The Moral Christian

Blog Has Moved

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 23:05:00 +0000

The Moral Christian has been moved into my teaching blog, Thus Said the LORD. Please stop by, if you are able.

Blessings,

Michael

Infanticide Lives

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:08:00 +0000

Jenny had been undergoing six years of fertility treatments. After six years, success! She was the mother of twins and now seeks to abort one of them, according to an article in the New York Times by Ruth Padawer.

Jenny is emblematic of the "me" generation. A generation deemed geniuses every time they passed a test. Children who were awarded trophies every time they caught a ball. These were children of the 80s and 90s -- congratulated for their mere existence. Jenny, of course, is of a generation whose parents worried about the image-damaging effects of competition and the physical risk of ... teeter-totters. Hers is a generation whose most desired achievement was the "healthy self-image". Hers is a generation who live with their parents till they are in their mid- to late twenties -- about the same age that their grandfathers were being killed in Normandy and whose grandmothers welded struts on B17 bombers. Jenny's is the generation that elevates comfort above sacrifice.

Now, she lay on the obstrician's examination table about to undergo a reduction -- a "me" euphemism for aborting one of her twins because two more children, in addition to the ones she already had, would threaten the comfort and well-being of her and her family. Morally suspect? Not according to her. As Jenny says, "If I had conceived these twins naturally, I wouldn't have reduced this pregnancy, because you feel like if there's a natural order, then you don't want to disturb it."

Here's a telling paragraph from Ms. Padawer's peice:

What is it about terminating half a twin pregnancy that seems more controversial than reducing triplets to twins or aborting a single fetus? After all, the math’s the same either way: one fewer fetus. Perhaps it’s because twin reduction (unlike abortion) involves selecting one fetus over another, when either one is equally wanted. Perhaps it’s our culture’s idealized notion of twins as lifelong soul mates, two halves of one whole. Or perhaps it’s because the desire for more choices conflicts with our discomfort about meddling with ever more aspects of reproduction.

I've been writing a lot lately on the underlying moral structure of human society. One aspect of that structure is how we define the basic nature of the human person. Jenny's choice to abort one of her unborn babies is morally acceptable to her and her generation -- at least intellectually -- because for her, the exercise of this choice bears little consequence to her self-esteem. She is, after all, basically a good, kind, and decent person.

Victor Davis Hanson -- Paleolithic Liberalism

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 17:51:00 +0000

Secular liberalism is largely based on the model, most famously expounded by Rousseau, that mankind is inherently good. Bad behavior, according to Rousseau, arises from the corrupting influence of nature. As those who misbehave, like a four-year old, explain, "it's not my fault".

I've dealt with this at some length previously but as Victor Davis Hanson explains, attributing misbehavior to economic conditions (another example of Rousseau's noble savage view) leads to exactly these problems. This quote from his article is spot on:

As we saw last week in Britain and in some American cities, liberal redistributionism makes far worse the innate problems it was hailed to solve

What innate problems might he be referring to? It isn't hard to guess. Those who are of the view that their lacking is not their fault are going to rage against those external influences. Of course, it's a misplace rage.

The Riots in Great Britain

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 17:25:00 +0000

In Genesis 8:21, God vows never again to destroy mankind even though mankind is inherently evil.

מִנְּעֻרָיו

רַע

הָאָדָם

לֵב

יֵצֶר

כִּי

...for the inclination of mankind is evil from its youth...

This text illuminates one of the bedrock values of the Judeo-Christian view of humanity. In this particular text, God instructs the reader that mankind is inherently evil. In other words, the evil that people do is part of their nature. So, what are the moral implications of this understanding?

The principal implication is that people are accountable for the conduct of their lives. In recognition of this understanding, Judeo-Christian societies establish the kinds of civil institutions necessary to enforce individual accountability. For example, in societies that adhere to this value, whether Judeo-Christian or otherwise, justice seeks to correct the individual.

Individual accountability is a hallmark of Judeo-Christian societies, of which America is one and Europe once was. Sadly, Rousseau's vision of mankind has largely displaced Judeo-Christian values in Europe. In Rousseau's world mankind is inherently good but is corrupted by external influences. When a society's view mankind is as fundamentally good, then social problems -- from impolite behavior to serious crime -- can not be attributed to human, moral failing but to external influences. In such a society individuals are not held accountable.

Having summarized the distinctions between American and European values vis accountability, reflect on this exerpt from an Aug 14 editorial in the London Telegraph:

Over the past week we have witnessed the culmination of the liberal experiment. The experiment attested that two parents don't matter; that welfare, rather than work, cures poverty; you tolerate "minor crime"; you turn a blind eye to celebrity drug use; you allow children to leave school without worthwhile skills; you say there's no difference between right and wrong. Well now we've seen the results.

The modern Labour Party's answer to every social question is to open the taxpayers' cheque books. We've tested that world view to the point of destruction. The welfare state has never been bigger but nor have our social problems. Today's historically high tax burden has forced parents to spend more and more hours outside the home, just to make ends meet.

The Left is always ready to attack hyper-capitalism for the ways in which it can erode community bonds, but it looks the other way when it comes to thinking about the ways in which the hyper-state can devour social capital. Labour has become the most materialist and consumerist of Britain's two largest parties. Whereas Big Society Conservatives are immersed in the importance of relationship-building, within families and within communities, it is the Left that constantly emphasises the right to personal fulfilment.

It reveres "lifestyle choices" as though the kind of home in which a child is raised is somehow equivalent to whether you get your weekly groceries from Morrisons or Asda. Any political movement that is relaxed about the structure of the family will produce the amoral youths that rioted last week.

The assumption upon which this author bases his dismay is that European families still view moral accountability as an individual responsibility. His assumption is manifestly not true. This generation of European parents have been taught that their children are not to blame for their misbehavior. The fault lies in their teachers, their neighbors, their peers, the economy, pop-culture, and so forth. Little wonder their little darlings go on rampages so that they might "show the rich that we can do what we want".

PART I: Michelle Bachmann and Ephesians 5:21

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 15:40:00 +0000

During the Republican debate Thursday evening, Michelle Bachmann had this exchange with Byron York (Washington Examiner):

York:

[In 2006 you remarked that your] "husband said you should study for a degree in tax law. You said you hated the idea. And then you explained, 'But the Lord said, 'Be submissive. Wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands. As president, would you be submissive to your husband?"

Bachmann:

"Marcus and I will be married for 33 years this September 10. I'm in love with him. I'm so proud of him. What submission means to us, it means respect. I respect my husband. He's a wonderful godly man and great father. He respects me as his wife; that's how we operate our marriage," she continued. "We respect each other; we love each other. I've been so grateful we've been able to build a home together. We have wonderful children and 20 foster children. We've built a business and life together, and I'm very proud of him."

She was probably referring to Ephod 5:21-22. Here's how the NRS renders these verses:

(21)Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. (22) Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the LORD.

In the NLT, NIV, NAS, NET, and the NKJ the word in question is rendered as submit as, for example, in the NIV's version

(21) Submit to one another out of reverence for the Christ. (22) Wives, submit to your husbands as to the LORD.

In Ephesians 5, the word in question is ὑποτασσω -- is literally translated as "subjecting yourselves" (ASIDE: In verse 5:22 the Greek word in question does not appear in some Greek manuscripts. However, most (all?) Bible translators believe the word is implied and add it to the text anyway). Further, in 1 Peter 2:18, slaves are admonished to ὑποτασσω to their masters – even when their masters are cruel and inhumane. Finally, 1 Cor 14:34 seems just as harsh in that women (not just wives) are to keep silent in the churches "for they are not permitted to speak, but let them subject themselves, just as the Law also says.

I have two questions for you: Is Ms. Bachmann correct -- would ὑποτασσω be better translated as 'respect' rather than 'submit'? Is there a meaningful difference between 'respect' and 'submit' in these texts?

I'll provide my own thoughts in a subsequent post.

Now, go and study.

DNA Components Found In Ancient Meteorites

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 14:26:00 +0000

I’m not quite sure why this is newsworthy except, perhaps, to rile the waters in which creationists and atheists swim. However, I call your attention to this paragraph from the story:

For decades the scientific community had hypothesized that a chemical process inside comets and meteorites could create elements of DNA, or Deoxyribonucleic acid. The ladder-like molecule contains genetic “blueprints” needed to create life and living organisms. It’s made up of four different molecules, called nucleobases, which lock together rung-by-rung in the now-iconic double-helix shape. (my emphasis)

The claim that DNA is necessary to create life is objectively wrong. Scientists do not know the criteria (chemical, physical, or biological) necessary to create life. The importance of nucleic acids for life lies in its ability to mediate reproduction, not create life. How life came into being? No one knows.

Nor is this a minor point. Both sides of the origin-of-life debate often conflate reproduction with creation and this surely obscures the controversy. At the moment, science and scientists do not understand how life came into being.

Truth in advertising: I am a firm believer in evolution by natural selection (ENS, aka Darwinian evolution). But when discussing the merits of ENS, anti-creationists must first acknowledge this essential truth.

How To Achieve Holiness

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 23:25:00 +0000

To understand holiness, we need to understand the relationship between obedience and faith – a topic to which St. Paul dedicated himself and of which most Christians are confused.

Obedience
Obedience is amoral. It is neither good nor bad. Rather, obedience is a means to an end. When the guards at the Nazi death camps obeyed their orders to slaughter thousands of Jewish men, women, and children their obedience led to an indescribable evil. On the other hand, obedience to God’s command to help the poor leads to righteousness (2 Cor 9:9 as quoted from Psalm 112:9). In other words, when our souls stand before God, the Judge, He doesn’t ask “Did you obey me”. Instead, He asks, “were you faithful to me?” This is very close to what consumed St. Paul in Romans – obedience in the service of God’s will is the proper expression of faith.

What many of us forget is that the Hebrew word for faith, aman and its derivatives, was understood by the Jews of Jesus’s day to mean trust. Among the Jews of Jesus’s day faithfulness meant abiding by the tenets of one’s faith. I remember when I taught my daughters to swim, I first had to gain their trust. When I asked them to jump into my arms from the side of the pool, they only did so because they trusted (had faith in) me. Were I not to have caught them their faith in me would have been compromised because I would have broken their faith. On a less personal level, the marriage covenant offers a similar lesson in faith and obedience: In marriage we vow to be faithful to each other. More specifically, our married life proceeds according to the rules we have vowed to obey. To disobey your marriage vow to break faith with your spouse.

In Jesus’s day faith and obedience were largely inseparable. Jesus and His contemporaries viewed a person’s outward behavior as the expression of the person’s interior faith (Matt 7:16, James 2:14-26). This is not the case today. western philosophy has largely disconnected faith from obedience. To we moderns, faith is an interior, spiritual quality more related to piety and less related to fidelity. This is especially true in much of contemporary Christianity where faith connotes a relation to God contingent largely on His saving grace. Thus, Christian pastors spend an enormous amount of time talking about faith and little or no time about being faithful.

Faith in God means being faithful to God. To be faithful to God is to live by God’s rules, not our own. Thus, St. Paul was correct. We are not, strictly speaking, saved by obedience. We are saved by our faith in God as demonstrated by being faithful Him. According to Moses, the prophets, Jesus, and St. Paul and the Apostles being faithful to God means that you strive to obey His commands! Thus, to consciously disobey a divine command is to break faith with God (Numbers 5:6, Deut 32:51, Ezra 10:2, etc.,). On the other hand, to fall short of God’s standard is not a sign of faithlessness, it’s a sign of humanness – Remember, God will not ask you on judgment day, “Did you obey me?”. He will ask, “Were you faithful to me?”. In other words, trying to live by God’s ethics and moral values is what counts because it is faithfulness to God that counts.

Holiness

Finally, it turns out that there is are two purposes behind the LORD’s requirement that we be faithful to His commands. The first is to perfect the world (Micah 6:8). The second, and the subject of this essay, is to achieve holiness. Now, holiness has nothing whatsoever to do with piety, reverence, and high liturgies, or shouting hallelujahs so that all might hear. In God’s view, to be holy means to be “set apart” or “sanctified”. Being faithful to God was, and still is, the path to holiness. This idea was well understood by Jesus and His apostles. As St. Peter wrote (quoting God in Lev 11:45)

For it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:16)

For I am the LORD who brought you up from the land of Egypt, to be your God; you shall be holy, for I am holy (Lev 11:45)

Here, St. Peter meant to remind the faithful they were to set themselves apart from the rest of the surrounding pagan cultures. To accomplish this command, believers were to conduct their lives in ways faithfully to the law, the prophets, and most importantly, to Jesus. Faithfulness was (and is) the path to holiness.

McGurn: The Moral Outrage of Missing Girls

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 18:32:00 +0000

In her book, “Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Fuill of Men”, Maria Hvistendahl expresses outrage that people are engaging in sex-selective abortion. Ross Douthat of the New York Times devastates her moral outrage …

“…for the contortions she must make to sustain her unequivocal commitment to ‘”choice”’ while asking us to share her indignation at what those choices have wrought”.

I have long argued that leftists are moral imbeciles. Maria Hvistendahl’s book is yet another example illustrating the moral obtuseness of the left.

And here’s another one – when an anti-abortion group put up a billboard with a beautiful black child superimposed over a tag line which read, “The most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb”. The billboard was quickly removed.

Evidently the truth that almost two out of every three African-American children are aborted is morally incomprehensible to the feminist left and their fellow travelers. New York lefties were horrified, not at the truth of the billboard, but because raising such questions is not to be tolerated in New York city. This is why I refer to these people as leftists and not liberal. Leftists demean, demagogue, and deny. The liberal engages the principles at issue.

At the end of the day, the leftist intellect is simply not capable of dealing with the cognitive dissonance of their policies.

Speaking of Fasting...

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 23:52:00 +0000

In the Wall Street Journal this morning:

The Catholic Bishops of Great Britain and Wales will instruct their congregations to return to the tradition of abstaining from eating meat on Friday. What’s interesting, though, apart from the fasting is this paragraph:

Sociologists such as Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, who study the behavior of "religious economies," have observed that churches tend to lose vigor when they relax demands on adherents, especially those tenets and practices that cut against the grain of wider society. In economic terms, lowering the "costs" of membership in this way ends up diminishing its benefits, among other ways by loosening the bonds of community.

Of course, this reminds me of Richard John Neuhaus’s observation that “Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed.” Fasting, apart from its other manifestations, is a mark of distinction.

What do we learn from this? We learn, I think, that religious communities who establish right standards of orthopraxy (fasting, church attendance, the wearing of religious symbols – yarmulkes, crosses, liturgies, etc., ) are not only healthier, in terms of retention, but may be more attractive. In other words, a faith that, like Jesus, makes demands of its followers – even if only symbolic – is a faith that when so exercised is a faith that builds our faith communities.

Read the whole article here.

The Core of Dennis Prager's Religious Beliefs.

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 23:49:00 +0000

This is so good that I’ve copied the article in its entirety. You can read the original article here. I like this statement so much because of his claim that beliefs have consequences. We order our lives according to what we believe – for good or bad. The religions of Judeo-Christian tradition have established a set of core beliefs the consequences of which have been the greatest force for human goodness in all of creation. Here then, is Dennis Prager’s understanding of those core beliefs.

1. There is a God who is the Creator of the world.

Therefore, life is not a meaningless coincidence, but has ultimate meaning — even if we humans are not fully capable of knowing what that meaning is.

2. This God is a personal God — meaning that God knows each of us.

Therefore, God matters and we matter. If there is a Creator God who does not know His creations, He doesn’t matter and we don’t matter. That is why there is no meaningful difference between belief in a God who does not know us and atheism.

3. “Personal God” does not mean that God necessarily intervenes in the life of each of us.

Therefore, we humans should be more concerned with what God wants from us than what we want from God.

4. This God is known as “the God of Israel.”

Therefore, those who say they believe in God but are unwilling to identify this God as the God of Israel believe in another god than believing Jews and Christians do.

5. God is moral and just.

Therefore, God judges all men and women.

6. There is ultimate justice.

Therefore, there is an afterlife. If there were no afterlife, God would neither be good nor just, since there is little justice in this life.

7. As G.K. Chesterton put it, “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in anything.”

Therefore, the secular West has produced a plethora of foolish, often dangerous, substitutes for God-based religion. These include substitute religions such as socialism, feminism and environmentalism, and evils such as communism and Nazism.

8. The Jews are God’s Chosen People, which means they have been chosen to bring humanity to God and His ethical standards (ethical monotheism).

Therefore, (1) the most evil regimes and doctrines of each generation focus their hatred on the Jews and, (2) there is transcendent meaning to the Jews’ existence and even to the Jews’ suffering.

9. Most Jews do not understand the meaning of chosenness.

Therefore, the greatest Jewish tragedy is that few Jews engage in this mission of the Jewish people. The Jews who talk to the world rarely live or advocate Judaism; and the Jews who live Judaism rarely talk to the world.

10. God blesses those who bless the Jews and curses those who curse the Jews (Genesis 12:3).

Therefore, America, which has blessed the Jews more than any nation in history, has been uniquely blessed; and the Arab world, which curses the Jewish state and Jewish people, is benighted. Conversely, should America abandon Israel, it will cease to be blessed. And only when the Arab world abandons its hate-filled preoccupation with the Jewish state will it begin to leave its benighted state.

11. God cares about goodness more than He cares about anything else. “The holy God is sanctified through righteous conduct” (Isaiah 5:16).

Therefore, God is not sanctified when Jews place law above goodness or when Christians place faith above goodness.

12. Human beings, not animals, are created in God’s image.

Therefore, human life is infinitely more valuable than animal life.

13. God, not human beings, is the author of the Torah.

Therefore, even when the Torah’s laws are time-bound— for example, the temple sacrifices or the potion drunk by an accused adulterer — its values are eternal even when unpopular (for example, man-woman marriage, taking the life of murderers, honoring a parent one does not love).

14. At the present time, conservative Christians — such as Evangelicals — and conservatives generally — such as Wall Street Journal columnists and talk radio hosts — are Israel’s, and therefore the Jews’, best friends. Meanwhile, universities throughout the Western world are centers of Israel hatred.

Therefore, most Jews ought to be suffering from major cognitive dissonance. That which they most distrust — Christians and conservatives — are Israel’s greatest defenders; and that which they most venerate — the universities — are Israel’s greatest antagonists.

15. The Israel-Arab conflict is the morally clearest dispute in our time.

Therefore, anyone who sides with Israel’s enemies or who works to delegitimize Israel has a broken moral compass, is to be feared, and is to be fought by all good people.

The Morality of Transcendent Truth

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 23:48:00 +0000

Mike Potemra contributed a post to National Review Online, The Ethics of Social Change, in which he asserted that he strongly believes in absolute truth. In response to his article, he received a comment via email around which he wrote a second article, Truth Matters. Here is the section of the email comment to which Potemra responded:

Perhaps there is “absolute truth”. Let’s put aside, for now at least, the intellectual side of this discussion (quantum physics, ego, consciousness, conscience, mind, matter, soul, god, etc.)

You do realize, do you not, that people who “know” the “absolute truth” have committed unspeakable mayhem throughout all of history? Yes?

The list is long, and infamous, and while it includes obvious monsters like Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Castro, and Hitler, it also includes lots of religious figures, from pretty much every major religion, including many, many Christians. I know you know this – it is simply a fact.

Let’s face it, my friend. The quest for “absolute truth” pretty much always leaves behind a trail of broken bodies, broken minds, or even corpses.

Or, at minimum, plenty of hatred. I know you must be familiar with the comments at The Corner regarding SSM. A lot of people there, armed with the “absolute truth” provided by Christianity, refer to gays as “disordered”, with “totalitarian impulses”, and worse. . . . [The writer goes on to quote some combox comments, which, I will stipulate, are --- how to put this delicately? --- well, let’s just say they don’t seem to be exactly on fire with Christian love. --- MP]

I am writing only to say, think about it. The quest for “absolute truth” has a pretty dismal history.

And isn’t this because, there isn’t any obvious way to ascertain the truth? So people end up looking for truth in ideologies, both religious and secular. And there you have your problem.

Potemra went on to say that this email “is one of the most spectacularly wrongheaded passages I have ever read. To say that it is completely unhelpful to the human cause would be an understatement.”

Surely, Potemra is correct, but He makes a mistake by accepting the framework of his interlocutor. He should have rejected the premise of the writer’s argument outright because the debate centers not whose truth is absolute, but the authority behind the truth. If the authority of the truth is mankind, as secular humanists would argue, then all truth is relative and, by construction, absolute truth can not exist. Dig deep enough and you’ll find that most atheists are loathe to accept the consequences of their theology.

On the other hand, if the authority behind the truth is transcendent – higher than mankind – then the truth as expressed by that authority is absolute. The greatest evils ever committed in human history have been committed by people for whom a transcendent definition of truth does not exist. Their moral compass is set by themselves so they have no one to answer to but themselves. In the twentieth century alone, atheists – beholding to no higher authority than themselves – murdered over a hundred million men, women, and children.

Derek Jeter and Decline of America

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 15:46:00 +0000

And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart and you shall teach [the Scriptures] diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up (Deut 6:6-7).

Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.(Exodus 20:12).

What do we learn from these two passages? First, we learn the God’s will is for parents (the older generation) to teach God’s wisdom to their children (the younger generation). The second verse (the fifth commandment) teaches us that children (the younger generation) are obligated to honor their parents (the older generation). Now, keep in mind that God is addressing the nation of Israel in both of these passages, not individuals. Phrased negatively in a more contemporary context, the Judeo-Christian tradition, upon which this nation was explicitly and purposefully founded, understands that a nation whose people do not honor this reciprocal obligation will not survive.

What’s this have to do with Derek Jeter, you ask. The decline of an athlete, no matter how accomplished is inevitable as Richard Epstein writes in his article America Strikes Out. The decline of Derek Jeter’s play is a metaphor for the decline of America. He writes,

All individuals undergo a cycle of growth and decay that no one can alter or halt. In contrast, nations can be viewed as perpetually young with the youthful and vigorous replacing the old and cautious as the latter group retires or dies off…[but] if individual declines are inevitable, national declines need not be.

Mr. Epstein ascribes the decline of America to failed leadership – a leadership that, like Derek Jeter constantly fiddling with his swing, is constantly fiddling with its policies. The article is instructive and well worth your time. However, in the end Mr. Epstein’s prescription to reverse the decline, deregulation, only treats the symptom.

America’s decline is due to the loss of the American ideal and the rejection of the idea of American exceptionalism. American ideals derive from the values of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and because the older generations have failed to teach [these values] diligently to their children and their children have failed to honor their forbearers, the decline into mediocrity is inevitable.

To Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Thu, 19 May 2011 22:20:00 +0000

The word 'covet' is probably best known from the Biblical commandment "Thou shalt not covet ...". Or, in more contemporary terms, "Do not envy your neighbor's possessions".

But is this what it really means?

In Hebrew the word, translated as 'covet' is tach'mode (sounds like 'ch' as in Bach), the meaning of which is closely related to ‘take’ or ‘choose’. Moreover, whether tach'mode is good or bad depends on how or what one tach'modes. For example, tach'mode an be used in a negative sense…

use-without-permission or use-surreptitiously (Exodus 34:24)
take-, borrow-, or command-without-authority (prov 12:12)

... or in a morally neutral sense

Choose (Psalm 68:17)

With these meanings in mind, I've translated the ninth commandment (Exodus 20:17) as follows:

Do not tach'mode the house of your neighbor. Do not tach'mode the wife of your neighbor or his servant or his house-maid or his oxen or his donkey or anything that belongs to him.

Tach'mode is widely translated along the lines of desire by many authoritative sources. However, in Holladay's "Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament", tach'mode is described as "try to acquire", i.e., an overt, active attempt to satisfy one's desire(s). This is quite different and is much more consistent with the use of tach'mode elsewhere in the Bible. For clarity, let's look at two contemporary examples of 'bad' tach'mode:

When the parents go away for the weekend, the teenage son invites his friends over for a kegger (Do not tach'mode thy parent's house).
When the husband of an attractive woman leaves on a business trip, his friend invites the wife over for dinner with the hopes of seducing her (Do not tach'mode thy neighbor's wife).

The second example is precisely the act the ninth commandment prohibits -- a willful act in the hope of satisfying a [lustful] desire. We see this acted out in the story of David and Bathsheba. David violates the ninth commandment when he invites Bathsheba to his palace knowing she was married. The invitation violates the 9th commandment and he subsequently violates the 8th commandment when he has sexual intercourse with her.

How did this mistranslation come about? One possible explanation (and there are many) might be because of the way in which the Hebrew was translated into Greek when the Septuagint (LXX) was written. In the LXX, the Hebrew words tach'mode and ivah are translated with the same word, pithymeo. However, unlike tach'mode, ivah really does mean covet, lust after, or strongly desire. In other words, tach'mode describes an action arising from ivah!

In this case, the LXX makes no distinction between acting on one's strong desires and the strong desires! And, since the LXX was THE Bible used by the earliest Christians (and all the Greek Jews) and was THE Bible quoted by Paul and the Apostles, it's little wonder that this understanding was carried forward in virtually all of the English Bibles we have available to us today.

Here, now, is my translation of the ninth commandment:

Do not use the house of your neighbor without his permission. Do not command the wife of your neighbor. Do not command his servant or his house-maid or his oxen or his donkey or anything that belongs to him without his permission.

As the late Paul Harvey used to say, "Now you know the rest of the story."

Dr. Joel Hoffmam has a much fuller explanation of this (and other) mistranslation(s), in his book, And God Said: How Translations Conceal the Bible's Original Meaning.

Torture and the Death of Osama Bin Laden -- Again

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Sun, 15 May 2011 03:35:00 +0000

The death of Osama Bin Ladin has reignited the debate over torture. I think it’s fair to say that most of the Christian community believes that torture is always and everywhere immoral – at least the ones who write essays, record YouTube videos, and post to the many and sundry blogs. Russell Saltzman, an associate editor of First Things, wrote as much in 2009 in an article entitled “The Mental Murder of Torture”.

The problem, as I see it, is that Christians, I’m sad to say, seem morally blind to the ethical issues raised by this question. Specifically, after sifting through all the anti-torture arguments made by many, many good, kind, and decent people, including the ordained clergy and most academic theologians, the principle upon which they rest their case is the notion that to torture is to diminish human dignity.

Get it? We shouldn’t torture because it will embarrass the person being tortured. Can someone please make a case showing how the diminishment of a terrorists dignity precludes his being tortured to discover the location of the 10 year old girl he buried alive in the swamp?

I argue here that torture is a justice issue and must be contemplated in the same way that the decision to go to war is a moral enterprise whose justness hinges on a set of established, well-debated, prudential criteria. I’m disappointed at the shallowness of the reflection exhibited by in my fellow Christians who argue the immorality of torture. It's more than ironic that Christians were largely responsible for the development of Just War Doctrine.

It boggles the mind.

Do You Believe This?

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Sun, 15 May 2011 01:38:00 +0000

This article, Breaking The Rules, appears at ChristianBibleStudies.com. Its author, Fil Anderson, tells of the damage religion did to his conception of God. Luckily for you, he’s now seen the light and is asking if you might want to share in his joy by signing up for his new Bible study. Here’s his come on:

Have you longed for the warm embrace of God, only to get slapped down harshly by religion? I urge you to trade the rigors of religious performance for intimacy with Jesus, whose astonishing invitation is simply "Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you" (John 15:4, The Message). Jesus' home is a place of welcoming love, unconditional acceptance, and endless assurances of affection.(my emphasis)

What are we to make of “rigors of religious performance”?

Mr. Anderson does not understand the word ‘rigor’. Here are three different example sentences using rigor:

They underwent the rigors of military training -- (meaning strenuous both mentally and physically).

He conducted his experiments with scientific rigor -- (meaning “an exacting process”).

She is a scholar known for her intellectual rigor -- (meaning “uncompromising truth”).

‘Rigor’ is not to be confused with ‘rigid’. A first-year graduate student may certainly judge his professor’s insistence to follow a protocol exactly every time to be rigid. But, what the naïve grad student judges as ‘rigidity’ is, in actuality, rigor. In science, rigor is THE required virtue for truth seeking. Jesus, rightly understood, was richly possessed of this virtue. He was a rigorous and demanding taskmaster of the first order. He never had a kind word for His students and often demeaned them when they were wrong, or simply couldn’t comprehend His teachings. He wasn’t cruel. He was rigorous in His insistence that the disciples ‘get it’. He called attention to the smallest detail of His teachings (“Jot and tittle”).

Is Jesus a LORD possessed of ‘unconditional acceptance’ or ‘endless assurances of affection’ as claimed by Mr. Anderson. Disciples and rich people were not permitted to join Jesus unless they gave up hearth and home. As for His “endless assurances of affection”, what would be the view of His opponents whom he called a “nest of vipers”?

If you want salvation, you will not be accepted into heaven unless (1) you believe in Jesus as the Messiah and (2) you repent of your sins. These are pretty rigorous requirements, it seems to me.

Why Conservative Churches are Growing

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 01:09:00 +0000

R. Albert Mohler, Jr introduces his thoughts with this paragraph:

Commissioned by the National Council of Churches, researcher Dean M. Kelley set out to find out why conservative churches were growing, even as the more liberal churches were declining. In his 1972 book, Why Conservative Churches are Growing: A Study in Sociology of Religion, Kelley argued that evangelical churches grow precisely because they do what the more liberal congregations and denominations intentionally reject - they make serious demands of believers in terms of doctrine and behavior

Mohler references David Brooks, the New York Times editorialist. He was writing about the popular Broadway show, “The Book of Mormon”. The Broadway show, noted Brooks, portrays the Africans accepting the liberal form of belief in a God who heals the sick among other divine favors. Brooks knew that the Africans, by and large, had rejected this view of God. Mohler quotes Brooks:

I was once in an AIDS-ravaged village in southern Africa. The vague humanism of the outside do-gooders didn’t do much to get people to alter their risky behavior. The blunt theological talk of the church ladies - right and wrong, salvation and damnation - seemed to have a better effect.

Read the whole article.

Influence of Men on Church Attendance

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:59:00 +0000

A study conducted in 2000 concluded that, above all else, the religious practice of the father determines the future church attendance of the children. If both father and mother attend regularly, 33 percent of their children will end up as regular churchgoers, and 41 percent will end up attending irregularly. A quarter of their children will end up not practicing at all. If the father is irregular and mother regular, 3 percent of the children will subsequently become regulars themselves, while a further 59 percent will become irregulars. Thirty-eight percent will be lost. If the father is non-practicing and mother regular, 2 percent of children will become regular worshippers, and 37 percent will attend irregularly. Over 60 percent of their children will be lost completely to the church.

In short, if a father does not go to church, no matter how faithful his wife’s devotions, only one child in 50 will become a regular worshipper. If a father does go regularly, regardless of the practice of the mother, between two-thirds and three-quarters of their children will become churchgoers (regular and irregular). If a father goes but irregularly to church, regardless of his wife’s devotion, between a half and two-thirds of their offspring will find themselves coming to church regularly or occasionally.
A non-practicing mother with a regular father will see a minimum of two-thirds of her children ending up at church. In contrast, a non-practicing father with a regular mother will see two-thirds of his children will not go to church. If his wife is similarly irregular that figure rises to 80 percent.
More details can be found in the studies below:

The Truth about Men and Church – On the Importance of Fathers to Churchgoing

Church Attendance: The family, feminism and the declining role of fatherhood

Hymns that reflect our view of God

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:41:00 +0000

As I’ve argued before (see here and here), the contemporary Christian Church is becoming more and more irrelevant to men. To appreciate this, we can take a look at the kinds of songs/hymns sung in many of today’s non-denominational Christian churches and/or strictly evangelical churches. To this end, I’ve gathered some examples of hymns and gospel songs that capture the flavor of the masculine and the feminine churches.

We begin with songs that express the masculine view of the divine:

These songs often imagine God/Jesus as a spiritual warrior expressing the virtues of courage, fidelity, stoicism, and heroism. In the masculine hymn, God is portrayed as hero who sacrifices for others. His is not a sacrifice intended to heal the sick, cure poverty, mend broken relationships, or make people wealthy and happy. So, here are some classic, masculine hymns:

· Onward Christian Soldiers - nuff said.

· Amazing Grace – This song is played at funerals (esp. military ones) because it’s about sin, suffering, and redemption.

· "This Man" – A video with clips from Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ. The song and images emphasize the suffering of Jesus, in effect exalting His sacrifice.

· Praise you in this storm – Produced as a tribute to the American soldier. A manly praise song that draws the parallel between soldiers sacrificing for our mortal souls and Christ sacrificing for our immortal souls.

· Battle Hymn of the Republic – “As He [Jesus] died to make men holy, let us die to make men free”

· My Savior My God -- The emphasis is pure divine self-sacrifice (“That He would leave His place on high, and come for sinful man to die”).

· To God Be the Glory -- a classic praise song. “Praise to God through Jesus the Son”.

· Let My People Go -- Moses, the hero... the instrument of God's redemption

· O Sinner Man – Where do the unrepentant run to? “You should a’ been a prayin”, says the LORD. This is not a song for Rob Bell Christians convinced that Christ’s love is unconditional.

· Be Thou My Vision - A song exalting the virtues of fidelity and sacrifice and God’s response to those who regard Him thus (ASIDE: This is one of the few versions that include the original verse 3). The last scene in the video is particularly manly – Jesus says “No one takes my life from me for I lay it down of my own accord.” We’re talkin’ hairy-chested manliness, here.

· Rock of Ages – We are sinners and we cry to Jesus for Salvation.

· The Old Rugged Cross – A song of fidelity (cling to the cross no matter what the tribulation) in which faith is rewarded after mortal death.

The feminine Church, by contrast, is a church that views the divine as a nurturing God. A God who provides comfort and solace – particularly in times of trouble. The feminine God seeks a relationship with us as friends. In its most extreme manifestations, the feminized God rewards fidelity and works in this mortal life with wealth and health. Here’s a random selection of hymns and songs expressing a feminized view of God.

· Jesus is a friend of mine

· Jesus loves me this I know

· Jesus is my best friend – Rock N’ Roll complete with GoGo dancers and pretty little children. Here is another version of the same song (Jesus, you are my best friend) -- Showing pictures of Jesus and pink roses, Jesus holding a little lamb, Jesus hugging a little girl, Jesus walking with his arms around a little boy and girl, and lots of pictures of sunsets, clouds, spring meadows. If that isn’t enough, here’s the Chorus imagining a non-judgmental Christ (c.f. “O Sinner Man” (above))

Because Jesus is my best friend
And when I don't do enough
It's still good enough
'Cause Jesus is my best friend

· Jesus, My Friend - this time the song is sung to a bunch of cartoon pictures of a young girl jumping and running and laughing while surrounded by what appears to be flowers or butterflies -- can't really tell.

· Oh, how I love Jesus – Pictures of an idealized Jesus, Caucasian , light-brown or blond hair. The message “I love Jesus because He loves me”. Get it? A religious quid-pro quo.

· Trading my sorrows – The quintessential therapy song. Jesus will fix all your woes.

· I Know That My Redeemer Lives -- -- a song about how a blue-eyed Jesus lives in order to fix all kinds of bad things that might happen to you. Lots of idealized pictures of Jesus with little children, feeding the lambs, White doves fluttering around him. There’s even a picture of Jesus sitting on the banks of a rocky stream deep in what appears to be a Cascade mountain forest.

· Stand Up for Jesus – A very confused song. We are the saviors of Jesus – lots of warlike images, but we are the warriors, not Jesus. Frankly, I’m not how to characterize a song that advances the notion that Jesus/God needs us, not the other way around. Heroes for Jesus is hard for my brain to contemplate.

· What a Friend We Have in Jesus – Jesus is our friend because when “we carry our sorrows to God in prayer” He heals us.

Now, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the feminine nor the masculine view. For example, note that many of our traditional hymns are manifestly feminine. If there is a lesson to be learned, though, it is this: an overly feminized liturgy and theology, as has arisen in the last 25 years or so, have driven men from the pews. Interestingly, the opposite does not seem to be true. Most serious demographic studies suggest that women are largely unaffected by the ‘gender’ of the liturgy. For example, even today, Islam and Orthodox Judaism are deeply masculinized, yet women constitute 50% or more of the mosque/synagogue congregations. Men, it seems, are deserting the more feminine churches and synagogues.

More on Rob Bell and "Love Wins"

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 22:22:00 +0000

James M. Kushiner of Touchstone is wonders if the fascination with Jesus exhibited by Rob Bell and his admirers is the same Jesus of the Gospels. According to Kushiner, Bell’s work is…

“…just another attempt to domesticate Jesus for one's own vision of salvation. Go through the Gospels and note every word of warning that Jesus issues about sin, disobedience, faithlessness, scandal, lust, greed, not to mention the fact that none of his followers are left without dire warnings about the never-ending fire, the worm that dieth not, and so on. If "all will be well" is the Gospel, and that "God is on your side" is the real message, just who's "side" was Jesus on? The Good News really isn't a matter of sides (this is so typically a reflection of our modern political discourse) but of true love, the sort that can be rightly said to be at the core of holiness in God.”

I share Mr. Kushiner’s dismay and have written elsewhere about the consequences of viewing Jesus as a San Francisco hippy circa 1968. Sadly, this book will drive more men away from the Christ.

Dennis Prager on Christianity

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 01:54:00 +0000

@7:40 seconds

… God is not an idiot. He doesn’t demand perfection. He never did. The notion that you had to perfectly keep Jewish law in order to get into Heaven was, forgive me, made up by Paul. There is not a scintilla of truth to that observation – not a scintilla – and it actually bothers me. It was always understood – that’s why there’s always a place for atonement – we’re imperfect beings. He’s not going to send us to Hell for the way He made us!

What we do is work every day to be better. And then, to be honest, I think God is a moral judge… Judaism affirms, unless you want to throw out Maimonides and the entire basis of a just God (in which case Hitler and Mother Theresa go to the exact same place), that of course there’s Heaven and Hell, or if you don’t like those words, reward and punishment. [Heaven and Hell] are central to the Jewish ideal and you get there based on your behavior.

Losing Heroism -- The Decline of Men in the Church

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 17:33:00 +0000

Like it or not, God chose to incarnate Himself as a man. This was no accident. As we’ve learned in our Saturday Men’s group, the Scriptures have repeatedly shown that God has given to men -- but not to women – the physical and emotional strength necessary to fulfill God’s will for men. As Dr. Leon Podles writes, theirs is to separate, to suffer, and to sacrifice. Thus does Jesus, the Christ and the quintessential Christian man, bear the wounds of His separation (death and ascension), His suffering, and His sacrifice. As the Christ, His purpose is not to be your friend. Rather, He is to stand forever before the heavenly court and shoulder your transgressions that you may one day dwell in His house. In doing so He serves as the model for the Christian man.

The contemporary Christian Church, it seems, largely abjures this view of the manly Christ in favor of the feminized Christ -- a messiah whose defining characteristics are kindness, compassion, and a desire that His believers feel affection for, and unity with Him. How in the world are men supposed to relate to such a Christ?

The relationship of a man to Christ is not like that of a friend with whom one might spend a Saturday playing golf. As a man, your relationship with Christ is more like your relationship with a soldier who, jumping on a grenade, gives his life for yours. The dead soldier is not your buddy -- even if he had been your best friend. Your relationship with him is not (or no longer is) about Saturday golf, poker night, or high school double-dates. Your relationship is as debt and debtor. Because as a man – divinely ordained to separate, suffer, and sacrifice -- you will forever be aware of this debt, especially in those joyful times that, but for soldier’s sacrifice, would never have been.

With this in mind, we begin to understand why men are not attracted to the modern Church and its feminized savior. To a large extent, men are repelled by a Church whose Christ is imagined not as a hero, but as a personal friend who happens to be a really nice guy. And thus, a Church, in which its boys are told to be nice, is not a Church in which Christian men, modeled after the suffering Christ, can flourish.

To better appreciate this idea, ask yourselves how many boys get together and ask, “Who wants to play a game of nice guy.” Boys do not ache to play ‘nice guy’. They play firemen, Superman, G.I. Joe, Cowboys, and Davey Crockett at the ramparts of the Alamo. These boyish games model the role of the Christ of the Bible. The truth is that Jesus of the Holy Scripture was not a nice guy. He never said a kind word to His disciples and was frequently demeaning of them. His interest in children was not that of a parent or loving uncle. Rather, He used children as models of the kind of faith adults are to exhibit – the complete trust of a child in his parents. Jesus was nice? As a child, Jesus deliberately and knowingly caused His parents to worry needlessly, and much later rejected his family altogether for the life of an itinerant teacher. Now, these were necessary acts and divinely ordained, but they were neither nice, kind, nor gentle. Rather, they were the acts of a bold, courageous spiritual warrior. The Jesus of the Holy Scriptures did not eat quiche.

To be like Christ, men must develop the virtues necessary to suffer, separate, and sacrifice. This is not so easily accomplished. Manliness, writes the anthropologist David Gilmore (Manhood in the Making), is not a necessary result of biology. Boys must be trained to be men, because, left to themselves, boys will not develop the necessary virtues required of the Christian man. The Christian man knows that he is expendable, that he must be willing to suffer and die for others. Christian men will do this. They not only do it, they want to do it and expect that such heroism is their divine ordinance. In war, such men will easily sacrifice themselves for their friends, and will go to death because those who follow them will say, “He was a Christian man”.

In general then, by insisting that men be friends with a kind and gentle Jesus, the contemporary Church dashes the dreams of a boy’s heart while insisting that he play the man. As C.S. Lewis wrote, “We castrate the gelding and bid him be fruitful.” This is tragic, not only for boys and men, but for the Church. Deep in his heart, every man longs for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a maiden to rescue. That is how men bear the image of God and that is what God made men to be.

On Burning the Koran

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 01:27:00 +0000

Rod Dreher allows that “We Knew Koran-Burning Would Spark Violence”. Among Dreher’s interesting points is this:

But it will not do for Jones to wash his hands of at least some moral responsibility for the massacre. This horrifying Koran debacle provides an Information Age twist on the German poet Heinrich Heine's well-known aphorism: "Where they have burned books, they will end by burning people." Unlike hotheads in the Islamic world, we do not burn people in the West (not since 1945, anyway), so it is more difficult for us to feel the connection between destroying books -- especially holy books -- and murder.

I’m not sure that Rev. Jones bears any moral responsibility whatsoever and would like for someone to offer a sustained and concrete argument in support of that thesis. Surely, Heinrich Heine’s aphorism cannot serve such a purpose given that the people who burn the books are the same people who burn other people. Rev. Moran, no matter what you may think of his actions, is not going about advocating torching Muslims.

So how about it? What moral value does Rev. Moran’s book burning denigrate and what ethical precept did he violate?

In a similar vein, John M. Reynolds asks, “When faith is mocked, who responds?”

In this article, Mr. Reynolds notes that when artists display a statuette of Christ in a bottle of urine, the artist is applauded, but when Rev. Jones burns the Koran he is vilified. In the end, problem with Mr. Reynold’s thesis is his arrogance. His concluding paragraph says it all:

Meanwhile, we do not have to go to vile plays that cause friends pain or go to pastor Jones’ church. This weekend I will go to a good play, attend a loving church, and try to better understand my Mormon neighbor and my Islamic friends.

Do you see the moral opacity in Mr. Reynold’s article? If not, reflect on this question: Are the Muslims who decapitated and killed 12 innocent U.N. workers properly categorized as his friends needing “better understanding”. I wonder why the majority of Muslims who are decent, kind, thoughtful, and generous people do not protest people like Reynolds who, because some Muslims are evil, must make an extra effort to understand those who are not.

Is Lying Always Wrong?

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 23:36:00 +0000

A month or so ago, pro-life activist Lila Rose and her organization Live Action profoundly damaged the credibility and reputation of Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider. To do this they posed as as pimps requesting the assistance of Planned Parenthood to aid and abet those whom they were led to believe were involved in the sex trafficking of underage girls. More recently, NPR and PBS have been exposed as false fronts by James O’Keefe using a similar ploy.

This technique, pretending to be someone s/he is not, has exercised the moral imaginations of the Christian communities, and most especially of the Catholic Christians whose Catechism decrees (contra the Biblical witness) that there can be no exceptions to truth-telling, vis, that we are always and everywhere required to tell the truth.

Prof. Robert P. George expresses the Catholic position very well in a post last month in the Mirror of Justice blog. Below is my response to Prof. George copied verbatim from his post Life and Truth:

I couldn't disagree with Prof. George more emphatically. Evidently, Prof. George, like Cardinal Newman, agrees that...

"The Catholic Church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions who are upon it to die of starvation in extremist agony...than that one soul...should tell one willful untruth, though it harmed no one."

Immanuel Kant believed that telling the truth was a universal moral absolute that allowed for no exceptions. Kant argued that if a would-be murderer inquires whether "our friend who is pursued by him has taken refuge in our home," we are forbidden to lie and mislead him. Here Kant is speaking directly to the "Jews in the attic" scenario during the reign of the Nazis in Germany.

However noble, this understanding of the priority of truth as expressed by Newman, Kant, and Prof. George, it is simply not warranted Biblically.As a matter of fact, the Biblical witness reveals that a decision to be truthful is a contingent one. If not, how do we explain the following:

· (Exodus 1:15-21)God rewards two midwives for lying in order to save the lives of newborn Hebrew males.

· (1 Samuel 12:12-13, 20:1, 26:6-7) Abraham tells Pharaoh and Abimelech respectively that Sara is his sister in order to save his own life.

· (1 Samuel 16:2-3) God instructs Samuel to lie.

In these three cases (there are more) lying is the means to the saving of life. Moreover, the liar is either rewarded, encouraged, or simply not punished. This absolutist view advanced by Prof. George just doesn't square with God's revealed will and, in the worst case, leads to the tolerance and propagation of evil.

For a fuller treatment of this subject you can read The Ethics of Truth – Part I and Part II

Lenten Reading: What Does It Mean to "Trust In The LORD"?

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 23:34:00 +0000

Michael Novak’s recommendation for Lenten reading (reprinted from NRO’s Lenten Reading: Put down your blackberry) provides the best answer I’ve ever read:

For Lenten reading, one could not go wrong with Jean-Pierre de Caussade’s marvelous little book Abandonment to Divine Providence. It immediately issues a sharp challenge: Are you willing to throw yourself completely — now — into the Lord’s will, inscrutable as it often is? “If we do our part, God will do the rest.” To live by these words requires a lot of faith. Are you willing to trust completely? Are you willing to let go? Short as it is, Abandonment is full of practical lessons about how to learn to trust. How to taste the dark and often bitter pleasures of throwing ourselves upon the daily, minute-by-minute will of God. The lesson is simple, but utterly transformative:

All I want is for you to carry on as you are doing and endure what you have to do — but change your attitude to all these things. And this change is simply to say ‘I will’ to all that God asks. What is easier? For who could refuse obedience to a will so kind and so good? By this obedience we shall become one with God.

This is the essence of the matter, isn’t it? Isn’t it the secret to the life of our Lord? “Not my will, but Thine be done.” It may be impossible to understand what is happening in our lives. But it is not impossible to trust the Lord who throws you into what you cannot understand.

I can almost feel my fellow Christians cringing by Novak’s use of the dreaded ‘obedience’ word. But what else are we to make of Jesus’s prayer – “Not my will, but Thine be done.”
— Michael Novak sits on the Ave Maria University board of trustees. His latest book is No One Sees God. His website is www.michaelnovak.net.

Fascinating -- The Decline of Empirical Truth

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 23:33:00 +0000

What would you think of a scientific experiment -- rigorously conducted, scrupulously reviewed by skeptical competitors, and replicated in labs around the world -- whose conclusions, ten years post experiment, were no longer true? Here's a real example to focus your thinking: in the early 90s pharmaceutical companies developed a new class of anti-psychotic drugs (e.g., Zyprexa, Abilify, Seroquel, and others). At the time, these drugs constituted a wonderful and almost miraculous breakthrough. They clearly demonstrated a dramatic, real decrease in patients' psychiatric symptoms.

By 2007, however, something very strange had happened -- the drugs had lost much of their effectiveness. When the original experiments were replicated the therapeutic results were only half as effective! Somehow the "truth" that these drugs were effective had declined. This phenomena, that scientific truth declines over time, seems to be wide-spread, encompassing scientific disciplines as diverse as psychology, biology, particle physics, and even parapsychology. Jonah Lehrer, in an article in the December 13th New Yorker, entitled The Truth Wears Off, describes this puzzling phenomenon. But Mr. Lehrer's last sentence made me sit up and take notice:

" Just because an idea is true doesn't mean it can be proved. And just because an idea can be proved doesn't mean it's true. When the experiments are done, we still have to choose what to believe."

This idea reminds me of the strange effects observed at the quantum level, for example the loss of cause-and-effect. Maybe there is more to life and physical reality than can be explained empirically... Hell, even if life could be explained empirically, would the explanation hold water ten years from now?