If it's good enough for Alvin...

If it's good enough for Alvin... he's smart.

Scott Bailey has an illuminating, if somewhat jaw-dropping, quote from Alvin Plantinga regarding historical criticism of the Bible.

There is no compelling or even reasonably decent argument for supposing the procedures and assumptions of historical biblical criticism are to be preferred to those of traditional biblical commentary.

Theological flat-earthers like Plantinga tend to make statements like that, and all the apologetic hounds lift their noses to the skies and bay in chorus.

Of course that's his opinion, and he's welcome to it, but it's not written as an opinion, nor received by the long-eared pack as one. It's written as a clear statement of fact, and on that basis it's... rubbish.

Bailey comments: "It seems I keep hearing “thinkers” all across the ideological spectrum who are encouraging people not to think! Whatever you do: do not look at the evidence."

No, take it on 'faith'... my faith.  Take my word for it. Don't you worry your silly little head about it; just go back to sleep and let me do all the thinking for you.

Is treating the 'laity' as children - fostering their dependence, and whispering reassuring lies in their ears - half-baked opinions parading as fact - even ethical?  Is this scholarship?  

Thanks Alvin, but no thanks.

Will Matt be Mad?

Philosophy of Religion? What's that?

Whatever it is, it's associated with Alvin Plantinga and William Lane Craig. It's also a hobby horse much ridden, whip flailing, on the MandM blog, New Zealand's most widely read biblioblog - number 6 on the latest Top 50 ranking - co-authored by Matthew and Madeleine Flannagan.

With names like Plantinga (see my earlier rant) and Craig associated with the discipline you'd have to be a tad leery of what the field was offering anyway. No surprise then that there are those who note "a general tension over the legitimacy of philosophy of religion in philosophy as a whole." The line that divides it from apologetics, for example, seem to range from hazy to non-existent. Now a challenge arises from within the bosom of the beast, so to speak. Keith Parsons has blown the whistle.

Keeping an eye on the truth was also a matter of practical importance for Parsons, who was alarmed by the support for Intelligent Design creationism among philosophy of religion’s most influential names. These include Alvin Plantinga and Peter van Inwagen, who led the subfield’s resurgence in the 1970s and ’80s, and William Lane Craig, an Evangelical who popularizes the subfield’s arguments for God in widely-attended public debates. “One of the things the really active conservative Christians covet enormously, more than anything else, is intellectual respectability. And they think they have found it in some of the arguments from these philosophers of religion,” Parsons said.

Whether or not you agree with Parsons' rejection of theism, he makes a good deal of sense on specific issues. If we're going to talk meaningfully about Christianity, it can't help to have a non-discipline loudly interjecting implausible pretensions into the discourse.

Houlden on the Bible

Following on from the previous post, Leslie Houlden presents a vastly different take on the unity of the Bible to Alvin Plantinga in The Strange Story of the Gospels (SPCK, 2002) where he makes a number of important points.

Since the second century it has been usual to see the four gospels as "broadly of a single mind." Houlden notes that this position still has its powerful advocates - among whom we can doubtless number Plantinga (who would want us to see all scripture, gospels, letters, prophets and Torah, as of a single mind.)

Houlden contends that, in fact, the Gospels themselves "are the result of profound disagreements."

"[T]he last persons that we know of to have understood Mark's intended message were Matthew and Luke, who wrote to counter and supplant him. They wrote to this end chiefly because they disagreed with his theology." (p.111)

Harmonising visions, like Plantinga's, are not dissimilar to "the well-known phenomenon, the so-called Whig interpretation of history: that is to say, the past viewed simply as leading up to the present desirable state of affairs." (p.106)

For 'desirable' read 'orthodox.'

Using the Bible in this way "meant devout quarrying in the text." Proof texting.

Adopting the 'single mind' approach may be comfortably unchallenging, but there is a cost.

"The weakness of this eirenic proposal is that it may be necessary for us to make choices. Some of the issues on which the evangelists differ... are still with us today." (p.108)

Houlden uses a musical metaphor to explore the diversity and contradictory elements in scripture, suggesting that we "welcome the necessary fact that the variations proliferate, while the theme itself eludes us, almost heard but never trapped." (p.119)

It's not a suggestion likely to appeal to fundamentalists or desperately deluded apologists any more than to Whigs. Subtlety and nuance may have limited attraction to the self-appointed defenders of the faith, but that won't make the facts go away.

Plantinga on the Bible

Just You, me and Calvin, Lord!

Two quotes from Reformed apologist Alvin Plantinga - cited by Matthew Flannagan in his PowerPoint presentation that attempts to rescue Yahweh from charges of genocide against the Canaanites.

“An assumption of the enterprise is that the principal author of the Bible—the entire Bible—is God himself (according to Calvin, God the Holy Spirit). Of course each of the books of the Bible has a human author or authors as well; still, the principal author is God. This impels us to treat the whole more like a unified communication than a miscellany of ancient books. Scripture isn’t so much a library of independent books as itself a book with many subdivisions but a central theme: the message of the gospel…”

Cute quote huh? Isn't it nice to see that, when the ancient texts are put through the theological sausage machine, they come out with "a central theme: the message of the gospel." Well, that should be obvious, and I trust you're as suitably "impelled" as I am. Too bad Jews don't see it that way - they obviously don't like sausages! And too bad various Christian denominations have differing understandings of what exactly "the gospel message" is.

But wait, there's more...

“By virtue of this unity, furthermore (by virtue of the fact that there is just one principal author), it is possible to “interpret Scripture with Scripture.” If a given passage from one of Paul’s epistles is puzzling, it is perfectly proper to try to come to clarity as to what God’s teaching is in this passage by appealing not only to what Paul himself says elsewhere in other epistles but also to what is taught elsewhere in Scripture.”

So you see, gentle reader, that proof texting is OK after all. Cut 'n paste to your heart's content, it's "perfectly proper," indeed it's the Reformed thing to do.

Let's recap. Assert a unity that clearly doesn't exist and anchor it in Calvinism. Then - on the basis of this fantasy - pillage the Good Book for handy proof texts to back up your preformed Reformed dogma. Very neat.

Plantinga is described as an analytic philosopher, but I'm not sure what analytic means given these examples, other than speculating that the root word might be anal.

He is known for his work in philosophy of religion, epistemology, metaphysics, and Christian apologetics. Plantinga is a Christian and known for applying the methods of analytic philosophy to defend orthodox Christian beliefs. (source)

I haven't read the Plantinga tome Flannagan mined his quotes from, but assuming they're representative they do less than nothing to make me want to delve into anything else the man has written. Never trust an apologist, no matter how many honorary degrees and published works they boast. Ever.