Gordon Cheng - 05 May 2008 08:41 AM

There was a distinct break with the in-house debates of medieval scholasticism, where the writing really was being done by scholars, for scholars. And not just scholars in the sense that they’d been taught to read, but scholars who had been trained in the philosophical debates of the era so that they could understand the form and content of what they read.

Agreed....I think medieval scholasticism was a long-term case of fiddling while Rome burned.

Gordon Cheng - 05 May 2008 08:41 AM

UIltimately both Calvin and Luther wrote to be read by as many people as could read. Which I’m sure is the reason why we can pick up their work today (in translation) and still read it with profit. They were writing to be understood, not to impress.

Agreed....writing even to convince and convert.....

Grace & peace,
Terry

Gordon Cheng - 03 May 2008 07:51 PM

James—no Sigmund Freud?

Marx and Engels’ The Communist Manifesto is a wonderful piece of writing, combining resentment and wishful thinking in equal measure.

Speaking of wishful thinking I enjoyed reading Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams.

Gordon,

I’d probably roll out Margaret Mead or Germaine Greer before old Sigmund. The five book limit was a helpful limit.

James

Since we are onto non-Christian books, I wish every believer would read atheist Stephen Law’s “The Philosophy Gym”. Very helpful in understanding a secular materialist world view

Now for all you wicked people out there trying to tell me that Calvin is unreadable

;-)

have a look at this short excerpt on Justin Taylor’s blog and try to tell me it’s not inspiring and comforting.

It’s on how the ascension of Christ gives us strength and hope, as Christians who are feeling discouraged, weak and downcast.

I think Calvin is readable - but a 1200 page volume with tightly spaced writing is too much for many people.

The abridgement by Lane and Osborne is very good…

The Cheng wrote that C S Lewis tried to prove the existence of God from people having a concsience. He also quoted in his blog from Broughton Knox

The sense of right and wrong is universal in the human race and so is the knowledge that we fall below our own standards of what is right, and that this entails death.

Quite so, but who gives us that sense?

Come on Rev’d Cheng, please explain

It’s not quite a mystery, mr kirsop, as if God created us (a fact known by revelation—see Genesis 1), it follows that he created our consciences (as I don’t think it is exegetically possible to argue that our conscience is a result of the fall).

Notice the direction of the argument I’m making.

The fact of God’s existence -----> the reality of conscience

(which, in DBK’s further argument, means that we understand that we deserve death).

CS Lewis’s argument in Mere Christianity moves in exactly the opposite direction, viz.

the reality of conscience ------> the fact of God’s existence.

But just because A--->B, we aren’t thereby entitled to argue that B---->A. Certainly not at the level of ontology, and neither (I would say) at the level of epistemology.

Would that be fair enough, Dr Kirsop?

Rev’d Cheng
No
We agree that there is a universal sense of what is right and wrong (apart from aberrant people like von Mises and Ayn Rand (both of whom promoted selfishness as being a desirable attribute), Hitler and Friedrich Nietzsche. (both of whom promoted the idea that there is an elect above right and wrong). We also (I think) would agree that that sense of what is right and wrong is fixed, that is it isn’t culturally determined so for we all agree that murder is wrong.

And D B Knox isn’t saying the sense derives from revelation- if he did how would those who haven’t heard the Gospel have that sense (see also Acts XVII and Romans I)

Lewis then says that given that sense of right and wrong is an objective one what then gives us that sense? Its not culture –so that gets rid of Dawkins and his nemes -its not biological (animals for example do steal- some cannot survive without that- eg cookoos or Darwin’s favourite the parasitic wasp- yes I have read part of the Origin- and Mr Swarz is right it’s basically a biology text, spiders kill each other) its not chemical..so if natural causes cannot explain this then the Supernatural cause God does.

And no its not God of the Gaps, its an argument from the observation and induction rather then deduction.

Whats wrong with that?

Peter Kirsop - 13 May 2008 05:10 PM

And D B Knox isn’t saying the sense derives from revelation- if he did how would those who haven’t heard the Gospel have that sense (see also Acts XVII and Romans I)

Quite right. DBK wasn’t saying that.

I was saying that our consciences were given to us by God, and that we know this (ie. that our consciences were given to us by God) by revelation

DBK was saying that we all know we deserve death, because our consciences condemn us. He might have gone to Romans 2:14-16 to show this, and for all I know he sometimes did. He wasn’t saying anything at all about the existence of God, at least not in the bit quoted.

Lewis then says that given that sense of right and wrong is an objective one what then gives us that sense? Its not culture –so that gets rid of Dawkins and his nemes -its not biological (animals for example do steal- some cannot survive without that- eg cookoos or Darwin’s favourite the parasitic wasp- yes I have read part of the Origin- and Mr Swarz is right it’s basically a biology text, spiders kill each other) its not chemical..so if natural causes cannot explain this then the Supernatural cause God does.

And no its not God of the Gaps, its an argument from the observation and induction rather then deduction.

Whats wrong with that?

That’s an argument from assertion that Lewis making there—or at least, that you are making on his behalf. He says a bit more in Mere Christianity, but I can’t quite remember what after all these years, or perhaps I choose not to.

I think there is a reasonable atheistic argument that conscience can be explained in terms of natural selection. Those conscience-free individuals who didn’t look out for others in prehistorical times would have found themselves not being looked after by others, and so stomped on by the local woolly mammoth or something, thus bred out of the gene pool. Possibly a bit Lamarckian, but there we are.

That may not be the exact right argument, but there are enough variations on this to not make it a lay-down misere that conscience exists, therefore God exists.

Anyway, why am I arguing the atheists’ case for them? Why don’t you head on over to the ‘Answering Atheists’ thread and see if our friendly local unbeliever will be persuaded by Lewis’s reasoning.

[edits for (hopefully) clarity]

Weird that you guys are discussing this today. Just yesterday I was getting cranky with the Pastor on the “Narrow Mind” podcast show when he recently debated a leading atheist philosopher. He tried to push the moral argument so strongly that I was left feeling embarrassed for Christians.

Trying to argue that we can know God exists by either rationality or morality really sounds weak to me.

Plenty of atheists are quite happy to argue that there simply is no meaning or morality, and people’s standards and moral codes are according to their own experience and upbringing and personal preferences. What is “objective” about that? Where can I find the objective fact of “morality” above and beyond this universe, and above the subjective experience argument? I wish it were this easy, but I’m finding these arguments less convincing as I get older.

I see that Jim Packer wants people to read Calvin’s Institutes as well!

Great theology, like the Bible in which all great theology is soaked, is essentially transhistorical and transcultural, and interprets us, joltingly sometimes, as we seek to interpret it. The 1559 Institutio is great theology, and it is uncanny how often, as we read and re-read it, we come across passages that seem to speak directly across the centuries to our own hearts and our own present-day theological debates. You never seem to get to the book’s bottom; it keeps opening up as a veritable treasure trove of biblical wisdom on all the main themes of the Christian faith. Do you, I wonder, know what I am talking about? Dig into the Institutio, and you soon will.

Packer’s foreword is mentioned by Justin Taylor, and the foreword itself can be found as a pdf file, here.

Dave Lankshear - 14 May 2008 06:18 PM

Plenty of atheists are quite happy to argue that there simply is no meaning or morality, and people’s standards and moral codes are according to their own experience and upbringing and personal preferences. What is “objective” about that? Where can I find the objective fact of “morality” above and beyond this universe, and above the subjective experience argument? I wish it were this easy, but I’m finding these arguments less convincing as I get older.

I think atheists can say when it suits them that there is no objective morality.

However I am not sure that most atheists actually believe that. How many atheists really believe that eg murder is not wrong? (Not many I would suggest.)

Plenty of atheists are quite happy to argue that there simply is no meaning or morality, ...

Thinking about this a bit further, makes me wonder if there is no meaning, why the atheists would bother argue that there is no meaning. The desire to argue or reason presupposes one believe there is a truth to be found.

Reading Lionel Windsor’s interview on the Sola Panel reminds me of another book that I would like to see in the top 5, replacing Lewis and yes, easier reading than Calvin.

It’s Guidance and the Voice of God by Jensen and Payne, which manages to be radical, topical and biblical. I actually think its effect , for those prepared to hear it, is prophetic.

On a Top 5 list, however, it probably suffers from the ‘prophet in his home town’ syndrome!

Gordon, right this date down — the planets are out of whack or something. That’s twice in 24 hours I’m inclined to really agree with you!

“Individual Guidance” memes really pushed some weird buttons in churches I attended as a teenager and then when I joined the army. My only antidote at the time was Friesen’s “Decision making and the will of God”. “Guidance and the voice of God” should probably be on someone’s top 5 IF they come from an “Individual Guidance” or charismatic background.

So… maybe we can devise a computer program questionnaire to determine someone’s top 5 for them?

“Have you ever felt inclined to agree with others that felt God was calling them to do something strange, based on feelings?”

Oooops.... my bias coming out there. Hey, I thought I passed social science surveys when I did my TAFE thang? ;-)