By Means of Threat:
Mysticism and the Transmission of Ideas
Introduction
The impact of the primacy of consciousness in metaphysics on philosophy as a whole does not end with its destruction of epistemology, but has grave implications for morality and politics, and virtually every area of human endeavor as well. The issues of morality and politics as conceived on the basis of the primacy of consciousness metaphysics and mystical epistemology have already been addressed to a great degree. [
1] But here I would like to examine an aspect of human relationship which is subject to the influence of metaphysical and epistemological assumptions and which in turn has shaped the course of human history. That aspect is: the means by which ideas are spread among men. Specifically, I intend to explore the philosophical roots of the use of force which are integral to religion and to show why the use of force is the proper expression of religious ideas when taken seriously and practiced consistently.
Knowledge and Reason
It should be clear that religious beliefs cannot be established as "truth" on the basis of reason as Objectivism conceives of it. Objectivism holds that "reason is the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses" [
2], and that man's reason, so conceived, is "his only tool of knowledge" [3]. Religious thinkers are quick to point out that their beliefs are not based on a view of knowledge which holds that reason is man's only means of attaining and validating that knowledge. In place of reason (many religious people like to think in tandem with reason), religion endorses faith, which is Robinson has described as "the determination that there is a god no matter what the evidence may be" [4], and is thus essentially the affirmation that something is true because one wants it to be true. [5]When one asserts a faith claim and expects others to accept it as knowledge of reality, what does he have to back it up? What tangible support or reference to reality - if any - does he have to validate his claims? In the case of simple empirical claims (as opposed to faith claims), the solution is rather simple. For instance, one can assert the claim "My car got rear-ended at the grocery store today!" and point to the dent in the trunk to prove that an accident had occurred.
But what about claims which are not verifiable by reviewing the perceptually available facts of reality? One cannot look at a car's dented trunk and determine from this alone that it was rear-ended in the parking lot of a grocery store. Without more firsthand knowledge, one could reasonably entertain the possibility that it could have happened in the parking lot of a motel, or while backing out of the driveway of someone's home, etc. There is simply not enough data available in the immediately perceptible facts to make such a determination. Obviously, in such a case, there is a broad context of details which must be integrated by a process of reasoning from the perceptually available facts in order to establish certain conclusions. "The method which reason employs in this process," Rand explains, "is logic - and logic is the art of non-contradictory identification." [
6] And in logic we have the science of inference and formal proof, which is the conceptual tie from that which is not perceptually self-evident to that which is perceptually self-evident.The process of supporting and validating claims becomes even more complex when they are more abstract, such as we find in philosophy. The context informing the point of our reference becomes broader, and the order of our reasoning can be obscured or even derailed by a failure to observe logical relationships and clarify essential points.
The epistemology of reason takes into account a number of incontestable facts, such as the facts that man is not omniscient and that he needs a means of discovering the facts of reality which inform the content of his knowledge and of validating them through a process of logic; that his consciousness is valid, that it has an objective nature (i.e., an identity) and consequently that knowledge has an objective, hierarchical nature (new knowledge builds on and depends on previously validated knowledge), and that the means of discovering and validating knowledge also has identity (e.g., reason is distinct from wishing and from the claim that we "just know"); that the hierarchical structure of knowledge necessitates a valid starting point; that there are certain errors of cognition or logical fallacies, such as stolen concepts, package-deals, false dichotomies, weak analogies, etc., against which one must guard his knowledge, and so on. It also assumes that man is capable of discovering and validating knowledge on his own, which is an assumption which mystics are not willing to grant.
Faith as Anti-Rational
In the case of so-called "revealed" religion, such as Christianity, we encounter a long series of faith claims, claims which find their basis in so-called revelations, alleged truths which are not accessible to man without supernatural aid or divine intervention. The supposition that the content and origin of one's claims are inaccessible to men by virtue of their alleged source undermines or ignores many of the points which the epistemology of reason must take into account. Indeed, those who assert faith claims are often explicit about the unreasonableness of their approach to knowledge.
Of course, the most explicit example of this which comes to mind is found in antiquity, when the early church father Tertullian wrote of the resurrection of Jesus, "I believe because it is absurd… it is to be believed because it is impossible" (De Carne Christi). Many Christians, reacting against the obvious embarrassment such a statement should cause for them, have stated that Tertullian meant for his statement to be ironic, an application of Aristotelian reasoning principles [
7], or a statement made on the assumption that the gospel story is beyond human ingenuity. For instance, Tim Garrett, in his essay Faith and Reason: Friends or Foes?, makes the following case:The major emphasis in [Tertullian's] writings was to contrast the coherence of Christianity with the inconsistency of his heretical opponents. When he does speak of the absurdity of Christian belief, he is actually referring to the unlikelihood that any human mind could conceive of God's redemptive plan. Like C. S. Lewis, he was convinced of the truth of the gospel by the very fact that no human being could possibly concoct such a story as is presented in Scripture.
This presumed impossibility of inventing a story such as the gospel story, Garrett says, was for Tertullian "compelling evidence that the gospel is true!" But of course, human beings are capable of tremendous imagination, and it is certainly possible that some could dream up the story line we find in the New Testament and weave them into a larger, fictional whole. To be sure, the claim that it would be more absurd to conclude that the gospel story is a product of legendary fabrication than to accept it as true, is itself absurd.
However, not all Christians are so frank in their renunciation of reason. Since the days of the Enlightenment when "when mankind was emerging from centuries of ignorance into a new age enlightened by reason, science, and respect for humanity," thus putting religion on the retreat [
8], defenders of the Christian faith have attempted to put distance between their reasons for believing and blatant admissions like Tertullian's. Instead, apologists make their rejection of reason as man's only tool of knowledge more implicit, suggesting that "Reason can never cease to be the handmaid of faith" [9], that "[h]uman reasoning is not suited to be the ultimate criterion of truth and falsity," and therefore the Christian is to prefer "reasoning which is itself subject to the Word of God." [10] All such attempts to weld reason together with faith constitute a lethal compromise which can only result in the renouncement of reason. [11]Undoubtedly, there are notions integral to religious philosophy which are antithetical to reason. For instance, The New Unger's Bible Dictionary defines 'revelation' as a "term expressive of the fact that God has made known to men truths and realities that men could not discover for themselves." [
12] Never mind the question to whom these alleged truths have been "revealed" [13] or the fact that the concept 'reality' should never be multiplied beyond necessity [14], the idea that some should claim as knowledge that which has been removed from the applicability of reason itself is a dead giveaway of the nature of the religious mindset. Since men could not discover these alleged "truths" apart from the intervention of the supernatural, the theologian's knowledge of these "truths" is itself treated as evidence of the supernatural.According to this notion of 'revelation', the assertion of knowledge allegedly 'revealed' to believers by the ruling consciousness is the claim to knowledge that is not available to those who are not chosen to receive it. In addition to suggesting that whoever receives the 'revealed' knowledge does so according to God's whim (prior to his conversion, for instance, Paul was a well-schooled and notorious persecuter of Christians), this also suggests the view that one's consciousness passively receives its content from some external source, some source which is, to boot, imperceptible to man's senses. In other words, the discovery and validation of knowledge is not the result of an active process on man's part (as it is in the case of reason), but an unearned acquisition bestowed upon the chosen few by the supernatural.
The online
New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia is a bit less stringent than Unger's. For while it agrees with the latter when it defines 'revelation' as "the communication of some truth by God to a rational creature through means which are beyond the ordinary course of nature," a "communication" which "may be such as are otherwise inaccessible to the human mind -- mysteries, which even when revealed, the intellect of man is incapable of fully penetrating," the Catholic Encyclopedia also states that revelation "is not restricted to these." Indeed, says the Catholic Encyclopedia, "God may see fit to employ supernatural means to affirm truths, the discovery of which is not per se beyond the powers of reason." [15] Claims such as this give men license to make virtually any claim one wishes and expects others to accept as divinely inspired knowledge. Reason need not apply.As this Catholic source explicitly endorses, the "essence of Revelation lies in the fact that it is the direct speech of God to man." Though this means that "knowledge" allegedly acquired by 'revelation' is essentially hearsay unless one receives it as firsthand speech from "God to man" [
16], this does not inhibit today's Christians from pointing to the books of the Bible (and often to the words of their preferred mentors) as objects of 'revelation'.The essential problem here is that those who assert faith claims cannot appeal consistently to reason to support their claims (and what good is our reasoning if our reliance on it is not consistent?). Even according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, which may be seen as attempting to distance itself from or to compromise definitions like those provided by Unger's in order to allow for at least some human means of validation, the appeal to reason in order to validate such claims cannot be consistent. If one's reason were sufficient to establish the truth alleged by faith claims, then such claims could not claim the "benefit" of revelation, nor would one need the pretense of revelation in order to establish them.
Force as the Ultimate Alternative to Reason
This then underscores a fundamental question which demands an answer: By what means are faith claims to be established and validated? Or, how is one who is in possession of 'revealed truths' supposed to convince others of his claim?
Here enters force, the "Augustinian solution" according to historian Paul Johnson [
17], the resort to might which has so consistently proven itself to be the final arbiter of "religious truth" throughout history that it should earn such an apt title. And since "religious truth" is allegedly knowledge that is revealed by the supernatural, it is the case with such allegations that they cannot be established through a process of reason, as indicated by the Christian sources cited above.What then does that leave for the mystics to validate their claim to such knowledge? What else is there other than to point to some alleged consequence for not accepting the mystics' claims as knowledge? Rand pointed out that "There are only two means by which men can deal with one another: guns or logic. Force or persuasion. Those who know that they cannot win by means of logic, have always resorted to guns." [
18] This is certainly true: men can choose to deal with each other rationally (and therefore peaceably), or irrationally (and therefore coercively). And when one embraces faith, he does so at the expense of reason. The resort to force (either physical or psychological [19], by coercion or by fraud) follows as a natural corollary: faith claims ultimately require the threat, either implicit or explicit, and/or the actual implementation of the use of force as a substitute for validation and proof (since what they claim is a substitute for knowledge of reality). This is precisely why the church has historically resorted to censorship, seizure of property, banishment, torture, execution and even mass genocide in their attempts to take the gospel to the world.Apologists, aware of the unpersuasive nature of such exclamations as "you just know" or what amounts to "it's true because we say it's true" as a means of defending their god-belief claims, are constantly trying to repackage them in new garb, pregnant with inkhorn terminology and profound-sounding arguments. Sadly, those attempts to defend their god-beliefs boil down to claims with no tie to reality, claims devoted to their package-deals, concept-stealing premises and the primacy of consciousness view of reality. In the end, it all comes back down to the same mantra that has characterized Christian orthodoxy since its earliest foundations: Believe, or go to hell.
Taken seriously, threats not only compel what believers accept in the place of knowledge, but also compel their actions and choices as a consequence, and thus have a dramatic influence on morality. As Frame puts it, "to think about the Word is to bring ourselves more consciously under its threats and promises." [
20] The Bible's emphasis on the "virtue of obedience" is indisputable. [21] But, as we found in our examination of the effects of the primacy of consciousness on the Christian view of knowledge [22], this obedience is not obedience to the facts of reality [23], but to the whims of the ruling consciousness, i.e., of God. As one pastor once said while I was attending a service one day years ago, "If God tells me to walk through a wall, then I will walk through the wall just as God wants me to" (paraphrased). With a commitment to mysticism such as this, the facts of reality can only be irrelevant at best.As a net result, threats ultimately amount to the attempt to replace the believer's will with that belonging to someone else: "…nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt," said Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:39 and parallel passages). Threats are the means of attempting to condition another's mind by the means of psychological force: coercion, intimidation, and fraudulent rewards dangled before the hungry as carrots to instill the proper motivations. To accept the dictates of others as superior to one's own volition and reason is to negate one's volition and reason, essentially to spite oneself. "Whosoever will come after me," Jesus says in Mark 8:34, "let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." It is not the persuasion of reason which compels such self-negation, but one's reaction to arbitrary fears and unearned guilt which reside at the foundation of Christian "knowledge."
Those who assert their claims on the basis of faith are often acutely sensitive to disagreement and dissent. To disagree with a mystic's faith claim is to call the supposed authority of the one authoring that claim, and the character of those who affirm it, into serious question. Such questioning is to be squelched and stigmatized, at first by condemnation as a form of heresy, and second as a transgression warranting punishment. But the goal is clear: to compel others to obey and to rule them. Chains and shackles can control men's bodies, but they cannot break an independent man's mind. But faith can enslave entire nations, since ultimately faith leads to the use of force, not to the open embrace of reason and liberty. As Rand so accurately noted:
A mystic craves obedience from men, not their agreement. He wants them to surrender their consciousness to his assertions, his edicts, his wishes, his whims - as his consciousness is surrendered to theirs. He wants to deal with men by means of faith and force - he find no satisfaction in their consent if he must earn it by means of fats and reason. [24]
The Built-in Appeal to Force in Evangelism
Few if any Christian believers themselves recognize the truly violent implications of their religious philosophy. They are camouflaged under the debris of enticing platitudes and catchy maxims which conceal the Orwellian nightmare of dichotomies and double meanings lurking beneath. The pious sentiments cloaking these implications are so unquestionably accepted as genuine that they escape the notice of many non-believers as well. It is so commonly taken for granted that religious philosophy in general is sincerely peaceful and well-intended in nature, that to say otherwise will only bring one surprised looks or personal invective in response.
In regard to the irreconcilable antithesis between Christian belief and non-belief, one apologist conceded this telling statement: "Because the issues we discuss place us in such diametric opposition, it is unlikely we will reach consensus on core questions (apart from the regenerating grace of God, of course!)." [25]
Notice the author's parenthetic qualification to his recognition that Christians and non-believers are not likely to "reach consensus on core questions." The author thinks that "consensus on core questions" is not likely without the intervention of the supernatural.
This suggests the two following points:
Ayn Rand pointed out the fact that reason is volitional in nature: man must use reason by choice, he must choose to employ reason if he is to use reason in the effort to validate knowledge and direct his own subsequent choices and actions. Rand made this point explicitly clear:
…to think is an act of choice. The key to what you recklessly call "human nature," the open secret you live with, yet dread to name, is the fact that man is a being of volitional consciousness. Reason does not work automatically; thinking is not a mechanical process; the connections of logic are not made by instinct. The function of your stomach, lungs or heart is automatic; the function of your mind is not. In any hour and issue of your life, you are free to think or to evade that effort. But you are not free to escape from your nature, from the fact that reason is your means of survival - so that for you, who are a human being, the question "to be or not to be" is the question "to think or not to think." [26]
However, as indicated in the New Testament quotations attributed to Jesus which I cited above, the believer is supposed to deny himself and surrender his will, without which he cannot reason in the first place.
By asserting that "consensus on core questions" is unlikely between believers and non-believers "apart from the regenerating grace of God," the apologist implicitly denies the fact that the validation and acceptance of knowledge is a volitional action by suggesting that some external, irresistible influence - i.e., some means of force - must intervene in the unbeliever's mind in order to replace "unbelieving presuppositions" with "believing presuppositions," a change in one's fundamental premises which, the apologist essentially concedes - albeit unwittingly no doubt, reason will not achieve. Many apologists, particularly those nursed on some form of Calvinism, are adamant about the position that argument alone is insufficient to convince believers of the alleged truths of their god-belief programs.
This means that belief, according to this view, can only come about apart from the consent of the convert, since it requires some outside agent ("the regenerating grace of God") to effect it. Belief then does not come from a voluntary review of relevant facts (or what are postured as factual elements), and from this drawing a logical conclusion providing valid content to that belief. If it were allowed that the believer had the final say in determining what he accepts as knowledge (as would be the case if the believer's own volition were instrumental in his acceptance of the beliefs in question), this would undermine the dogma that only God does the saving, that God holds insuperable authoritative sovereignty over man and over the question of whom He will save and why. [27] Given these fatalistic implications of god-belief as such, the believer cannot be allowed to have control (or think that he has control) over his spiritual life, since this would usurp God's authority, omniscience and omnipotence, doctrines which must be preserved at all costs. In other words, it would stifle the believer's obedience.
Not only are such ideas completely arbitrary (since they have no objective reference to reality) and dangerous (since they only work against man's reason, which he needs in order to live), they are also self-protecting when those immersed in the labyrinthine mind-game of the evangelistic devotional program appeal to such ideas as explanatory means for real-life situations. A believer may claim that he did not "come into the saving knowledge of God" by his own means, but by means of "God's grace," or any other euphemism for the initiation of the mind-overriding force which believers claim God uses to effect their belief. That the believer is to perceive himself as "chosen" by God indicates that he does not deny volition when it comes to the deity which he imagines; instead, he simply denies this power of consciousness to himself. Thus, volition is appropriate for a being which could never require its use (since God is perfect and indestructible, it could neither need anything nor need to act in order to achieve some goal [28]), but inappropriate for himself, a being which cannot live without it.
To complement this disjunction, the believer is taught to think that a non-believer is a non-believer, not by virtue of the his ability to reason and recognize the irrationality of god-belief (which undoubtedly may be the case with some non-believers), but by virtue of God's withholding of the "regenerative grace" which "saving faith" is said to require (i.e., God has chosen not to forcibly interfere in the mind of the non-believer). So no matter what situation the believer encounters, the arbitrary avails itself as a means of mothballing the believer's mind in its captivating grip and spurning all criticism of the believer's god-beliefs, typically by inverting it.
Much of this mental distortion is internal, imperceptible to non-believers who may otherwise be persuaded by the believer's euphoric gaze and soft-spoken approach. Cohen describes this process in the following statement:
Toward other persons who bring anything but the biblical teaching, the believer is to remember privately teachings ridiculing them, while outwardly evincing endless patience and self-restraint. To be sure, the believer rationalizes that contempt, reminding himself that he is not to judge the unbeliever, whose heart only God can know and whose destiny, to salvation or eternal punishment, is God's business alone. Toward the natural environment, the biblical teaching amounts to an all-encompassing, nondisprovable hypothesis. Whatever happens, that it does proves it is God's will. [29]
Contrary to the apologist's claim that "consensus on core questions" is unlikely "apart from the regenerating grace of God," such consensus is possible if the believer recognizes that his god-beliefs commit him to an open rejection of reason, and chooses to reorient his epistemological focus to an open embrace of reason. [
30] The consistent use of and reliance on reason will not validate god-belief. This verdict is certain given the metaphysical primacy of existence - the foundation of reason itself, which is contradicted by the primacy of consciousness, a presumption vital to god-belief.Additionally, by implying that belief in God is unlikely or impossible "apart from the regenerative grace of God," the believer is admitting that reason is impotent in such matters: one cannot believe on the merits of provable assertions and volitionally accepted inference to rational conclusions, but must be subject to some force which intervenes in one's mind and effects belief by means of an irresistible overriding of one's mental self-conduct, a force which the believer says is divine in nature. What clearer confession could we have on the part of the apologist that his god-beliefs cannot be rationally validated? Of course, this is necessarily the case for the believer himself, since he has relinquished his mind - and consequently his reason - to accepting an arbitrary set of unintegrated notions in the place of valid of knowledge of reality.
But just because the believer's ability to reason is impaired by subjective ideas (principally the idea that reality is dependent on a form of consciousness, which is the essential idea behind god-belief), it does not follow that reason as such is impotent (particularly if one's reasoning proceeds from objective foundations), or that the reasoning ability of non-believers must be similarly impaired by virtue of their non-belief. Nor does the believer's claim that belief must be effected by some means of an externally originating force constitute a valid reason to evade the responsibility of cognition, for there is no such thing as a valid evasion from the responsibility of rational thought. Contrary to the believer's self-negating position, we can, through a consistent use of reason, determine that god-belief is invalid, contrary to the apologist's position that one must have faith in the supernatural in order for his use of reason to be valid. [
31]Some apologists are unwittingly more explicit in their advocacy of using force in their attempts to coax non-believers into their mire of religious convictions. For instance, after distinguishing between two types of atheism, referring to them as "offensive" and "defensive" respectively and considering the latter to be a "more moderate type of atheism" and perhaps therefore more amenable (or vulnerable?) to aggressive evangelism, apologist Kenneth R. Samples advises his sympathetic readers that the "Christian should force the defensive atheist to show just how his (or her) atheism differs from agnosticism." [
32]Exactly what means does Mr. Samples have in mind when he exhorts that the "Christian should force the… atheist…." to do anything? And by what right? Naturally, we can reasonably (or at least hopefully) expect that Mr. Samples does not intend this to mean that Christian proselytizers should pull out a gun and hold it to the heads of atheists resisting the Christian's attempts to evangelize him, even though the appeal to compulsion as a means of effecting believe is not without precedent or dogmatic backing, as we have seen above. Moreover, nowhere does the Bible prohibit or condemn the initiation of the use of force, either physical or psychological, which is no careless oversight. And here Mr. Samples, true to his nature as a mystic, seems to think that some means of compulsion is appropriate here. Thus, if not by some means of violent force, perhaps Mr. Samples intends this to imply some means of intimidation - perhaps by constant badgering, threats of unbearable misfortune in life or eternal punishment upon death, or, among academics, by trying to corner unprepared thinkers into tight "logical binds" (typically false dichotomies) which are claimed to necessarily inhabit atheistic worldviews, or by refusing to grant the non-believer's definitions and valid inferences, etc. Such approaches typically characterize the evangelism of many apologists whom I have personally encountered.
Given the apologist's own declared presumptions, we see now precisely why the appeal to force is implicit in or "built-into" the foundations of god-belief. Since those foundations are anti-rational (and thus cannot be established by a consistent use of reason), those who assert god-beliefs ultimately have no recourse but to appeal to force, coercion or psychological intimidation on some level and at some point, as Mr. Samples does, in order to offer a defense of their position.
This of course puts the religious position in a fundamental quandary for the believer's overall position which is rooted in an internal contradiction: while man's volition is explicitly rejected in accepting god-beliefs as truth (since "consensus on core questions" is not likely "apart from the regenerating grace of God"), it is implicitly affirmed by the apologist's resort to threats. How often and in how many ways do we hear the basic threat "Believe, or go to hell" expressed in evangelistic sermonizing and proselytizing literature? But the call to "get right before God" itself assumes that man has the option to accept this "call" or to reject it, and the very notion of an option necessarily implies volition. Thus, the apologist's own positions lead him to a performative inconsistency: what is rejected in one instance is presumed or implied in a parallel instance, and euphemism provides the necessary camouflage. It would be so much more beneficial for men simply to recognize that the arbitrary is invalid and to reject god-belief schemes altogether, and to learn to rely on reason in order to live and enjoy life, rather than bewail life as if it were a "veil of tears."
The Lessons of Abraham and Isaac
Working in believers a disposition towards unquestioning obedience which knows virtually no limits whatsoever, is one of the primary goals of the biblical god-belief program. Take for instance the story of Abraham and his son Isaac, a story taken seriously in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In the 22nd chapter of Genesis, we find the Bible's God commanding a father to prepare his own son as a burnt offering to Him. Instead of questioning why an omnipotent, universe-creating deity would require such an unspeakably horrid act or how it could be pleased by it, believers will quickly point out that God made a way out for Abraham and Isaac by providing the ram as a substitute for the child in Gen. 22:13, thus modeling evasion as an approved means of dealing with difficulty or dilemma. They typically claim that the primary lesson of this story is that their God is a God of providence, that He will supply the means by which those faithful to Him can overcome difficult situations and choices in life.
Certainly, a valid case may be constructed that this is one of the lessons which this story exemplifies; to be sure, that this is a potential lesson of this story is not under dispute. However, believers should pause before assuming full confidence that there will always be a way out when facing problems resulting from obedience to such commandments. After all, in the more developed myth of Jesus' sacrifice, no ram in the thicket was offered, and the son was this time put to death, unlike the case we see in the episode of Abraham and his son Isaac.
But to claim that the lesson of providence is the primary focus of the story of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac is erroneous since it overlooks two very important points modeled by the story:
Had the authors intended primarily to exemplify God's providential magnanimity to his worshippers, as many believers have often claimed, they did not need to portray a man accepting the divine commandment to slaughter his own son and willingly taking action in order to obey that command. For instance, God could have warned Abraham against the evils of blind obedience to arbitrary claims. The virtues of God's alleged providence are meaningless and unnecessary without the believer's unquestioning obedience to His arbitrary commandments. Had Abraham defied this commandment as he should have, he would have had no need for a ram caught in the thicket by his horns in the first place.
Believers may also claim that the commandment that Abraham sacrifice his son was a means of "testing" Abraham's character, though the text nowhere explicitly states this. But why this would be necessary for God to do is usually left unstated, and for good reason. For if God created Abraham, and God is perfect in his doings, omnipotent (thus able only to create perfection) and omniscient (thus having full knowledge of Abraham's character and choices), why would God need to test Abraham? Believers may say that engineers need to test their inventions to make certain they function as intended. But engineers do not claim to be omniscient, omnipotent or infallible, so such analogies evade a fundamental point.
In the story of Abraham and Isaac, Abraham is at no time recorded as even slightly wincing at God's commandment to prepare his own son for slaughter. In Gen. 22:2, God gives Abraham His commandment to take Isaac to the land of Moriah "and offer him there for a burnt offering." In the next verse, we have Abraham rising "early in the morning" and setting off with his son Isaac and some "young men with him" (does Abraham anticipate needing assistance?), just as he had been commanded. Instead of trying to reason with God in the effort to change God's mind and to protect his values (Gen. 22:2 specifically mentions that Abraham loves his son Isaac), Abraham seems enthusiastic (he "rose up early in the morning") as if he can't wait to take Isaac to his slaughter. Furthermore, Isaac is not portrayed as knowing what is going on, so apparently it is okay to keep one's intended victims uninformed so long as it is done in accordance with God's commandments.
Believers of course will say that men should love God more than anything, apparently even more than their own dignity and honor as human beings. [
34] This only serves to strengthen the point that the primary lesson in the story of Abraham and Isaac is to demonstrate that believers should be willing to kill for God, even though Abraham's obedience would cause him to disobey God's commandment "Thou shalt not kill" (Ex. 20:13). Believers are not to consider God's commandments as negotiable, even if those commandments are in conflict with each other. God's commands, regardless of how arbitrary they are (that an immortal, indestructible and omnipotent being should require a faithful believer to present his son as a burnt offering is indeed arbitrary!), are to be followed unquestioningly. And that is precisely what the story of Abraham and Isaac demonstrates. This conclusion is doubly confirmed by instances in the New Testament which specifically commend Abraham's unquestioning obedience. [35]The detail about Abraham discovering the ram "caught in the thicket by his horns" (Gen. 22:13) serves as a palliative digression from the primary focus of the story. It allows believers to downplay the importance of the story's example that they should be willing to kill for their beliefs, and emphasize the virtues of God's providential nature in its place as the story's primary moral lesson ("See! God is good! He wouldn't really expect His servants to kill!"). But this evades the question: Why should one be willing to kill his own son? Per the Bible, the only answer can be: to please God - i.e., to entertain the ruling consciousness. While believers may be stumped in their efforts to provide any legitimate reason why their willingness to kill in order to please God should be in order (or why one should be concerned about pleasing God in the first place), most are satisfied with proximal evasions such as, "Well, we may never know what makes sense to God, that's why He's God and we're His servants!" In other words, the believer has no reason to be willing to kill for his alleged God's pleasure. Apparently reason is the farthest thing from his mind on such matters. And the rest - 2000 years of torture, blood and mayhem - is history.
And now we must ask the question: What is to keep believers who are so disposed to such unquestioning obedience that they should become willing to kill others to please God, from being willing to kill in order to 'validate' the alleged truth of their faith claims? If the story of Abraham and Isaac exemplifies that believers should be willing to kill for their God - and indisputably it does exemplify this, then why shouldn't they also not be willing to kill for their god-belief as well? Believers might say that the sixth commandment "Thou shalt not kill" (Ex. 20:13) will prevent them from killing, since they do not want to fall under the judgment of sin for their actions. But if the forgiveness of sin can be had for the asking, as I John 1:9 tells us, what is to keep the believer from rationalizing heinous actions against others, and justifying it on the Bible's own models?
The bloody history recorded in the Old Testament and that of the Catholic Church since its inception in its many wars against perceived (or invented) heresies, are examples of the primacy of consciousness taken seriously and applied as consistently as reality will allow in the realm of human thought, practice and social relationship. [
36]
The Concessions of a Modern Day Apologist
In regard to the matter of Abraham's willingness to obey God's commandment to sacrifice his son, presuppositional apologist John M. Frame writes the following:
I admit that it is difficult to construe the psychology of such faith. How is it that people come to believe a Word from God which contradicts all their other normal means of knowledge? How did Abraham come to know that the voice calling him to sacrifice his son (Gen. 22:1-28; cf. Heb. 11:17-19; James 2:21-24) was the voice of God? What the voice told him to do was contrary to fatherly instincts, normal ethical considerations, and even, apparently, contrary to other Words of God (Gen. 9:6). But he obeyed the voice and was blessed. Closer to our own experience: how is it that people come to believe in Jesus even though they have not, like Thomas, seen Jesus' signs and wonders (John 20:29)? I cannot explain the psychology here to the satisfaction of many. In this case as in others (for we walk by faith, not by sight!) we may have to accept the fact even without an explanation of the fact. Somehow, God manages to get his Word across to us, despite the logical and psychological barriers. Without explaining how it works, Scripture describes in various ways a "supernatural factor" in divine-human communication. (a) It speaks of the power of the Word. The Word created all things (Gen. 1:3, etc.; Ps. 33:3-6; John 1:3) and directs the course of nature and history (Pss. 46:6; 148:5-8). What God says will surely come to pass (Isa. 55:11; Gen. 18:14;9 Deut. 18:21ff.). The gospel is "the power of God unto salvation" (Rom. 1:16; cf. Isa. 6:9-10; Luke 7:7ff.; Heb. 4:12). (b) Scripture also speaks of the personal power of the Holy Spirit operating with the Word (John 3:5; 1 Cor. 2:4, 12ff.; 2 Cor. 3:15-18; 1 Thess. 1:5). Mysterious though the process may be, somehow God illumines the human mind to discern the divine source of the Word. We know without knowing how we know. [
Here Frame asks a number of topical questions which believers should demand to be answered, yet to which Frame himself offers no answers at all. When Frame asks "How is it that people come to believe a Word from God which contradicts all their normal means of knowledge?" he demonstrates cognizance of the fact that biblical doctrine and reason are incompatible. [
38] Yet in spite of this apparent awareness, it is noteworthy that he does not answer his own question. He moves on as if it were never asked, as if such a significant, fundamental contradiction were not an issue.Frame then asks "How did Abraham come to know that the voice calling him to sacrifice his son… was the voice of God?" Again, he gives no guidance on this. Apparently for Frame, one can presumably hear "any voice" and claim that it's God's. Apologists will claim that if that voice does not conform with the contents of the Bible, then it could not be God's. But this begs the question, for it assumes that one is in possession of some previously revealed, divinely inspired guide to discern such voices. If that is true, what did Abraham have before Zondervan's publishing house mass-produced Bibles for believers to make this determination? Blank out. Besides, much of the language of the Bible is so semantically loose, metaphorical and figurative in nature that one can pry virtually any interpretation from its pages and claim the Bible as support. (The hundreds upon hundreds of denominations which have sprung from disputes existing since Christian antiquity are at least in part a result of this interpretive malleability.) And if it is the case that "a Word from God" might be expected to contradict all of one's "normal means of knowledge" as Frame admits, then the apologist's advice is no good, for determining whether or not a voice heard in one's head conforms to the contents of the Bible would itself rely on one's reasoning (i.e., "normal means of knowledge"). And as we have already seen, that its contents are certainly not congruent with reason!
Frame admits that "What the voice told him to do was contrary to fatherly instincts, normal ethical considerations, and even, apparently, contrary to other words of God." But even though man does not have "instincts," Frame seems willing to reduce his hero Abraham, indeed all men, to the level of a subhuman animal by dignifying the notion that man's actions are guided by instinct instead of reason. With statements like this, apologists betray their fundamental ignorance of man's objective nature and his need for philosophy.
As for "normal ethical considerations," a notion which Frame nowhere clarifies, we should note: if ethics is a code of values, then yes, a voice telling Abraham to kill his son would definitely be contrary to Abraham's ethics, since we know from Gen. 22:2 specifically that Abraham loved his son very much (even though his actions do not agree with this). So we can certainly conclude that God's commandment was contrary to Abraham's own values. But did this stop Abraham? Indeed, according to his portrayal in the story, Abraham is nowhere shown even to flinch in his willingness to obey this voice, a voice which apologists like John Frame admittedly cannot explain how believers can determine to be that of God, but insist that they do nonetheless. He simply states "we may have to accept the fact even without an explanation of the fact," thus rendering such a position to arbitrary irreducibility by explicitly settling for ignorance on the matter. But why? Here Frame comes to a cognitive dead-end. Would apologists accept this kind of dead-end from secularists?
Frame claims that Abraham's obedience resulted in him being "blessed." Exactly what is it to be "blessed" if what was accomplished by Abraham's obedience was both a waste of his time as well as his willingness to waste his son, a primary value of his? Frame admits that, on his own assumptions, he "cannot explain the psychology here to the satisfaction of many." I submit that this is so because to do so would be to give away the game, which Frame does so effectively anyway. A religion which upholds examples such as Abraham's willingness to kill his own son as a model of obedience for modern-day believers can only be characterized as man-hating in nature. It is explicitly anti-reason, anti-value, anti-life. And to attempt to turn such vice into virtue is anti-reality. Believers who are satisfied with Frame's disgraceful and self-negating concession, that "we know without knowing how we know," abandon reason and thereby deny themselves the one tool by which to deal with reality as civilized human beings.
Faith and Salvation as Expressions of the Desire for Force in Calvinism
Romans 10:9 states: "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raise him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." This formula for salvation rests clearly on the believer's own volition, for otherwise, it would rest on force (as we saw above in one apologist's statement about consensus ultimately relying on "the regenerative grace of God"). One can only choose for himself what he will confess. Otherwise, what is confessed is surely not sincerely believed or accepted as truth, no matter how many times his knuckles are crushed. One can extract a "confession" from another by taking out his kneecaps or by pointing a gun to his head and threatening his life. But this does not make what is confessed true, nor does it make the confessor believe it to be true. If one voluntarily assents to a religious belief, he does so because he chooses to do so, not because he is forced to do so. This is strongly implied in this Romans verse.
The salvation formula here is presented explicitly as a hypothetical imperative. It states that, if one desires to achieve value X (in this case, salvation), then he must do action Y (in this case, confess and believe). But this formula, which affirms the role of the believer's own volitional participation in achieving salvation, is not consistent with other formulae for salvation found elsewhere in the New Testament.
For instance, John 3:3 has Jesus making the following statement: "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." I take this to represent, albeit by means of apparently benign euphemism, the use of force, since one does not choose to be born, which means it is not a voluntary process. Jesus' words in John 3:8, which evade Nicodemus' question in verse 4 ("How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?"), essentially say that the determination of who enjoys this second birth is as random as the wind.
Citing passages like Jesus' dialogue with Nicodemus in John's gospel, and Paul's endorsement of the doctrine of predestination (cf. Romans 8:29-38; Ephesians 1:5, 11; 2:8-9, etc.), Calvinists reject the idea that man's volitional acceptance, or any decision-making process on the part of man, should be viewed or understood as having anything to do with one's salvation. Calvinists claim that the saving grace of their God is irresistible, like Darth Vader's stormtroopers invading Cloud City.
In response to the question "Will you take [Jesus] today as your Savior?" Calvinist Gise J. Van Baren asks "what kind of God is this Who must await the endorsement of the sinner before He can confer upon him this salvation? …what kind of God is this Who wills your salvation, but now is eagerly awaiting your will to be made conformable to His?" [
39]In contrast to Arminianism, which holds or implies that the power of salvation is placed in the believer's own hands (since, according to this view, they can choose to be saved [
40]), Calvinism holds that "[b]y grace, and by grace alone, [God] has chosen unto Himself a people from before the foundations of the earth in Christ." [41] What then, is this thing which Christians call "grace"?While one source defines 'grace' as "what God may be free to do, and indeed what he does, accordingly, for the lost after Christ has died on behalf of them" [
42], Van Baren holds that grace, which is "an attribute of God," has two principle constituent elements. "The root of grace," he says, "is beauty. One who is gracious is one who is lovely in appearance. Secondly, the term grace suggests favor which is shown to another. Oftentimes in Scripture the term grace is so used. We read of those which find grace or favor in the eyes of another." [43]Thus, since beauty is an aesthetic judgment which reflects one's values, believers who would accept Van Baren's characterization essentially hold that the negation of reason and the use of force, at least in the context of their religious devotion, is somehow morally proper and pleasing. For above, we saw that the necessary implication of the Christian notion of grace is to undermine reason by denying the role of volition in the acceptance of claimed truths. Where an Arminian view of Christianity seems to allow that non-believers can choose not to believe, the Calvinist alternative amounts to an endorsement of the idea that beliefs are subject to external force.
As a view of man and of reality arising from an explicitly subjective foundation, Christianity, in particular Calvinism and those variants of Christianity which accept the view of "irresistible grace" championed by Calvinism, cannot escape its direct implication that man must be subject to force, and consequently that his reason is impotent. The mechanisms of spreading Christianity throughout the world, which is evangelism, and of defending its doctrines from criticism, which is apologetics, essentially amount to replacing rationality in preference for whim. Without the camouflage of deceptive euphemism and shallow platitudes, evangelism and apologetics would essentially entail explicit statements such as, "Christian theism is true, because we want it to be true, and you're going to believe it all, or else!" But of course, without the backing of the state (as enjoyed by the Catholic Church, for instance, for over a millennium), such announcements would simply repulse intended recruits.
To conceal the true nature of the Christian devotional program, we find an elaborate scheme of mind-bending devices. After one converts, the game begins. Through the double meanings of the Bible's own use of terminology, the
…apparent relevancy of teaching and promise of benefit [ultimately] turn out to have totally different meanings from what the new inductee was led to think… Little by little, newcomers are brought along to understand the teachings to mean something altogether different from what appeared on the surface - and oriented toward the next life, not this one. But one kind of promise, the kind that indicates a tranquilized, soporific, guilt-assuaging state of mind will be experienced, is kept, albeit by a means with a net detrimental effect on mental health. [44]
It is because full induction into the Christian worldview is the result of a drawn-out and gradual process of dissociation from one's own humanity and a weaning off of one's "normal means of knowledge," that believers can posture astonishment at the suggestion that their religious views not only reject reason, but in fact advocate the use of force, albeit in a context special to the devotional program itself. However, from the point of view of a rational philosophy, the result of the primacy of consciousness metaphysics in epistemology is undoubtedly the reliance on the threat of force, whether tacit or express.
Ayn Rand points out the root of this connection when she writes:
I have said that faith and force are corollaries, and that mysticism will always lead to the rule of brutality. The cause of it is contained in the very nature of mysticism. Reason is the only objective means of communication and of understanding among men; when men deal with one another by means of reason, reality is their objective standard and frame of reference. But when men claim to possess supernatural means of knowledge, no persuasion, communication or understanding are possible. Why do we kill wild animals in the jungle? Because no other way of dealing with them is open to us. And that is the state to which mysticism reduces mankind - a state where, in the case of disagreement, men have no recourse except to physical violence. [45]
It is for this reason - namely that Christian theism is nothing more than a fully allegorized form of mysticism - that we find throughout the Bible the ever-present promise of pain and suffering for the failure to comply and obey. For instance, Psalm 2:11-12 states, "Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him." This is a blatant threat to obey on pain of kindled wrath and anger. It does not say to do these things because it is rational to do so. Instead, it essentially states, "Do as I say, dammit, or I shall let loose my anger on your soul." Thus the God of the Bible, according to its draftsmen and believers, does not seek to earn the love of his followers; rather, it is not love that it wants, but fear. And this is explicit throughout the Bible. Verses like these litter the pages of the Bible.
While reason is the tool of those who seek to live and enjoy life, and to trade freely with others who are willing to honor one's right to that life, fear is the tool of the cognitive terrorist, which is any mystic who takes his god-beliefs seriously. "Every dictator is a mystic, and every mystic is a potential dictator." [46] Is this perhaps why populations of the Middle East today enjoy the same "freedoms" as did the residents of Calvin's Geneva?
Conclusion
We see then that Christian theism as such, far from serving as a foundation to reason (as some apologists claim), is wholly antithetical to rationality and human life. From the denial of man's volitional nature and the endorsement of fatalism in the doctrine of predestination, to the constant deception of double meanings disguised by seemingly benign euphemisms and biblical examples modeling evasion and the willingness to turn one's back on his own values, the Christian worldview makes its antagonism to the rational animal unmistakably clear. The co-existence of the use of force and religious philosophy which we find throughout man's history is no coincidence, but a corollary whose causality has fundamental philosophical roots in the primacy of consciousness view of reality.
Anton Thorn
________________________________________
Notes
[1] Ayn Rand: "For the New Intellectual," For the New Intellectual, pp. 10-57; "This is John Galt Speaking," Op. cit., pp. 117-192. In The Virtue of Selfishness, see especially "Mental Health versus Mysticism and Self-Sacrifice," by Nathaniel Branden, pp. 37-42; "The Ethics of Emergencies," by Ayn Rand, pp. 43-49; "Collectivized Rights," by Ayn Rand, pp. 80-85; "The Monument-Builders," by Ayn Rand, pp. 86-91. In Philosophy: Who Needs It, by Ayn Rand, see especially "The Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made," pp. 23-34; "Faith and Force: Destroyers of the Modern World," pp. 58-76; "Causality Versus Duty," pp. 95-101. "Of Living Death," by Ayn Rand, (1968), lecture at the Ford Hall Forum. Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, pp. 19-23; 145-146; 201-202. "Religion Versus America," by Leonard Peikoff, (1986), lecture at the Ford Hall Forum. See also Andrew Bernstein, "
The Primacy of Consciousness Versus the Objectivist Ethics," (Second Renaissance Books, 1994), audio lecture series; et al.[2] Ayn Rand, "The Objectivist Ethics," The Virtue of Selfishness, p. 20.
[3] Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, p. 936.
An Atheist's Values, Sec. 2.82 "Faith."[5] No doubt, religious thinkers will be taken aback by the frankness of my understanding of 'faith' and will likely object to it vehemently. However, I am fully confident that the definition I endorse here is fully justified by the evidence of religious belief itself and its nature, the statements which religious thinkers themselves have offered throughout the centuries in describing what they mean by faith, and by examples of 'faith' in action in the lives of religious persons. Essentially, while they certainly object to the view that reason is man's "only tool of knowledge," as Objectivism holds, they want to point to some other "means" of knowing things, and they resent having the alternatives which they propose (but do not identify in any specific manner) associated with their whims. A full development of this view of faith is certainly a worthy challenge, and one which I hope to take up in future essays.
[6] "Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World," Philosophy: Who Needs It, p. 62.
Tertullian of Carthage. The Enlightenment or Age of Reason. McClure states:There were also major religious changes during the 1700s. There was a significant decline in church power and prestige, which resulted primarily from people’s no longer believing in God's daily involvement in their human affairs. Prior to the Enlightenment, before the discovery of natural laws, people had believed that every event that occurred, no matter how major or minor, was a direct result of God's intervention. Once scientists discovered that natural laws caused these occurrences, mankind feared God less, and as a result, religious obligations were no longer the primary concern of many people.
[9] John W. Robbins, Without a Prayer: Ayn Rand and the Close of Her System, (Hobbs, New Mexico: The Trinity Foundation, 1997), p. 22.
Presuppositional Apologetics: An Introduction, Part 1.[11] As Rand eloquently put it, "In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between god and evil, it is only evil that can profit." Atlas Shrugged, p. 970.
[13] It is interesting to note what Paul tells us in Galatians 1:11-12: "I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ." (NIV) In Romans 2:11, Paul states: "God does not show favoritism." (NIV) But clearly it is favoritism to dispense revelations to one man, while withholding that same revelation from all others. Why, for instance, did God choose to reveal Himself to Paul in the comprehensive manner which Paul seems to have enjoyed, while the rest of the human race is expected to consider themselves "blessed" for believing without having seen such things (cf. John 20:29)? God could have chosen to broadcast this revelation to all of the human race, thus avoiding the need for new generations of militant apologists ever sharpening their poorly reasoned arguments and attempting to evangelize the world.
[14] By 'reality' I mean "the realm of existence," which includes anything and everything which exists, regardless of its particular nature. While according to Objectivism, there is only one reality, it is certainly questionable, given euphoric statements and trance-like blank stares I've observed among some believers, whether or not they think they can "see" into multiple realms of existence as a result of the revelations they receive from the world beyond.
[15] See the Catholic Encyclopedia's entry for
'revelation'.[16] See for instance Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, (New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1995), pp. 51-52. Paine holds that it is
a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication - after this it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him. (p. 52)
[17] A History of Christianity, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976; First Touchstone Edition, 1995), p. 252.
[18] "Faith and Force: Destroyers of the Modern World," Philosophy: Who Needs It, p. 68. Of course, any means of implementing force can be substituted for Rand's "guns" in this passage - be it the sword, imprisonment, property seizure, an inquisition, or the threat of an eternal hell, and her point will still be valid.
[19] In regard to the psychological "rule-sanctions" of Christianity, see especially George H. Smith, Atheism: The Case Against God, (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1989), pp. 297-305. See also my essay The Lessons of Jesus: Imperatives Without Reason which also discusses this matter.
[20] Presuppositional Apologetics: An Introduction, Part I.
[21] See for instance the Gateway Bible's search results for the keywords obey God and obedience (KJV).
[22] See for example my essay The Issue of Metaphysical Primacy which demonstrates how any form of god-belief must assume the primacy of consciousness metaphysics.
[23] And here I mean "obedience to the facts of reality" in the sense of Francis Bacon's maxim "Nature to be commanded must be obeyed," (Novum Organum, Book I, [Chicago: The Great Books Foundation, 1955], p. 7.).
[24] Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, p. 961.
[25] Received in personal correspondence.
[26] Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, p. 930.
[27] The view that the believer's own will is the final arbiter of saving faith is known as Arminianism, which stands in contradiction to Calvinism and which was rejected as heretical by reformers at the Synod of Dort in 1618-1619. Many believers today frequently commit themselves, perhaps unknowingly, to this heretical view when they say things such as "When a man becomes 'involved' with Christ, it is by his own free will" (personal correspondence), or "I choose to believe in God the Father, my personal intellectual choice; it doesn't make me dumb, it makes me intellectually empowered" (personal correspondence).
[28] See my essay Why an Immortal God Could Not Value for a further development of this argument.
[29] Edmund D. Cohen, The Mind of the Bible-Believer (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1988), p. 183.
[30] I appreciate the fact that such recovery from god-belief is far from easy for any serious believer, for it essentially requires not only one's recognition and admission to himself that the faith commitments in which he has invested himself for the time he's been a believer have been a venture of falsehoods, but also a wholesale revision of his view of reality. After operating perhaps for many years on the assumption that the primacy of consciousness is a valid view of reality, and relying on all the error-ridden mental habits such a premise promulgates in one's conscious life, a full correction to the primacy of existence principle is a long, often exhausting process for some individuals. It can only be accomplished by sheer dedication and untiring self-discipline.
[31] See for instance several arguments which I have proposed to this end in my section on The Argument from Existence.
[32] See Samples' essay Putting the Atheist on the Defensive, Parts One and Two.
[33] In other words, just as Abraham would not have needed God's providence of the ram in order to save his son if he did not obey God's commandment to prepare his son as a burnt offering to begin with, believers today can minimize unnecessary toil in their lives by eliminating the alleged need to dote over arbitrary commandments said to come from a reality-ruling consciousness.
[34] See for instance Mark 12:29-30; John 14:26, 15:13, etc. Incidentally, if this is the case, that one loves God more than anything else, then anything done for God should not be considered a sacrifice, since the value believers place on God is to hold primacy over all other values; all other values are secondary to their value of God. See "Christian Morality and Brief Reasons Why it is Not Objective" in my Introductory Treatise on Morality for a proper definition of 'sacrifice' and its role in Christian morality.
[35] Cf. Hebrews 11:17; James 2:21.
[36] Many more examples, some very recent, can be cited as the result of the primacy of consciousness taken seriously in the development of philosophical attitudes and social policy. For a brief list see James A. Haught's Holy Horrors, Holy Homicide, Murder in the Name of Religion and The Beast in the Shadows Behind Religion.
[37] John M. Frame, Presuppositional Apologetics: An Introduction, Part 1.
[38] Although he does not specify this, I take Frame's "normal means of knowledge" to refer to reason, since according to rational philosophy, reason is the only norm proper for man.
[39] The Five Points of Calvinism, Chapter 4: Irresistible Grace.
[40] Van Baren notes on this point: "No, Arminianism does not deny all of God's power, nor all of the power of the cross, but it denies much of it."
[42] Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, 7:178; cited in The New Unger's Bible Dictionary, p. 504, s.v., 'grace'.
[43] The Five Points of Calvinism, Chapter 4: Irresistible Grace.
[44] Cohen, The Mind of the Bible-Believer, p. 171.
[45] "Faith and Force: Destroyers of the Modern World," Philosophy: Who Needs It, p. 70.
[46] Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, p. 961.
Copyright 2002 Anton Thorn. All rights reserved.
[
Back to Top][
Back to Anton Thorn's Main Page][
Back to the Problems of Christianity]