New Developments in Moral Apologetics: Kevin Richard

Editor’s note: Below is a summary of Dr. Kevin Richard’s doctoral dissertation work entitled: Tawḥīdic Allah, the Trinity, and the Eschaton: A Comparative Analysis of the Qualitative Nature of the Afterlife in Islam and Christianity.

The doctrine of eternal life raises certain qualitative and existential questions. Considering the unfathomable duration, one may rightly ask, what will that experience be like and will it be eternally satisfying? British moral philosopher Bernard Williams once stated that “nothing less will do for eternity than something that makes boredom unthinkable.”[1]

The prospect of eternal life creates a potential existential problem for humanity. The problem is potential because eternal existence creates a certain need, a need which can concisely be stated in this way: quality must overcome quantity. One can imagine becoming satiated with the pleasures and joys promised in religious Paradise. Consider this, at the first intimations of boredom, even if that moment took a billion trillion years to reach (if time is still measured that way), you would arrive at this moment relatively quickly given eternity as there would still be as much time in front of you as when you first stepped into this reality. One can further imagine that this boorish reality could quickly become hellish as pleasures and joy would continue to lose their appeal and boredom would increase and abound with no end.

Christianity and Islam have robust eschatologies and both teach that human beings are intended to live forever. Furthermore, this eternal life is presented as intrinsically good. I would submit that if they are in fact intrinsically good then each respective eschatological reality must overcome this problem of eternal duration if eternal life is something to be desired. My concern here is not with comparison between Paradise and Hell. Faced with the option to choose between the two, most rational people would embrace the former. But what if Paradise would eventually become hellish? What then? The notion of this paradisal life would not be a blessed reality, a divine gift, but the worst of all curses to befall mankind. Therefore, I am concerned with the goodness of Paradise as it is in itself. Does either faith tradition’s purported eternal bliss have the ability to eternally satisfy human creatures?

To answer that question, two fundamental assumptions will be made. If the answer is to be yes, that eternal life is intrinsically good, it would seem that two things must obtain in the afterlife. First, eternal pleasure would have to be found in and/or derive from the ultimate Good (i.e. God or Allah). Second, given that human creatures experience goodness in this life – love, happiness, relationality – and that for these creatures their telos is eternal bliss, then these goods in this life will be part of the life to come.

From these two assumptions emerge two “gap” problems, problems against which either religion can be critiqued: the Qualitative Gap Problem (QGP) and the Teleological Gap Problem (TGP). The QGP is perhaps the more obvious problem and is based on the previous statement “quality must overcome quantity.” This is an objective problem, either the quality of the experienced afterlife overcomes eternal duration, or it does not. Some may speculate that one simply could not know if this gap could or could not be overcome, and perhaps there is some merit to this point. In response to this, however, as was mentioned about, if God is the Ultimate Good, as both Christianity and Islam teach, then it would seem that he alone could be the source of a goodness that can overcome eternity’s demand. Here, one emerging thought becomes of ultimate concern: What is one’s relationship to God or Allah in the afterlife? One’s proximity to the divine, relational or otherwise, would weigh heavily on the gap being overcome.

The TGP is a subjective problem and considers how the ultimate good of the afterlife aligns with the human telos in this life and, consequently, human flourishing. The TGP considers three facts that highlight and emphasize the multi-dimensionality of human creatures:

1.     Human beings have a physical dimension.

2.     Human beings have a mental/spiritual dimension.

3.     Human beings have a social/relational dimension.

These are the teleological realities in need of fulfillment in the life to come. If Islamic Paradise or the Christian Heaven is to be desired over the other, it will be because these subjective dimensions, which form our fundamental longings and aspirations, are met. Furthermore, this teleological consideration has theological implications. As Jerry Walls notes, “The question of whether we believe in God is another form of the question of whether the fleeting glimpses of joy we experience in this life are intimations of a deeper wellspring of happiness, or whether they are tantalizing illusions, shadowy hints of a satisfaction that does not really exist.”[2] Although Walls writes within the Christian tradition, his words apply equally within an Islamic context. Applying Walls’s question to both visions of the afterlife, are the experiences of this life intimations of a deeper “wellspring of happiness” or a “tantalizing illusion”? Do they have their place in the life to come? Also, what is the source of this wellspring, God or Allah, or another source?

Within the Islamic tradition, broadly speaking, there are two theological traditions concerning the rewards of Paradise in the afterlife. The first is the one that people are most familiar with, namely, the sensuous and exorbitant afterlife. The second is not so familiar but it comes from the Qur’an itself. In Surah 56, when humanity is judged before Allah, there are three possible outcomes. The wicked are cast into Hell, the righteous are granted Paradise, and then there are a select few, those in the middle, those whom Allah brings near. Their end will be proximity to Allah, their reward is nearness. This station is the ultimate one and is reserved for the select few who attain to that level of nearness on Earth.

But, as I see it, there is a problem with this notion of nearness to Allah. The doctrine of Allah (or Tawhid) teaches that he is One, without distinction, beyond all language and description, utterly transcendent. What then is nearness or proximity to the One? In short, Islamic philosophy teaches that as the other (man) approaches the One (Allah), the more the other diminishes and only the One remains. In the afterlife, then, proximity to Allah amounts to a quasi-absorption into the divine. It is in this state that the self is slowly annihilated as all creaturely distinctions fade out of view and only the divine reality remains. Proximity to Allah, the highest level of Paradise, reaches its culmination in the Beatific Vision, but at what cost? In this moment, the QGP is met, but what comes of the self? Overcoming this gap problem seems to entail willing self-annihilation.

Now concerning the Teleological Gap Problem, how does it fare? As was mentioned above, the traditional readings of Paradise in Islam connect the telos of man in this life with the life to come. In the life to come, all manner of sensuous pleasures and desires are fulfilled. Those intrinsic goods experienced on Earth are now surpassed 1,000-fold. But according to Islamic doctrine, proximity is lost. Those who attain to this level of Paradise are not near to Allah in any real sense. And so, while they may be fulfilled sensually and relationally, it is apart from the Ultimate Good. This seems problematic, for, on the one hand, if they maintain that love is an intimation of love to come in the afterlife, a good worth retaining, then what is the source of the experience of the good in Paradise? The source is not Allah, for his love is self-contained.

At this point, I would submit that there is a greater inherent dilemma for Islam than for Christianity. On the one hand, if the QGP (the objective problem) is to be met it will entail proximity to Allah. But as we see, proximity to Allah entails the annihilation of the human subject, which does not solve the TGP (the subjective problem). On the other hand, if the TGP is to be met, it will entail a severed proximity to Allah. In the physical depictions of Paradise, the TGP, the multi-dimensionality of human creatures, is met. But, at the same time, the QGP is not met because any meaningful experience with the divine is removed. The two gap problems cannot be met simultaneously.

This study argues that the Islamic view of the afterlife does not have the theological and philosophical resources to meet both of these gap problems simultaneously and must compromise on one in order to meet the other. Islam’s doctrine of Allah – Tawhid –raises the following question in need of resolution: “How does the divine overcome the unlikeness that exists between God/Allah and man and yet not annihilate the individual (the other) in the process?”

It is at this point where the Christian doctrine of the Trinity helps to bridge this impasse. Trinitarian love is the fundamental fabric of God’s nature. Instead of this love remaining an abstraction, unknowable through human perception, the triune God acted in human history manifesting the quality of divine love in full display. While humanity remained enemies to God and hostile to his lordship, the Word-made-flesh descended into creation to save and redeem all things. Through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, the quality of God’s immense love was demonstrated. In that moment, humanity was given a glimpse of the quality of love that has existed within the Godhead from eternity past. It is this kind of love that Christians identify as part of the ultimate Good. And not only is that love freely given, it made a way for humanity to experience true relationship with God. To know and be known, to love and be loved. The triune God’s love for man is a non-mystical reality, grounded in the very nature of the Godhead. Christians love God because, in a very real and direct expression, God loved mankind first (1 John 4:19). Humanity can embrace those good aspirations of love and relationality both because it is how God created human beings to be and because the God of Christianity has demonstrated it to the world in human history.

This study submits that the Christian view of afterlife overcomes both gaps because of the God/man relationship in Heaven focused supremely on, in, and through the God-man Jesus Christ. It is our holistic relationship to the Triune God that grants eternal joy for all of redeemed humanity. The Christian view of Heaven presented here coupled with the nature of the Triune God is a more desired reality. The teleology of heaven better accounts for and meets the needs of the multi-dimensionality of human beings. Each of the components of the subjective experience in this life are fundamental aspects of the life to come. It is through the relation with the Triune God of Christianity that the problem of eternity is met, where quality does overcome the quantity.

[1] Bernard Williams, “The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality,” in Problems of the Self, (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1973), 95.

[2] Jerry Walls, Heaven: The Logic of Eternal Joy, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 197.

The Cathedral of Learning and Lasting Friends: Pittsburgh, PA (Part 14)

In the summer of 1962, we set out once again to advance my graduate program, headed for the University of Pittsburgh (known informally as “Pitt”) and a second year of fellowship-supported graduate work.  We arrived on a sunny day and drove directly to the house of some friends we knew from A.C.C., Gene and Susie Couch.  Gene was in physics and went directly to Pitt after he graduated with me from A.C.C. in 1961.  They lived in a section of town known as Squirrel Hill, which some of you may recognize as the Jewish neighborhood where the terrible synagogue shooting took place in 2018.  We stayed a few nights with them while we looked for a place to live, and we found one in a big house that had been split up into apartments.  Parking for our car, though, had to be on the street.  This was the first time we had encountered the big city problem of cramped streets and dealing with houses built before there were many cars to be parked.  Rental spaces were at a premium, and we had an early run-in with another resident in our house who let us know indignantly when I left our car behind the house after washing it that she had paid for that spot and would thank us not to usurp it again. Happily for us, we could walk to the University and could leave our car parked on the street, although not always close to our house.

Early in our stay in Pittsburgh, we met people who were to become long-term— in some instances lifelong—friends.  Some were fellow members of the church we attended, the 5th and Beechwood Church of Christ, and others were fellow graduate students.  Among the lifelong friends were Wendell and Joyce Bean and Ben and Neda Riley at church and Bob and Nancy Mossman from the graduate school.  Others we were close to when we were in Pittsburgh and were in touch with for many years afterward were the Couches from church and Keith and Wendy Ratliffe from Pitt, whom we came to know through the Couches; Keith was in the physics program along with Gene.  Ben Riley was also in physics, but he attended another major university in Pittsburgh, Carnegie-Mellon.  Apart from church social functions, the most significant group activity we engaged in during our stay in Pittsburgh was going to the Metropolitan Opera when it came on tour to Pittsburgh.  This group consisted of the Higgses, the Beans, the Ratliffes, and the Mossmans.  It was Laquita’s and my first exposure to classical opera, and it was one of the most lasting cultural experiences of our lives.  We heard live such stars as Birgit Nillson and Richard Tucker, and we have never forgotten it.

After getting settled in, I went to the University’s main building, a 37-story skyscraper built in a Gothic style which led to its being called the Cathedral of Learning.  It was several miles from downtown Pittsburgh and a whole neighborhood had built up around it.  I went to the English Department area on one of the upper floors to meet with my advisor, Dr. Alan Markman, a medievalist.  He was a pipe-smoking U.S. Marine veteran who often referred to his military experience.  We were not temperamentally matched, and he turned out to be rather gruff in his assessment of my work.  He trashed the first major paper I turned in to him and complained that it took him over two hours to get through it and make his comments.  His note on the front of the paper said something about its being one of the worst graduate papers he had ever read, flawed as it was by infelicitous phrasing, errors in usage, poor scholarship, and pretentious frippery.  I was absolutely crushed, of course, but I went carefully over his remarks and in my next paper tried to avoid the kinds of mistakes he had pointed out.  It was a real shock treatment, but it made me a better writer.  Actually, I think it was already on his agenda before he received the paper to take me down a peg or two, because he commented at some point that my being a hot-shot undergraduate at Abilene Christian College didn’t mean that I was anything special as a graduate student.

One of the first basic classes in Pitt’s graduate English program was a two-semester course in Old English, that is, the language in which Beowulf, the earliest English classic, was written.  It was equivalent to learning a foreign language, since Old English is a linguistic cousin of modern German.  We had to learn the basic grammar and vocabulary of the language, and upon completing that we were assigned a certain section of Beowulf to translate for each class period.  Three classmates and I decided to split up the assignments between us to make the task easier.  We would meet together in a study area between classes and share with each other the translation of the section we had done.  It was not a total avoidance of responsibility for the assignments, for we had to be ready to translate in class, but it did give us something of an advantage over the rest of the class, and one of them squealed on us to Dr. Markman.  One day, he called the four of us in and gave us a busy-work assignment in bibliography in the library, so we got our come-uppance.  This joint endeavor nevertheless established a friendship between us that lasted through our graduate years.  One of the group was Bob Mossman, who remains a special friend to this day.  The other two were Joyce Measures and Tom Calhoun, both of whom were interesting personalities.  We called ourselves a comitatus, which is the Old English word for warrior group.

Bob Mossman and I struck up our friendship because our initial conversation revealed that until recently he had been intending to go into Christian ministry.  He did his undergraduate work at Whitworth College in eastern Washington, a small Christian liberal arts college.  He was from California and was very much a part of that culture, so it was a bit anomalous that he should have become a zealous convert in his youth to evangelical Christianity.  He was very active in student leadership at Whitworth, but toward the end of his work there, there was some kind of breakdown in personal relationships that embittered him and turned him away from Christian life.  When I met him at Pitt, he said that he just couldn’t see himself limited by Christian ministry, which he described pithily as, “patting little old ladies on the head.”  So he turned from divinity to English literature.  He was interested in my Christian background and commitment, and we soon were engaging in debates about matters of faith.  He had become a thoroughgoing atheist and considered my faith to be naïve and uninformed.  Nevertheless, we became fast friends, and Laquita and I soon began getting together socially with him and his wife, Nancy, who, though chagrined at Bob’s forsaking the faith, nevertheless supported him in his new career plans.  Our association continued for many years, until the two of them were divorced.  We are still in touch with Bob a few times a year and have kept up with each other’s lives.

The other two members of our comitatus were also unconcerned with religion, but they were curious enough about my Christian practice that they and Bob were persuaded to accept my invitation to attend church with Laquita and me.  I don’t remember precisely the conversation that ensued from that visit, but they were struck by our a capella singing and felt welcomed by the group.  Their curiosity satisfied, none of them were interested in returning.  Joyce and I had a little falling out because I teased her one time about smoking more because it looked fashionable than because she really liked it.  She sat me down in private and told me something of her dysfunctional background as a way of correcting what she thought was my superficial understanding of her.  I was suitably chastened, but I was never close to her.  Tom had done his undergraduate work at Princeton and was very much a man of the world and a part of urbane New York culture.  He was an enthusiastic recontour and regaled us with tales of his boozing days at Princeton.

There is much more to tell of our days in Pittsburgh, including Laquita’s job and academic work, our life with the church, our other residences, and memorable classes and professors.

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Dr. Elton Higgs was a faculty member in the English department of the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1965-2001. Having retired from UM-D as Prof. of English in 2001, he now lives with his wife and adult daughter in Jackson, MI.. He has published scholarly articles on Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Shakespeare, and Milton. His self-published Collected Poems is online at Lulu.com. He also published a couple dozen short articles in religious journals. Recently, Dr. Higgs has published some of his poetry and a book inspired by The Screwtape Letters, The Icahbod Letters. (Ed.: Dr. Higgs was the most important mentor during undergrad for the creator of this website, and his influence was inestimable; it's thrilling to welcome this dear friend onboard.)

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Right Life, Happy Life: Insights from Belgravia

Does the right life lead to the happy life?  The question arises for me in ‘Belgravia’, Julian Fellowes follow-up cable TV series to ‘Downton Abbey’.  In ‘Belgravia’, Lord Edmund Bellasis, handsome heir to the Earl and Countess of Brockenhurst, and Sophia Trenchard, daughter of a moneyed London business-man, love each other; their eyes lock as they waltz together at Lady Brockenhurst’s ball in 1815 on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo.  Sophia’s mother, Anne Trenchard, is dead set against the match; she knows that while she and her husband James travel in aristocratic circles, they are ‘trade’ not nobility

Interrupting the ball, Britain’s Duke of Wellington calls his dancing soldiers to report immediately for the march to Napoleon at Waterloo.  Sophia’s love, soldier Lord Bellasis, rides off to his death in battle, never to return; come to find out, he and Sophia had married secretly.  As Sophia carries their child, she has reason to believe Lord Bellasis tricked her into a fraudulent marriage leaving no husband and no certificate - only a child.  As Sophia dies giving birth to their son, her parents, the Trenchards, accept the baby boy is a bastard.

The immorality of a believed-to-be fraudulent marriage producing a bastard sets in motion a twisting narrative; characters counter the fallout from the evil with their own bad, moral choices one after another in an effort to secure for themselves good.  Does responding with evil after being victimized by evil only further evil?  Does one lose control of one’s life and the good one seeks by attempting to secure good by a pattern of choosing badly?  Can one control one’s destiny for good by responding to evil with a pattern of good, moral choices?

The preponderance of characters in ‘Belgravia’ makes bad, moral choices with John Bellasis leading the way.  Since Earl and Lady Brockenhurst’s only child, Lord Edmund Bellasis, was killed at Waterloo, John Bellasis, their nephew, stands to inherit the title and estate.  John Bellasis becomes alarmed when his aunt, Lady Brockenhurst, showers favor on a mysterious young cotton merchant, Charles Pope.  What John does not know but Lady Brockenhurst does is that Charles Pope is her believed-to-be illegitimate grandson, the son of her deceased son Lord Bellasis and Sophia.  Not content with ignorance, John Bellasis is determined to solve the mystery of Charles Pope and deal appropriately with this menace to his inheritance; at stake is nothing less than one of the noblest and wealthiest estates in England.

So, John Bellasis begins making a chain of bad, moral choices which tend to escalate as he goes about securing for himself the desired good of a noble fortune: he pays servants of both the Trenchards, and the Brockenhursts to betray their masters by surveilling them and prying into their affairs; he wants to unearth information about Charles Pope.  Next, he seduces the Trenchard’s daughter in law with an eye to obtaining desired information.  He insinuates himself into Charles Pope’s workers and finds a disgruntled employee who points him to a false report that maligns Pope’s character.

By the time his plot seems to crescendo to success, John Bellasis and his bad moral choices are suddenly unmasked and revealed when he attempts to murder Charles Pope. He implodes as his bad, moral choices are exposed and bring evil on the lives of those he enlisted to do his bidding: the servants’ betrayal of their masters is revealed, causing their disloyalty to jeopardize their standings and positions; the woman he seduces realizes John hates her and disowns their baby she carries; the malignant report against Charles Pope turns out to be quite the opposite; and the Earl of Brockenhurst’s inheritance will definitely not go to John - but to Charles Pope.  John Bellasis flees to Europe a wanted criminal.

Choosing moral evil, John Bellasis loses control of himself and the ultimate good he desires.  He believes each evil choice will put him in control of securing his inheritance.  Contrarily, each evil choice moves him a step further away from obtaining his desire.  By making bad moral choices he loses control of the good desired for himself and lets evil manipulate and shape him into its image.  Rather than being esteemed by others as a morally, good person who brings grace and benefit to others, his immoral actions make him into a persona non gratis who brings harm to all.  

The narrative of John Bellasis is illustrative of the moral structure of the universe: bad, moral choices inevitably lead one not to good and happiness, but to dystopia and harm.  Responding to an evil with an evil ultimately produces evil.  As Augustine said, ‘We must lead a right life to reach a happy life’.

The biblical character Joseph is the antithesis to John Bellasis.  When Joseph’s brothers victimize and sell him as a slave, he makes good, moral choices: he chooses to trust and be dutiful, conscientious, courageous, honest and trustworthy to his master Potiphar.  When Potiphar’s wife tries to seduce him, rather than entering into the evil he makes the good, moral choice to be faithful to her husband, his master Potiphar.  Though his good action seems to counter my thesis and is rewarded by another evil victimization - he is sent to prison - he responds to this evil by making the good, moral choice not to be vengeful or bitter; rather, he chooses to be a dutiful, conscientious, compassionate, trustworthy and responsible prisoner.

The successive evil injustices that come against him do not control him; he does not become evil seeking to counter evil with evil; he does not become a vengeful, bitter, selfish person but embraces virtuous, moral actions.  Like drips of mineral laden water filtering through a rock cavern form successive, mineral deposits into a conical stalactite, Joseph’s successive good, moral choices mold him into a person of good, moral character.  He is one who acts consistently with beneficent traits of compassion, moral courage, honesty, faith, responsibility and perseverance of which all persons want to be recipients. Rather than capitulating to and being controlled by the evil so that he becomes one with it, he exercises control over his ‘becoming’ through good, moral choices and faith in God.  The result is a good life discontinuous with and independent of the evil which assails him.

If you will exercise control over your life, no matter what evil is perpetrated against you, every time respond with good, moral choices which all persons recognize are a benefit to others.  Joseph controls his life parrying the evil through good, moral choices and transcends evil producing a good, virtuous character which puts him at just the right position at just the right time to act to save not only Egypt, but God’s own people.  ‘We must lead a right life to reach a happy life’.

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Tom is currently a retired Elder in the Virginia Annual Conference.  He has pastored churches in Virginia, California and England.  Studying John Wesley’s theology, he received his Ph.D. and M.A. degrees from the University of Bristol, Bristol, England and his Master of Divinity degree from Asbury Theological Seminary. While a student, he and his wife Pam lived in John Wesley’s Chapel “The New Room”, Bristol, England, the first established Methodist preaching house.  Tom was a faculty member of Asbury Theological Seminary. He has contributed articles to Methodist History and the Wesleyan Theological Journal. He and his wife have two children, daughter Karissa, who is an attorney in Richmond, Virginia, and, John, who is a recent graduate of Regent University.  Being a part of the development of their grandson Beau is a rich reward.  Tom enjoys a good book by a crackling fire with an English cup of tea.  His life text is, ‘Jesus, confirm my heart’s desire, to work and speak and think for thee’.

Assessing Evolutionary Debunking Arguments (Crash Course Apologetics Interview with Dr. Tomas Bogardus)

From Crash Course Apologetics:

In this interview, Dr. Tomas Bogardus joins me to discuss his paper "Only All Naturalists Should Worry About Only One Evolutionary Debunking Argument." The pdf of the paper is linked below. In the paper, he presents three versions of evolutionary debunking arguments (EDA's) against moral knowledge and shows why each fails. He then presents a fourth version of an EDA that is successful, but explains why it should only concern naturalists.

https://philpapers.org/archive/BOGOAN...

PSYCHONIX: Mind Over Matter (Book Review)

Editor’s note: This review originally appeared at the site of Free Thinking Ministries

Review by Suzanne Stratton

PSYCHONIX: Mind Over Matter, by Mike Burnette, is a blend of interesting, well-developed characters, and exciting, intriguing action. It is a many layered novel, with unexpected twists and turns. If you like science fiction, espionage, psychology, war stories, philosophy, and many other topics, you will find plenty to attract and keep your attention. Readers with philosophical leanings will be drawn into the musings of the characters who wonder about the nature of reality. Anyone growing up with Star Trek, The Six Million Dollar Man, or the Twilight Zone will recognize familiar territory, along with hints of C.S. Lewis, and many other icons of our cultural heritage.

PSYCHONIX: Mind Over Matter

By Burnette, Mike

The hero is a complex man, who is ready to try a new way to explore reality. Having been wounded in battle, he is a veteran with PTSD, willing to trust scientists who have devised an unusual experimental technique. Along with the preparation for his dangerous role in the exploration of reality, other remarkable people play a part in the action that develops as the story comes to a surprising climax. 

The descriptive details make a vivid picture of the settings and people whose lives become involved with each other throughout the narrative. I found it difficult to put it down and get some rest whenever I became immersed in the tale, because I needed to find out what would happen next!

I kept returning to the book to read parts of it again, since within the context of the action, Burnette adds some thought-provoking philosophical musings of different characters interspersed throughout the telling of everything that happened. If you have ever questioned the nature of reality, but enjoy action and intrigue, this is the book for you. J.P. Moreland agrees:

“Believe me when I say the novel is very interesting reading.  I was engaged. Mike Burnette has done an outstanding job of capturing the mind-body problem arguments accurately and in an interesting, readable way.” 

You can buy the book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple and many other sites by typing in PSYCHONIX. You can get the paperback only at Amazon (Click here: Amazon Kindle/Paperback).

For the eBook, click here: Barnes & Noble.

New Developments in Moral Apologetics, Part 5

T. J. shares a passion for the moral argument(s) and brings much to his new post. He is, in his own words, a “mere Christian with genuine fascination and awe for the breadth and depth of God’s gracious kingdom.” He became a Christian in 1978, and began pastoral ministry in 1984. He has worked as a youth pastor, senior pastor, church planter, church-based seminary professor, and as a chaplain assistant in the Army Chaplain Corps. A southern Illinois native, T. J. is a graduate of Southern Illinois University-Carbondale with a BA in Political Science; Liberty University with an MAR in Church Ministries, an MDiv in Chaplaincy, and a ThM in Theology; and Piedmont International University with a DMin in Pastoral Counseling. T. J. is currently pursuing a PhD in Theology and Apologetics at Liberty, hoping to write his dissertation on some aspect of the intersection of moral apologetics and the pastorate. He is the author of God Help Us: Encouragement for Evangelism, and Thinking of Worship: A Liturgical Miscellany, as well as the forthcoming Evangel-ogetics: Apologetics for the Sake of the Lost. T. J. has published articles on liturgics, pastoral counseling, and church-based counseling ministries. He lives in Carterville, Illinois with his wife and five children, where he pastors an independent evangelical church, directs a Christian counseling ministry, and serves as a Brigade Chaplain for the Army National Guard.

Four areas of recent work on the moral argument are of note in T. J.’s work.

First, as part of his dissertation for the PhD in Theology at North-West University in Potchefstroom, South Africa, he developed the DEUS Challenge as a model for engaging Mormons in dialogue around the following concerns. The D is for the Deity Question, and asks: Are the Christian and Mormon Gods the same?  The response: The Mormon God is not the Christian God.  Evidence is presented for the response based on discussion of the doctrine of God.  The E is for the Ethics Question, and asks: What is the Mormon account of morality?  The response: Mormon morality derives from moral standards outside God.  The evidence for this response focuses on moral realism.  The U is for the Uprightness Question, and asks: Does Mormon morality conduce to a moral argument for the Mormon God’s existence?  The response: Mormon morality does not conduce to a moral argument foe the Mormon God’s existence.  The evidence at this point investigates moral apologetics.  The S is for the Subjectivity Question, and asks: Is the “burning in the bosom” reliable evidence for Mormon claims?  The response: Mormon affective claims contradict rational claims for Mormon doctrine.  The evidence considers passional reason.  Additionally, each of the four questions includes a practical application of the gist of the relative arguments, presented in the form of an imagined dialogue between a Mormon missionary and a Christian.

Second, his forthcoming thesis for the MA in Philosophy at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, CT, is entitled “The Moral Way: An Enquiry into the Relationship between Aquinas’s Fourth way and the Moral Argument for God’s Existence.” As the introductory paragraph explains, “In discussion of the philosophical and apologetical nuance within the moral argument for God’s existence, there is an opportunity for a substantive consideration of Aquinas’s fourth way, the argument for God’s existence from gradation of being/perfection, as a cohort and possible expression of the moral argument. In so doing, Aquinas’s insights can be carefully examined and further developed as a means to understanding the relationship between how reason and conscience offer an innately and discursively developed segue to evidence for God’s existence and his goodness, vis-à-vis his perfections and as a maximal being. By giving Aquinas a more robust exploration of this type, the moral apologetic enterprise receives the help of the Angelic Doctor whose bellow continues to echo wherever matters of philosophy, theology, apologetics, and evangelism are discussed.”

Third, his forthcoming article for the philosophical journal Studia Gilsoniana, “Human Dignity, Self-determination, and the Gospel: An Enquiry into St. John Paul II’s Personalism and its Implications for Evangelization” develops themes of a moral apologetic nature, especially touching on philosophical anthropology and its application to evangelism. In the article, personalism is explored along the following lines of enquiry: What is personalism vis-à-vis JP II? What is the significance of human dignity and self-determination in JP II’s personalism? How might JP II’s personalism serve evangelization? Findings suggest that JP II’s philosophical personalism, especially at the nexus of its understanding of human dignity and self-determination, provides a robust and faithfully Christian anthropology that can effectively inform efforts in evangelizing all person, as all persons are image bearers of God that are necessarily self-determining and possessed of profound dignity and worth.

Fourth, T. J’s recent book published by Wipf and Stock, Pulpit Apologist: The Vital Link between Preaching and Apologetics, explores ways to integrate apologetics into preaching for both discipleship and evangelism. Focused consideration is given to the relationship between moral apologetics and preaching, specifically considering how moral apologetics aids the preacher by emphasizing the moral nature of God and humanity; helping center evangelistic preaching on sin, righteousness, and redemption; and by engaging passional reason.

Beginning the Graduate School Adventure (Part 13)

In the summer of 1961, A.C.C bachelor’s degrees in hand, Laquita and I packed our few worldly goods and launched on the trek to Seattle, Washington and the University of Washington.  We saved money by camping out in a tiny tent that we had bought back in Abilene.  Things went fairly well with our outdoor life, except that our first night was up in the Rockies at about 11,000 ft., and we had no sleeping bags and slept on cots, which insured a good circulation of frigid air above and below us.  Our blankets didn’t offer much protection, and we got up early after a miserable night and built a fire to get warm.  Another time it was raining, and we didn’t know how to prevent water from coming into the tent, so that wasn’t a very comfortable night either.  Then there was the remote campground where there were bears roaming around.  One of them came prowling at our campsite, sniffing around our tent while we were having evening prayer; that quickly added another dimension to our prayer!  He finally went over to our picnic table and knocked off our sturdy metal ice chest.  It broke open and the bear found some cheese to eat and went off.  We had a permanent dent in the ice chest, but it was still quite functional.  Oh well, it made for good stories afterward—and camping out did save us motel bills.  Good thing we were young, so we could rebound from these mishaps in roughing it.  We did some further camping afterward, but we were never fond of it.

We made immediate contact with Laquita’s brother, Lester Alexander, and his wife, Doris upon arriving in the Seattle area.  They lived in Renton, a suburb of Seattle, where they owned and operated an auction house.  They sold everything from household items to antiques, and every Saturday night drew a crowd to the auction, where my brother-in-law, assisted by Doris as manager and cashier and one or two others to transfer the items for sale to and from the stage, engaged in the traditional sing-song patter of the auctioneer, unintelligible except for the beginning “Whattamabidnow?” and “Sold! to number 44.”  He was good at it, and the auction was earning them a living at the time.  We enjoyed browsing around the auction warehouse when we visited them.  We had to be careful during the auction, however, since Lester was always quick to end the bids if he saw we were interested in an item.  One time, he thought I wanted a lawn mower and hollered “Sold!” when I scratched my ear.  He didn’t make us pay for it and it went back on auction the next week.

We found a place to live in the upstairs apartment of a widowed missionary, Mrs. Edmunds, who had spent many years in China, of which she shared many of her experiences.  She was a somewhat quirky lady, though, and we occasionally got crossways with her.  She let us keep our car in her vacant garage, which was a convenience, but next to the driveway was a bush that brushed against the car when I was driving into the garage.  I asked her if I could trim the annoying bush, to which she agreed.  But it turned out that she and I were thinking of different bushes, and I proceeded to trim a bush that she had been carefully cultivating.  She saw me out the window and opened it to yell at me to stop, accompanied by a glare that would have melted steel.  She confessed that her Christian charity was sorely tested by my blunder.  Another time, she informed me that my dropping my shoes on the floor above her when I took them off at night was very irritating, so I learned to set them down gently.  She was kind at heart, though, and it was a well-kept accommodation.

Living in a large northern city and attending a big state university were a culture shock, both in Seattle and, later, Pittsburgh.  I was not used to being regarded as something of a Southern hick, who really wasn’t much acquainted with the sophisticated setting of an urban (and urbane) academic institution.  In addition, some people smirked at my wearing my Christianity on my sleeve by sporting a big “Abilene Christian College” decal on my briefcase.  I had rather ineffective debates with one of my professors, Dr. Jacob Korg, who taught Victorian literature and the novel.  He tried to enlighten me about the deficiencies of Christian Scripture, pointing out that Jesus endorsed perpetual poverty for some people when He said, “The poor you have always with you.”  That greatly offended his socialist philosophy.

The great bright spot in that year was my friendship with Dr. David Fowler, who was my graduate advisor.  He was a respected textual scholar in medieval literature, particularly of the works of the Pearl Poet and the writer of Piers Plowman, both of which were subjects of my doctoral dissertation a few years later.  Dr. Fowler was a true Christian gentleman.  My first meeting with him was in an elevator on the way to a gathering of Woodrow Wilson scholars held before we had been introduced to any of the faculty.  I asked him if he was one of the graduate students, and he politely said, no, he was a member of the faculty.  I hope he was flattered that I misjudged his age.

I was very sorry to leave the University of Washington at the end of the year, but, although the University was given a certain amount of money for each Wilson Fellow who attended, they were not required to spend it to support those Fellows.  I was offered only minimal student aid for my second year, perhaps because I compiled only a 3.5 GPA for my first year, rather than a perfect 4.0.  However, I didn’t put all my eggs in one basket and applied for other sources of student aid.  I hit the jackpot when the University of Pittsburgh offered me one of its Mellon fellowships with about the same benefits as the Wilson Fellowship, a full ride with tuition and living stipend.  When I went in to see the director of student aid about what had happened, he told me I could have had a teaching fellowship if I had stayed, and  that my degree at Pitt would not be as prestigious as one from U. of Washington.  He might have been right, but it seemed a bit arrogant of him to tell me so, in a tone of voice that said, “If you don’t have the good sense to know how good we are, we’re better off without you.”

For our second semester at U. of Washington, we were offered a six-month tenancy house-sitting for one of Laquita’s fellow teachers at the elementary school where she was employed.  Since we weren’t on a lease arrangement with Mrs. Edmunds, we took the offer.  The house was in a very good neighborhood and had a view out its front picture window of Mt. Rainier and the Cascades range when the weather was clear; that was a magnificent sight!  That was the best housing deal we had during our whole academic experience.

Another significant experience during this year was Seattle’s being the site of the 1963 Word’s Fair, for which the still-famous Space Needle was built.  It was in the spring, and several relatives and friends availed themselves of our spacious house as a place to stay when they came up to the Fair.  We ourselves attended a few times, the only time in our lives when we were on the grounds of a World’s Fair.  As is usually the case for such events, it was huge, spectacular, and memorable.

We had two pleasant excursions that I remember from that year.  One was a boat trip up the Skagit Valley, conducted by a local utility company to view its hydroelectric generating facilities.  The setting was breathtaking, and the information on the production and transmission of electric power very educational.  The other trip was up into the mountains of Mt. Rainier National Park to camp out and do some trekking on the trails.  That, too, offered tremendous views and experiences of nature.  I think it was on this trip that a bear broke into our metal ice chest, left out on the picnic table, to find something to eat.  He put a dent into the chest, but didn’t do further damage, since the lid latch came loose and he got whatever he wanted to eat.  We used that dented old ice chest for many years after that, and it several times occasioned a good story about the source of the dent.

We had a very satisfying church experience while we were in Seattle.  We attended a Church of Christ downtown, and we made some rich friendships, although we didn’t maintain them long after we moved to Pittsburgh.  We participated in a choral group conducted by Dick Still, and we spent some social time with him and his wife, Betty.  Her middle name began with a “B,” and they liked to joke about her being “Betty B. Still.”  I taught some adult Sunday School classes.  The preacher J. C. Hartsell, was young and dynamic and delivered meaty sermons, and I had some good conversations with him when we met occasionally for lunch. Interestingly, we made acquaintance with a student from Seattle Pacific College, which was associated with the Free Methodist Church; later, in Michigan, we twice were members of a Free Methodist Church, and our daughter Liann married into a Free Methodist family.

We finished our year in Seattle, packed up our 1950 Plymouth, and headed to Pittsburgh in the summer of 1963, via a visit to relatives in Texas.  Ahead of us was an entirely different kind of city from Seattle, gritty, industrial, and still soot-stained from its days as the steel capital of the nation.  But our three years there was also rich in friendships and cultural experience, as well as being the site of my major doctoral work.

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Dr. Elton Higgs was a faculty member in the English department of the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1965-2001. Having retired from UM-D as Prof. of English in 2001, he now lives with his wife and adult daughter in Jackson, MI.. He has published scholarly articles on Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Shakespeare, and Milton. His self-published Collected Poems is online at Lulu.com. He also published a couple dozen short articles in religious journals. (Ed.: Dr. Higgs was the most important mentor during undergrad for the creator of this website, and his influence was inestimable; it's thrilling to welcome this dear friend onboard.)

Introducing a Thomist Moral Argument

Editor’s note:

Here at MoralApologetics.com, we are really excited at younger scholars turning their attention and directing their considerable talents to variations on the moral argument. Moral apologetics can come in lots of stripes and shades, depending on the particular moral phenomena in need of explanation, the methodology involved in argumentation, the alleged tightness of the relationship between evidence and conclusion, and the operative variant of theistic ethic employed. Here Suan Sonna shares some highlights of his ongoing research project in which he proposes a moral argument predicated on natural law. We suspect that Suan’s voice will a prominent one indeed in this discussion for many years to come, and we are delighted to showcase his perspicacious work today.

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My moral argument took form while studying Judith Jarvis Thomson’s defense of abortion. As a Thomist, I wanted to tackle her thought experiments and whatever metaethical foundations prevented her from accepting my view. I read her paper “The Right and the Good” and was positively shocked. Thomson appealed to teleology, except she used the words “design functions”, to ground her approach to ethics. Rather than embracing teleological realism, however, she settled for teleological nominalism. I was curious thereafter and wondered if other philosophers were borrowing ideas from the Aristotelian-Thomist (AT) synthesis for their theories. As I began combing through the literature, I noticed a subtle pattern emerge – when moral philosophers contemplated the metaethical commitments of their theories, they all depended upon some idea of teleology, some notion of “fulfillment” as goodness, and deployed concepts that sounded awfully familiar to me as a Thomist – consider Moore’s understanding of the simplicity and indefinability of the good which rubs right into the classical theist conception of God! Over time, I decided to develop a moral argument for God’s existence from these observations.

Here is the argument:

(1)   Moral realism is true.

(2)   Moral realism requires a foundation that yields (A) objective moral truths, (B) is comprehensive, and (C) is compelling.

(3)   Either theistic or nontheistic moral realism is true.

(4)   Nontheistic moral realism fails to meet at least one of the three requirements.

(5)   Therefore, nontheistic moral realism is necessarily false.

(6)   Therefore, theistic moral realism is true.

(7)   If theistic moral realism is true, then God exists.

(8)   Therefore, God exists.

I divide versions of moral realism into those that imply the existence of God (theistic moral realism) and those that do not (nontheistic moral realism). Nontheistic versions of moral realism simply might have nothing to say about God’s existence or perhaps depend upon foundations incompatible with His existence. And, by “foundation” here I mean the ultimate explanation or grounding of moral facts whether it be our intuitions, some evolutionary norm, reason, or God. Theistic moral realism must say that the foundation of moral facts is God, while nontheistic moral realism need not.  

I then present in (2) three overarching standards for testing which of the two moral realisms is true. I maintain that moral realism requires a source that yields objective moral truths, is itself comprehensive and compelling.

By “objectivity” I mean the nature of the foundation or explanans must itself be consistent with the explanandum. It would be strange to get an objective theory of ethics from a purely subjective, mind-dependent foundation.

“Comprehensiveness” means that the foundation in question must tackle the most relevant metaphysical and epistemological questions for a proper account of moral realism. For instance, the foundation should help us understand the nature of normativity, it should yield an account of moral knowledge, and ensure we have reliable faculties for moral comprehension. Here, I narrow the debate down to five fundamental explananda – normativity, semantics, causation, cognition, and ontology.

In other words, the foundation should explain both the nature and origin of normativity. Regarding semantics, it should avoid making the world unintelligible but render its information content accessible to our intellects. Even the causal order itself requires an explanation such that we demystify the connection between facts about the world and our actions, the behavior of objects and persons in our unfolding moral drama. The foundation should not simply take for granted that we have reliable cognitive faculties for moral reasoning but explain the origin and reliability of those faculties. Finally, this foundation should illumine us on who or what counts as a moral subject, what is the good, the bad, the right and the wrong? This is the most demanding requirement of the three. And, I propose it in order to avoid moral realisms that are simply constructed to suit our ends or attempt to avoid the ultimate question. We are seeking the version of moral realism that actually covers the relevant and required explananda.

Of course, we also need a way of discerning which foundation most compellingly explains the explananda. I propose here several standards:

1)     Intuitive Fit

2)     Empirical Adequacy - “consistency with what we know about the world, including our best scientific knowledge.”1

3)     Epistemic Access - “the theory should include some account of how we could come to know its truth.”2

4)     Metaphysical Fecundity - “the theory should shed light on a variety of metaphysical issues.”3

5)     Unification - “We should not accept a bifurcated, disjunctive account of thought and of knowledge as long as a unified account is possible.”4

6)     Simplicity - “A good metaphysical theory should not be in need of ad hoc rescues or endless epicyclic tinkering.”5

The standard of unification staves off the objection that the comprehensiveness standard is too demanding. If there is a unified explanation that can explain all of the explananda and do it well, then that unified theory is to be strongly preferred. In other words, comprehensiveness is not too demanding since it is a burden that can be carried by other approaches and perhaps not the objector’s.         

Over the course of my research, I found that the AT synthesis simply bests its competitors. It provides an objective, comprehensive, and compelling foundation of moral realism in the very existence of God.

AT moral realism is founded upon six highly plausible metaphysical theses that simultaneously yield a comprehensive moral theory and proofs of the existence of God. The theses are the principle of sufficient reason (PSR), the causal principle (CP), the principle of proportionate causality (PPC), real essentialism (RE), the convertibility principle (TCP), and the principle of finality (PF).

The PSR means that, “Everything that is the case must have a reason why it is the case. Necessarily, every true or at least every contingent true proposition has an explanation. Every event has a cause.”6 Aside from the PSR being highly intuitive, I think Alexander Pruss and Robert C. Koons have provided powerful reasons for suggesting that its denial simply costs too much, including the intelligibility of the universe itself.7

The CP is inspired by Aristotle’s response to Zeno’s denial of change. Zeno argued that true change requires non-being to produce being, since what was not there before must suddenly emerge. Aristotle unraveled the paradox by proposing the CP: change is the actualization of an object’s potential by an already actual actualizer, meaning that being can be divided into being-in-act and being-in-potency. It also appears that denying the CP eviscerates the intelligibility of the universe and the reality of change.

The PPC simply follows from the PSR and CP, since there is an explanation for why events occur and this explanation must preserve the transaction of being. St. Thomas Aquinas defines the PPC as “effects must be proportionate to their causes and principles”8 so that “whatever perfections exist in the effect must be found in the effective cause.”9 To put it more straightforwardly, “a cause cannot give what it does not first have.”10 Consider for instance how materialists argue that consciousness cannot be immaterial, since our origins are purely material and so too is the fundamental nature of the universe. Like things beget like things.

RE is “... the metaphysical position that everything in the world has an essence or nature that fixes its identity.”11 and “The essence of a thing is its nature, that whereby it is what it is. It is what we grasp intellectually when we identify a thing’s genus and specific difference.”12 Things have a real definition of what they are, which makes possible our distinguishing one kind of thing from another kind. It is not that we are inventing the difference between a mushroom and a human but there really is something different about the two, and this difference is ultimately due to the nature of human beings and other plants. To deny this point seems to place a huge hole in evolutionary theory and the project of speciation, or even the trustworthiness of our perception since it seems to really be the case that humans, horses, and fish are not absolutely the same kind of thing and one can identify their differences.

TCP states, “... goodness is the same as being itself, but considered from a particular point of view - that of fulfillment of appetite.”13 In other words, goodness is the actualization of potential, a kind of fullness. For example, we say that one thing is better than another when said thing is more as it should be. A triangle drawn with a radiograph pen is better than one etched into the seat of a shaky bus. The instantiated triangles are obviously aiming towards triangularity and are hence held to that standard. Likewise, human beings are ordered towards “humanity,” and humans are better when they are more in harmony with and fulfillment of their human nature. The fullness of triangularity is the measure of goodness for a triangle. The fullness of humanity is the measure of goodness for a human.

Finally, the PF sates that “... every nature is ordered to an end; that nature does not act in vain; that the end is the first principle of activity; and that the end is the reason for all movement.”14 and “In short, if A is by nature an efficient cause of B, then generating B must be the final cause of A.”15 Another way of framing this is that nature behaves with intentionality or directedness. For instance, the laws of nature do not describe mere accidental regularities but they reveal the natures of the objects in question and how they act under certain conditions. This activity is intrinsic to the objects themselves, meaning they are acting as they should. For instance, an electron is a negatively charged particle that orbits the nucleus. Such a description gives us the nature and activity of the entity in question – even the “negative” charge label is connected to activity. Or, consider even how horses are tetrapods but some are obviously born with more or less legs than they should have. The nature of the horse provides us the norm and allows us to identify deviations and when things are not as they should be.

Two significant consequences follow from these theses. The first is that a comprehensive moral theory known as classical natural law theory follows. Classical natural law theory states that ethics is the science of how to fulfill one’s nature. Just as scientists discover laws of nature through observing the tendencies of objects and what should happen under normal circumstances, the same sort of study is done on human activity in order to unveil the natural law.  

The second consequence is that any properly constructed argument for the existence of God dependent upon any of the theses is given a significant plausibility boost. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, famously developed six ways to demonstrate the existence of God. The first is known as the argument from motion; the second is the argument from efficient causality; the third is a contingency argument of sorts; the fourth is an argument from the gradation of being; the fifth is a teleological argument; and the sixth is his lesser known De Ente argument.

The PSR makes the first, second, third, and sixth ways eminently plausible. For example, the first way begins with the CP and argues that there must be a purely actual actualizer in order to prevent an infinite causal regress. There must be a causal agent who is the source of all change but is not itself subject to change.

De Ente rightly observes that since beings are composites of essence and existence, meaning a real distinction exists between the two and not merely a logical or conceptual one, there must be an explanation for why they exist despite their essences not securing or entailing their existence. This can be viewed as a more precise contingency argument. St. Thomas located this ultimate explanation in a being whose very essence is existence itself lest there be another endless causal regress. In tandem with TCP, RE, and PPC, we arrive at a being who is essentially perfect and the source of all beings - of their essence and existence included! Since human beings are by nature rational animals, meaning our specific difference from the rest of the animal kingdom is our rationality, our cause must also possess something like an intellect in order for it “contain” and “impart” our intellects to us.

Furthermore, we know that this being has an intellect due to the fifth way, the teleological argument, where St. Thomas noted that even beings without minds are drawn or attracted towards their final ends just like an arrow is directed towards its target by an intellect. The PF and PPC get us a creator who must have something like an intellect or mind in order for its creation to have this feature of intentionality or directedness.

If St. Thomas’ arguments hold, then we arrive at one and in principle only one supreme being who is the essentially omnibenevolent or perfect, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent reality.

This is my longwinded way of saying that nontheistic moral realisms have an incredible challenge to face, since theistic moral realism has a foundation that yields objective moral truths (since moral truths are fixed truths about being which emanate from God), a comprehensive explanation, and one that is indeed compelling. Robert C. Koons has demonstrated in his work Realism Regained how the AT synthesis can yield not only a moral theory but also an exact theory of causation, mind, and metaphysics. Significant work has been done in Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Contemporary Science to demonstrate the plausibility of the AT synthesis and its relevance to quantum mechanics, biology, physics, and psychology. Theists have the theory of everything!

My moral argument attempts to leave no stone unturned and forces everyone to examine the foundations of morality. I conclude that God is the best and most comprehensive explanation, while nontheistic moral realism fails to provide what is required for a complete and compelling account of moral realism. Of course, further research needs to be done in order to secure this conclusion, but I think the argument has plausible foundations and deserves more attention.

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1. Koons, Robert C. Realism Regained an Exact Theory of Causation, Teleology, and the Mind. Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 3.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Pruss, Alexander R. The Principle of Sufficient Reason: a Reassessment. Cambridge University Press, 2011, p. 3.

7. See Pruss’ The Principle of Sufficient Reason and my dialogue with Robert C. Koons here.

8. Aquinas, Thomas. “Of the Causes of Virtue.” Summa Theologica, translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Coyote Canyon Press, 2018, pg. 391. I-II. Q. 63. Art. 3.

9. Aquinas, Thomas. “The Perfection of God.” Summa Theologica, translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Coyote Canyon Press, 2018, pg. 34. I. Q. 4. Art. 2.

10. Feser, Edward. Five Proofs of the Existence of God. Ignatius Press., pg. 170.

11. See the opening page of Oderberg, S. David Real Essentialism (2007).

12. Feser, Edward. Scholastic Metaphysics: a Contemporary Introduction. Editiones Scholasticae, 2014, p. 211.

13. Oderberg, David S. The Metaphysics of Good and Evil. Routledge, 2020, p. 14.

14. Ibid, p. 28.

15. Feser, Edward. Scholastic Metaphysics: a Contemporary Introduction. Editiones Scholasticae, 2014, p. 92.

Holy Fear

A Twilight Musing

In Christian Bible classes we sometimes hear people discuss the meaning of the biblical admonition, predominantly found in the Old Testament, to “fear God.”  Does not the New Testament present God as our loving Father, whom we are privileged to address familiarly as “Papa”?  But the Old Testament clearly sees fearing God in a different light.  The “Preacher” of Ecclesiastes, for example, sums up his treatise by asserting that we are to “fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.  For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Eccl. 12:13-14 [ESV]).  But in the New Testament, disciples are frequently told not to fear, and in I John 4:18 we have a radical negation of fear: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”  How do we get from the O.T. fear based on God’s judgment to the N.T. saying that Christians (the new Israel) should have no fear of judgment?  The fear of God still has its place in the N.T., but it is a fear embedded in the fact that Jesus Christ has bridged the gap for us between the austere fear of God and the joyful trembling that comes from being in the Presence of an awesome, loving, and gentle Father who accepts us as brothers and sisters of Christ Jesus.

Those under the Old Covenant were acutely aware that to be in God’s Presence was dangerous because of His perfect holiness and His fearsome judgment on human sin.  Three passages from chapters 6 and 8 of Isaiah and chapter 33 of Exodus illustrate this reaction, even in men who were being called by God.  In Isaiah’s vision of God “high and lifted up” in all His glory and holiness; the prophet’s immediate reaction is fear that he is going to die because he has “seen the King, the Lord of Hosts” (Is. 6:5).  Even though he is a prophet of God, he is terrifyingly aware of his sinfulness, and in order for his life to be preserved and for the conversation with God to continue, Isaiah has to be purified (depicted figuratively by the application of a burning coal from the Temple altar to his lips), so that his “guilt is taken away, and [his] sin atoned for” (v.7).  Moses has a similar experience (Ex. 33:18-23) when he asks God, “Show me your glory” (v. 18); whereupon God allows him only a glimpse of His back, and even that could be granted only with God’s protective hand covering Moses, for “man shall not see me and live.”  Human beings do well to fear the Presence of God, for the fiery holiness of that Presence will consume them unless God Himself offers protection.

The transition between the O.T. fear of God’s judgment and the N.T. casting out of fear by Love is provided by the visitation upon the sinless Lamb of God of all the wrath of the Father deserved by rebellious mankind.  With God’s judgment satisfied, we can be empowered to serve and obey Him without the fear engendered by our sinfulness.   As Paul expresses it, when we accepted the liberating blood of Christ, we “did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but . . . received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!"  Thereby we have the liberty to “work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in [us], both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12-13).  As Paul points out in Gal. 3, the final deliverance of mankind from sin was not to be accomplished through obedience to the Law, as necessary as that obedience was.  As he concludes in that chapter, “the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.  But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (Gal. 3:24-26).  God’s love, fully manifested toward humankind by the sacrifice of His Son, is the instrument for transmuting human fear into effective fear of God. 

And so we come back to the statement in I John that “perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love” (I Jn. 4:18).  What a glorious privilege is granted to us who live under the New Covenant, that we may glory in standing before God without fear of punishment for our sins.  Although we no longer tremble in physical terror as Moses and the people did when they encountered the fiery Presence of God at Mt. Sinai, we are nevertheless admonished to approach Him in Mt. Zion, the Heavenly Jerusalem, “with holy fear and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” (Heb.12:28-29, NLT).  We still need the protective covering of the blood of Jesus to keep from being consumed by the Fire of God’s judgment.  Thus we are able under the New Covenant to fear God perfectly and joyfully.

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 Dr. Elton Higgs was a faculty member in the English department of the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1965-2001. Having retired from UM-D as Prof. of English in 2001, he now lives with his wife and adult daughter in Jackson, MI.. He has published scholarly articles on Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Shakespeare, and Milton. His self-published Collected Poems is online at Lulu.com. He also published a couple dozen short articles in religious journals. (Ed.: Dr. Higgs was the most important mentor during undergrad for the creator of this website, and his influence was inestimable; it's thrilling to welcome this dear friend onboard.)

New Developments in Moral Apologetics, Part 4

This installment of new developments on the moral argument features two students of mine wrapping up their doctoral work on the subject. They are also dear friends and both have been very active here at MoralApologetics, and will play a big part in the site’s future and the Center for Moral Apologetics at Houston Baptist University. They are Jonathan Pruitt, long-time Managing Editor extraordinaire of MoralApologetics.com, and Stephen Jordan, who will be spearheading the development of moral apologetics curriculum as part of a new initiative of the Center in the years to come.

Jonathan Pruitt’s work seeks to extend the abductive moral argument made in Jerry Walls’s and my Good God and God and Cosmos to the Christian religion. Like the argument found in Good God, Pruitt’s argument begins by assuming moral realism. Specifically, it assumes there are a range of moral facts in need of explanation, including facts about moral goodness, moral obligations, moral knowledge, moral transformation, and moral rationality.

With respect to moral goodness, the dissertation brings to bear the rich ontology of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. It suggests that the existence of the Trinity best explains deeply held moral intuitions about “the shape of the good,” as it builds upon Robert Adams’s Platonic theistic view of God as the good. If the good is ultimately triune, this could naturally explain why morality is centered on “the other” and the foundational character of love in ethical thinking.

With respect to moral obligations, the dissertation utilizes the fundamentally social nature of the Trinity to suggest that moral obligations, best understood as a certain kind of social standing, is well explained by a Trinitarian God. The Christian worldview has tremendous resources in the domain of moral knowledge as it claims both a divinely inspired book and the ideal moral exemplar in Jesus Christ. In these, one finds both the moral law and the ever elusive concept of “the good life” reified. Additionally, these resources can help turn back some well-known objections to divine command theory.

The Christian view of sanctification and the role of the Holy Spirit explain how one can be morally transformed, while remaining within the logical boundaries required by such transformation. Though Kant had to postulate God as judge and eternal life to solve what Henry Sidgwick later called “the dualism of practical reason,” the Christian worldview comes with these features included. The public and evidential nature of the Resurrection supplies concrete evidence for moral faith and, in conjunction with Christian eschatology, solves moral problems not explicitly articulated until nearly two millennia later. Thus, Christianity handily accounts for moral rationality. Pruitt’s work, in the end, highlights how some of the most distinctively Christian ideas map closely onto well-known problems in ethical theory. He suggests that precisely where Christianity is most different, it most ably marshals explanatory resources to account for the moral facts.

Stephen Jordan’s developing work is called “Morality and the Personhood of God: A Moral Argument for the Existence of a Personal God.” The concept that God is personal is a necessary and fundamental part of religious belief.[1] If God were not personal, it would be odd to think of him as moral or loving; it would also seem inconsistent to speak of him as One with whom humans can have a personal relationship, One who can be trusted, cares for the people he created, listens to their prayers, acts on their behalf, has their best interests at heart, and so on. In short, to talk of such matters in a sensible manner and to experience them in everyday life seemingly requires that God is personal.

Is there evidence that a personal God actually exists? Enter the moral argument. The moral argument, like other classical arguments for God’s existence, is able to provide evidence for believing in God’s existence, but—unlike other arguments, or perhaps better than the other arguments—is able to shed an incredible amount of light on God’s character (i.e., what God is like). For example, in order to account for morality, God must be good, loving, and holy. Additionally, through surveying moral categories such as moral knowledge, moral values, moral obligations, and moral transformation, it becomes apparent that the source of the moral law, in order to account for the deeply personal nature of morality, must also be personal, and personal to the highest degree possible.

If the moral argument suggests that God must be personal in order to account for the personal nature of morality, the next step in the process involves considering the various explanations for God’s personal nature. There are several belief systems that set forth the notion of a personal God, with some conceptions coming nearer to adequately accounting for what is required of a personal God than others. Christianity, however, uniquely demonstrates that not only is God personal, but that he has always been personal. If the only sense in which God is personal is in his personal interactions with human persons, then one could say that God’s personality was frustrated before he created human persons or that God became personal only after he created human persons. To say these sorts of things presents all sorts of theological and philosophical problems, such as that God would be dependent on something other than himself and therefore not self-sufficient.

A Trinitarian conception of God, which is a distinctly Christian concept, solves the sorts of problems alluded to above, suggesting that God has always been personal in and through the inner personal relations of the three Persons of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is the fundamental reason why the Judeo-Christian God, the God of the Bible, is such a powerful explanation for the deeply personal nature of morality: he is intrinsically personal himself.

While there is certainly more involved, there are two key tasks to this version of the moral argument: (1) demonstrate that morality points in the direction of a personal source; and (2) explain how a Trinitarian conception of God provides the best explanation for the deeply personal nature of morality.[2]

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[1] A definition of “personal God” looks something like this: A Being who thinks, feels, and wills, and who is capable of loving and being loved by other beings.

[2] There are essentially three tasks involved in the moral apologetics enterprise: (1) provide reasons for believing in objective moral facts; (2) address secular theories; and (3) explain why theism, particularly Christian theism, is the best explanation for morality as a whole. While this project largely focuses on the third and final task, there are discussions throughout that give attention to the first two tasks as well. For instance, there is a chapter that provides fifteen reasons for believing in objective moral facts, and there are several chapters that briefly respond to opposing theories.

What Can Christians Say about the Pandemic? A Response to Rosaria Butterfield

The coronavirus pandemic has brought fresh fodder to a question many struggle with: how can a good God allow such pain and suffering? Is he really not as good as we thought? Or maybe he’s too weak to prevent it? In the face of such complexities, some abandon belief in God altogether. Others find this problem of evil a stumbling block to belief in the first place. These are pressing questions, and not only on an intellectual level. For many who have lost loved ones or are battling the virus themselves, those out of work or left lonely from social distancing, the answers to these questions mean the difference between hope and despair.

For this reason, I was discouraged to read Rosaria Butterfield’s recent post over at Desiring God, “Can the Pandemic Be an Answered Prayer?” Butterfield most likely didn’t choose the title, but even still, her article answers the question with a resounding yes. In attempting to square the existence of this physical evil with the existence of a good God, Butterfield has unfortunately flattened the distinction between God’s redemptive use of a tragedy and the nature of the tragedy itself. In so doing, she implies that an unmitigated evil is actually an unqualified good.

Many are familiar with Butterfield’s dramatic conversion story, which testifies to the role of hospitality in evangelism. She herself has been intentional to carry on such hospitality in her own ministry. About eight years ago, Butterfield’s family moved into a progressive area so her husband could pastor a church there. The family prayed for service opportunities in the community but made little headway, as no one came to the barbecues or block parties they arranged. Instead, they were met with suspicion and even found a church sign vandalized.

COVID-19 turned all that around. With the food shortages and shelter in place orders, Rosaria and her daughter began delivering food to many of her neighbors on behalf of a local community supported agriculture program. Additionally, their church made its building available as a distribution center. Folks who once turned away from them on the street now welcomed them into their homes and even asked for help and prayer.

I do not doubt Butterfield’s account. The pandemic has certainly made people experience their limited human resources and vulnerabilities in new ways. And it’s a blessing that the family and church stepped up to love and serve them as Christ commands. What troubles me is Butterfield’s suggestion that, for these reasons (and some others she mentions[1]), COVID-19 is something for which we should be thankful, a good gift to us and a means of God glory:  

“Giving thanks to God for everything, including COVID-19, humbles us — deeply. It reminds us that God’s providence is perfect and our point of view flawed. Because God is good, just, and wise, all the time and in every circumstance, then COVID-19, for the Christian, must be for our good and for God’s glory.”

There is some truth mingled in with Butterfield’s words here, which makes teasing out her missteps tricky. We are called to be thankful in all circumstances (I Thess. 5:18[2]), and we are surely limited creatures, unaware of the fullness of God’s activity in this world. As Butterfield also notes, God is all good, all knowing, and all powerful. But it does not follow that everything that occurs in this fallen world is in itself good. Moreover, it’s a small, capricious god indeed who requires the suffering of millions in order to be gloried.

Empathy with our suffering neighbors demands that Christians reckon with the problem of evil, not to mention that our own theology will be the poorer for lack of an adequate account. This is always important, but perhaps now during this pandemic more than ever. But as we think this question through, our central convictions about who God is must remain intact. He is a God of infinite love, incarnate in Christ Jesus, and wildly imaginative in his redemptive purposes and plans. God desires our flourishing and invites us to a life of shalom, what Cornelius Plantinga describes as “[t]he webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight.”[3]  

Butterfield’s account, on the other hand, offers up a god I don’t recognize in the Christian scriptures, one who inflicts suffering on the global population in answer to a family’s prayer to feel more wanted and useful in their neighborhood by unleashing a pandemic. Again, I rejoice that Butterfield’s family could serve her community and that the pandemic opened the eyes of many to their own insufficiencies and need for grace. But that redemptive twist is the blessing; the love and service in answer to these human needs is God’s good gift, not the pandemic itself.

It’s crucial to make this distinction—otherwise, despite Butterfield’s early protestation, God does get cast as the author or cause of evil. My aim here is not to offer a theodicy, an explanation for why God allows evil. I’ll leave that to others better equipped to do so. Frankly, I have no idea why God permitted the novel coronavirus to unleash such havoc on the world, and any attempt of mine to explain would ring hollow and may even add pain to those already suffering its terrible effects.

What I do know, however, is that none of these sufferings go unnoticed by God. He is el Roi, the God who sees the needy (Gen. 16:13); Jehovah Jireh, our provider (Gen. 22:14). What else is the Bible but an account of God’s attentive and intervening presence in humanity’s sufferings? He neither causes nor desires our fallen condition and its attendant afflictions. To rescue us from it, God enters into that suffering with us, but not for the sake of suffering alone. As Butterfield herself notes, referencing 1 John 5:4, Christ is our promise that all manner of evil let loose in this world—coronavirus included—has been, is being, and will be overcome. The whole of salvation history tells of God’s restorative work, to recreate what he established in Eden.

There are no pat answers in the face of evil. But there is love—a love that won’t let evil have the last word. The cosmos, no less than mankind, is being set right. This redemptive love does involve suffering, but not in the way Butterfield envisions it. It doesn’t cultivate evil to get our attention or enable our ministry. Rather, God’s holy, sacrificial love takes evil with such dreadful seriousness that it requires nothing less than the cross to rectify. Indeed, to equivocate between the evil from which God rescues us and his loving means of rescue, to take one for the other, is ultimately to understand neither.

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Marybeth Davis Baggett lives in Lynchburg, Virginia, and teaches English at Houston Baptist University. Having earned her Ph.D. in English from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Marybeth’s professional interests include literary theory, contemporary American literature, science fiction, and dystopian literature. She also writes and edits for Christ and Pop Culture. Her most recent publication was a chapter called “What Means Utopia to Us? Reconsidering More’s Message,” in Hope and the Longing for Utopia: Futures and Illusions in Theology and the Arts. Marybeth's most recent book is The Morals of the Story: Good News about a Good God, coauthored with her husband, David.

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Notes:

[1] Butterfield, whose conversion story involves transitioning from a lesbian lifestyle, also points to the disruption of the annual gay pride march as another reason to be grateful for the coronavirus. This myopic view selectively ignores the manifold repercussions of the pandemic, which of course has disrupted all manner of events—from the holy to the scandalous and everything in between.

[2] Butterfield also references Ephesians 5:20 here, which admonishes Christians to “Giv[e] thanks always for all things to God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” However, in context, the phrase “for all things,” is best understood as those good gifts God provides, not “in its widest possible extent” to include evil (see the Expositor’s Greek Testament commentary here: https://biblehub.com/commentaries/ephesians/5-20.htm).  

[3] Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdman’s, 1995, 10.