Continues from Post 333 – Apologetic Failures III and Post 538 – Apologetic Failures IV
'O Lord, what is the Gospel?'
This has to go on record as one of the most off-topic-sidebar-active-troll-happy-threads in the history of Theology Web Campus, as a long standing member ‘Adrift’ pops a one word question to twebber ‘Tassman’, who stated the following:
Surely such a fatuous remark is based on the Calvinist doctrine of the ‘fall of man’…– i.e. “Total depravity”. ( Post 1078 )
To which Adrift replied : Huh?
And rightly so.
Tassman is expressing the sort of view that I had when I started out doing apologetics back in 2005. It’s based on a misconception about what John Calvin taught about the nature of man. ( From what I recall ‘Lindsay Brooks’ on Apologetics.com Forums gave a very good answer regarding the doctrine sometimes referred to as ‘TOTAL depravity’ – I’ll look around and see if I can find that.) A closer look at his (Tassman’s) complete statement should open up the pandoras box inside his reasoning (which seems to be anti-Roman Catholic? / Church of England? and in particular anti-original sin. )
Tassman’s complete statement:
No diference! It seems that you are arguing that every instance of bad behavior is a consequence of the pre-scientific notion of “original sin”. Is this what you are arguing? Yes or no!
Surely such a fatuous remark is based on the Calvinist doctrine of the ‘fall of man’, whereby every person born into the world is enslaved to the service of sin – i.e. “Total depravity”. In short, it is a worldview based on myth (as the Adam and Eve story has proven to be), rather than based on fact. And this in the 21st century!!!
Conversely, natural morality is supported by considerable evidence based on how humans evolved, rather than a morality acquired from religious teachings.
Evolutionary biolologists, particularly sociobiologists have demonstrated that the precursors of human morality can be traced to the behaviors of many other social animals as acquired by natural selection.
( Post 1078 )
Though ‘Challenger Grim’s’ response (post 1083) is probably where I might have gone:
Normally I would clip this off-topic rant, but I thought it would be entertaining to leave this in as another instance of your believing (and going off on an insubstantial rant) about something without evidence. post 1083
I think it might be worthwhile to have a closer look at what Jean Cauvin (John Calvin) really taught about the nature of man. I think Prof. Michael Sudduth’s articles should shed enough light, to help correct Tassman’s misconceptions:
John Calvin and the Knowledge of God by Professor Michael Sudduth
THE PROSPECTS FOR “MEDIATE” NATURAL THEOLOGY IN JOHN CALVIN by Michael Czapkay Sudduth
This is what Calvin says: THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD HAS BEEN NATURALLY IMPLANTED IN THE HUMAN MIND
FROM: THE INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN RELIGION BY JOHN CALVIN
BOOK I
Chapter 3.
3. THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD HAS BEEN NATURALLY IMPLANTED IN THE HUMAN MIND.Sections
1. The knowledge of God being manifested to all makes the reprobate without excuse. Universal belief and acknowledgement of the existence of God.
2. Objection – that religion and the belief of a Deity are the inventions of crafty politicians. Refutation of the objection. This universal belief confirmed by the examples of wicked men and Atheists.
3. Confirmed also by the vain endeavours of the wicked to banish all fear of God from their minds. Conclusion, that the knowledge of God is naturally implanted in the human mind.1.The character of this natural endowment
That there exists in the human minds and indeed by natural instinct, some sense of Deity, we hold to be beyond dispute, since God himself, to prevent any man from pretending ignorance, has endued all men with some idea of his Godhead, the memory of which he constantly renews and occasionally enlarges, that all to a man being aware that there is a God, and that he is their Maker, may be condemned by their own conscience when they neither worship him nor consecrate their lives to his service. Certainly, if there is any quarter where it may be supposed that God is unknown, the most likely for such an instance to exist is among the dullest tribes farthest removed from civilisation. But, as a heathen tells us, there is no nation so barbarous, no race so brutish, as not to be imbued with the conviction that there is a God. Even those who, in other respects, seem to differ least from the lower animals, constantly retain some sense of religion; so thoroughly has this common conviction possessed the mind, so firmly is it stamped on the breasts of all men. Since, then, there never has been, from the very first, any quarter of the globe, any city, any household even, without religion, this amounts to a tacit confession, that a sense of Deity is inscribed on every heart.
Nay, even idolatry is ample evidence of this fact. For we know how reluctant man is to lower himself, in order to set other creatures above him. Therefore, when he chooses to worship wood and stone rather than be thought to have no God, it is evident how very strong this impression of a Deity must be; since it is more difficult to obliterate it from the mind of man, than to break down the feelings of his nature, – these certainly being broken down, when, in opposition to his natural haughtiness, he spontaneously humbles himself before the meanest object as an act of reverence to God.
2.Religion is no arbitrary invention
It is most absurd, therefore, to maintain, as some do, that religion was devised by the cunning and craft of a few individuals, as a means of keeping the body of the people in due subjection, while there was nothing which those very individuals, while teaching others to worship God, less believed than the existence of a God. I readily acknowledge, that designing men have introduced a vast number of fictions into religion, with the view of inspiring the populace with reverence or striking them with terror, and thereby rendering them more obsequious; but they never could have succeeded in this, had the minds of men not been previously imbued will that uniform belief in God, from which, as from its seed, the religious propensity springs. And it is altogether incredible that those who, in the matter of religion, cunningly imposed on their ruder neighbours, were altogether devoid of a knowledge of God. For though in old times there were some, and in the present day not a few are found, who deny the being of a God, yet, whether they will or not, they occasionally feel the truth which they are desirous not to know. We do not read of any man who broke out into more unbridled and audacious contempt of the Deity than C. Caligula, and yet none showed greater dread when any indication of divine wrath was manifested. Thus, however unwilling, he shook with terror before the God whom he professedly studied to condemn. You may every day see the same thing happening to his modern imitators. The most audacious despiser of God is most easily disturbed, trembling at the sound of a falling leaf. How so, unless in vindication of the divine majesty, which smites their consciences the more strongly the more they endeavour to flee from it. They all, indeed, look out for hiding-places where they may conceal themselves from the presence of the Lord, and again efface it from their mind; but after all their efforts they remain caught within the net. Though the conviction may occasionally seem to vanish for a moment, it immediately returns, and rushes in with new impetuosity, so that any interval of relief from the gnawing of conscience is not unlike the slumber of the intoxicated or the insane, who have no quiet rest in sleep, but are continually haunted with dire horrific dreams. Even the wicked themselves, therefore, are an example of the fact that some idea of God always exists in every human mind.
3.Actual goodness is impossible
All men of sound judgement will therefore hold, that a sense of Deity is indelibly engraven on the human heart. And that this belief is naturally engendered in all, and thoroughly fixed as it were in our very bones, is strikingly attested by the contumacy of the wicked, who, though they struggle furiously, are unable to extricate themselves from the fear of God. Though Diagoras, and others of like stamps make themselves merry with whatever has been believed in all ages concerning religion, and Dionysus scoffs at the judgement of heaven, it is but a Sardonian grin; for the worm of conscience, keener than burning steel, is gnawing them within. I do not say with Cicero, that errors wear out by age, and that religion increases and grows better day by day. For the world (as will be shortly seen) labours as much as it can to shake off all knowledge of God, and corrupts his worship in innumerable ways. I only say, that, when the stupid hardness of heart, which the wicked eagerly court as a means of despising God, becomes enfeebled, the sense of Deity, which of all things they wished most to be extinguished, is still in vigour, and now and then breaks forth. Whence we infer, that this is not a doctrine which is first learned at school, but one as to which every man is, from the womb, his own master; one which nature herself allows no individual to forget, though many, with all their might, strive to do so.
Moreover, if all are born and live for the express purpose of learning to know God, and if the knowledge of God, in so far as it fails to produce this effect, is fleeting and vain, it is clear that all those who do not direct the whole thoughts and actions of their lives to this end fail to fulfil the law of their being. This did not escape the observation even of philosophers. For it is the very thing which Plato meant (in Phoed. et Theact.) when he taught, as he often does, that the chief good of the soul consists in resemblance to God; i.e., when, by means of knowing him, she is wholly transformed into him. Thus Gryllus, also, in Plutarch, (lib. guod bruta anim. ratione utantur,) reasons most skilfully, when he affirms that, if once religion is banished from the lives of men, they not only in no respect excel, but are, in many respects, much more wretched than the brutes, since, being exposed to so many forms of evil, they continually drag on a troubled and restless existence: that the only thing, therefore, which makes them superior is the worship of God, through which alone they aspire to immortality.
I’ll comment in a day or so, maybe longer, as I have covered most of these arguments in the past.
At the root of Tassman’s rant/argument is a view that all Christians are dogmatically literal and ignore scientific discovery. He might be wiser to realize that not all Christians are dogmatically literal and do infact believe in the progressive revelation of the truth as it is in Jesus Christ, as well as take cognizance of inovative thought and current studies in many (if not all) the branches of exploratory sciences. (a brief read at the Faraday Institute of Science and Religion, should correct that error in thinking on his part. It’s very revealing ( Galatians 5 verse 21 at work ) when anti-Theist/Christians paint everyone with the same brush. ) I’d take a stab at it now, but it requires considerable unpacking and for that I’d rather write a book. 
Update: 19 September 2011 – Still championing the anti-Calvinistic stance (nearly 200 posts later), on what is surely the most inflated off-topic post in the history of Theology Web Campus – Post 1228 – but now instead of ‘total depravity’ the phrase has been changed to ‘essential depravity’ as being the ‘Calvinist doctrine and accepted by many conservative Christians.’
Now Calvin for one emphasizes what theologians have come to call the noetic effects of sin–sin has effects on the human person’s cognitive faculties. Perhaps sin causes problems with the sensus divinitatis so that it doesn’t function properly in some people at certain times and/or under certain conditions, with the result that we form belief in God in a sort of half-hearted way or not at all. It is interesting to note that in book 1 of the Institutes Calvin separates his discussions of belief in God on the basis of the sensus divinitatis (in chapter 3) and belief in God on the basis of the external evidences in creation (in chapter 5) by a digression on the noetic effects of sin (in chapter 4). Calvin explains how the seed of religion is perverted in different ways and the knowledge of God quickly degenerates. Calvin writes: “Yet that seed remains which can in no wise be uprooted: that there is a seed of divinity; but this seed is so corrupted that by itself it produces only the worst fruits” (I. v. 4., italics mine). Calvin immediately goes on to a consideration of how God has also revealed himself and daily discloses himself throughout creation, and as already emphasized Calvin sees these evidences as something quite distinct from the sensus divinitatis. Could the development in chapters 3-5 indicate a function for mediate natural theology? I think so. The noetic effects of sin, rather than present a reason against mediate natural theology, actually provide a reason for it. What would be evident to the mind unaffected by sin is not always evident to the mind affected by sin. This leaves open the possibility of making it evident (or more evident). So there are grounds in Calvin for holding that one role that might be afforded to an episodically inferential natural theology is that of increasing the warrant of theistic belief, especially if there is some kind of cognitive malfunction in the immediate source(s) of theistic belief.
From: MEDIATE NATURAL THEOLOGY IN CALVIN – Professor Michael Sudduth
(for a vaguely on topic exhange on ‘There is no evidence for a biblical [J] esus’ – refer to the argument between lilpixieofterror and vansmack51 – youtubejesusmyther = post 1094 )
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The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party:
Here are a few questions for you:
1. What is sin and how different is it from idolatry? (Dr. Don Carson)
2. What is innerancy? (Dr. Don Carson)
3. Q&A: How does Genesis 1 and 2 relate? (Tim Keller)
4. Is the Bible literally true? (Tim Keller)
6. (Here’s one for Tassman – full circle)
Reasons for God? by Tim Keller:
So, what is sin? What is the nature of man? I’ve participated in many different forum discussions on this subject and it is the ‘religious’ (like Tassman) who snap at it because a correct understanding of this is foundational to understanding the gospel of Jesus Christ. I’d advice that anyone who is approaching the gospel out of their religious indoctrination, put that to one side and give the book of Galatians (Christian sacred texts) and give it a good read – after praying and asking God to open the eyes and ears of your heart.) If you still can’t get it, the click on the rabbit (above) and get yourself a copy of Ron Hutchcrafts book. He does a fine job of explaining the gospel in layman’s terms.
May God be near you as your seek Him.
Peace,
Blue.
Another good read by Ron Hutchcraft is ‘Bringing Back The Gospel’ (free ebook download)
Prayer is opening your heart to God.
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More apologetic failures:
Marcan Priority and (Q?) – Bahá’í Faith’s ‘Shunyadragon’ enquires @ Theologyweb.com
I used to be a member here and sometimes a really excellent debate erupts. This time it’s a fair exchange between a representative of the Bahá’í Faith and Christianity. The subject is ‘Marcan Priority and (Q?) presented by the Bahá’í bloke ‘Shunyadragon’ and defended by ‘Adrift’ and ‘SeanD’
What’ya think? Is Frank’s knowledge of the subject wanting?
Skip to post 75, where Sparko (Troll Magnet) sums it up, with these final words, “Shunya, you are not fooling anyone but yourself.”
Time for a little music.
Actually, Adrift’s last comment is even better:
Really. Every time he posts I can’t help but think “is this guy for real?”
I’m reminded of the Sinead O’Conner lyrics, “through their own words they will be exposed they’ve got a severe case of the emperor’s new clothes.”
