CalvinDude.com

One of the things I enjoy most about Triablogue is that we’re not monolithic. Each of us is a separate individual who has his own perspective on various issues. While there is great overlap amongst us, there is also quite a bit of diversity.

I bring that up because I’ve recently been reading over some essays penned by a presuppositionalist who argued that presuppositionalism is the only valid apologetic method. Now, as a presuppositionalist myself, I believe this statement is true in a very limited sense. That is, I believe that those who would use evidentialist approaches to apologetics also rely on presuppositions that they just don’t express. As a result, you cannot escape the fact that at the ultimate level you will need to deal with presuppositions.

However, that is not what this individual meant (note: this is a person I know locally and what I read is not posted anywhere online, so I’m not going to use his name). What he meant was that those who would use an approach different from the presuppositional approach were, in fact, sinning by doing so.

This view saddens me, much like the hypercalvinist view does. In fact, I think that this may be just an example of what James White termed the “cage stage” (only here it applies to someone who just read Bahnsen for the first time rather than a new convert to Calvinism).

This strikes at the heart of apologetics. Apologetics requires us to make a defense for any who should ask. And the fact is that while presuppositionalism is philosophically sound, it probably only works well at converting INTP personalities (a personality type of which I should note only about 2% of Americans are, at least according to the random website I just Googled…). Regardless of the actual percentage, it’s quite apparent that most people couldn’t care less about philosophy.

However, they are drawn toward evidentialist arguments. And while these arguments will never be as “air tight” (as far as the presuppositionalist is concerned) they are often more convincing precisely because they are easier to understand and follow. Jason Engwer does an excellent job at expounding on the evidence for Christianity in such a manner.

But that would just mean that evidentialism is pragmatic, not necessarily that it is not sinful. I would point out, however, that the Bible does use evidential arguments from time to time too. For instance, when Scripture says in Psalm 19:1 that the heavens declare the glory of God, David is referring to how God’s glory is manifested in nature. It is evidenced by nature itself. And Paul echoes that in Romans 1 as well, saying that God’s attributes are seen in what has been made.

Romans 1, by the way, is a beautiful illustration of the wedding of presuppositional thought to evidentialism. That is, we have the fact that the unbelievers refuse to accept what is plainly seen, and what is plainly seen is the evidence found in creation.

That evidence is there. If you offer an evidential claim, you have a reason to do so. Likewise, we know that no amount of evidence is sufficient in and of itself to convince a non-believer of the truth of God. Both must be taken into account.

In my experience, presuppositionalism works best at demonstrating that atheists have no philosophical standing (although see my caveat below). But when dealing with non-atheist, those who accept supernatural concepts and are not limited to materialism, then presuppositionalism is nowhere near as strong as evidentialism. This isn’t to say that presuppositionalism is impotent; just that it is more difficult to employ. To give an example, one could argue philosophically why it is impossible that Tom murdered Fred because of Tom’s nature; but it’s simpler to show the photograph of Tom on vacation in England at the exact same moment that Fred was murdered in Detroit. In the same way, one could argue that the plurality of gods in Mormonism would render the world senseless, but it’s easier to demonstrate historically that Joseph Smith was a conman.

Now for my caveat. When I said that presuppositionalism works best at demonstrating atheists have no philosophical background, it’s not strictly precise. That’s because in reality, presuppositionalism works best when it’s looking at the worldview level. This is most often expressed when dealing with atheists because their worldview is so diametrically opposed to Christianity on all fronts; however, if we got to the level of a worldview (i.e., determining what was appropriate evidence in the first place), then presuppositionalism would flourish against any religious view too. That is, once the unbeliever sees that the evidence is against his position, he will have to retreat to redefine what evidence is or jettison his view. At this point, the presuppositional argument must come into play.

When it comes to apologetics, therefore, I have observed the following (whether it is universal I know not, although it’s certainly widespread here in America). The average person does not care for philosophy, and therefore will be more impacted by an evidentialist apologetic. Those who are most vocal in opposition to Christianity, however, do focus more on philosophy because they’ve moved to the point where the very definition of “evidence” is determined, and those people will be more impacted by a presuppositional argument. In the apologetic setting that T-Blog is usually engaged in (that is, actively engaged with non-believers who are openly hostile to Christianity), presuppositionalism is probably the more effective tool. However, when you’re talking to the average person off the street and evangelizing, evidentialism is probably the more effective tool. (These are generalizations, and not everyone we deal with is a die-hard anti-Christian; T-Blog also provides pastoral posts from time to time.)

One final note. God draws His elect through both methods. There are countless saved by evidential arguments, and there are likewise countless saved by presuppositional arguments (although probably not as many in the latter group). It is not a sin to use an evidential argument. But it is a sin to think that it would be a sin to use an evidential argument. Apologetics must be person-relative. What God uses to convince one sheep to return to the fold is not necessarily what He will use to convince another sheep to return to the fold. God made each of us, and to cite the above (albeit questionable) statistic about the percentage of INTPs in America, God created both INTPs and ESFJs.

In comments on an earlier post, I made the point that theism holds the grounds to rationality. Paul C disagreed, and after giving links to some of the various posts I’ve written on logic (especially this one), I asked him to provide an atheistic backing for rationality. Paul’s response was:

1. Things are generally as I perceive them.
2. At my level of perception, the universe appears orderly.
3. If the universe is sufficiently orderly, then rationality is a useful tool.

There are several problems with this (I won’t be too nitpicky since Paul probably hasn’t taken much time to work on this, seeing as how it was a quick response in a comment field). Let us just examine his first premise.

It is impossible for us to know that things actually are as we perceive them to be. All we have is our perceptions. We do not have access to an unfiltered reality. That is, no matter what the objective universe is, we only perceive it filtered through the lens of our perceptions. So what Paul’s first premise boils down to is a simple faith statement. He believes that reality is generally how it is perceived.

Now I should point out that I agree with this premise. However, I have a reason for agreeing with it—a reason that Paul cannot have. My reason for agreeing with it is because God created the universe and He likewise created us to experience that universe, therefore He created us with the ability to perceive the universe as it actually is. Only because of sin do we sometimes err in our perceptions (and by this I include such things as degenerative eyesight and hearing, which would not have occurred without sin, not simply hallucinations brought about by such diseases as schizophrenia, etc.). But while this would also be an interesting path to go down, Paul inadvertently leads us directly back to the argument I made in the blog post I referenced earlier. Paul’s first premise, you see, is based on perception.

In the blog post I wrote (and referenced for Paul, but which I suspect he didn’t read), I stated:

I perceive, therefore I am. Even if I am nothing but a brain-in-a-vat—or even if I have no “brain” at all, it’s all simply mental hallucinations with no actual physical reality—I cannot doubt that I exist. I perceive things. Regardless of whether these things are real or not, perception occurs. Something perceives, and therefore there must be a “perceiving being.” Since these perceptions are “owned” by me, I am this perceiving being (by definition). I exist.

Now this doesn’t tell me that I exist physically, or that anything I perceive is real or not; but it does tell me that I do, actually, without a doubt, exist. I am whatever I am (as yet, undefined). I have identity. A is A (or in this case, I am me).

And if I exist, then it is the case that I do exist and do not non-exist at the same time and in the same relationship. If I exist (in whatever form I exist), I really do exist (in whatever form that may be), and the contradiction of this is not the case. Thus, my bare existence alone requires the law of Non-Contradiction.

Since I exist, logic must be valid.

So you see that both Paul and I start with perception; however, Paul’s argument requires us to accept our perceptions as valid, whereas my argument is correct regardless of whether our perceptions are valid.

Furthermore, (as I wrote in my original post), this leads to other important facts about existence. As I wrote then:

And since logic is valid, we can use logic to probe some other questions. For instance, have I always been here? It is possible that I am the only being that has ever existed, despite my perception of other beings. I do not have the self-awareness with these other beings that I do with my self; therefore, I cannot “prove” they exist in the same manner that I can “prove” I exist. So it is possible they do not exist at all and I am the only thing that exists.

But it is also possible that I have come from something else. After all, I perceive a world that functions in a specific manner, and if my perceptions are accurate then this means that I have come from my parents.

But where did they come from? Perhaps they’ve always been here; perhaps they had parents too. And if they had parents, their parents may have had parents too. This chain can go back for a very long time.

But it cannot be infinite. At some point, something must have existed without being derived from previous existence—otherwise, we are stuck in an infinite regress with no chance of ever escaping to begin logic in the first place. Thus, the fact that I exist demands that somewhere there must be a self-existent being.

I might be that self-existent being, of course. So, too, could my parents, etc. But whatever the case may be, logic requires that whatever or whoever the self-existent being is must be the cause of my own being. If it were not the cause of my own being, my being would never existed (for we would be back to the infinite regress).

So, the fact that I exit proves the necessity of some object with self-existence that caused my existence. This object could not have been created by anything else (for the same reasons of the infinite regress). The “first” object to ever exist must be self-existent.

If an object is self-existent, it is a necessary object. It holds the power of its own existence, and therefore nothing can keep it from existing. If nothing can keep it from existing, then it always has existed.

Some problems arise when we include time. After all, time is measured by physical objects that move. Thus, one pendulum swing on a clock = one second. One rotation of the Earth = 1 day. Etc. These physical processes define the length of time.

But we’ve already shown that a necessary, self-existent object must always exist. If this is the case and if that object is physical, then we have an actual infinite of time. If time extends an eternity backwards, it would take an eternity for the past to have gotten here. Thus we must conclude that time isn’t eternal, but instead it must have begun at some point.

So how do we reconcile this apparent tension of an eternal self-existent object in a temporal time frame? Logically, this is satisfied by either jettisoning our definition of time (in which case we have no meaningful way to speak of time) or by acknowledging that the self-existent necessary object is immaterial. Since time is measured by physical objects, an immaterial object would not cause time to exist co-eternally with itself. This immaterial object must still exist in such a way as to provide the basis for my own existence, however. (After all, remember that the self-existent object is a logically necessary requirement due to my own existence.) Thus, in order to stay rational, we must acknowledge an immaterial self-existent necessary object that can cause my own existence.

It is important to note that due to the necessity of the immaterial aspect of this object, it is impossible for secular science to speak meaningfully about this object. If science is limited to the physical world only, then science cannot speak to this. As such, we have demonstrated a necessary being that extends beyond the limits of science. Thus, the fact of my existence proves that science cannot answer the questions of something that necessarily must be true!

Other attributes can be logically deduced from this same being. For instance, omnipresence (all existence derived from this self-existent source must come from this self-existent source, so the source must be omnipresent–there is no existence outside of the existence of this self-existent [object]); omnipotence (all power is derived from existence, so all power flows from the self-existent source—without that source, there is no power); and immutability (since logic is immutable, the source of logic must be unchanging as well).

Thus far, the only real difference between this object and God Himself is that we’ve yet to prove any kind of consciousness in this object. But that too is simple enough to deduce. After all, this entire time we’ve been using logic. Logic works because existence is based on laws, and laws imply a law giver.

Why is it that “nature” acts the way it does? We can give a list of reasons, but these reasons are likewise subject to the same question: Why do these reasons act the way they do? Once more, we cannot engage in an infinite regress here. At some point we must reach the level where we are left saying, “That’s simply the way it is.”

And at that level, laws will still exist. And again, laws imply law givers, so the very aspect of the “law-giving” (i.e. the consciousness) must be necessarily basic to this object as well. This law giver must be the same self-existent, immutable, omnipresent, omnipotent, atemporal being I have already demonstrated must exist. This being fits the definition of “God.”

But even if someone does not like the above, we can always turn the tables and use some empirical evidence (which, following induction, cannot be known for “certain”). Assuming that our perceptions are valid, that we see the world as it really exists, etc. we know the following. All consciousness we have ever observed has come from previous consciousness. There is no evidence that consciousness can come from non-consciousness. Since I am conscious, whatever the source of my being is would logically be conscious as well, for we have no warrant to believe consciousness could have ever come from non-consciousness–there is no proof, no evidence, no observation of this ever.

Now all of this follows regardless of whether we agree that our perceptions are valid. This means that even if we grant the entirety of Paul’s first premise and agree that our perceptions really do accurately represent reality, then the above follows. That is, the existence of anything necessitates the existence of something that is self-existent, eternal, omnipresent, etc. In other words, all the attributes that we commonly ascribe to God.

Thus, as soon as Paul uses his first premise, he is granting to the theist that God really does exist.

Now that I’ve demonstrated this for Paul once again, I would be happy to allow him to try again at demonstrating how rationality can occur without the existence of some kind of diety…

Since the fine folks over at BHT have suffered a complete meltdown (despite what you’re thinking, this happened years ago—the effects are merely continuing through today) and do not allow thinking on their blog, it is rather fun to argue with them. It’s not much unlike discussing anything with any other liberal. You give them a fact and they emote. You give them reason, they whine. I did honestly try to see things from their point of view, but I just couldn’t get my head that far up my rectum.

Steve and I have offered several posts on prayer since Ted Kennedy was touched by an angel. We’ve actually put forth exegesis of Scripture as well as logical arguments using propositions. The response that BHT has given us is less than underwhelming.

In comments on this post, Randy McRoberts of the BHT said:

The thing is, Peter, that you don’t realize that arguments don’t always matter. It’s character and integrity and love that matter more. You can win arguments all day long against me. So what? You can speak with the tongue of men and angels, too, for all I care.

I don’t care to mount an argument. That’s not what I’m all about. If it works for you, have a ball with it. Don’t expect most people to care a whole lot. You might win the argument, but it’s an empty win.

Think about that for a moment. Randy has admitted that he doesn’t care about thinking, about intellectual consistency, about truth. It’s all about “character and integrity and love” not whether or not you’re actually, you know, correct and all. Mormons probably feel the same way, and I have to say they’re a heck of a lot nicer than the BHT folks are.

Reality has this weird property though. It’s real. It doesn’t change because you’re a nice person. It doesn’t change because you feel warm fuzzies.

So I responded with the following parable:

Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Randy. Randy loved everyone and everything as much as possible. If his cruel, cold-hearted Dad was about to crush a spider, Randy would rescue the spider and lovingly toss it outdoors where it had a chance to live.

One day, an early spring day, Randy was walking down the sidewalk with his evil father when they saw a baby bird lying on the ground. It had obviously fallen from its nest.

“Leave it,” the wicked adult said. “It’s mother will come for it.”

But that was unacceptable for Randy, who loved the poor little bird. So when the demon-in-human-form wasn’t looking, Randy scooped up the baby bird and put it in his pocket.

When they got home, Randy rushed straight to his room. He took out the bird and placed it in an old shoe box. The bird chirped because it was very hungry. So Randy decided to feed the bird.

He asked his less-wicked-but-still-not-quite-loving-because-she-was-a-Presbyterian mother what baby birds ate. She said they ate worms. But Randy knew that couldn’t be the case–worms were icky little creatures (that still deserved to live, mind you–that was why Randy would rescue them before his diabolical father went fishing).

There was a better solution. Randy liked Butterfinger candybars and Dr Pepper to wash them down with. They were his favorite treats. Because he loved the bird so much, Randy shared his favorite things with the bird.

The next morning he awoke to find a very dead bird in the shoe box. Because, you see, poor Randy never grasped the concept that love without knowledge is dangerous. If you love someone or something but you have no clue what they need then you will not be able to satisfy their needs and your love will condemn them to death.

Sadly, this episode did not teach Randy his lesson. Later, he would grow up to believe that it did not matter if a sinner was hell-bound. The important thing was the love them, not to argue with them. The important thing was to make sure the had a sugar buzz before they spent eternity in hell.

And as a result, Randy decided to attack those who were trying to rescue sinners by calling those apologists intellectual elitists in a Big-Brained Blog. And lo, he felt good about himself, and those who were hell-bound enjoyed his taunts. And merrily they continued on the path to destruction.

At least on the day of judgment Randy can say, “I loved everyone I ever put in hell, unlike those bastards at Triablogue who actually convinced a few sinners to change direction by using arguments.”

Naturally, Randy didn’t bother to respond to this here on the T-Blog because he’s a coward and knows he’d get shredded. Instead, he retreated to the BHT (where comments are not allowed because Groupthink must prevail) and whined:

This is a response to a comment I made over there. (Should have known better.) See? I have love, but no knowledge. I’m putting people in hell by loving them. I don’t know what birds eat. I’m attacking those who rescue sinners by arguing with them. I feel good about myself for all this. I’ve learned a lot about myself today.

I don’t think it would take more than about three verses of “Just As I Am” to get me down front. I feel so bad about myself for feeling so good about myself.

Oh, yeah. In another comment I learned that for me to say that there are other ways to converse without putting forth an argument is “in itself an argument”. Now, that’s heavy. I’m not sure I get it, since I’m not intellectual at all.

Well it is obvious that Randy is no intellectual since he cannot grasp a simple parable. Instead, he thinks he needs to read everything literally. Frankly, I would be ashamed to speak in public if I was as dumb as Randy brags about being.

But to clear up the record, when Randy says “I have love, but no knowledge” he is wrong. He has just as much love as he has knowledge: none.

I, for one, have never read a loving remark from Randy about me. No, I just get his hate poured out upon me. (These are the same people who complain about us when we debate Arminians because “we should treat brothers in Christ better than non-believers” yet they have no qualms treating the “TR”, as they call us, as badly as possible. Then again, you shouldn’t expect consistency from those who hate intelligence in the first place.)

Secondly, I wouldn’t say that Randy is attacking apologists by arguing with us because nothing Randy’s ever said could be misconstrued as an argument.

Naturally, the other bored skulls acted shocked by what went on. For instance, JS Bangs said:

Wow. I mean, wow.

To which I respond: “Like totally! I mean, TOTALLY!

Bangs continued:

What exactly gave any of them the impression that we don’t care about the salvation of the lost?

The fact that you’re not trying to convince the lost they’re on the wrong path is a great indication that you don’t care where they’re headed. Then again, I use logic.

The fact that several people admitted they had trouble grokking the concept of Hell?

Well, it is kinda hard to see how someone not going to Hell needs to worry about going to Hell. Then again, I use logic.

Or the fact that we actually pray for the unsaved?

Except I don’t believe you. You claim to pray for the unsaved, yet you do everything in your power to impede those who are seeking the unsaved. What exactly do you pray regarding the unsaved? And frankly a general prayer “Lord save the unsaved” is no substitute for genuine prayer either. Then again, I use logic.

I have zero interest in reading any TR blogs, so I honestly don’t know what they’re trying to say.

And this, of course, is the first sign that you’re dealing with a moron. Ask questions, and then say, “I’m not going to listen to the answer.” This works when you’re three years old, but we expect more from adults. Then again, I use logic.

Not content to leave it at that, Strawfoot said:

Is he actually saying that he and his BBB fellows have actually talked people into becoming Christians?

Yes, I am.

WHAT?! How can this be? Well, Strawfoot, it’s really quite simple if you actually cared about what the wicked TRs believed (which you don’t, cuz God forbid you’d actually have to talk with one!). God uses…are you ready for this now?…MEANS to enact His will.

I know, revolutionary concept. Not found in any Reformed literature except for all of it.

And since I get e-mails sent to me, I know that there do indeed exist people who’ve been convinced of the truth of Christianity by way of some of the arguments that I’ve presented. God’s used me to bring some to Himself, and I am honored to be of use to Him.

The BHT is a great example of what happens when Politically Correct thinking runs amok. They preach tolerance by being intolerant of everyone who disagrees with them. They teach that love is most important by being as unloving as possible toward other Christians. They think that something’s wrong with you if you use the brain God gave you.

Frankly, if their version of Christianity was true, I’d be an atheist. And that’s something that Randy and other BHTers don’t get. They think that everyone is as emotive as they are and that no one cares about thinking correctly. But I do. My mere existence refutes their notion that everyone agrees with them. I do enjoy thinking, I am intellectually oriented, I do study, I do use my brain. And because of that, I can actually interact with the atheists in our world who are likewise intellectually oriented.

That’s something that none of Randy’s self-serving emotive bleating will ever be able to accomplish.

One of the best offenses against Darwinism is the teleological argument. In fact, that is what Intelligent Design is (teleology = the study of design). This is most damaging to the Darwinist position because on the one hand Darwinists will repudiate teleology, but on the other hand they will employ it at every corner. To give examples of both in the same book, Ernst Mayr wrote:

Another widespread erroneous view of natural selection must also be refuted: Selection is not teleological (goal-directed). Indeed, how could an elimination process be teleological? Selection does not have a long-term goal. It is a process repeated anew in every generation.

Mayr, E. (2001). What Evolution Is. New York: Basic Books. p. 121

Yet Mayr also writes:

When the selective advantage of a skeleton developed among the ancestors of the vertebrates and of the arthropods, the arthropod ancestors had the prerequisites for developing an external skeleton, and the vertebrate ancestors for developing an internal skeleton. The entire evolution of these two large groups of organisms has since been affected by this choice among their remote ancestors.

(ibid, p. 141, emphasis added).

Evolution is an opportunistic process. Whenever there is an opportunity to outcompete a competitor or to enter a new niche, selection will make use of any property of the phenotype to succeed in this endeavor.

(ibid, p. 221, emphasis added).

Likewise, we read:

The legitimate use of the term adaptation is for a property of an organism, whether a structure, a physiological trait, a behavior, or anything else that the organism possesses, that is favored by selection over alternate traits. But the term also has been used quite incorrectly for the process (”adaptation”) by which the favored trait was actively acquired. This view can be traced back to the ancient belief that organisms had an innate capacity for improvement, for steadily becoming “more perfect.” Also, if one accepts an inheritance of acquired characters, activities such as the straining of the neck by giraffes “adapts” the neck to an improved construction. In this view, adaptation is an active process with a teleological basis. Some recent authors still seem to look at adaptation as such a process and therefore reject the whole concept of adaptation. But this is not defensible.

(ibid, p. 150).

Yet of adaptations, we read:

The shift from the quadropedal locomotion of a lizardlike reptile to bipedalism and flight in birds initiated a considerable restructuring of the body plan: a compacting of the whole body to have a better center of gravity, the development of a more efficient four-chambered heart, restructuring of the respiratory tract (lungs and air sacs), endothermy, improved vision, and an enlarged central nervous system. The acquisition of all of these adaptations was a matter of necessity.

(ibid, p. 219, emphasis added).

But Mayr is not the only one who falls prey to this. Indeed, when trying to describe their theories Darwinists are forced to use teleological representations. For instance, Gould wrote:

The model of the grabbag is a taxonomist’s nightmare and an evolutionist’s delight. Imagine an organism built of a hundred basic features, with twenty possible forms per feature. The grabbag contains a hundred compartments, with twenty different tokens in each. To make a new Burgess creature, the Great Token-Stringer takes one token at random from each compartment and strings them all together. Voilà, the creature works–and you have nearly as many successful experiments as a musical scale can build catchy tunes. The world has not operated this way since Burgess times. Today, the Great Token-Stringer uses a variety of separate bags–labeled “vertebrate body plan,” “angiosperm body plan,” “molluscan body plan,” and so forth. The tokens in each compartment are far less numerous, and few if any from bag 1 can also be found in bag 2. The Great Token-Stringer now makes a much more orderly set of new creatures, but the playfulness and surprise of his early work have disappeared. He is no longer the enfant terrible of a brave new multicellular world, fashioning Anomalocaris with a hint of arthropod, Wiwaxia with a whiff of mollusk, Nectocaris with an amalgam of arthropod and vertebrate.

Gould, S. J. (1989). Wonderful Life. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. p. 217-218

Naturally, Gould was trying to be poetic; but one wonders if it is even possible for him to explain his “grabbag” idea without resorting to the teleology of a designer (in the above case, the “Great Token-Stringer”). One suspects not. And those outside the field of biology are oblivious to the fact that evolution is supposed to be non-teleological. In fact, they see quite the opposite. For example, James Gleick in his book on the Chaos Theory wrote:

In science, on the whole, physical cause dominates. Indeed, as astronomy and physics emerged from the shadow of religion, no small part of the pain came from discarding arguments by design, forward-looking teleology–the earth is what it is so that humanity can do what it does. In biology, however, Darwin firmly established teleology as the central mode of thinking about cause. The biological world may not fulfill God’s design, but it fulfills a design shaped by natural selection. Natural selection operates not on genes or embryos, but on the final product. So an adaptationist explanation for the shape of an organism or the function of an organ always looks to its cause, not its physical cause but its final cause. Final cause survives in science wherever Darwinian thinking has become habitual. A modern anthropologist speculating about cannibalism or ritual sacrifice tends, rightly or wrongly, to ask only what purpose it serves. D’Arcy Thompson saw this coming. He begged that biology remember physical cause as well, mechanism and teleology together. He devoted himself to explaining the mathematical and physical forces that work on life. As adaptations took hold, such explanations came to seem irrelevant. It became a rich and fruitful problem to explain a leaf in terms of how natural selection shaped such an effective solar panel. Only much later did some scientists start to puzzle again over the side of nature left unexplained. Leaves come in just a few shapes, of all the shapes imaginable; and the shape of a leaf is not dictated by its function.

Gleick, J. (1987). Chaos: Making a New Science. New York: Penguin Books. p. 201-202

Because of this cognitive dissonance, teleology works well against Darwinists. If something looks designed, the simplest and straightforward reason is that it’s because it was designed. It is because of how much design is apparent in the living world that Dawkins had to take the time to pen The Blind Watchmaker in the first place. If nature didn’t have the designed appearance of a watch, Dawkins wouldn’t have needed to try to come up with an alternate explanation for it.

So teleology has found a niche in anti-Darwinian circles. I, however, would like to expand it out a bit further than that. Most recently, I’ve been studying cryptology as part of my endeavors to better understand such things as information theory, etc. Cryptology is also important since I enjoy dissecting Darwinist arguments and DNA happens to be very prominent in many of them. Since DNA is a “living code” understanding certain principals of cryptology can be beneficial.

Surprisingly, however, my thoughts have strayed from their original course in biology. The living order is teleological, and it is difficult for anyone to honestly look at it and yet still deny the inherent design. But so too is the non-living universe. Teleology surrounds us everywhere we look. It is not just in living systems, but anywhere that there is a system. And because of that, my original focus and my original purpose for reading up on cryptology (besides the fact that I’m weird and actually enjoy the subject) has expanded somewhat.

All reality is teleological.

Since my thinking has come about as the result of reading on cryptology, it perhaps wouldn’t hurt if I gave the specific example that got me thinking on this issue. William Friedman, who was instrumental in the US breaking of the Japanese cipher PURPLE in World War II, wrote The Index of Coincidence and Its Applications in Cryptography in 1920 when he was 28 years old. It was later updated somewhat after Friedman found the solution for a cipher machine using cryptographic rotors. David Khan, in The Code-Breakers, illustrates the theory in this manner:

Imagine an urn containing one each of the 26 letters of the alphabet. The chance of drawing any specified letter, say r, is one in 26, or 1/26. Now imagine another, identical urn. The chance of drawing an r is equally one in 26, or 1/26. What are the odds of drawing a pair of r’s, one after another, in a two-draw situation? The likelihood of drawing the second r is 1/26 of the chance of drawing the first, which is 1/26. So the chance of drawing two r’s in a single event, or “simultaneously,” one from each urn, is 1/26 x 1/26. Similarly, the probability of drawing two a’s is 1/26 x 1/26, of two b’s 1/26 x 1/26, and so on. Consequently, the chance of drawing a pair of letters—any pair of letters, no matter which pair may come up—is the sum of all these probabilities. It is (1/26 x 1/26) + (1/26 x 1/26) + … + (1/26 x 1/26), repeated 26 times, or 26 x (1/26 x 1/26), or 1/26. This quantity may be written as the decimal 0.0385.

Assume now an ideal cryptosystem whose ciphertexts yield a perfectly flat frequency count—one with as many a’s as b’s as c’s…as z’s. Polyalphabetics approach this in varying degrees and may, for practical purposes, be regarded as generating such ciphertexts. These texts are called “random” because they are what would be obtained if letters were drawn at random from the urn (each letter being replaced after being noted and the urn shaken to mix the lot, chance alone dictating their identities). If two such random texts are superimposed, the chance that the letter above will be the same as the letter below is the same as the chance of drawing a pair of identical letters from the two urns. This is 0.0385, or, to put it another way, there will be 3.85 such coincidences in every 100 vertical pairs. Experiment will confirm this.

Now imagine an urn filled with 100 letters of English in the proportion in which they are used in normal text—8 a’s, 1 b, 3 c’s, 13 e’s, and so on. The chance of drawing a specified letter is now proportional to its frequency. The probability that an a will emerge is 8/100ths, that a e will is 13/100ths. With two such urns, the chance of drawing two a’s is, as before, the product of the individual probabilities, or 8/100 x 8/100; the chance of drawing two e’s is consequently 13/100 x 13/100. And the probability of drawing a pair—any pair—of identical letters is the sum of all these pair-probabilities: (8/100 x 8/100) + (1/100 x 1/100) + (3/100 x 3/100) …, and so on through all 26 letters. This calculation has been made (with a slightly different frequency table). The result is 0.0667.

These two plaintext urns may likewise be replaced by two strings of plaintext. If they are superimposed, there will be as much likelihood that two letters will coincide vertically as there was that two identical letters will be drawn from the two urns. This probability is 0.0667, or 6.67 coincidences per 100 paris. For example:

text A wheninthecourseofhumaneventsitbecomesnecessaryforo
text B fourscoreandsevenyearsagoourfathersbroughtforthupo

text A (cont.) nenationtodissolvethepoliticalbandsthathaveconnect
text B (cont.) nthiscontinentanewnationconceivedinlibertyanddedic

There are just seven coincidences in the 100 pairs—precisely what theory predicts.

…[O]ne must recognize first that the superimposition of two monalphabetically enciphered texts will result in the…figure of about 6.67 coincidences per 100 vertical pairs, or 6.67 per cent of coincidences. This is because the coincidences will occur whether the letters are clothed in ciphertext disguises or not. The calculation does not ask the letters for their identities. It merely notes their coincidence. By the same token—and this is important—two polyalphabetic cryptograms enciphered in the same key and superimposed so that the two occurrences of that key are in synchronization with one another will also show 6.67 per cent of coincidences. The reason is this: In a correct (in-phase) superimposition, the two letters of each vertical pair have the same keyletter. Thus whenever a coincidence occurs in the plaintext, the letters of the pair will be identically enciphered. This results in an identical pair—a coincidence—in the ciphertext. It does not matter that a pair of e’s may be enciphered into V’s at one point and into Q’s at another, or that a coincidence of a’s becomes a coincidence of L’s here and a coincidence of F’s there. The toal number of coincidences will remain the same as the number in the plaintext.

On the other hand, if the two cryptograms are improperly superimposed, so that the keys are not in step, any coincidences will result from different keyletters operating on different plaintext letters to accidentally produce the same ciphertext letter. The coincidences will be caused, in other words, by chance. Chance alone will produce 3.85 coincidences per 100 vertical pairs in random text, and polyalphabetic ciphertext is equivalent to random text. Hence an incorrect superimposition should yield about 3.85 per cent of coincidences. But 3.85 per cent is substantially less than 6.67 per cent, and so a comparison of the percentages of coincidences at various test superimpositions should show which superimposition is correct.

An example should make things clear. A cryptosystem with the Vigenère running key THE BARD OF AVON IS THE AUTHOR OF THESE LINES…starts the key for the first message with the first keyletter, but starts the key for successive messages with the third, fifth, and so on, keyletters. If plaintext 1 is If music be the food of love, play on, and plaintext 2 is Now is the winter of our discontent, the encipherment will be these:

key             THEBARDOFAVONISTHEAUTHOROFTH
plaintext 1     ifmusicbethefoodofloveplayon
ciphertext 1    BMQVSZFPJTCSSWGWVJLIOLDCODHU

key         (TH)EBARDOFAVONISTHEAUTHOROFTHESE
plaintext 2     nowisthewinterofourdiscontent
ciphertext 2    RPWZVHMERWABWKVJOOKKWJQTGAIFX

A cryptanalyst, receiving these two cryptograms, will superimpose them so that they start at the same point:

ciphertext 1  BMQVSZFPJTCSSWGWVJLIOLDCODHU
ciphertext 2  RPWZVHMERWABWKVJOOKKWJQTGAIFX

Since there are 28 vertical pairs, the cryptanalyst would expect 28 x 0.0667 coincidences or 1.8676, or about 2, for a proper superimposition. But in fact he finds none, so he shifts the second cryptogram one space to the right and tries again. There will now be 27 vertical pairs. The cryptanalyst again calculates the theoretical expected number of coincidences for random and for correctly superimposed texts of this length so that he may compare the values with what he actually observes. Thus, a wrongly superimposed text would yield 27 x 0.0385 = 0.9695, or about 1 coincidence that would produced by chance alone, while a correct superimposition would yield 27 x 0.0667 = 1.2369. (These fractional differences become more pronounced with longer texts.) One coincidence appears….

Since the differences between the chance and the caused values are so slight with so few letters, the cryptanalyst might wonder whether this is not in fact a random result (which in fact it is…) and try the next superimposition. Here the number of coincidences immediately jumps. This superimposition is obviously correct.

ciphertext 1  BMQVSZFPJTCSSWGWVJLIOLDCODHU
ciphertext 2    RPWZVHMERWABWKVJOOKKWJQTGAIFX

If the cryptanalyst wishes to continue, he will find that at the next superimposition the number of coincidences falls again, to 2, and will return to begin his attack with the third superimposition…

Kahn, D. (1967, 1996). The Codebreakers. New York: Scribner. p. 377-380.

With this as the immediate background, I’ll simply note how my train of thought has progressed. When dealing with language, we are dealing with something that we know is designed. Language requires intelligence, and this is even more evident when it comes to written text. Because text is a product of intelligence, it will always display the hallmark of intelligence. One will be able to differentiate between that which is designed and that which is random.

The above examples demonstrate it beautifully. Take the illustration of putting the opening line of the Declaration of Independence above the opening of the Gettysburg address. Because both texts were written in English, and because English is designed rather than random, English traits will carry through. There will be vertical alignment of almost 7%. Random texts only have 3%. Because this is the case, even hiding English within a cipher does not destroy these traits, although it obscures it at first glance.

Design, therefore, is something that would permeate everything. It might not be immediately apparent at first glance, but there will be traits that can be sought mathematically that will yield results nowhere near what random results would give us.

Now obviously when one thinks about living systems, one can see that there are processes at work that are not random. Even the relatively simple actions of an ion pump inside a cell demonstrate values that are not what one would find in a random environment. A cell becomes charged due to the existence of these ion pumps (which is how the electrical pulse can travel the nerve), but under random circumstances the charge would dissipate.

Indeed, when thinking of what is truly random one immediately must think of entropy. The less entropy there is in a system, the less random it is. If a room has low entropy, it is because everything is ordered. If it has high entropy, it is randomized. The more ordered something is, the less random it must be.

This brings us immediately to questions of the universe as a whole. And not just in terms of entropy amongst galaxies and such. Instead, I want to ask more foundational questions.

Suppose we see iron filings arrayed on a table next to a magnet. The filings will lay in a particular pattern and won’t lay randomly. Why is this the case? Of course the immediate answer is because magnetic forces have arranged the iron filings in that manner. But why is it that magnetic forces would act in that manner? We can dig into the quantum levels, perhaps. But that merely begs the question: why is it that those quantum particals act the way they do? What is it that causes electrons to be repulsed from one another? What is it that causes protons to attract electrons? Why is it that these things always happen this way, that there is no variance…no randomness to it?

Even things that are apparently random turn out to hide hidden order. Take radioactivity for instance. Radioactive elements are used to produce random cipher keys even, because no one can predict when an alpha particle will decay. But despite how “random” the decay is, radioactive elements always decay at a specific rate. Despite the random nature, there is an over-riding law that stipulates what the half-life of that radioactive element will be. We may not be able to predict when the next alpha particle will decay, but we know that after a set amount of time exactly half of the element will have decayed.

Is that not an instance of the non-random showing itself? Like the cipher text that cannot help but display the design of the English language, if one but knew where to look, don’t the underlying laws that govern all the universe scream out that there is underlying order to even what we think is chaos?

Earlier I quoted Gleick’s comment about the shape of leaves, which are governed not by forces of Natural Selection but instead by fractal designs. The key there is “designs.” All of reality is based on these deep, inherent designs. And these designs cannot be random because they are, in fact, distinct from what we would see in a purely random field.

Naturally I know that some chaoticians say that order springs from chaos, and they will use mathematical representations of chaos to illustrate this…all the while ignoring the fact that the mathematical system that they are using to generate those fractals is itself non-chaotic. Indeed, as some may already know I’ve spent lots of time playing with what I call the “Factor Field.” It’s an Excel program that I made (you can e-mail me if you want a copy using my yahoo account. Simply put “petedawg34” and follow it with “@” and finish with “yahoo.com”, and yes defeating spambots is always fun). The Factor Field is simply a graphical representation of integers. The left-most column counts by 1. The second column by 2s. Etc. Because I used Excel, it only shows 256 wide, but it goes 65,536 deep. Here is but one example of what you can see at cell number 60,480:

This shows what I call a “starburst” pattern. You can also see the skeletons of parabolas in there, as well as many different lines of various slopes. All this was created by putting integers in patterns next to each other.

If you were to isolate some of the pixels on the right side of the graphic, the dots would look very chaotic. There would not appear to be any particular rhyme or reason for any of them to be where they are. Yet they came about due to a specific rule. There is an underlying order that created the seeming randomness that is seen. And stepping back, viewing it from the distance where one can see the whole starburst, the order is obvious.

Likewise, the factor field can make it easy to find if a number is a prime number, but it doesn’t make it any easier to predict prime numbers that aren’t shown on the graph (although via observation, I hypothesize that all prime numbers greater than 3 are numbers that end in either 1 or 5 in base-6, but that’s another blog post for another time). One can tell that previous portions of the graph affect later portions, but it is so complex that it is difficult for humans to predict how the effects will play out “off screen.”

This interplay of chaos and order is only possible because the structure of the factor field is built on order. It’s an order that displays chaotic behavior later on, but it remains order. Likewise, all the representation of chaos theory are built on mathematical models that are, themselves, strict. Math doesn’t randomly make 1 + 1 = 7. It cannot happen. And the rules of chaos mean that doing the same math formula over with the exact same data will yield the exact same result. That there are wild differences if the data is even minorly tweaked doesn’t change the fact that not tweaking it yields identical results.

In other words, even in the most random systems we can think of, because they are real, have order underlying them. Reality is not random. Reality is, at heart, the opposite of random. And what is the opposite of randomness?

Design.

I saw the headline: ‘Basic Instinct’ Director Makes Shocking Jesus Claim and I was like, “Hmm, I wonder what that was.” Turns out:

In his upcoming biography of Jesus, “Basic Instinct” director Paul Verhoeven will make the shocking claim that Christ probably was the son of Mary and a Roman soldier who raped her during the Jewish uprising in Galilee.

This can only be shocking to people who have no concept of history. This claim isn’t new. In fact, it’s been used to “explain” the virgin birth since roughly 35 AD….

In fact, the Roman soldier is supposedly named Pantera. Indeed, this is even in the Wikipedia article called Criticisms of Jesus:

For example, that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was raped by a Roman soldier named Panthera, Pantera, or Pandira. Mary became pregnant as a result, and she claimed that she was carrying the son of God in order to hide the rape.

The only thing shocking about this is that anyone thinks such a claim is shocking. But of course if we slap the word “shocking” onto it, it might make it seem relevant. It makes people fear. It doesn’t matter how little evidence there is to the whole Pantera theory. We’ll just say it’s shocking.

So I’ll make a shocking claim now. This story is the best one ever written!

While the media around the world often is offensive for the sake of offense, in the case of Danish papers reprinting Mohommed cartoons, I agree with the media outlets who have reprinted them. When it comes to politics, there is no greater right than the right for people to have free speech. This right should not be trampled by any religious group, and of course if Shaira law is ever put into effect in America the first thing that would go is the entirety of the Constitution. None of the Constitution is harmonic with Islam.

Sadly, most American news outlets are not printing these cartoons. Somehow, they’ve got a misguided sense that one cannot offend Muslims at all costs (note that this rule does not apply to offending Christians–probably because Christians don’t go around blowing up innocent people when they get offended). It is quite ironic that the country that has the First Amendment is exercizing censorship on behalf of those who would destroy the First Amendment if they had political power.

Free speech is too important of an issue to kowtow to extremists. If we surrender our right to speak out against what we disagree with, it is only a matter of time before everything else crumbles away too.

I just responded to an email from one of my friends. Some of his comments sparked my thinking, so I’m going to post excerpts from my e-mail back to him. This will only be my comments, so a little bit of “reading between the lines” may be necessary for those interested in following this. The basic gist of the problem is looking at why most pastors don’t bother with such things as defending the historicity of the gospels, explaining methods of interpretation, etc. So, without further ado, here’s some of what I wrote back.

—
My own opinion isn’t so much that there’s a problem with seminaries, but that it’s a product of our entire education system–public schools through seminaries. That is, very few people know how to actually read anymore (and I’m not talking about illiteracy). Most people don’t understand the mechanics of language, and how the meanings are conveyed, and what the importance of themes are–let alone getting into the grammatio/historical method of Biblical interpretation. Even before we get there, modern fiction already shows how horrific this has become. (Dan Brown would never have been published during the time of Dickens, for instance, because he’s a talentless hack who couldn’t write a non-cliched sentence if his life depended on it. Or, to paraphrase Chargaff’s response to Watson & Crick: “If the pygmies have a long shadow, it only illustrates how late in the day it’s become.”)

If we can’t read normal fiction well, we’re not going to be able to read commentaries, philosophical works, science essays, rhetoric, or the Bible itself very well either. And if we can’t read them very well, it makes it that much more difficult to try to present it to others too. Indeed, I’m reminded just of the comments sections on the T-Blog how difficult it is for commentors to understand anything that they read when they respond–not just by the way they constantly miss obvious satire, but by the fact that they will read a statement exactly opposite of what it says. If they do this with our arguments, written by people who are contemporary with them using cultural references that are coherent with today, it’s that much worse when it comes to Biblical texts, which use ANE references. And further, God uses satire too!

So I do agree that part of the problem could be due to a lack of imagination (not only in seminarians, but pretty much in everyone in American culture today). Is it because of the profligation of TV, video games, etc.? I don’t know. I like those things, yet obviously have no problem with literature too. I think it ultimately boils down to a statistic I once read (which is unfortunately unverifiable by me right now, but which I think might understate the problem rather than overstate it) wherein one in three Americans have attempted to write a book, yet only one in ten voluntarily read even a single book during the course of a year. If people read more so that they were not only familiar with writings in general, but actually loved what they read (because reading is addictive, IMO), I think that would solve the vast majority of the problem in American culture. If “American culture” even means anything anymore…
—

Former Pakistania P.M. Banazir Bhutto was assassinated this morning. And while the title of this blog post (who woulda seen that coming?) could refer to that, it doesn’t. Instead, it refers to the dingbat wing of our nation.

For instance, comments on this ABC blog post include such gems as:

ok, this has all the signs of crap. No matter what comes out now, AlQueada has been associated with this. Welcome back to the politics of fear. Next, we will hear how someone admitted of this plot under torture and that if we had been allowed to be more aggressive with it we might have found something out sooner.

Posted by: Louis | Dec 27, 2007 12:10:48 PM

And my personal favorite:

A perfect excuse from the White House to enter in Pakistan????? How many american kids will die now? How many troops will be send to Pakistan?? How many mothers will be crying? Please, my friends No more War…no more suffering.

Posted by: norma | Dec 27, 2007 12:24:34 PM

Yes. The segment of our country that knows only blind hatred of George W. Bush thinks that this is all a big conspiracy for us to invade Pakistan now! There is no reasoning with people such as this.

But look at the end of the above post: “Please, my friends No more War…no more suffering.”

There’s a huge problem with this mentality. If you do not go after the thugs, you will get nothing but pain and suffering. Sorry “norma”, but those of us in the real world recognize that sometimes we need to kill people who would kill us. If you don’t believe it, let’s move it to a different topic. Take the gangsters of the 1930s. Do you suppose when Bruno shook down the store owners for “protection money” that, if the owner said, “Please, my friend. No more war. No more suffering. Let’s all get along” that Bruno woulda said, “Gee, you’re right”? Of course not. Bruno would have said, “Give me the money or I’ll cap you.”

When someone is already willing to do harm to an innocent person, then you’re not going to stop him with words. The fact is, evil people exist in the world. And evil people prey on others. They do not care about your concept of non-violence. They are more than willing to blow you to bits to get their way. This is reality.

There’s a reason God instituted government with the power of the sword.

I got to spend the afternoon with my father. We did a little Christmas shopping (and everyone in my family already knows what they’re getting: Borders gift cards…booyah) and then searched around for some other things which, because my mom reads this blog, I will not mention yet. (Yeah, try to read between THOSE lines!)

In any case, after the shopping was finished, we went to Village Inn and ate dinner, drank coffee, and had a good chat. It’s always nice to talk with my dad. I’ve always been close to him, and he definitely shaped my theology more than any other person. A lot of that comes from the fact that my dad was my pastor for the first eighteen years of my life or so. Not that my mom didn’t help either (I still remember the songs she taught me as a little child, a lot of which were simply Bible verses set to music); however, when it came to wrestling with the big ideas I was always able to talk to my dad and know that he could think about them as well.

Needless to say, our talk covered a wide area. There wasn’t just one thing, but several different topics. I got to talk a bit about my theory of how teaching occurs, some various philosophical thoughts on what knowledge is, thoughts on free will and fatalism, even thoughts on the divine command theory. But intermixed was normal conversation too. It’s actually quite amazing how easy it is to go from talking about Ukraine to talking about justification to talking about snow. All in two minutes.

When I see my dad, I see a lot of me. And I’m glad that I’m father’s son. In some ways, it helps me to see what Christ meant when He said: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). I am glad that God has given so many different varieties of “clues” about who He is. We have what we can understand from the workings of nature (by which we know His invisible attributes, as per Romans 1)–and that includes the way that families are–and we also know from Scripture more about Him. God reveals Himself in many ways, and it is through His Son that He is most clearly seen (as per Hebrews 1).

I love the way that God uses images and types to communicate truth. I’ve said before how much I like the Old Testament, and how I think it beneficial for all believers to get to know it intimately. God revealed the Old Testament before the New Testament for a reason. And one of the most Christologically significant books of the Bible is none other than the book of Genesis.

Because of this, I’m planning on doing a quick four or five part series beginning in the next few days. The series will look at Adam, Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph and look at their Christological significance. By no means does this exhaust Genesis (for one immediately thinks of Noah and Jacob/Israel too), but I think it gives us enough to hopefully motivate others to delve into the Old Testament once more.

Additionally, I should point out that if you’d like to read more on the significance of Christ in the Old Testament, one of the best books for that is The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses by Poythress. It actually makes the OT law interesting :-) When you see the purpose behind the repetitive commands for what the tabernacle should look like (for example), it makes it that much easier to make it through Numbers.

In any case, I think our cultural illiteracy of the Old Testament is one of the major drawbacks to modern evangelicalism. I think most of the various issues we struggle with, including those I talked with my father about today, all boil down to the fact that Christians have largely jettisoned the OT completely, and 99% of the New Testament too. When we see that a large number of Christians cannot even tell why Mormons aren’t Christians, then we know that something is amiss. And I, for one, think understanding the Old Testament will equip the believer with one of the strongest apologetical arguments he has: the self-consistency of Scripture. Frankly, once you understand the OT and how the NT is its fulfillment, it’s impossible to doubt the inspiration of Scripture.

So be prepared for the next few days for some good conversation. And perhaps you should get a cup of coffee to sip along with it too.

There isn’t enough here to do a T-blog post, and I really don’t want to get involved with this blow-hard anymore, but Touchstone is back at it! Yes, the poor soul who got banned from T-Blog has started another blog.

As all good Christians do, he uses it to defend atheists as often as possible. He just went after Paul Manata (surprise, surprise!) who had written about the fallacy of “secular ethics.” Again, I maintain the man is an atheist in disguise.

Now he has “responded” to my latest series as well, and his response is at http://banninated.blogspot.com/2007/12/calvindude-retroactive-trap-reflex.html. Apparently he is too stupid to grasp the fact that when I post blog articles I can do so for more than one reason. In any case, he says:

Peter Pike has a reflex that urges him to respond to objections to his posts with: “See! I knew someone would say that! Fell right into my trap!” Goodness knows Pike has “retro-trapped” me too many times to count over at Triablogue, prior to my bannination.

What makes this overly hillarious is that I work with a dude namedTravis, and I’m sure he’d be more than willing to attest that last year after I posted anything related to T-Stone, I went over to his cubicle and said, “Here’s how T-Stone’s going to respond to this post.” Sure enough, a few hours later T-Stone would respond EXACTLY the way I predicted. I was right at least 90% of the time. It was like leading a raging bull to the edge of a cliff and letting him run off the side.

In any case, I should point out that I did not expect Michael Spencer to be the one to respond the way he did (I actually thought it would be one of the Debunkers). But it didn’t surprise me that Spencer responded either. I presented reasons for my position and just waited for people to emote in return. I think I’ve already demonstrated Spencer’s hypocrisy well, and T-Stone lost all credibility two years ago. I trust objective readers can see that.