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What is Justice for Trayvon Martin?

The Trayvon Martin story is popular now. Many are outraged by the result of the court case as Zimmerman was found not guilty. Zimmerman allegedly felt threatened by Tayvon Martin because he was wearing a hoody and presumably because he was black. This speaks volumes about the racism that still exists in America. However, the question I want to ask is not to the morality of the event (for it is obvious Zimmerman committed a morally impermissible crime) or the legality because I am, by no means, an expert in law. My question is what is justice for Trayvon Martin.

Is justice really locking Zimmerman up for the rest of his life as he rots away in his cell? Is that what Trayvon is feeling if he is up in Heaven? Was Trayvon watching this court case on High nervously hoping for Zimmerman to rot in prison for the rest of his life? Is this justice? This man ended one life and so he should have to pay? He should have his life ruined. How much of this zeal is a real desire for justice and how much of it is a desire for vengeance under the banner of justice. This retributive model of justice is plainly sick. It's this eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, where Jesus says "If someone may hit you in the eye, turn him the other cheek also."

Instead, Jesus presents a model of justice that is rehabilitative. True justice is for all men to come to repentance. True justice for Trayvon would be if Zimmerman came to repentence for what he did and for the sin that dwells within him that caused him to do what he did. True justice would be if Zimmerman we to have his heart changed to a heart that would seek virtue and love and justice. I take it Trayvon, if he is watching from Heaven with a heavenly body, is not hoping for Zimmerman's life to be ruined by imprisonment but is praying for Zimmerman's heart that he may come to repentence.

So as we get in an uproar about this, consider why we are upset. I'm upset but because it serves to show the world is not how it ought to be. Are we upset because we wanted vengeance or justice. As we hold up our picket signs which say "Justice for Trayvon," think about what that means. And realize that its not too late for justice to be done for Trayvon. Because justice is not handed out in a court room. Our hope is not in the courts to deliver justice but in God to deliver justice and his justice is not contingent upon a jury's decision. So pray for justice for Trayvon. Pray for Zimmerman. So that true justice may be handed out.

#justice for trayvon #justicefortravon #Zimmerman #Zimmerman trial #prayfortrayvon #prayforjustice #pray for Zimmerman

Question asking, Philosophy & Love Wins

Charlie, the pastor of the Commons, is going over Love Wins again in church. Recalling things about this controversial book at its inception was the mass uproar over Rob Bell's style of writing and evasive demeanor towards the question at hand. He never says he's a universalist. In fact, in a sermon, he specifically denounces universalism (what exactly the definition of universalism he's referring to is another question). There is a specific question he asks which people point to to call him a universalist. He asks "Does God shrug his God-sized shoulders content with failure?" The media and church say, I believe in ignorance, 'well obviously you don't think he shrugs his god-sized shoulders content with failure.' And the only alternative is universalism.

However, my interpretation of 'Love Wins' is that we cannot infer the position Rob Bell holds on this issue, purely from the text. That in fact, the bombardment Bell met from the media and the Church is entirely misled. Anyone who has taken a philosophy class knows that, in order to contribute to the discussion, you ask questions. And not just clarification questions. You ask inquisitive questions which strike at the heart of the issue and present fundamental problems that must be solved in order to hold a position. For example, when I ask "How can an all-good, all-powerful God allow evil?" or the Epicurean Paradox, this presents an ultimatum that would, prima facie (that is to say, how it first appears to us), destroy the proposition that God exists. It's a tough question. One I ask and don't even necessarily know how to sufficiently answer. To some who I present this question to, this may give them reason to believe I don't believe in God. However, this is false. And in fact, it is precisely because I believe in God that I ask this question. It is a question that strikes at the heart of the issue, that is fundamental to the discussion of God. It is a great contribution to the discussion of God and our understanding of God. Philosophers ask this of all their beliefs. Platonists ask the Third Man Problem. Stoics ask about the value of loved ones. It's how we contribute to the discussion of these ideas and how we grow as philosophers, and in Bell's case, as the Church.

I take it that the question "Does God shrug his God-sized shoulder, content with failure?" is that very type of question. It's exactly the type of question one would ask in a philosophy course. The media and the church conclude he must be a universalist from this question. However, that's a very flat interpretation of Bell. In fact, it isn't even obvious that, even if your answer is 'no,' that universalism is the only alternative. Perhaps it would seem that way but that's exactly why we ask the question. Is the answer yes or no? If yes, then how do we account for the prima facie problems associated with accepting this account (i.e. does this mean God fails)? If no, then is universalism the only possibility that is entailed from saying no? That's why it is such a good question! It gets at the heart of the issue. It may mean the apologist of the classical hell model has to work a bit harder but it doesn't mean the question-asker isn't that very apologist.

Our reaction to Rob Bell should not be to label him as a heretic for making too much of a claim or to be outraged by his lack of commitment. We ought to take it for what it is. The thing he repeatively says it is. It is a contribution to this great discussion. It is a question that needs to be answered, that strikes at the heart of the issue and that, when answered, will tell us a great deal about the question of Heaven and Hell and in turn, tell us a great deal about God.

Is Life Worth Living?

"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest — whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories — comes afterwards. I have never seen anyone die for the ontological argument. Galileo, who held a scientific truth of great importance, abjured it with the greatest ease as soon as it endangered his life. In a certain sense, he did right. . . . That truth was not worth the stake. Whether the earth or the sun revolves around the other is a matter of profound indifference. To tell the truth, it is a futile question." --Albert Camus.

There is something about life that is profoundly worth living. What is this? What is it that gives life such value, that we would surrender our these convictions with the greatest ease for a rain check on death? What gives human life value? Anything that we would surrender for prolonged life could not be the thing that gives life value, or else it would not be worth giving up. The source is always greater than the recipient. If we don't find such truths as helio-centricism or plausibility to be worth dying for, they cannot be what makes life worth living. So we find the only thing which makes life worth living is the thing for which we find ourselves readily willing to die for. Or as Dr. King put it "He who has nothing he is willing to die for, is not fit to live."

On the other hand, we do find several cases of people readily giving up their lives for something. Socrates who carefully considered the pros and cons of life and death after his verdict and found death to be preferable given what he would give up if he were to choose life. "Not to live, but rather to live well is to be chiefly valued." He says. To live a vicious life and one void of philosophy is in fact more empty, more void of meaning and value than death itself.

We find Stephen the Martyr who believed what he found in the Gospel was so profoundly true and necessary that to deny it in even one instance is a more pitiful and deprived existence than nonexistence itself. Of such great significance and importance that he could not stop declaring its truth even as he was being stoned for the very words he preached.

Dr. Martin Luther King when faced with almost daily death threats and bombs thrown at his home, faced with a constant reminder of the cost of his cause, found the cause of justice to be of such importance that he would not be impeded in his pursuit through all the adversary he faced up until his inevitable assassination.

What makes these truths different from the truth of heliocentricism or the truth of string theory? The difference is justice, virtue and the message of salvation in the Gospel is what God has declared to be the very thing that makes Him God. It is what we have come to call the Divine Nature. Dr. King, Stephen and Socrates had all found something that was not valuable but was, in fact, value itself. What they all shared is that they all gazed upon the very face of God and the result of this religious experience was such a strong conviction that it would not be surrendered, or even afflicted, even when faced with the death and loss of their very beings.

We find this conviction is so transformative that its transformation looked as insanity to those who surrounded these figures. Crito pleads with Socrates in his cell to choose life. The members of the Sanhedrin cover their ears as they stoned Stephen as not to hear such unspeakable insanity. Dr. King's family and friends constantly doubted his stability. Those who have not found something worth living for can only call these instances cases of absolute absurdity. Which is intriguing because it appears as insanity precisely because they have identified life as being worth living but have simply not found why that is. But to those who have gazed upon the face of God, we see martyrdom as the most profound form of testimony to this fact. We find this is what we live for, and this is what we die for.

The Steubenville Rape

In Steubenville, Ohio, a 16-year old girl who was intoxicated was gang raped recently by a couple of football players who recorded the whole event and posted it online in which they referred to the young lady as "it" and "bitch," swung her by her limbs, raped her in several locations and showed no remorse for their actions. They were sentenced to one year in prison. The media, including CNN, spent more time mourning the end of these student's "promising future in football" than they did about the victim. The young lady has received multiple death threats from various persons for "ruining" these students lives.

First, no sane train of thought could lead one to believe this girl is blameworthy for anything, and to suggest otherwise is not just a failure in moral character, it's a failure in mental health. I refuse to believe there is a sane person whose moral intuition, no matter their upbringing or lack of moral education, would lead them to threaten a victim of gang rape with death. They are ones who not in need of punishment from the State, nor education or an argument from an ethicist, but are in need of a therapist. I'm serious.

Second, one year. For gang raping a 16-year-old girl. A judge is ideally an expert in moral values. They study ethics for years. He is to have an intimate knowledge of the severity of crime and punishment. To believe the horrendous crime of gang raping a defenseless 16 year old is something equatable to one year in prison is to be flamboyantly proud of just how unfit you are to be a judge. It shows a complete disconnect to human experience, human sufferings, moral virtue, moral values or law that is beyond social edict. All things which are the foundation of being a judge.

No doubt her intoxicated state had something to do with this sentence. This is not a reason to lessen the sentence. All intoxication means is that she was more vulnerable and defenseless, making the horrendous act more severe, not less. It means she was unable to defend herself against her attackers. A person with any moral intuition finds committing such an atrocious crime more appalling when the victim is defenseless and not in the right state of mind to be volitional.

People who disapproved of the sentence remarked on how we need to change the way we educate people about rape, and let them know what rape is, educate men on how women ought not be objectified, and teach men to respect women. We also need to tell football players they can't get away with everything. That this was probably brought on because the students usually got away with stuff.

Rape statistics should be more known and perhaps our society needs the message that rape is wrong pounded into our heads. At the same time, it's enraging that that is our response to this tragedy. These men know what rape is. They know rape is wrong. They know women are persons, equal persons who are not objects. They have grown up with women in the same classrooms, answering the same questions, in most cases, the women are getting better grades, women have jobs in our society. It's not like all the women are in cages or segregated to a part of society or are legally limited to certain jobs or are legally distinguished in any way from a man that would lead these boys to think that women are objects or things who it would be okay to gang rape them. These men know women are not objects. As far as the argument, well these guys thought they could get away with anything. If the only thing that is keeping these guys or anybody from gang raping a 16-year old girl is that they might get caught or punished, they don't need a prison, they need a mental institution. I mean this is the most sincere way. If this is the honest defense of these boys, there is a deficiency beyond moral character, it's a matter of mental health.

That being said, I am always in favour of educating people in ethics, but no mentally healthy person needs an ethics class to tell them that gang raping an intoxicated underaged girl is wrong. The fact that the media is saying anything except either these boys are mentally unhealthy or deserve life in prison for extreme moral deficiency, is morally appalling. There is no defense of these boys. There is no reason for this act. There is no excuse for such depravity. Either they should be in a mental hospital for a long time or prison for a long time. There is nothing else to discuss.

The mother of the victim made a statement to the boys. “This does not define who my daughter is, she will perservere, grow, and move on. I have pity for you both. I hope you fear the Lord, repent for your actions, and pray hard for his forgiveness.” The mother reportedly forgave one of the boys personally and began praying for the boys after the trial. Showing Christ is a profound and courageous way. Let us pray for the victim and these boys also. That God would show them mercy and transform there hearts into looking like Christ.

Burden of Proof, Part III

Ockham's Razor

Surely there is something that would have us prefer the negative of a claim (e.g. "There is no God") over the affirmative of the same claim (e.g. "There is a God). There is one. This is called Ockham's Razor. There are many variations of this principle. To suit our purposes, we will phrase it "when two beliefs explain the same things, the one which assumes the least amount of assumptions should be preferred." Although I don't believe atheism can explain all the same things as theism, this is not what I'm arguing so we will assume they can.

It's worth noting, this is not exactly a proof. GK Chesterton, in Orthodoxy, addresses this idea of competing explanations and has you imagine a magician and a scientist. The magician performs a spectacle. The scientist finds it incredible so he goes into his basement and tries to figure out how he did it and brings his findings to the magician. He says "See magic isn't real, all you have to do is this, that and the other and bam your spectacle." The magician says "That's all well and good but that's not how I did it." The scientist asks "How'd you do it then?" "Magic" the magician answers. The scientist doesn't believe him. The magician performs another miracle and the scientist does the same thing. Then he performs another that the scientist can't figure out. He spends night and day trying to figure it out. He begs the magician "Please, just tell me how you did it." The magician keeps telling him "I've told you. Magic." Then the scientist's wife comes to him and says "please my husband is going insane, he doesn't sleep or eat, just tell him how you did it." The magician says "Mam, I have already told your husband the truth of my spectacle and it is magic." The wife goes "Then tell him a lie." Just because we can come up with a naturalistic explanation for something doesn't mean it's true. It's only our tendency to prefer it because our culture leans towards that way.

Even if we do uphold this principle though, then why is it that we don't normally adapt monism, the belief that the physical world does not exist. There is equal evidence (none) for the belief in the existence of the physical world and the disbelief in the existence of the physical world. Monism can explain all the same phenomena as the belief in the external world. Monism assumes the existence of less things and relies on the least amount of presuppositions. Yet we believe in the physical worlds. The same is with other minds, yet we are not solipsists (the belief that your mind is the only thing that exists). So there are beliefs which we hold which violate that principle. So we would have to have reason to place a belief in God to be subject to Ockham's Razor and not other beliefs.

Burden of Proof, Part II

Proving a Negation

Where does the burden of proof lie in this debate? "There is no God" is as much of a claim as "There is a God." Therefore, we must ask the athiest what reasons he has for atheism, for the assertion that "There is no God." You'll find this is not a popular notion but it is true. If you truly believe that there is not enough evidence to believe in God, unless you have good reasons for believing the assertion that God does not exist, you ought to resort to agnosticism, the belief that you don't know whether or not God exists. This is because we demonstrated that it does not follow from "We lack evidence for a claim" that it is necessarily false or even that we ought not believe in it.

Now a popular argument often brought up against this claim is that you cannot prove a negation, or you can't prove a negative. That seems obviously false, though. I feel I can prove there is no elephant in the oval office. I can search the room, look under stuff, and establish that I have good reason to believe there is not an elephant in the oval office. You can obviously prove a negation.

Now some thought experiments have been thought up to attempt to demonstrate the opposite. Bertrand Russell posits the existence of a teapot so small that no microscope could detect it and Bertrand Russell poses that this teapot orbits the Earth. Should we be agnostic to this claim. There are various forms of this: Sagan's dragon, the Flying Spagetti monster, etc. However, there are several reasons that these examples are not analogous. First, it seems we have very good reason to believe that Russell made up the idea of the tea pot, Carl Sagan the dragon, and an OSU grad student the Flying Spagetti Monster. In which case we do have good reason to deny the existence of these things. This is not the case with God. If something does not exist, it's worth asking how we could have a concept of such a non-existent being. It is clear with Russell's teapot and Sagan's dragon that they made it up. However, God doesn't seem like it's something which was obviously made up. And there are even questions of if it even could have been made up.

The second respect in which these thought experiments are not analogous is that Russell's teapot and Sagan's Dragon lack any explanatory power. This means it doesn't explain any phenomena. It doesn't answer any fundamental questions of reality, such as purpose, meaning, origin, happiness, morality, etc. It doesn't explain any aspect of reality. God plays a huge philosophical role in answering the fundamental questions and aspects of reality. Therefore, it ought to be treated as any other worldview. It should be critically interacted with and be treated on equal grounds with its negation.

Burden of Proof, Part I

Introduction

This little series titled the Burden of Proof will be on framing the God Debate. The debate has, at least on a popular level, put the burden of proof entirely on the Christian to prove indubitably that God exists. The question of God's existence is perhaps the only issue in which we place such stringent requirements for belief to be called justified and in which the burden of proof has been placed entirely on one side.

The first question we should ask is why do you need evidence or proof to believe in God? This seems like a bit of a silly question but that’s mostly because in the Western Culture we have an inclination towards skepticism. What would be an answer to this question? Perhaps we could say that proof or evidence is needed for something to be true. That seems false though. It does not follow from “We have no evidence for something” that “that claim is false” or even that there is no evidence for that claim. That is called a fallacy of “argument from ignorance.” So, perhaps we need to revise our previous claim. Perhaps, instead we say that one shouldn’t believe in something without proof or sufficient evidence. This too seems problematic though. Because it does not seem as if we have any evidence to believe the proposition "We shouldn’t believe in something without proof or sufficient evidence." So there is at least one claim that we don’t need proof for in order to be justified in believing it.

In fact, there are many things which we believe in with no evidence whatsoever. For example, we believe in the physical world without any evidence at all. All evidence for the physical world assumes the physical world exists. George Berkeley, in his “Three Dialogues,” demonstrates that we don’t even experience the physical world. The Problem of Other Minds shows that all evidence that other people have consciousness relies on assuming other people have consciousness. Yet we don’t believe that one shouldn’t believe in the existence of other minds or the physical world, a view called solipsism, that your mind is the only thing that exists. Instead, there are certain things which we believe and ought to believe without any evidence at all. We can call these claims properly basic. To be frank, most of us don't have any real evidence for the Earth revolving around the sun. We just take the scientists' word for that one. Which is entirely an argument from authority.

There’s no evidence for laws of logic or mathematics such as what’s called the Law of Non-Contradiction that two contradictory claims cannot both be true. Yet when I say “I am inside the house, and not inside the house,” our response is not to accept this claim but to ask “Well, which is it?” All arguments for such laws are admittedly circular. So it seems there are at least a few beliefs that we don’t normally say need sufficient evidence in order to be believed. Some people have a wider range of claims they take to be properly basic while others have a narrower view and even deny some of the claims I've listed.

So why is it that in the God debate, we treat a belief in God as if we can't believe in God without sufficient evidence or proof. Why can't God's existence be a properly basic claim? I'm not necessarily claiming that it is but it does show that the argument that "there's no evidence for God's existence" (which I believe is false anyhow) does not mean that the burden of proof necessarily falls on the theist. As we showed, there are a lot of claims which don't hold to similar standards as the claim of the theist. And atheism is itself a claim that would require sufficient evidence to be believed if we really held to our above views.

God and Time, Part V

So what?

If God is in time, what does this mean? What does it mean for the way interact with God. What it means is that God desires relationship with you so much that He would enter into time in order to have relationship with us. We have this inclination in our culture to paint God in a way that God is so "Wholly Other" in contrast to everything human. Timeless in contrast to all that is temporal. Because everything we know is in time and therefore God must be outside of time. We believe God is in steady bliss because we are so broken. We believe God is so impassible because we suffer. Karl Barth says:

"Who God is and what it is to be divine is something we have to learn where God has revealed Godself. We may believe that God can and must only be absolute in contrast to all that is relative, exalted in contrast to all that is lowly, active in contrast to all suffering, inviolable in contrast to all temptation, transcendent in contrast to all immanence, and therefore divine in contrast to everything human, in short that [God] can and must be only “Wholly Other.” But such beliefs are shown to be quite untenable, and corrupt and pagan, by the fact that God does in fact be and do this in Jesus Christ. [Karl Barth: Church Dogmatics]"

What we see in a God who would enter into time for relationship with His Creation is that God would contrast all pagan and Hellenistic conceptions of divine perfection and that is exemplified in His relation to time. We have a God whose perfection is not shown in His indifference towards everything that is not Himself as the Aristotle proclaimed. We have a God who is not a stoic sage who is foreign to all suffering, devoid of all passions, unfamiliar with longing and dwelling in steady bliss. Instead we have a picture of God revealed in Christ at Calvary. A God who breaks with the brokenness of His Creation. A God who knew no sin and became sin on our behalf. A God who we find is in longing. A God who weeps. He dances over our worship, He is empathetic to tragedy and He rejoices through our repentance, and comforts us with His Embrace in the here and now.

We have a God who entered into time that He may be right here and right now with you. He faces the world together with you. He faces the future with you. His sovereignty is not threatened by this prospect. The God of the universe is on your side. You are working with God to accomplish His purposes in the world. A God who compromises with His Creation as He did with Israel in allowing concubines. He works with His Creation, through His Creation to bring about His purposes. He gives conditional prophesies, promises to Israel. He has hopes for His Creation. This is the God we find in Scripture when we are liberated of all our pagan and Hellenistic conceptions of divine perfection. Because the God revealed through Scripture is much, much greater. The God of our culture who is outside of time is untouchable, immutable, impassible, unrelatable and so “Wholly Other” that He finds Himself concerns with nothing other than Himself for nothing short of the Ultimate deserves His attention. There is nothing in Scripture that tells us God is outside of time. This belief comes when we rely on our own intuitions about what divine perfection is as the pagan belief is. When we are liberated of this conception, we find a God who is far greater than our cultural understandings of what being exalted means. This is what Jesus flipped on its head. God being in time doesn't resonate with our culture understanding. We find the God of the Gospel is much more personal, loving, and faithful to His Creation than anything we could dream of who would go to such lengths as to die on a cross carrying the sins of the whole world on himself to free the whole cosmos from bondage.

The focal point of reality is the Now. So small it has no temporal length and yet so long we can never escape from it. The past is dead. The future as yet is not. In saying God is right here and right now is to say that God has fully exposed Himself to us right now. At this very moment we are staring straight at the very face of God. The fullness of the Kingdom of God has manifests right now. The Kingdom of God is not near, it is now. It is at hand. When the immanence of God’s presence is realized here in the eternal now, then we can live the Heavenly Life, we can realize the Union with God that is offered to us right now, and we can be the Kingdom of God manifest on Earth.

God and Time, Part IV

Objections

So it seems there's nothing obviously wrong with God being inside time so God can be in time. Now the question is "Is God in time?" In order to evaluate this, we have to ask what it means to say God is outside of time. There is two ways of expressing this. The first is the Aristotelean theory in which God is completely removed from the universe, thus having no relation to His Creation or to time. He, being Ultimate, can only concern Himself with Himself and thus doesn’t concern Himself with Creation. This view seems difficult to reconcile with the Christian Religion. Usually, what the Christian generally means when he says God is outside of time, is the alternative: “God experiences every moment as if it is the present.” However, this seems to have some fundamental problems too, which molinists, open theists and even many reformed theologians point to. First, this assumes that every moment exists to be experienced, in past, present and future. This is what is called a B-series theory of time. That there exists right now a you and me 50 years from now right now and 20 years ago. Right now there is a 2057 and a 1957 in which the world is going on how it would in those respective times. You will find it is a discredited position. J.M.E. McTaggart demonstrates several problems (e.g. how a B-series is changeless, and time involves change, how do we speak in tenses, etc.)

Rather what is generally accepted is the A-series theory of time, or presentism. This is the belief that only the present exists and the past and future can only be spoken about in past or future tense (“will be,” “was,” etc) but past and future do not exist. An A-series would say that Doctor Who and other time travel stories are impossible because there is no 1957 to go back to or 2057 to go forward to. Paradoxes demonstrate as much like the grandfather paradox of going back in time to kill your own grandfather. When we think of time as an A-series, time does not seem to exist as something to be outside of. Every moment in past, present and future don't exist to be experienced. If there’s only one time which goes steadily in one direction, there doesn’t seem to be anything to be outside of, nor does it seem to threaten God’s sovereignty for Him to be in time.

I think however there are more theological problems than philosophical problems:

(1) If God experiences every moment as if it is the present, then there is no distinguishing the actual present from every other moment in time. In other words, how does God know what time it is?

(2) If God experiences every moment as if it is the present, then when the Kingdom is full and complete on Earth, God would still experience the entire history of the fallen world and the pain and the sin and brokenness and suffering of the world would be forever experienced by God. Even if the Kingdom comes (and in fact to God has already come), He would never be at rest, His purposes would never be accomplished and He will never truly have His victory because he would still experience the broken world.

(3) Does this mean we can pray for people of the past such as my aunt who died of cancer before I was born and St. Paul in his ministry? If God sees and experiences every moment as if it is the present, He would seemingly be able to intervene in the past just as easily as in the present and future. Could I pray for my mom’s relationship before she met my dad and thus I would never be born to make that prayer?

(4) God does not seem capable of intervention at all, however, if this is the case. If God sees time as this four-dimensional block in which all of time has unfolded, then everything that is going to happen has already been seen and known to God. Let’s say God sees a gust of wind push Jeff's papers into the street and Jeff runs into the street to get hit by a truck and die. Now let's say God wanted to intervene and prevent the papers from going into the street, thereby saving Jeff's life. This would be a case in which God saw and thus knew in His omniscience and foreknowledge that Jeff would get hit by a truck. And then God made it so that wouldn’t happen. Thus God’s foreknowledge would have been demonstrated as wrong. Or He sees Jeff die of cancer on Saturday and cures it instead. Jeff's unlucky.

(5) God being in time seems most consistent with the most obvious reading of the Bible, specifically the Old Testament, in which God seems to engage in temporal processes and be in time with His Creation (e.g. conversations with biblical characters, Divine actions which take time to come to be, future conditional prophesies, etc.

(6) It seems deterministic that God would have already seen an event in the future happen, it would follow that that event must occur. Where molinists say God knows what someone will do, given such and such, not that it has already happened thereby preserving a sense of free will. However, if God is outside of time, the future is just as determined as the past is. We can no more choose our future actions as we can retrospectively choose to have done something in the past.

God and Time, Part III

Can God be in Time at all?

So is there a non-essential relation God cannot have? Well, God cannot have relations which contradict his nature. For example. God cannot be dumber than Jeff, even if this is a contingent relation, because God’s nature includes omniscience. Is this the case with saying “God is temporal?” It seems, unless we presuppose God being timeless which would be begging the question, there is nothing obvious in God’s nature that contradicts that claim. So the question is “is God subject to time?” The argument goes (1) If God is temporal, God is subject to Time (2) God is not subject to anything, rather all things are subject to God, (3) Therefore, God is not temporal (from 1 and 2). I don’t think premise (2) is obvious though. We seem to have a bad connotation but if God willingly subjects Himself to something it doesn’t seem problematic for God to be subject to something. Because we can still maintain time is contingent upon God and that God created time and could have chosen not to. Being a bachelor, is it right to say that I am subject to bachelor-ness? I ‘spose but that does not seem to threaten my autonomy. Its just an observation. All things that are entailed for a bachelor are necessarily the case about me (e.g. I am not married to Emma Watson, Taylor Swift, etc.) But I could possibly (maybe not plausibly) get married to Taylor Swift, or get married to anyone and no longer be a bachelor. So am I subject to it? It depends on the way we use it. So I don’t think it’s a problem to say God is temporal. Now, let’s say I get married and include in the definition of marriage that divorce is not a real thing but I’m forever bound to Taylor Swift. “Married” is still not a necessary quality of me. Because I was still me before I got married, even if getting married is an irrevocable decision. And I freely chose to marry Taylor Swift. So, a great question is “Did God make an irrevocable decision when He entered into time?” I don’t personally know. W.L. Craig says yes because God if God would have to enter timelessness again, He would have to refer to the time in which He was temporal in the past tense which is impossible to refer to God’s past if God is timeless. And God freely chose to enter into time so it’s not obviously problematic.

God and Time, Part II

Can God be Necessarily in Time?

So the first question we need to ask is, is it the case that God cannot be in time, or that He simply chooses to be outside of time but very well could have chosen to be inside of time. I will address the question of "Can God be in time" rather than "Is God in time?" Is there something about God's nature that means He cannot be in time? The same way we cannot say God is dumber than someone, because it contradicts the part of God's nature that says He is omniscient. Saying God is in time doesn't seem as obviously problematic as saying God is dumber than someone. Particularly, because it seems the Christian already have an example of God being in time. Namely, the incarnation, God becoming of flesh in Christ Jesus. Because if Jesus is God and Jesus, at the very least, was in time, or temporal, then there doesn’t seem to be anything logically incoherent about any person of the Trinity being temporal. We could say that this is the case for Jesus, but not of the Father. The Father is necessarily outside of time but not Jesus. This would seem difficult to hold but perhaps this is part of the mystery of the Trinity. Does the Father being in time pose a threat to His sovereignty? I feel there are two ways to interpret that question: If God is temporal, (1) Time is a necessary condition for God to exist (a necessary condition would be like enrolling in a class is a necessary condition for getting an A in said class, however it’s not sufficient for getting an A) (God is that which has no necessary condition but is the necessary condition for everything that exists [Ex. 3:14, Col. 1:17]) or (2) God is subject to time. If it’s the first one, I would object to the first premise. When we say that God is temporal, first, we mean this not as a property but as a relation. Namely a relation to time, God being “in” time. Are there relations which are inappropriate when applied to God? It seems inappropriate if we are saying God could not exist without the existence of a relation. In other words, any relation God holds necessarily. Even if God was necessarily smarter than Jeff, this would be problematic because this relation requires Jeff to exist. So if God was necessarily temporal, this would mean that time is necessary for God to exist. However, my view is that God is not necessarily in time. It is that God is in no way contingent upon time, rather He “was” timeless and chose to enter into time. So this is why its important to distinguish between two particular kinds of “is.” There are five, but the two relevant definitions of “is” are an “is of essential predication” and an “is of accidental (non-essential) predication.” An example of the first is “Socrates is human,” because if he was stripped of his human-ness he would no longer be Socrates. An example of “accidental predication” is “Socrates is wise.” Before Socrates was wise, he was still Socrates and if Socrates stopped being wise, he would still be Socrates. When we say “God is temporal” we are using an “is of accidental predication.” If God was not temporal, he would still be God because I believe He was atemporal and still was God.

God and Time, Part I

Introduction:

Is God temporal? What does it even mean to say God is "outside of time?" Does time exist as something be outside of? What does it mean to say God is "inside time?" Does this threaten God's sovereignty if we are to say He is inside time? These are great questions. I will be investigating and defending the view that God is in time. Although this is contrary to popular belief. It is far from considered a fringe view or even that controversial.

The belief that God is temporal is not usually that God has always been temporal. It is that before the universe began there was no time. When God created the universe, He created all of matter, energy, space and time. So before creation (if we can say before), God was timeless, atemporal. So the belief is that God, upon His decision to create the universe, entered into time. There are people who believe God has always been temporal. This is not the view I will be defending.

This view is not exclusively, or even primarily an open theist view. Generally Arminians will accept this view. Specifically Molinists. The divisive issue between open theists and Molinists has nothing to do with God or His relation to time, but rather about the nature of time itself. The Molinist believes God can foreknow your actions and free will can be preserved through this idea of "counterfactuals," and the open theist will argue any model of exhaustive divine foreknowledge, is incompatible with free will. Open theist will say that claims like "Joe will mow his lawn on Friday (what's called a future subjunctive contingent proposition)," is niether true nor false, but has no truth value. But both agree God is in time.

The three leading Christian philosophers alive today: Alvin Plantinga, William Lane Craig (who founded the Philosophical Society for the Study of Time), and JP Moreland, all happen to adopt this view. They all happen to be Molinists but adopt this view of God being in time and don't find it contrary to Christian tradition or threatening to God's sovereignty. So this will be a short, brief and accessible blog series on the topic.

Mormonism Part I: A Material God

1. If Mormonism is the case, then God is a material being with a material existence (Mormonism). 2. Any material existence occupies space (properly basic). 2A. Any material existence has dimension (length heighth width). These measure how much space a material object occupies. Therefore, the only way a material object occupies no space is if it has no dimensions (does not exist). Therefore, it is logically impossible to have a material existence that does not occupy space. Although it is logically possible to have space without a material existence. This means material existence is contingent upon space but space is not contingent upon material existence. 3. Therefore, space is a necessary condition for any material existence (from (2)). 4. Therefore, if Mormonism is the case, then space is a necessary condition for God (from (1) and (3)) 5. That which has a necessary condition, exists conditionally/ is contingent. 6. Therefore, if Mormonism is the case, God exists conditionally/ is contingent. 7. God is that which there is no necessary condition for (properly basic). 7A1. God is complete, self-sufficient, and necessary (Exodus 3:14) 7A2. God is the necessary condition for all things (Col. 1:17). 7A3. Therefore, there is no necessary condition for God to exist (from (7A1) and (7A2)). 7B1. God is the creator/cause of all things (Genesis 1:1-2). 7B2. If X is the cause of Y, then X cannot be contingent upon Y (properly basic). 7B3. Therefore, God, being the cause of all things cannot be contingent upon any given thing (from (7B1) and (7B2)). 8. Therefore, God cannot exist conditionally/ be a contingent being. 9. If God were a material being, He would exist conditionally/ be a contingent being (from 1-6) 10. God is not a material being (from (8) and (9)). 11. If Mormonism is the case, God is a material being. 12. God is not a material being (from (10)) 13. Therefore, at least one claim in Mormonism is not the case.

A Philosophical Intervention

George: Jeff, we are gathered here because we care. I don't know how to confront you about this but we think you might be believing in an infinite regress. Jeff: What? You don't know what your talking about. George: Jeff, we saw what you wrote your room last night. About a system of beliefs not needing any axiom or foundation. Jeff: Well, what's wrong with an infinite regress, huh! George: It's groundless, it's empty, Jeff, you know that! Jeff: It's not empty. It's beautiful. Everything is validated by everything else. George: It's worse than we thought. You believe in a coherence theory. Jeff: Yes, it's true. And I'm not ashamed. George: Jeff! You know that just one big circular argument! Jeff: I don't care! It's what I believe and you can't tell me different! George: Jeff! Don't care. We only say this because we care!

Why I'm a hugger

I like to hug. This is true. The reason is because Paul concludes many of his letters with "greet each other with a holy kiss [Romans 16:16, 2 Corinthians 13:12]." Now culturally, we do not kiss each other anymore, but what the early Christians did was greet each other with a hug and kiss. What they believed is that, as they did this, they shared in the Holy Spirit. That this kiss is an expression of their sealed identity as brothers in Christ through the Holy Spirit and in expressing it, shared in the Spirit together. This is why some more traditional churches like the Catholic Church and the Anglican church still hug during services in the commissioning of peace upon each other's spirits. They say "peace be upon you." This is from this tradition from the early Christians of in hugging sharing in the Spirit and praying the peace of His Spirit come upon each other. This is how I take hugs to be. A hug to me means we are family. It means that even greater than family by our blood, greater than brothers by flesh, we are brother by the blood shed and flesh torn of Christ, destinies bound together by the Spirit as we share the same Spirit by a hug. And it is wishing the presence of the Spirit come in that expression of Love by the Spirit.

moonsmilk

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