuantely, the Loch Ness monster comes with no moral requirements of such a nature. If God exists and especially the Christian God, one is called to live a life of dying to one's self and self-surrender.

This leads to Pascal's Wager. He quotes Dawkins as saying that Pascal must have been joking. We can be sure that Dawkins has never read Pascal. Pascal in the wager was speaking to the man who has heard both sides and is just sitting on the fence and has his emotional doubt creeping in.

Pascal in this case does advise what is called "Fake it until you make it." Pye says God would not be fooled, but such a person is not trying to fool God. Such a person really wants to believe. It is like the person in exposure therapy who tries to face his fears. He really does want to face them. He doesn't feel like it the first time, but he wants to get there. A woman who has gone through abuse can have a hard time trusting her husband, especially sexually, but if she wants to, she will face even if she doesn't feel like it.

Pye also says that the criterion listed is that God will judge based on belief, but this is assuming Pascal would not encourage a holy life anyway. Of course, he would. This is kind of like people who say an argument for God does not work because it does not prove the Christian God. So what? God is shown and theism is shown to be true then.

By the way, earlier in this chapter, Dawkins is quoted saying the non-existence of God cannot be shown. This is nonsense. This is not to say it can be established, but if one could show a necessary contradiction in the nature of God, then God could not exist.

Pye also has some material about word associations. We often associate good things with theism and bad things with atheism. This is interesting, but it really says nothing about the existence of God.

From there we get into discussions about omnipotence. The classic question is brought forward of if God can create a rock so heavy He can't lift it. I will gladly answer this.

No.

What? Isn't that a denial of omnipotence?

Not at all. What it is saying is God cannot make a contradictory state of affairs. God cannot make it be that something surpasses His power over the physical world. Pye can often quote Lewis. He should remember Lewis also said nonsense doesn't become sense just because you add the words "God can" to it.

Pye thinks it's nonsensical to say "I believe God was able to raise Jesus from the dead" and then say "I believe God can heal your Psoriasis." Why is it nonsense? Just becuase the greater entails the lesser? The person who says this is saying it because the other person really does have doubts and they want to encourage. Whether it's the right thing to say is another matter. That it entails a problem with doubt is not established.

Finally, Pye ends with a note on solar eclipses. He notes that our planet is the only one we know of in such a relationship to its moon that it has solar eclipses. He has not seen this argument he says used for theism. Pye has not looked hard enough.

If you've been paying attention, you notice a few problems here overall. The only evidence really given for theism other than personal experience at the start is solar eclipses. No Kalam argument is given or interacted with. Moral arguments are not. Thomistic arguments are not. The arguments from desire and beauty are not.

As I think about it, it looks like we have a lot of psychology. There is much more thinking about why people believe things instead of the evidence for those beliefs. Hopefully in the future Pye will interact with the best arguments on both sides.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

[Jedidiah]

About the inside language of the church. I felt the same the first few years I was a Christian. That language is useful only between Christians, because it uses a lot of common knowledge and experience. People will never stop using a language that is comfortable and serves a purpose. Does it confuse new believers? It sort of irked me as a new believer, but never confused me. Am I unusual in that? Perhaps, but if you really know and trust Him you will work through it.

[KingsGambit]

My wife and I visited a new church for the first time this last Sunday.

The pastor began the sermon with (and I paraphrase): "You know those times when you can just feel God and almost hear his voice? When you can just feel his presence? Who here knows what I'm talking about?"

I was already mentally crossing that church off my list, until the pastor revealed he was using that as a rhetorical device, explaining that most Christians are going to answer "no".

[Apologiaphoenix]

What about good and evil and love and indifference?

The link can be found here.

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What are we to make of good and evil or love and indifference? Let's plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

By far, this is the longest chapter we have come across yet in David Pye's book. I will not cover everything, but I will cover the main points. There's a lot here, but sadly, it's not really substantial.

Pye is right that good and evil are central to Christianity, but they are indeed as well, something I think he acknowledges, something every worldview has to explain. That there are a number of atheist philosophers out there who think objective moral truths do not exist should be cause for concern. These are people who could not agree that rape is evil for instance. They don't support it, but they can't make an objective statement about it.

Pye then goes on to ask, sadly predictably, does God say murder is wrong because it is, or is it wrong because God says it is? This is the Euthyphro dilemma. I keep wondering how long it's going to be before people realize that Aristotle himself answered the dilemma. Aristotle did so by giving a definition of goodness and then we see if something fits that definition.

Note that if we go the route Pye goes, atheists have just as much a problem. Does X lead to human progress because it is good or is it good because it leads to human progress? Is X wrong because society says it is or does society says X is wrong because it is?

The solution then is to define what the good is first, which Aristotle gave a basic definition of that at which all things aim, and went on from there. Now some might say "So is God unnecessary to know good and evil?" In a sense, yes. One can know what good and evil are without having knowledge of God. The question to ask though is that if these are real metaphysical realities, what is the grounding for them. That is what requires God. One does not need to know about the builder of Washington D.C. to follow a map to get there, but there had better be a builder before the map works.

Pye also says many of us will live with a fear of no arbiter of good and evil without God. In a sense, that is wellfounded. Pye strangely in this chapter leaves out anything about 20th century regimes that were atheistic massacring millions of their own people. For these people, they were the highest authority and there was no judge after them so why fear?

Pye gives an analogy of being on a park bench next to a woman who is blind and her purse is open right there. Do you take it? Some people could be tempted to. Now imagine there's a camera there watching it all. It suddenly changes. Pye says many people he thinks treat God like the camera.

But let's face it. In reality, fewer people will steal because of the camera. We might prefer a better starting point for doing good than "I want rewards" or "I don't want to be punished", but that is where most of us start. Most of us start with parents disciplining us or rewarding us for our behavior.

He gives Weinberg's quote that for good people to be really bad, that takes religion. One wonders what religion was being followed in the atheistic regimes that massacred so many. One could say the leaders were the villains, but they had to rely on ordinary citizens to carry out their orders.

As we move on, Pye gets to events in history that show the evil that Christianity has done. First is the Crusades. No recognition is paid to the fact that the Crusades started out as defensive wars. We suspect that Pye appreciates that Charles, The Hammer, Martel defeated the Muslims in battle centuries before or else he'd likely be Muslim today. The first Crusades were the people of Jerusalem asking for help to be freed from their Muslim captors and the West went at great expense to them.

Does that justify everything done in every crusade? Not at all. Unfortunately, few people will ever pick up a real history of the Crusades and read it. They instead will read popular ideas about them not realizing how many myths they are taking in.

Predictably, next is the Inquisition. Again, you will not find a real historian like Henry Kamen cited. It will not be pointed out that the worst Inquisition was the Spanish one that lasted 300 years and killed 3,000 people. 3,000 too many sure, but nothing like what is described in popular literature. It is also ignored that the Inquisition was also a secular program with the State behind it as well. The churhc was involved, but they were not the only ones involved.

Next is the witch trials. Absent is that in Salem, immediately afterward reparations were made to the family when possible and they were provided for. This does not justify what happened, but the church owned up to its mistake. The trials ended also because of more level-headed people in the church.

We could go on, but these are the main ones I know the most about. Those interested in the rest of his list can go elsewhere. Let's also consider something. When people act like this, they are acting in contradiction to the teachings of Christ. Now let's take an atheist regime that murders its people. What tenet of atheism are they violating? Nothing in atheism necessitates that one must see human life as good and valuable. Many atheists do, thank God, but they don't have to.

From there, he goes to more recent history with the Holocaust and how so many people involved were Christian. There is no mention of how the Germans so ripped up the New Testament to remove Jewish influences that even Marcion would have been stunned. There's nothing about how German Christianity was not so much about Christianity as it was about Germany and nationalism for Germany. Hitler saw this as a way to vindicate his own desires and Christians were not present in the top offices he had.

From there, he goes to Bush and Blair invading Iraq. Much is made of the idea that these were Christians doing what they thought God was leading them to do. I say at this that this is the problem with pop Christianity. Bush and Blair might in general be good Christian men and seeking to be faithful, but that does not mean they are the greatest authorities on what Christianity teaches. I do not take seriously the majority of these claims about what God tells people to do in that still small voice kind of way. It's not anything I see in Scripture.

There's also the Catholic priest sex scandal. It's a hope then that Pye will go after the public school system since they have an even worse track record. It would also help him to read something like Jenkins's The New Anti-Catholicism which I reviewed here

[Apologiaphoenix]

Time to wrap it up!

The link can be found here.

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How shall we wrap it up? Let's plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Our journey with David Pye at this point comes to an end unless there are future books, although he is responding in comments so we might see more there. In the conclusion, Pye just sums up pretty much earlier chapters. There are some appendixes afterward. One is on the dear Dr. Laura letter which we addressed earlier. The others are on Christianity being a religion and what it means to be a committed Christian. There is not much to say about those latter two as they seem to go on pop Christianity sayings.

A few things in the concluding chapter however.

Pye does look at the passage in Revelation to the church in Laodicea about how He wishes the people were either hot or cold, but they are lukewarm instead. Pye makes a common mistake of thinking hot means passionate for Jesus and cold means someone who is not convinced that Christianity is true and is considering dropping. If he decides to drop it he is cold, but if he doesn't he is lukewarm.

I have sadly heard this often in churches, but it is quite foreign and just considering it should tell us. Who among us thinks cold water is entirely bad? You might heat water for hot chocolate, but don't we like cold beverages as well? Isn't cold water refreshing?

The city of Laodicea had water sent through pipes to it from the outside. Some of it was hot and some of it was cold. Each could be used for a sort of purpose. If water was lukewarm, it really served no purpose. Jesus is not making any statement about passions but saying that the Laodiceans have become water that is good for nothing.

Pye also encourages people considering Christianity to be careful of Christian propaganda and testimonies. I agree, but I would also say to be careful of ANY propaganda and testimonies. Yes. Atheists have testimonies. I meet many regularly who tell me about their past life as a Christian. It's almost like they never learned to move beyond their personal testimony.

I would also encourage researching the best works of scholarship on the issue and in looking at Pye's work, I don't think he did this. I see some interactions with Lewis, which is good, and the most recent scholarly work from a Christian side I see is McGrath. I like Alister McGrath, but one needs to have more than one.

I also think based on Pye's story that he had a very pop Christianity type of Christianity. He talks about a big problem to him was the one in the fifth chapter about there not being a command to worship the Holy Spirit. This is an example of letting a secondary issue become primary. What? This is a secondary issue. Yes. If the Holy Spirit can be seen to be God in the New Testament and you are told to worship God, then you worship the Holy Spirit even if not explicitly stated.

Furthermore, consider this. Picture being a Christian who is convinced Jesus rose from the dead by the history and by exegesis and church history, you are convinced that the Bible teaches the Trinity. Will the lack of an explicit command like that trouble you? Nope. Not a bit.

By the way, that's a big problem I see with Pye's work. Nowhere does he touch the resurrection of Jesus. If you want to say Christianity is not true, you need to say something to explain the rise of the church. How do you explain what happened to Jesus?

On a positive note, I will say Pye's work is very readable and while he is much more on the atheist side, he does not have the vitriol that most atheists I encounter have. Pye does strike me as the kind of guy I could go to the pizzeria with or have some tea with at Starbucks. I also do think his criticisms about how we live our lives and do evangelism should be heeded.

Perhaps we will interact more with Pye in the future even beyond the comments, but in the end, I put down his book and don't see anything to raise any substantial doubt.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

[Rushing Jaws]

That model of thinking about it strikes me as better than the common 'faith in Jesus' teaching, but it still seems deficient in many respects in terms of matching properly with the biblical evidence.

I wonder to what extent that's a function of you attending a thomistic educational facility that told you that most everything about Thomas Aquinas and the tradition that follows him was great? Most philosophers today would just roll their eyes at the thomistic ideas and have no interest in taking them seriously.