Thanksgiving

OK, so this is a bit late - think of it more as a Thanksgiving retrospective than a preview. After what was essentially no-post November, I may actually have a few minutes here and there to post this month. So here we go.

I love Thanksgiving. Not because of any of the 'traditional' aspects - although I do love the meal and watching the Lions lose - but because it may be the holiday that most directly illustrates the absurdity of atheism and all forms of godlessness.

We hear so much around the holiday about the importance of being thankful. Even secular, anti-Christian sources remind you to think of all that you have to be thankful for. Yet these folks apparently never stop to think that thankfulness is meaningless unless it's directed: it makes no sense whatsoever to be thankful for some provision unless you are also thankful to its provider.

To whom can an atheist (whether admitted or merely in practice) possibly be thankful for the myriad graces they enjoy? Random chance? Millions of generations of genetic mutations that somehow proved to be beneficial? Uncontrollable chemical reactions in the brains of people they'll never meet that have a butterfly effect on their lives? String theory and the particular variation of the multiverse in which they happened to spawn? Their best possible answers make it seem like I'm hacking merrily through a field full of men of straw.

Consider one of the great Psalms of praise, Psalm 100. I had to memorize this in children's chapel way back in the day, so I'll quote it in the KJV like I remember it. At the center of a great exhortation to praise God and give Him the thanks He deserves, we find this as the ultimate reason for our thankfulness:

Know ye that the LORD, He is God:
It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves;
We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

He is God. He made us. We are His. Everything we have, all that we are, is owing to God creating, sustaining, and providing for us. As Paul asks, "What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?"

Small wonder, then, that when Paul begins his great indictment of humanity, he starts by recounting our thanklessness: "For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened." Nowadays we don't just have people refusing to thank God, but openly pretending He doesn't exist. They're trying to be thankful for the gifts without acknowledging the giver. Tragic and suicidal.

So this Thanksgiving - and every day - remember not only for what we should be thankful, but to whom we need to be thankful. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change."

Oh noes - have I been misusing this scripture?

A verse that I've quoted quite often is Psalm 14:1 (also 53:1) - "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.'" Like many, I've used it in reference to atheists, and used the terms 'atheist' and 'fool' interchangeably. But lately I've been thinking that maybe I've been using this scripture inappropriately, and that this comparison is unfair to fools.

See, the verses say that the fool says there is no God - but he only says it in his heart. And the rest of these psalms show the result of such folly - living as if there is no God produces nothing good, to say the least. The fool of the psalms simply pretends there is no God, and proceeds to live like it.

And yet, even in his insane wickedness, there is no indication that the fool would actually be stupid enough to say there is no God. He wishes there is no God, he lives as if there is no God, but to say it out loud? Even that seems to be too ridiculous for the fool.

But in the race towards insane depravity, the modern atheist leaves the biblical fool in the dust. In his wicked quest to spread his rage against his Creator from his own heart to the public, there is nothing so obvious he won't deny it, no line so clear he won't cross it, no rationalization so flimsy he won't cling to it and bet eternity on it. (Case in point - Stephen Hawking. But that'll have to wait for next time.)

So perhaps I owe an apology to all you fools out there. Sorry 'bout that. But you still desperately need to repent.

No true Scotsman would write a post like this

There is a logical fallacy commonly known as the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. For those who aren't familiar with it, here's the classic story used to illustrate it:

Imagine Hamish McDonald, a Scotsman, sitting down with his Glasgow Morning Herald and seeing an article about how the "Brighton Sex Maniac Strikes Again." Hamish is shocked and declares that "No Scotsman would do such a thing." The next day he sits down to read his Glasgow Morning Herald again and this time finds an article about an Aberdeen man whose brutal actions make the Brighton sex maniac seem almost gentlemanly. This fact shows that Hamish was wrong in his opinion but is he going to admit this? Not likely. This time he says, "No true Scotsman would do such a thing."

Why bring this up? It seems that NTS has become the accusation du jour for atheists/fools to hurl at Christians. A typical exchange will go a little something a-like-a this-a.

Atheist: There are many Christians who are evil, wicked, immoral, reprehensible, etc.

Christian: Anyone who does such things has shown himself to not be a Christian.

Fool: A-ha! It's the No True Scotsman fallacy! By relying on such a fallacy you show the weakness of your position, and admit defeat! You lose, sucka!

So the question before us today is, is this a proper place to cry 'fallacy'? Let's break down the fallacy and see what exactly is being said.

What you have is group A with essential and necessary membership requirements; everyone who meets the requirements is part of the group, and everyone who is in the group meets all the requirements. In math proof speak, they are "if and only if". In the Scotsman fallacy, the requirement is "being Scottish" (whether born in Scotland, born of Scottish parents and/or just lives in Scotland, the exact definition is beyond the scope of this paper). A man born of Scottish parents in Glasgow is a Scotsman, a German born in Berlin or New Zealand is not. For the group "Pitchers for the Atlanta Braves", the requirements would be (1) a Major League Baseball player (2) for the Atlanta Braves (3) who plays the position of pitcher. Anyone who meets all three requirements is in the group, anyone who meets zero, one, or two isn't. Clear? Mmmmkay.

Next, you have some separate, unrelated issue B, usually a negative condition, such as the acts of the Aberdeen man in the example above. Finally, you put them together - someone who meets all requirements for A, but also does negative B. Is he still in group A? Of course. But someone else in group A could say no, which would be the fallacy.

Now how does that apply to the exchange with the atheist fool? In this case, group A would be "Christians", and issue B would be wickedness/immorality. His claim is that when the Christian asserts that wanton, unrepentant sin reveals someone to not truly be a Christian, he is committing this fallacy. Does this hold up? In order to work, the fallacy requires B to be a completely separate issue from group identity. In other words, whether or not someone is so evil that even an atheist is willing to call it evil must be completely unrelated to whether or not he is actually a Christian.

But if something like, oh, say, submission to the Lordship of Christ is a necessary requirement of Christianity, the objection completely falls apart. (See, among numerous examples, Mat 7:15-27, Romans 6, like, all of 1 John, etc etc.)

A few closing observations.

1) I have no idea how the no-Lordship folks would respond to this. But that's way down on the list of objectionable things about no-Lordship theology, so whatever.

2) Take a gander at the introduction to John Piper's excellent little book, Finally Alive (pdf). Go ahead and read the rest of it too - but for now just the intro will suffice. Note that both the atheist fool and the Barna group begin with the same premise: that someone professing to be a Christian or born again actually is, and that his behavior has no bearing on the validity of the claim. To them, the only requirement for being in A is claiming to be in A. Not surprisingly, both reach a similar anti-Biblical conclusion (that being born again does not result in sanctification). Just something to keep in mind when reading the next Barna book about how we need to reform the church or church growth wizardry or whatever.