Are there no stupid questions?

I remember hearing from one of my kindly old professors at medical school in the 1970s that ‘There are no stupid questions, except the questions you failed to ask.’ The professor (the late Jack Howell, who sadly died with dementia some years ago) went on to say that if you had failed to understand something in the lecture being given, it was more than likely that at least one other person in the theatre had also failed to understand it, and that you would be doing them a favour by asking the question.

Professor Howell never humiliated a student for asking a question, but I am sorry to say that some of his peers did. On at least one occasion, I remember asking a question and being made to feel foolish for asking it. I was not the brightest student in my year group.

I was set thinking about the issue of what might be called ‘innocent versus culpable ignorance‘ over recent days by two discussions I came across on Facebook. In each case, an atheist (one of whom I knew from previous conversations and had met in the flesh) said that they did not understand/could not make sense of an assertion made by Christian protagonist and therefore rejected it.

In the first case, and it being Eastertide, someone had posted about the atonement-the Christian doctrine that Christ had died for our sins, the just for the unjust, as the perfect Lamb of God. This is the central truth claim of Christianity, but the respondent said that it made no sense to him. I took it upon myself to respond, saying that if he (or she) was genuinely perplexed and curious as to how the atoning death of Christ made sense, then they had made a good start in a journey towards understanding.

Ca’ Rezzonico – Innalzamento della Croce (Inv.065) – Sebastiano Mazzoni

I briefly pointed out that the whole of the Old Testament looked forward to the Atonement, including the entire ‘spotless lamb’ blood sacrifice/Passover, was to get the Jews used to the idea that their Messiah would become an offering to enable their reconciliation with God through the cancellation of their sins by transfer to a scapegoat, and that this difficult but very real doctrine was set out in the Isaiah 53 prophecy, given 500+ years before the death of Jesus. This prophecy is very startling in it’s detail, particularly when taken in conjunction with Psalm 22, which describes death by crucifixion some centuries before it was invented and includes the phrase ‘My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?’ which Jesus cried out from the cross.

It is argued by biblical apologists ike myself that the fulfilment by Jesus, especially the counter-intuitive fulfilment, of multiple prophecies from the Jewish Scriptures, constitutes a high level of evidence for the veracity of the Christian narrative. Jesus thought so too, hence His words in Luke’s Gospel charter 24 where He explained to the disciples ‘…all the things that were written in Moses and all the prophets’ concerning Himself. Multiple, detailed, accurately fulfilled prophecies of this kind do not occur in any other faith tradition and point to an intelligent and purposeful power who exists outside of time and is not subject to it.

Anyway, if the questioner was genuine (which one has to assume, at least in the first instance) I hope I may have helped guide them on their way. But that’s out of my hands. The idea that Christ’s death could atone for our sins and reconcile us to God is both counter-intuitive and offensive (*) but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. People called it ridiculous back then, and still do today.

The other situation regarding a campaigning atheist whom I knew from before was on a creation/intelligent design site where a detailed post had been made about cosmic fine tuning. (**) This protagonist, and I quote, stated

“Let me get this straight: an all knowing, all powerful god “fine tuned” this universe for life and the only place life can exist is in a very thin band of crust and atmosphere of a tiny inconsequential planet in an otherwise sterile universe for a few billion years and before ad which the whole universe will be lifeless. Are you sure?”

I have heard this individual make this exact same objection previously. I responded as politely as I could and suggested that he had not understood the issue that is raised by the design argument from fine tuning. The argument runs that if the small and large nuclear forces, gravity, relative sizes of electrons and protons, and numerous other laws of nature were slightly different, then chemistry as we know it could not operate and NO life would be possible ANYWHERE. I thought this was quite a straightforward argument. Anyway, he came back at me basically repeating his original statement that it made no sense to him that god (He’s one of those atheists who for whatever reason refuses to capitalise the word God) would behave in a certain way.

I responded again to the best of my ability and said I would leave it there, which I will.

Reflecting on the exchange, I thought that this was a typical example of a kind of “1st proposition, 2nd proposition, conclusion” argument that runs as follows

‘proposition 1-If there was a God anything like the God of the Bible, He would do such and such.

proposition 2-I do not see such and such

conclusion: therefore there is no God.

Now the trouble with the above form of reasoning is that proposition 1 is wholly subjective. (proposition 2 has other problems but let’s leave that for today). In this case, the proposer is making a theological or philosophical statement about a theoretical deity that accords with their subjective opinion, rather than any known fact or indeed biblical assertion. The proposition effectively states that God would not (should not? could not?) have created a vast universe just for the purpose of putting life on one planet. Note that the protagonist describes Earth as ‘insignificant.’ Why? What is insignificant about the Earth, particularly as it is the only place where we know there is life. Surely that fact alone makes earth highly significant! What would the Earth have to do to, in his opinion, achieve ‘significance.’? Significant compared to what, and significant to whom? It seems there is more rhetoric than logic being deployed here.

Another fault with the proposition is the idea that a vast universe, if it is mostly devoid of life, is not significant. This makes no sense to me. Lewis wrote somewhere that Christians will always be criticised whether we think that the universe is very big or very small! Even if we assume that deep space and the billions of galaxies that we see only as tiny specks of light in the most powerful telescopes are devoid of organic life, that does not mean they are without meaning.

Psalm 19 tells us that ‘The Heavens are telling the glory of God.’ Christians marvel at the vastness and beauty of the stars in the sky, which we understand that God created for His good pleasure, and also for navigation, times and seasons on the earth, for humans’ benefit and to display His glory. And that’s before we get on to the subject of possible spiritual beings that might inhabit the spaces between the planets. I’m not saying that this is the case, but C S Lewis discussed the possibility beautifully in his science fiction trilogy, particularly in Out of the Silent Planet, where he envisages (during a trip from Earth to Mars) that ‘Deep Heaven’ (space) is filled with glorious, sentient, spiritual beings without bodies. Also, in the ‘Gloria’ at the end of ‘Perelandra: A Voyage to Venus’ there is a Psalm like sequence in which the glories and purposes of creation are celebrated including planets where no foot has ever stood, or ever will. Such worlds, although uninhabited, are significant.

Furthermore, although the design/fine tuning argument had been set out in scientific/rational terms, the respondent had chosen to ignore this and attack the fine tuning argument by making a theological/philosophical point (and I had to say, making it very badly). I pointed this out to him but he ignored my criticism and simply repeated his assertion. OK, that’s down to him, but this is someone who is well educated and proudly boasts about how intelligent and scientific he is.

Anyhow, perhaps I have wandered off the subject a little here. The point I wanted to make was that not all questions or doubts are honest. As we read in Proverbs, the fool takes no pleasure in knowledge, but only in expressing their opinion. Some questions seem to me to be designed to prevent knowledge rather than discover it.

C S Lewis wrote that not all questions are honest searches for knowledge, but some were used as distraction tactics, almost as weapons. ‘Some people don’t want answers, they only want to wear you out-as soon as you answer a question, they just change their ground.’ Jesus exemplifies this with accounts in the Gospels of the Pharisees and other opponents using questions to try to catch Him out. We are allowed to walk away from such conversations once we have done our best once or twice, leaving the self proclaimed ‘sceptics’, who are often enough convinced believers with strong faith in their own righteousness and wisdom to have the last word (for now) and do their little victory dance.

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is death. May God have mercy on all us sinners and direct our paths into the light.

(*) Paul sets this out in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 , Galatians chapter 5 and elsewhere, the teaching of the cross is offensive to those who do not accept it. Always has been, always will be.

(**) The argument about fine tuning runs something like this: the known universe (time, space, matter, energy, and life including human life) are governed by diverse laws of nature. Each of these laws is set at a precise parameter, and in most if not all cases, the operating of the law has to exist within very narrow parameters in order for the conditions that make life possible to exist at all. The simplest of these to explain is gravity, which could in theory be weaker or stronger on an almost infinite scale. If gravity was a little stronger, the Earth would be pulled into the Sun and destroyed, whereas if it was a little weaker, the Earth would not be held in orbit around the Sun but would be flung out into deep space-in either case, Earth could not exist as a survivable planet, nor could any other solar system.

It is argued by creationists that to find so many physical laws whose settings are ‘just right’ is extraordinary and points to design. The usual response to this by opponents is to suggest that there are countless billions of alternative universes (the Multiverse), of which ours just happens to be fitted for life, by blind chance. There is zero evidence for this desperate ‘kicking the can down the road’ riposte to the fine tuning argument for design.

There is plenty about fine tuning out there, www.creation.com is usually a good place to start, but Martin Rees’ book ‘Just Six Numbers’ is good too. Rees isn’t a Christian but still finds the fine tuning of the universe extraordinary. Which it is. And so is the complex, compact and highly specific information carried on DNA, but that’s another story.

Undesigned coincidences-good Bible apologetics or just words?

I recently came across the work of Christian apologist Lydia McGrew who has written and broadcast on what she calls ‘Undesigned Co-incidences’ as supporting evidence for the veracity of the New Testament. Here is a link to a video in which she explains what this is all about and defends the idea.

Lydia describes herself as a widely published analytical philosopher and author, and wife of philosopher and apologist Timothy McGrew. What does she mean by the term undesigned coincidences? Essentially, she seems to mean where two different descriptions or phrases about the same event are found in different books of the New Testament (particularly the Gospels and Book of Acts) and the descriptions overlap and/or complement each other in a way that is evidentially supportive. She talks about ‘Making common sense rigorous‘ a phrase I like very much.

One of the things that supports my faith is the way that Scripture-both individual books and the whole collection that makes up the Bible- just seems to hang together and make sense more than any other narrative I have encountered. This is very real to me but I can see that sceptics would write this off as subjectivism, wish fulfilment etc, so ideally we need someone skilled in the analysis of words and language to clarify and quantify. We humans need clarification, not least as opponents are always trying to muddy the waters, and very often succeeding.

If the Scriptures are from God, and God wishes to be understood, and they are presented to enable reasonable people to believe, then you would expect that God, the author of language, should make sure enough that the Scriptures, in fair translations, are sufficiently understandable to enable an honest seeker to find enough to support a sincere faith without committing intellectual suicide. This idea is sometimes called the The Perspicuity (or clarity) of Scripture. And if Scripture is true, we would also expect bad actors, men and devils, to be constantly trying to undermine, misrepresent and confuse-and of course this is what we do see, as in 2 Timothy 3:1-9, The Letter of Jude, 2 Peter 2:1-3 etc.

Lydia has written a book about this concept as applied to the veracity of New Testament as near-contemporary eyewitness statements rather than fiction that was invented at a much later date as opponents allege.

She describes the book thus:

>>>Christians should be prepared to defend and share their faith, even while wrestling with doubts and questions that arise from within and without. With thousands of books out there-not to mention content on social media-where do we start? Testimonies to the Truth, my fourth book on New Testament reliability, provides a great starting point. I bring together new arguments and old ones in a form that is readily accessible to laymen while being careful and rigorous. With these arguments in hand, you will never be stumped when someone asks, “Why should I believe what the Bible says about the life and teachings of Jesus?” Above all, I point to Jesus himself, true God and true man, the One who teaches, loves, and suffers for us, described by the Gospels in vivid and credible detail. Including suggested study and discussion questions and references for further reading and research, this book is an excellent resource for personal study, Sunday School, high school and college classes, and small groups.<<<

The idea of undesigned co-incidences seems a useful line of argumentation in response to those who say that the New Testament, particularly the Gospels, were simply fiction and were made up by some shadowy group years after the supposed events. Several examples are given in a series of short videos by her husband Timothy, basically connections between names and places, and sayings of Jesus which are stated in an incomplete but complementary manner of 2 different sources. This is like real life.

The example is given of two witness to a robbery, one of whom mentions that she saw the robber trip as he ran away, another mentioning that she saw he had one shoelace undone but does not mention the trip. Each account is different, but each is fully true as far as it goes and they support each other in an evidentially positive way. And remember the classic Japanese film Rashomon where we hear several accounts of the same events from different protagonists, each of whom saw only part of the truth.

Trivial discrepancies between different witness accounts add to credibility. If the stories about Jesus had been falsely invented by some unidentified shadowy group, as atheists often assert, they would have produced only one authoritative gospel, not four.

She rightly says that this is only one of several possible lines of apologetic argument, and is open to question, but taken together, many such interesting coincidences tend to support the traditional view that the early New Testament books were written in good faith by people who saw something really big and important actually happen, and not a conspiracy cobbled together later.

From the apologetics I have seen and done in my 40 plus years as a Christian, I am sure that no apologetics or reasoning however sound will persuade those who are determined not to believe. After all, some of Our Lord’s opponents refused to believe in Him even after he fulfilled multiple Messianic Scriptures in their sight and raised people from the dead. As He said to them ‘You snakes! You vipers! How will you escape the judgement of Hell?’ I once argued with a man, a doctor, who said he would rather go to Hell than bow before God, ever if God appeared to him. You can’t help some people.

Apologetics is important. Mere Christianity was massively important to me as a new believer when my faith immediately came under intellectual attack. It didn’t make me a Christian, but it helped me to stay one. As Lewis said, apologetics is not the whole story: first of all you have to have the evangelist, his heart and words on fire for the Gospel. But having heard the Gospel presented, there are questions that honest sceptics deserve to have answered, and also false arguments and disinformation from dishonest sceptics, of whom I fear there are many, which need to be disarmed. At least, as Lewis wrote somewhere (I think in one of his letters) it is essential that Christians have learned and visible philosophers and other experts in our camp, so that the less learned humble believer-who accepts the Gospel like a little child but lacks the intellect and learning to process it all intellectually-can feel ‘Ah, well they may have some clever people on their side, but so do we.’

Some will say that this is all so much arguing about words. Well, words communicate meaning, and truth and lies both exist, and it matters. If we are interested in pursuing truth and avoiding deception, we cannot help but argue about words. So, this is a shout out for the McGrews and all who labour in ‘the army of translators’ that C S Lewis earnestly hoped would carry on his efforts to make Christ known and understood after he had sailed into the West.

Thor and Theodicy: Reflections on Thor, Love and Thunder’

I have just been with Mrs Hayes to see ‘Thor, Love and Thunder.’ As I mentioned in an earlier post, like C S Lewis I enjoyed the Norse and other pagan ‘storytelling’ mythologies, all of which have much in common with each other but which contrast very radically in content, style, historicity and ethical values with the Judaeo-Christian revelation. See reflections on this in an earlier post about the Netflix series Ragnarok.

poster from ‘Thor, Love and Thunder’

We went for some light entertainment, and on that level were not disappointed, but I admit I had been particularly incited to see this latest Thor Marvel Comic Universe fantasy film because one of my Christian oriented internet feeds had mentioned that theological issues were raised in the film, including the big one of theodicy (*). So, I thought, probably an essay coming on. True, I tend to agree with one reviewer who said of the film ‘Too silly to take seriously.’ But the subject matter, even if not taken seriously here, is still serious. And the fact that so many of we humans take entertainment more seriously than matters of righteousness, philosophy, good and evil and our own eternal destiny is a matter that C S Lewis thought we should take seriously.

Caution: plot spoilers (but maybe not too many. The plot was largely predictable given the things that usually happen in this sort of knockabout CGI fun film.) there is a detailed and accurate scene by scene review here on Wikipedia, I won’t bother repeating things it says very well. There were lots of what some call ‘filmic references’ and what others call borrowing of ideas, or plagiarism, from sources such as Star Trek and Harry Potter. I’m not in the least bothered about derivative idea-borrowing by artists, just saying.

My review summary: well produced knockabout fun with plenty of CGI, over the top wacky humour, ridiculous plot and continuity gaps, sometimes very inventive but often very derivative, and relentlessly politically correct. In other words, typical of Disney’s recent output. As to ‘theological issues raised’, the issue of theodicy (whether or not God or the gods are morally good or are concerned about human welfare) was raised but not significantly developed, or indeed taken seriously at all. But I think it is worth thinking about what the film might be asking or observing (accurately or not) about how and what we humans think of ‘gods’, whether or not there is any meaning behind the universe, and what do we mean by good and evil?

Theodicy: early on, we find a man (Gorr) whose daughter is dying. He prays sincerely to his god to spare his sick daughter, but the girl dies and he buries her. Then he feels he is being called, and proceeds through a desert to a beautiful oasis where his deity (we recognise him from the image on an icon pendant that Gorr is seen carrying and using in prayer) is found, feasting with some acolytes. He addresses the god reverently and asks about an eternal reward for his faith, but in return is addressed with absolute contempt. He rips off his pendant and renounces the god, who then curses and starts strangling him. There just happens to be a magic weapon to hand (isn’t there always?) ’The Necro Sword’ which has the property that it can kill gods. Gorr kills and beheads the god, who bleeds liquid gold. The magic sword gives Gorr supernatural powers, and he sets off to kill all the gods in the universe. PS the director Taika Waititi is, I understand, an atheist, so maybe he was thinking of the philosopher Nietzsche’s famous saying, ‘God is dead’ as he wrote this freaky and incoherent script.

Nietzsche is dead.

It’s always worth remembering that Frederick Nietzsche died insane, probably from syphilis acquired from a prostitute, and that he hated Christianity for its perceived servility to a higher power and charity to the poor, and that his ideas, including that of ‘the will to power’ and the ideas of a ruling Master Race of ‘super men’ inspired Hitler. When you get rid of God as the main source of your world view, you get a different world view, and you might want to think about what it will be before you burn your boats.

Later on, as the film’s ridiculous plot unfolds, we find a blue skinned humanoid race who have appealed to The Guardians of the Galaxy (and Thor) to help them out. They are being attacked by odd looking creatures that look like a cross between Hell’s Angels riding aerialised death bikes and Animal, the mad drummer from The Muppets. The high priest of these people complains that their gods have been ‘murdered’ and in consequence the peaceful state they previously enjoyed has been replaced by constant war. Cue some ultraviolent axe and lightning CGI action in which Thor destroys the baddies, and accidentally also the holy temple.

I’m not going to try to ascribe any meaning to this sequence, and I’m not going to assume that Director Taika Waititi was trying to achieve anything other than popular entertainment leading to fame and money. But as writer he did in fact put this statement into the mouth of a religious ruler-apparently admitting that when a settled society sees its gods ‘murdered’ (Nietzsche used the term ‘murder’ to describe the supposed death of God at human hands) then things will change, and not necessarily for the better. The hopeful atheist assumes that after getting rid of what they think of as primitive superstitious nonsense and replacing it with ‘rationalism’ (or maybe unrestrained selfishness, which 20^th century history suggests seems at least as likely) they will change for the better. The anti-religious seldom reflect on the possibility that destroying the settled religion of a whole society is an uncontrolled experiment whose observers are themselves both subjects and motivated participants so may not be unbiased.

Skipping over large swathes of plot action, we find Thor and three companions travel to ‘Omnipotence City’ a city in space where various gods hang out. We see a huge spherical cathedral like space with various Egyptian, Greek, Polynesian, Japanese and other mythological deities, plus various others that scriptwriter and director Waititi has invented (including a ‘dumpling god’ which is literally an animated dumpling. The inclusion of such an obviously ridiculous entity suggests that Waititi is, to use a vulgar but meaningful English phrase, ‘taking the piss’. There is a passing reference to ‘a god of carpentry’ although I did not see a more direct reference to the Man from Nazareth.

Zeus is played with a laughable Greek accent by Russell Crowe, appearing from a cloud and apparently top god. He addresses the assembled deities saying that he has a number of important things to discuss, including the location of ‘this year’s orgy.’ I can hardly be bothered to discuss the rest of this sequence in detail, but it does at least remind us that the pre-Christian pagan deities were a boozy, brawling, swindling, fornicating crowd who were not much concerned with moral uprightness. Very much man creating gods in his own image. How different from the suffering servant who really was God! This is a point that C S Lewis, great scholar of mythologies, made often and is reflected in Love and Thunder. Incidentally, loveable as Chris Hemsworth’s depiction of Thor is, it is not an accurate portrayal of the thunder god we read about in the Prose Eddas. But so what? The Norse poets invented Thor, Heimdall, Loki, Odin and the rest of them, Disney can re-invent them if they like.

There is an altercation between Thor and Zeus and Thor apparently kills Zeus with his own thunderbolt! He then steals the rather cheap looking re-usable thunderbolt and escapes with his comrades on a boat towed through space by two magic goats (that IS in the Norse legends, although there they only fly across Scandinavia, not between stars and galaxies!)

Skipping over some more of this CGI pantomime, we move to the end game where Thor and The Mighty Thor (check links above for details) destroy Gorr’s Necro Sword, bringing his life close to an end, but he wins his way through to ‘Eternity’ where he will be granted one wish (by whom? Using what powers? Can any wish be made or only ‘good’ wishes ???-the unaddressed issues are endless). Instead of wishing for all the gods to die (what kind of ‘gods’ are born, have sex and die?) decides to wish for his dead daughter to come back. And she does. Gorr dies, perhaps shriven for his blasphemous god-murdering actions, and he asks Thor to adopt his daughter, called ‘Love’. And he does. In the last scene, the two of them ‘Love and Thunder’ go out to joyfully smash in some bad guys heads.

Basically, the film was fun as light entertainment fantasy, but as far as philosophy, theology, theodicy and plot continuity went it was a pile of absolute bollocks, ocean-going, oak-aged, gold plated bollocks, with as much LGBTQ propaganda inserted as they thought they could get away with this year (it will be more next year). Whatever else Disney and this particular punk director have achieved, they haven’t added anything to the ‘God’ discussion or even seriously addressed any of the big issues about God, gods and religion in a coherent manner. But they have sold a lot of tickets, and will probably sell some games and toys. I hope they might get some people to do their own research and think for themselves, but that’s a lot to ask.

Thor toy

So, while I am tempted to say that Thor, Love and Thunder was a missed opportunity to seriously look at serious issues about God, gods and/or other supernatural beings, consciousness, the meaning of life, whether death is really the end for us, etc…but, nah. It was formulaic light entertainment, based on a comic strip. Light entertainment is no more obliged to make sense (even in the context of its own internal rules and structures), follow lines of logical reasoning or explore the issues that really matter than I am to learn Japanese or play golf. But we humans have been gifted with mind, reason and an eternal destiny, and we ARE obliged to strive to make sense of life, morality, God and destiny in the light of what has been revealed to us, including things we can quite readily discover if we take a little bit of trouble to look, rather than take what Disney, Amazon, Netflix and the rest of the MSM spoon feeds us with. This was fun as entertainment but didn’t ‘deal with’ any big issues at all.

PS there is a very good review from a Christian viewpoint here on The Collision.

(*) Theodicy is not to be confused with The Odyssey. Sorry, bad pun