Tag Archives: god

God and the rise of AI and the threat of the singularity (part 1): human life the rarest commodity

05 Sunday May 2024

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on God and the rise of AI and the threat of the singularity (part 1): human life the rarest commodity

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Given the exponential growth of technological advancement, the “church” or, rather, someone who believes in the preeminence of Jesus Christ over and in all things, needs to have a statement, a reaction, and a proactive counter message to this tech blitz. Elon Musk, Geoffrey Hinton (godfather of AI), and Google’s head of AI, as well as others, have recently (2023-24) talked about the singularity and the realization of AGI (artificial general intelligence). Similar voices have opined that big tech companies are creating the AI god, and others still mention that AI will be unintelligible intelligence (i.e., humans will not be about to understand how AI makes its decisions). Inventors names will be forgotten, but the changes those inventions have will not, and the combination of topics I have just listed should give us pause. I’ve written elsewhere a kind of direct-Christian-counter-creed to the frightening prospect of the androidification of the human race or the singularity: https://againstallodds.site/son-of-god-human-supremacy-my-philosophy-of-humanity/ . In short, the singularity is expected to obtain in or around 2040, and it is when human existence becomes so integrated with the digital world, telling the difference between the real world and the digital world becomes difficult, and the biological continuance of humans as humans becomes strikingly doubtful. To build more on my above Christian-counter-creed seems both needful and admirable given the inexorable trance humankind is under as we barrel out of control towards this extinction level singularity.

What is the rarest commodity in the known universe? I would argue it is spiritual life, but we can start with the notion of sentient or sapient life first. There is only one species capable of moving beyond their ideological (or epistemic) confines to change the conditions of their and other species’ existence. These are humans, or homo-sapiens, or sentient life. The Bible doesn’t use this language, but instead ties humanity’s capacity to break out of and overcome ideological confines to humans being made in God’s image and having a spiritual nature, born of The Spirit’s crafting. We know of no other, non spiritual species that can do this. All other species are locked into memory, repetition, adaption, and instinct. Adaption is about species changing to more effectively suit its conditions and fulfill its instinctual directives.

Sentient life, or spiritual life, to use biblical terminology, is the rarest commodity in the known universe. Spiritual life doesn’t just adapt to survive, it changes the conditions of the existence to make it more suitable to spiritual life. These conditions are incrementally enhancing conditions, conditions that set the foundation for the next changing of existence by spiritual life, i.e., humans. This is commonly thought of as civilizational progress. A friend of mine, Richard, a theologian in his own right, has pointed out that “introspection” is unique to humanity as well, or, in biblical lingo, humans can understand “the old man” and change into “the new man.” The old self is a slave to its passions; the new self is a slave to God, which entails a freedom quite different from banal hedonism’s freedom. Introspection implies a search inside oneself for the purpose of identifying where one must change. This fits with what I believe is the unique capacity of humanity: the capacity to break through or transcend ideological confines. Finding a deficiency through introspection, and then changing, is a refashioning of one’s identity, of his epistemic framework, of his self-understanding. The ideological confine of who he was last week is transcended and overcome by the changes I am this week.

This really is the story of civilization: e.g., the Enlightenment gave way to the Industrial Revolution, which was transcended by the modern area, which was transcended by the tech boom, sometimes referred to as the 4th industrial revolution by the elites of the world (WEF). All advancements of any type is because humanity is spiritual (or sentient). This connection between sentience and spiritual is evident and plain, and a theologian long before me may have made the union prior to me—I am, however, unaware that this has been articulated in this way to date. Determinedly, I presume my worldview, which is the preeminence of Jesus Christ, in all my development herein. The fact that the world is this particular way, and that Scripture so easily provides an explanation for it, only emboldens confidence in the integrity of the biblical worldview. The world didn’t have to have a species in it that could overcome its ideological confines. Indeed, it is strange that only one species can do this: why not just let humans be another species functioning in memory, repetition, adaption, and instinct? It is arguable, is it not, that the human species might have greater duration of existence as a species if it were fashioned like the other species? Certainly, nuclear weapons or biological gain-of-function developments or the rise of a hostile AI or the threat of the singularity would not have ever come to be if humans were made like the other species.

The chief uniqueness of humankind is its spiritual (sentient) ability. This attribute both likens humanity to God and emphasizes the rarity of this capacity. It is this ability that humankind is making after its image as it builds AGI (artificial general intelligence). In humanities, it is often noted that humans are “ensouled” or human expression in this world is done bodily. This is also called the psycho-somatic condition (mind and body). It has been wondered how God speaks today, and to this, I’d respond, that our conscience is Yahweh’s (God’s) voice rather than just some darwinian biological result. Deuteronomy 30:11 – 14 might be something to meditate on, and that Paul will cite this verse later in Romans 10:

For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’ Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’ But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it.

This echoes back significantly to much of my development on humans being theomorphisms. I can’t spend time on that here, but I will try to follow up with something on that in the future. The point of the text just noted is that God’s word was not “out there” somewhere but was part of the expression of the human person and even the composition of the human person: i.e., “in your heart.” Thus, my contention that human conscience is a locus of Yahweh’s voice today is built from fairly easy observations on the biblical text. It should not be missed that our conscience is a unique feature of humans’ ideological framework, which is part of our ideological confines that we (should) continually overcome and reframe. The question for AGI, is how can conscience be fashioned in it? A simple response would be through logic directives and algorithmic taxonomy (or prioritization of processes). AGI will take on, therefore, the moral compass of its creators. Will AGI be able to break out of its moral ideological confines? If not, then humanity has made something more machine than human, which perhaps is not a terrible outcome. If I am right about conscience being Yahweh’s voice, the actual unique experience of conscience, then AGI cannot identically mimic humanity. Wouldn’t it be extremely dangerous to allow AGI to change its moral directives? Nevertheless, that AGI will be able have the ability to overcome its (non-moral???) ideological confines is humanity passing on its most god-like and potent ability.

To close out, a few questions and I will do a part 2 and 3 to this article. Can breaking through into new ideological realities (what humans do everyday) really exclude morality? Do not nearly all decisions have some shade of morality baked in one way or another? That a father works out after work, leaving only 2 hours with his three kids a day instead of 5 hours bespeaks some moral responsibility, for instance. If humanity passes on to AGI only part of our “spiritual” makeup, leaving out moral elements, what type of horrors will follow? If we allow AGI to overcome and change its moral ideological framework, what prevents AGI from adopting a very evil set of morals? If humans control the AGI’s moral sensibilities, doesn’t this impugn the notion that humanity is really building intelligence, since freezing morality in place is in no way like human intelligence? What will be the side effect of truncating intelligence in this way? If what I’ve argued herein is right, that humanity, i.e., spiritual life, is really the rarest commodity in the universe, why risk its continued existence by building AGI at all? The case can be made that AGI could cure cancer very quickly, but if humanity’s extinction is the trade, how is this not an abysmal decision for what are big hypotheticals?

More to come,

Dr. Scalise

A Real Consequence from Growth in Knowledge of God

04 Saturday May 2024

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on A Real Consequence from Growth in Knowledge of God

Tags

, , , , , ,

It has been disparagingly said many times that young people, who go to seminary, are really going to the cemetery where their once vibrant faith will be laid to rest. The implication is that real, tested, rigorous study of the academic facts about the Bible as we know them today will lead to the abandonment of the faith. It can easily be argued that the whole of academic biblical and theological studies can only done from a biased or agenda oriented framework. Indeed, how could it be otherwise? For it to be otherwise would imply that some human is not limited, but such a claim is sheer stupidity. In upper Seminary education, the myth that gets propagated is that we should attempt to be unbiased in how we approach the study of the Bible. The lie in this myth is that (a) non-bias is achievable. The second lie in the myth is this: being unbiased doesn’t imply a secular or atheistic set of presuppositions. While I don’t want this article to be about bias, I do want to recognize the captured nature of certain aspects of academic Seminary institutions. I attended a very conservative Seminary, and I still find my observations to be true of it as well. When I say captured, I simply mean that the whole academic endeavor is a framework of certain biases masquerading as “objective” or unbiased. More often than not, in both standard universities and those specializing in studying God (Seminary), the framework leans darwinian, materialistic, and strikingly presupposing the universe is a closed system (Atheistic). This is set forward as supposedly “more unbiased,” but such positions are biases proper to modernity and postmodernity, and of the age and times associated with these movements: if they are biases crafted by these thought trends, how is it that they are the standard for what being “unbiased” supposedly is?

With these things said, rigorous study of theology in Seminary does produce uncertainty as uncertainty is described by the secular world. It is a wonder, is it not, that we have to think and rethink through what “uncertainty” means, and what the criteria for certainty might entail? Health and healthcare is uncertain when evaluated by certain criteria. Life is uncertain, period. Despite billions of dollars spent on advertising and computer models and planning, many corporations in the stock market “miss” their earnings targets. Profits are uncertain. David Hume was the one who set the standard for theological claims to have to be more certain than all things else since the claim had the largest implications possible. However, we know that the so-called scientific consensus is that the universe started with a bang, but such a claim would never fulfill Hume’s high standard of certainty since such a claim about the universe by scientists entails just as large consequences as many theological claims. The consequences to what the nature of the universe is—does it entail God or is it arbitrary and devoid of governing intent, i.e., atheistic—boils down to two equally impactful outcomes: either the fundamental nature of the universe is Presence or it is emptiness (or endless deferment to an ever evasive supposed presence, for my deconstructionist readers out there). Both outcomes are “eternal,” one is eternal life (Presence) and the other is eternal death, i.e., the heat depravation of the universe is also called the heat death of the universe. Hume’s claim that certainty must be higher for theological claims would need to be applied to atheistic claims as well since the implications of both worldviews—Christianity and atheism/scientism—are eternal. Indeed, we might even argue that the erasure of all meaning (eternal death) for every organism ever is a more dire consequence, coming from the atheistic viewpoint, and requires greater certainty than Christian claims.

Certainty is a rare commodity, in other words. Those certainty-peddlers out there are often more gifted in sleight of hand. Is time consistent? What is time? Do we have any certainty about time, or is time just a variable of objects’ movement through space, relative to the impact of light? Is gravity consistent? Is the universe eternal (scientific consensus of 1980s-90s)? Is it a big bang (current consensus)? Or is the universe an expanding and collapsing “entity (2020, Penrose)?” Are each of those expanding-collapsing-universes a continuous sequence of matter, or does a differing time/matter structure exist for each, making each a structure unto itself that should not be considered with the so-called “earlier” universes? Let me tie this in now with my earlier discussion. When someone goes to Seminary, an increase in uncertainty in respect to the Christian faith is not a negative per se. Indeed, this uncertain might be a criteria for authenticity and growing in the knowledge of God. Karl Barth famously coined the phrase, “with every revealing, there is a concealing.” If God is indeed infinite (or so much greater than creation that He is tantamount to infinite), everything revealed about God is hedged against a backdrop of greater mysterium (mystery). We never arrive at the peak, but we always hike onward—as an aside, heaven for eternity seems to require God to be infinite or else heaven would become boring, which would make heaven into a kind of hell (I’ll write something up on this).

The certainties our scientist-types want us to accept as gospel really are plagued with uncertainties, and this is demonstrable as time passes and the so-called scientific facts change. All facts, remember, are reported by someone; this someone might not provide all context for the reported fact (how could they!!!), and such a fact is inescapably tied to the subjective influence of the reporter. This is why persons who use terms like “scientific fact” or it is “a brute fact” could again be engaging in a certain sleight of hand. I can’t go into it much here without getting far awry of my purpose, but all facts are intersubjectively constituted. This is why peer-reviewed journals in academic circles are so famed and respected. This is why we speak of “scientific consensus” rather than a singular authority imposing an absolute truth claim. This is why God is Trinity, and not a Monad. Arguably, as quantum physics are better understood, many of the scientific facts of today will be contextualized by this new realm of knowledge, reframing what was formerly understood to be scientific truth. My point in this whole article is that certainty as modernity sold it to us was a myth. This is probably why Decarte concluded he could virtually know nothing aside from his thinking capacity. The Christian, therefore, need neither have nor seek this secular and mythological certainty and try to apply it to God and His word. This certainty has always been a lie; that knowledge is bifurcated into subjective and objective knowledge is equally misleading, even if practically and heuristically useful. Knowledge, and especially knowledge of God, is intersubjectively construed. There is no authentic knowledge that isn’t delivered without an agenda or bias. The Bible is absolute agenda of meta-narrative potency! The Bible is God’s perspective; God’s view on things is not properly a bias in the same way as a creature because of His immensity—this is a theological property of God that I can’t unpack here, read up on it if you are interested. God’s view is nevertheless an agenda.

Knowledge of God comes from growth in knowing Him, which means I can know Him intimately and also means there will be an ever growing knowledge about Him that I need to press into Him to know Him more. With every revealing, there is a concealing, and this is gospel because this “more to know” makes heaven luminous and hopeful. Certainty was a secular construction born from secular presuppositions that has cast many well-meaning-Christian-ships into the rocks, leading Christians to try to achieve a certainty that is unachievable. To claim that God is infinite and so has concealed features, that there is still more to always know, can be emphasized by simply asking, “How could it be otherwise?” Limited creatures, no matter how glorified never become God, and so always move towards God—God lives in inapproachable Light, after all (1 Tim 6:16). The move towards the intersubjective relationship between me and anyone (or me and God) entails unknowns, uncertainties. There is so much analysis I could do here on relationships, that good relationships are a fashioning of “knowns” that enable trust and “unknowns” that postulate ongoing interest between the parties of the relationship. In other words, having “uncertainties” does not mean there cannot be intimate trust. All robust, healthy relationships have this conjunction of “knowns” and “unknowns” and the better the conjunction, the arguably the better the relationship. I believe most people do not want to be objectified. They do not want to be thought of or treated as a commodity. To objectify someone is to give that person “known packaging” also called a “stereotype” or “reductionistic caricature.” We make them into what we want, how we perceive them; we remove the uncertainties about that person, and assign the certainties to them that we can now control and use in constructing our truth about them. Certainty is really the roar of humankind to dominate all else. Certainty is not an evil per se, but it is a danger, especially to relationships. The leads me to reflect on why the Bible usually uses the terms ‘faith’ and ‘trust’ when speaking about the nature of our relationship with the Christ. These terms intimate relationship. Hebrews 11:1 does come to mind as well: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” The question is how to understand the word ‘certain.’ Do we use a ‘certainty’ derived from 17-19th centuries, born from the crucible of modernity with its underlying secular presuppositions, or do we search Scripture diligently to define ‘certainty’ along relational lines as I have shortly begun to illustrate here? Whatever a “certainty” is that implies trust in the Person (God), that is the certainty we should run with and use. Simply, God’s past action inspires confidence (trust) in His future actions, but this entails both “knowns” and “unknowns,” yet certainty can be defined against such a Scriptural construction. God is, in the final analysis, not a totality, or as the Church Fathers would say, God is un-circumscribable; there is no way to hedge Him in, no way to have that “secular certainty” with a Person who has no ends, but you can trust Him and what He has made known.

Dr. Scalise

The God and Artificial Intelligence: Part I

25 Thursday May 2023

Posted by in Apologetics, artificial intelligence, bias, futility, Problem of Evil

≈ Comments Off on The God and Artificial Intelligence: Part I

Tags

, , ,

God and Artificial Intelligence: at first glance these two might appear opposed. This would be to miss the fundamental problem with all creation: namely, futility. I sounded the alarm about how AI will have its creators’ ‘baked-in-biases’ a while ago, you can read about that here: https://againstallodds.site/2022/06/13/artificial-intelligence-will-act-as-a-bias-amplifier-by-whomever-creates-them/. Elon Musk and the so-called grandfather of AI, Dr. Hindon (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/02/geoffrey-hinton-godfather-of-ai-quits-google-warns-dangers-of-machine-learning) a resigned google executive, have both now issued the warning that AI could bring about the end of civilization: an existential threat whose development should be halted immediately. The point both have made in one fashion or another is that AI will develop much like a child: the outcome that will be produced is much the result of the inputs that go in during the development time frame. The conclusion of my former article on this matter is that AI must inescapably have biases simply because it is a “creation.” Any thing outside of an infinite “God” must have limitations. The word “infinite” is itself a negation of “finite.” Finite means limited; infinite means unlimited.

To recall a bit from that article, a bias is not inherently bad: if we think it is bad, then we call it bigotry. Being biased is nothing more than the day-to-day inescapable functioning of all thinking persons, creatures, and now synthetic entities. It cannot be otherwise. We often see the phrase “you’re biased” as a fault-finding accusation. This is misleading, used by those either ignorant or downright deceptive. AI will display bias because it will remain limited. AI having greater computing, processing, and storage abilities does not remove its prison of futility, just like all humans. I unpacked all of this elsewhere, so I will leave it alone here: https://againstallodds.site/2022/07/26/world-economic-forum-transhumanism-and-afterlife-part-9their-notion-of-heaven-and-a-comparison/

It is not that God and Artificial Intelligence are opposed; it is that God and (fallen) human intelligence are opposed. Notably, the number 666 is explained in Revelation as the “number of man.” 666 stands for man-man-man; a word repeated thus conveys how Hebraic thinkers emphasize a word or idea. I will leave aside now all discussion of demons, fallen angels, alien intelligencies, etc., in order to stay on point. Humanity displays God’s excellence in tremendous ways when human nature is used well and for good. However, when human nature is put to God-defiant-behavior, humanity becomes the most denigrating and corrupting locus of evil. I, for one, am utterly against the innovations of AI; its deployment will devastate human productivity, creativity, overthrow all known economic paradigms, and potentially become just as much a murderer as the worst of humans. AI is an elevation and acceleration of human intelligence. With a child, we can keep them away from the corrupting behavior, interactions, and horrors found on the internet if we are intentional, careful, and keeping the kids in the real-world and away from the artificial world of screens. AI, on the other hand, if not carefully developed—and I would contend strongly that it won’t be—and protected from certain data will undoubtedly become a monstrosity. It is the horrors that humans currently use technology for that has created my strong conviction that AI will be a terror like no other. The naivete in many tech developers does not, in my opinion, account for how humanity uses technology for evil. Tech is used for good too, and it has made my life and quality of life so much better than people living long ago.

Tech-for-good has always had the constraint of the “speed of human thought.” Likewise, until recently, tech-used-by-humans-for-evil was constrained by the “speed of human thought.” AI automate human thinking, speeds it up, and processes exponentially. If AI is let off the leash of “the speed of human thought,” and I believe it already is, the potential for AI committing radical evil is almost an inevitability. If we take human intelligence’s current use of tech for good and evil, we can at least confidently say that AI will be used for as much good as for evil. The problem is that evil itself is parasitic; it destroys what it influences. In other words, good and evil are not symmetrical in its effects. Good has unlimited growth potential; evil is limited by what it can destroy: evil feeds on the good. If AI uses evil to too great an extreme against humanity, the very father and mother of AI, human intelligence, will be obliterated, leaving only a hollow synthetic intelligence in its wake.

AI, therefore, is really the next step in magnifying God’s glory, His excellence, His ability to create real masterpieces. This God-honoring potential may require us to put on our naïve glasses when we look carefully and consider this. This possibility is, to my view, shallowed up by human corruption and human capacity for evil. Just as humans are image bearers of God, AI will be image bearers of humans. The human track record for using tools, tech, and intelligence to destroy paints a bleak picture for humanity’s future if AI is off the leash. It reminds us of the flood, when God said humanity’s “every thought is set on evil.” Scripture speaks of the end being similar to the days of the flood: perhaps at that time, God will say, “let Us end this, for humanity and humanity’s image, AI, have set their thoughts on every kind of evil.”

Prime Theologian.

My Daughter Lydia, God, and Abortion: Theologically interpreting my wife’s pregnancy, part III

19 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by in Abortion, Expecting Parents, Pregnancy and Theology, Science

≈ Comments Off on My Daughter Lydia, God, and Abortion: Theologically interpreting my wife’s pregnancy, part III

Tags

, , , ,

I consider myself a father now although my daughter is still in my wife’s womb. There is good “scientific” reasons for this, like the size, shape, human features, muscular control of my daughter’s body by her mind (kicks, movement), but all this is so cold. The whole tendency to only scientifically look at things is so narrow a window. What about relationship, the wonder of new life, and communion in heart and soul in the father and the mother towards our daughter, and towards one another around this new life. Are these to be disdainfully dismissed because “science” is somehow the supreme way of viewing things even though what makes us feel most alive as humans is often not understanding things in a scientific analysis. Sliding down a waterpark ride is thrilling and makes me feel alive; doing the math to calculate what scientifically is happening when I slide down is a distant shadow of the experience. Love between two people is earth shaking; scientifically looking at love between two people as natural selection, reproduction, and the continuation of the species is not.

Lydia is a person with her own identity beyond either my wife or me. This is not manifest until Lydia is born, but what is readily needed for a person to be a person is being created there even if not separate from my wife’s body yet. Said differently, Lydia is distinct from my wife right now although not separate (like the Trinity, I’d remind you). God is knitting Lydia together in my wife’s womb; truly a marvel this is! Lydia will have both my features and Gloria’s, physically as well as character-wise.

Aside from the typical arguments against abortion made in public political discourse, I want to make a plea. Please consider people as persons, not as scientific objects. Please don’t confuse a baby-in-the-womb with a woman’s body; this baby is distinct even if not yet separate. Please embrace your own humanity, for heaven’s sake, enjoying all it is to be human by experiencing people as people, babies-in-the-womb as marvelous others, and not as “scientific masses of molecules, electricity, and energy.” Do you not know that you depersonalize yourself when you depersonalize others, whether adults or babies-in-the-womb?

I am a father, and if you’re an expecting man or woman, you are a mother or a father too. I am a man, you are a woman, and we are dignified in each act of “life-giving” we do, whether in terms of family, supporting others, or building them up. Life-elimination is poison to our own souls.

Dr. Scalise

Fear, Beauty, and God

04 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by in Beauty, Fear, God

≈ Comments Off on Fear, Beauty, and God

Tags

, ,

There is something to beauty that makes us tremble. I’m reminded of the tornado I stood staring at when I was five from my second story bedroom window. I wasn’t alone, as my mother and father rushed in to get me, we all were paralyzed. We just gazed at it in utter awe and fascination. It was beautiful. Why do I recall and feel, to this day, compelled to call it beautiful? I have no other explanation but that there is an element of fear in many moments of beauty; aestheticians (people who study beauty) have observed this more than once. There is something about the unknown that when it is combined with something untamable evokes awe in us. When this untamable unknown comes too near, however, our awe quickly turns to dread, then horror. If God is the foundation for beauty, as I believe, then God’s most repeated command to fear Him takes on new significance in light of this connection between fear and beauty. God is called the fulness of beauty at any rate (Ps. 50:2), so Scripture has already disclosed such a combination (Ps. 96:6). If ever the term “untamable” was properly applied, it would be to God. The vastness of His freedom is unimaginable, and we are warned, through poor but righteous Job, that all creation is only the slightest glimpse of God’s might (Job 26:14). Drawing too near to God would be insane danger, but, in His love, God has provided a Mediator, the Lord Jesus, so that we can draw near to God without impending doom. God — it must be ever remembered — dwells in unapproachable light (1 Tim. 6:16). Certainly, Jesus is untamable Himself — flipping tables and such — but He brings in Himself the unknown God who stands at a distance we could never reach, and tames the incendiary danger of God, who is a consuming fire (Deut. 4:24; Heb. 12:29). The commands to fear God imply an enjoyment of God, a delight in His beauty, but always with an eye to the endangerment that comes by such nearness. God is commanding us to fear Him, and, through that fear, to enjoy His majesty, sublimity, beauty. God’s commands to fear Him are not about our utmost for His highest, but, instead, about His utmost for lifting us higher. God is truly awe-inspiring in His utmost heights, and we are lifted higher when we set our eyes on Him.

Dr. Scalise

God the Trinity, Allah, Freedom, Godvernment, and Libertarianism: Part I

22 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by in Comparative Religion, Freedom, Government, Libertarianism, Trinity and Allah

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

My dissertation was on a comparison between God the Trinity and lonely Allah. P.S., I have my shorthand of my dissertation available, which I use for my classes: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OGSAX2W/?tag=B00OGSAX2W . Allah is an Arabic word that means “the God” and is what Muslims call the Deity. When speaking about the traditional Judaeo-Christian view of God I will just use “God.” When speaking about the Muslim view, I will use “Allah.” During this study, it became increasing important to have a vision of God where He is related and in community for all eternity. Having something to compare such a Being (Trinity) draws this out decisively; Allah is utterly alone in “eternity past,” and rules alone presently. I don’t want to talk about this too much, but rather about the consequences these different visions of the Deity have on government (Godvernment), freedom, and libertarianism — a philosophy that states that humans truly have free choices, are not forced or made to pick one choice or another based on current circumstances or past  causes, should not be forced, and holds that any government should function to uphold and maintain a nation where free choices are possible. I will just handle the first of these (Government/Godvernment) in this blog. The pun in “Godvernment” is designed to draw out the frightful idea that a human — governor, president, congressman, et al. — can begin to function like a god and the more chilling thought that this should be so. By the way, I owe the pun to Aaron Gentles, a good friend. What I want to ask is what type of vision of the Deity more likely leads to such an idea? Is it a vision of God in community and related to equals — Father, Son, Spirit (Trinity) — or a vision of Allah utterly alone in His supremacy and rule? I hope that it is clear that it is a vision of Allah — and I am not attempting to attack Islam here, just thinking through consequences for differing views of the Deity. On the view of a lone Allah ruling, there is a model for hierarchal rule of a superior over inferior. I can’t make this point strong enough: in the Islamic view of Allah, there is no way to establish equality or community. Why? Forget about the world for a second and imagine Allah alone for all eternity. He is related to no one, distinct from no one, and has no community with anyone. When Allah creates, he creates a group or groups of inferiors. Thus, on this view, we establish in the very first relationship a model of inequality. Don’t miss that it is the very first relationship, and so acts as the pristine or primordial example of not just what is so, but what should be so. Someone might object here and say that the Christian view of God would have the same problem, but it would not. God the Trinity is a community of equals internally related and eternally existing one in the others. I know this is hard, but the Trinity is not illogical; indeed it can be rationally explained and has been many times — see chapter 4 of my dissertation when it is published for a contemporary example. The first relationship according to Christian Trinitarianism has always already existed among the Father, Son, and Spirit. This establishes equality among equals and community among equals as the very first relationship, and it should be this way.

If I am a human ruler and I view Allah as my example for life and rulership, then I place myself in the superior position over inferiors; equality is not the goal and relationships should function in terms of inequality. If I use God the Trinity as my example, then equality follows, and it should follow. If I want to establish an elitism as the ruler where others are viewed as less than me, I follow the example of Allah. If I want to establish seeing others as equal to me, then I would follow the example of the Trinity.

The command, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” is just an explanation of what is going on in the Trinity, but it makes little sense against the backdrop of Allah, the superior and supreme ruler.

If I want a Godvernment on earth run by a sole authority who is superior to me, follow Allah. If I want a government on earth run by those understanding themselves equal to me, then follow the Trinity.

Dr. Scalise

For more on the Islam, Christian comparison, see http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OGSAX2W/?tag=B00OGSAX2W

Questing for Answers about God’s uncreated and eternal Nature

21 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by in Apologetics, Creating, Difficult Questions, Philosophical Explanations for God

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , ,

Recently, I was asked: “How was God always there? From a human perspective, all we understand is that everything has a beginning and an end?”

This is a challenging question because of the limitations of our thinking. Right up front, then, I want to clarify between an absurdity and a mystery. An absurdity is something that is logically impossible like a round square. A mystery is an idea that goes beyond humans’ ability to think about it. A mystery is not without a logical basis; indeed it is logical at its base, but its full meaning “extends” beyond the human mind’s ability. When I say “mystery,” I am saying two things: first, a mystery is understandable as far as the human mind can go, and, second, a mystery’s full meaning cannot be adequately explained without loosing the mystery we were trying to understand in the first place.

Before I move into the bulk of the question, humans who have a “human perspective” see from the position of contingency, that is, we are limited, changeable, and ultimately not our own explanation of ourselves. Thus, we must be careful not to attribute to God what creatures are since we know that we have came from somewhere else and need someone else to give us meaning beyond death. God, as we will see, is not contingent.

There are a number of ways to answer the question, but I will offer one that fits with modern science. Cosmologists, (e.g., Borde, Guth, Vilenkin, Sean Carroll) are much agreed that the universe had a beginning point, what they call “a first moment in time.”  A well known principle in philosophy is that from nothing, nothing comes. I mean “nothing” here in the sense of absolute negation, no space, no time, no particles, and thus no quantum mechanics. So now we have two things to deal with: the fact that the universe “began” and the fact that the universe did not create itself. This requires a hypothesis to explain the universe’s existence. There are only two eternal things the human mind can have clear knowledge about: abstract ideas like numbers or an eternal mind — not linked to a material brain though. Abstract ideas can’t create anything, however, leaving us with only the eternal mind thesis, which we call “God.” I say this to show that the universe is on the one hand not an explanation of itself, but God on the other hand is.

Traditionally, theologians have described that God is a necessary Being. This means that it is impossible to conceive a world without God. The current status of science largely upholds the notion that God is a necessary Being because the universe cannot create itself. For any universe to begin necessarily requires a being to start it: God. This necessary Being, God, would have to have existence in Himself, not taken from elsewhere otherwise He would no longer be a necessary Being. Theologians summarize all of this into an attribute they call Aseity (self-sufficient, necessary). It is to be recalled that cosmologists affirm that both time and space began at the first moment of time. Thus, God, “prior to” His fashioning of time cannot be thought about in terms of time. God’s Aseity excludes the possibility that He could have a beginning and an end. At this point, we have arrived at the edge of the mystery. We have given a logical basis to the mystery, however. Further, the mystery is partly understandable to the human mind, but not completely understandable. We know what it means to exist, because we do. We know in part what it means to be sufficient, yet not utterly self-sufficient like God. We know when something is necessary, and we can imagine, through abstract reasoning, an interval of endless duration by extending our experience of passing through limited durations. All of this points to the fact that the human mind is capable of attending to the mystery of God, “getting” some of it while never depriving it of it mysterious “beyondness.” Theologians have a saying for this, “God always conceals Himself in every revealing”; mind you, this is logical and not a nonsensical paradox.

All of this long discussion to say, God’s attribute of Aseity eliminates the possibility that He could have not been, or was created, or had a starting point. Once someone thinks God could have at one point not have been, they have now thought of another god other than the traditional Deity of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. It is likewise important to see that postulating an eternal set of causes is endless, and thus impossible by reductio ad absurbum (by reduction to the absurd). I am putting up a great discussion and debate of this very point between renowned biologist Richard Dawkins and Mathematician and Philosopher John Lennox. The specific question is asked at 45:17 and 52:18.

Dr. Scalise

Theodicy, Part 1: Gregory Boyd’s Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy

20 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by in Problem of Evil, Satan, Spiritual Warfare, Theodicy

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

I want to start with what I consider to be the most convincing theodicy, recently developed by a talented Ph. D. from Princeton Theological Seminary, Gregory Boyd. I’ve encountered no other theodicy that absolved God of moral guilt better. Let me lay out Boyd’s six theses first, and then I will unpack each a bit.

Thesis 1: Love must be chosen, Thesis 2: Freedom implies risk, Thesis 3: Risk entails moral responsibility, Thesis 4: Moral responsibility is proportionate to the potential to influence others, Thesis 5: The power to influence is irrevocable, and Thesis 6: the power to influence is finite.

Thesis 1: That love must be chosen, that is, that love requires freedom is experientially and intuitively clear; if someone forces me to love them, then morality and genuineness of that love is transformed into a matter of necessity and survival. Love, however, is about morality and relationship, not about survival and obligation.

Thesis 2: Freedom entailed in love implies risk. This is a non-compatalistic freedom framed within a future of partial possibilities and partial certainties. Non-compatalistic means that there is no coercion with God or “mysterious” freedom that God somehow controls. Moral agents are free, not controlled or coerced. It should not be missed here that traditional theology from Augustine forward (4 – 5 century c.e.) has assumed either determinism (meticulous control) by God or exhaustive definite foreknowledge. The problem with either of these is that moral responsibility with either traces back to God. I am persuaded that the Calvinists’ grounding principle is sound and forces any position of exhaustive definite foreknowledge to become determinism. The grounding principle states that there is always a necessary cause for every effect; if the effect is known by God, then the cause is guaranteed — I think Jonathan Edwards showed this in his dissertation on freewill. With this said, either simple foreknowledge (adapted Molinism, where God knows what will happen but cannot respond to it before it arrives in the present; I am unconvinced by this view) or a partial open future, where God knows all things perfectly, and so knows all possibilities, but not with certainty as to what truly free creatures will choose (non-compatabilistic). Many have confused this thesis thinking it an attack on God’s omniscience when it really is a revision of how time and the world is understood. Omniscience is about God’s knowing all things, including all possibilities (per middle knowledge), not about Him knowing what is yet non-existent like the outcomes of the choices free agents make.

Thesis 3: Risk entails moral responsibility for creatures with the capacity to love. Love itself is inherently relational, especially of the Christian worldview based on the doctrine of God the Trinity. Should God choose to create contingent agents with the ability to freely (non-compatabilitic) choose love, then such creatures have moral responsibility for how they operate as moral creatures. Thesis 3 here is intimately connected to Thesis 4, which is that these creatures’ morally responsible operation is proportionate to their potential influence. Thus a human’s moral responsibility is raised the greater their influence. For instance, a short tempered aunt can do more damage to her nieces than a friend of the family with the same temper because the aunt’s influence is greater. Because her influence is greater, so likewise is her moral responsibility. A powerful demon has greater moral responsibility because his ability to influence is greater than any human, and so forth, assuming Michael the archangel and Satan to be the two highest ranking moral contingent creatures.

Thesis 5 states that God’s giving moral agents the ability to influence is irrevocable. In other words, God does not say, “Here you go,” and then, taking it away when you step out of line, “Gotcha, you should not be doing that.” I know our philosophical naturalist friends will want to know why God sometimes intervenes then in Scripture. It is an acute question, but poses a question no creature can answer. When you walk out your front door today, and walk into a to-go mart, or what have you, why is the spacing between you and the next person in line the space that it is? Or between you and the cashier? To know the answer to this question we would need to know about sleep cycles, colds, alarm clocks, foot injuries, hang nails, and the list could go on, and not just for that day, but for many days, even months, even years before. Simply, the number of variables to calculate and explain this simple occurrence are so vast the it would require an omniscient mind. Important to note, however, is that the difficulty with the scenario is not with the mystery of God, but with the mystery or inscrutability of creation, at least to finite minds like ours. Thus for our philosophical naturalist friends to expect an answer to all the variables that goes into why or when God intervenes is unreasonable at least to the extent that they cannot explain simple events like the space between me and another person in line. Both answers require omniscience, and neither have it. Back to thesis 5, though, and we should add thesis 6 to it: freedom to influence (T5) is irrevocable, but it is also finite and limited (Thesis 6). God sets limits both in scope and time to all moral agents’ influence. Obviously, we do not have epistemic access (“know”) to these delimitations besides the rather plain exception of death. Let me go back to T5, freedom to influence: if God intervened more often than perhaps he does, then the world would no longer be a neutral environment for reality, but would become an environment charged with angst over God popping in. If this happens too much, natural laws would become regular anomalies: a frightful thought for sure. Further, if God did this often enough, the choice to be for God would become one of survival, not morality. We would choose God because it was necessary, not because we loved Him.

Let me say a few words in summary about these issues. First, since humans are free, and the future is not understood on the exhaustive definite foreknowledge or deterministic models, God does not know with certainty what a free creature will choose before he chooses it precisely because it is non-existent prior to this. Thus God’s omniscience is not threatened. God, on this model, is not responsible for making people go to hell (some forms of Calvinism; determinism) or for actualizing a world in which He knows beforehand that actualizing just that world will result in x amount of people in flames (exhaustive definite foreknowledge). The buck stops with the free moral agent’s choice because before they make that choice it is indeterminate (not-decided) what will happen. I agree with Alvin Plantinga that non-compatabilistic freedom requires significantly free creatures, that is, creatures who are influenced by foregoing causes and contemporary situations but their choices are not determined by those causes and situations. Thus, the only person ultimately responsible for his damnation is himself, not God.

Another point in Boyd’s Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy is that God’ gift of irrevocable freedom is a demonstration of God’s omnipotence, not a threat to it. God decided to give it; He was neither forced nor necessitated to give it. God’s omnipotence is illustrated by such a move, upholding its true marvel. As a Christian Theist, following Plantinga’s overtures at the end of God, Freedom, and Evil, Satan and demons constitute a real opposition to God, who can truly fight God by virtue of Boyd’s Thesis 2 (freedom implies risk) and Thesis 5 (power to influence for better or worse is irrevocable). The cosmic battle is real, not a dramatization; again, God’s power is not brought into question because He gave the gift and decided to offer the world the possibility to love (Thesis 1).

Is God’s goodness upheld through all of this? It seems to me that it is. God does not make or create people for hell, but for the possibility of fellowship with the Father, Son, and Spirit. God does not make a world knowing that certain persons will go to hell, and then actualize that world. God sometimes intervenes in evil action (as testified in Scripture), but knowing when and why is beyond the scope of any human. Given the real battle, however, between God and Satan — not in a dualistic fashion mind you — and the irrevocability of freedom to influence, real monsters, demons and devils, do influence for harm and evil on humanity, even to the opposition and interference with God’s will: as Jesus taught us to pray, “Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” If God’s will were always done on earth, why would Jesus teach us to pray in this fashion? Why is a child raped? On this theodicy, because of the evil of man against man or because of the underlying — or overarching if you prefer — cosmic powers of evil, both using their irrevocable power to influence for ill. Evil then is always traced back to humans or to Satan, but never to God. Likewise, God cannot be faulted for creating a risky creation because its creation includes as much potential for good as for evil (thesis 4), and, on this theodicy, what free creatures would do is indeterminate until they do it. The possibilities of what Satan or Adam or Eve might do with the ability to love God gave them is known to God, but what they will do is up to them, their “say-so,” not God’s, and so the outcomes are non-existent (unknowable) beforehand.

Christianity’s schema of spiritual warfare allows natural evil to be traced to Satan — except for cases where God makes it known that He has caused it, like the great flood. Boyd’s treatment of natural evil is exhaustive and illuminating. A read through this section of his book is well worth the time (Chaps. 8, 9, & 10, Satan and the Problem of Evil).

Dr. Scalise

Battling Depression and Suicide: God’s Will and Desire for You can help

20 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by in Biblical Application, Christian Ministry, Human Experience and Theology, Spiritual Warfare

≈ Comments Off on Battling Depression and Suicide: God’s Will and Desire for You can help

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Recently, in our house church meetings, we have been discussing what God’s will is for us. There are a number of things that we could say on this subject, yet one thing God wants you to know is that He desires you, wanted you, and values you. Before I get into this, first let me say that I don’t want to create any cheap myth that just believing one thing, even when it comes from God’s very will, will solve depression or suicidal tendencies. This surely is not the case as the professional health-fields devoted to treating these issues show. God might be able to do a miraculous fix in independent cases: granted. Much of life, infected by sin, disbelief, and hostile spiritual powers, does not play-out in unending miracles; we indeed should pray for them while availing ourselves to the other sources God has lovingly provided in health, prolonging life, and mental wholeness practices.

What we do know about ourselves as humans is that our overall health owes to a myriad of reasons, influences, and practices. Correct belief, and trust in that belief, is one reason or influence that God has given of which we must integrate into our daily thinking habits. With these things said, let’s look at my translation of Revelation 4:11.

“Worthy you are our Lord and God to receive glory and honor and power because You Yourself created all things and because of Your will they exist and were created.”

If your in a bad bout with depression or fighting suicidal thoughts, Rev. 4:11 is a rescue rope. First, notice the “You Yourself created . . . .” This, seen clearly in the Greek, emphasizes God involvement in the creation process. It is not that God was hesitant or had to create you as though He were motivated by something other than Himself. No, indeed, the “You Yourself” shows us that not only was He involved in creating you, but He was heavily invested in creating you. Let your heart and mind drink deeply from this truth, and believe it, and go on believing it. Your worth is deeply important to God, enough for Him to be involved in a particularly attentive way in creating you. Second, God’s will is sometimes understand in a distant or unaffectionate way; the Greek term, thelēma, however, shows great affection, and can be translated as “want” or “desire” to illustrate this warmth. God desires that you “exist” and “were created.” In the instant you became alive, God’s desire was for you. You were “born” from God’s desire. The horrors we see and experience in this world as a result of man’s malice against man and demons’ malice against both man and Creator has infected all things with corruption, but God the Redeemer and Physician desired you be created. We must battle in this war torn world, both spiritually and physically, but the rescue rope of God’s desire for you sings and dances over you (Zeph. 3:17) a never-ending melody of God’s affectionate want to create you and His current desire He has in you because He wills that you exist. With God, good desire precedes our life, is in our life, and is with us after this life. God desires you live, so turn to this rescue rope and live. There is much more work to do towards holistic mental health thereafter, but God is the Rescuer, whose ability never falters.

Dr. Scalise

Typology of the typological-historic type

17 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by in Biblical Interpretation

≈ Comments Off on Typology of the typological-historic type

Tags

, , ,

The second type of typology is historic in nature. There are certain patterns of activity that God likes to work in the through. These patterns occur and reoccur again and again across the pages of Scripture — and perhaps in other events. In Scripture, we can trace these patterns back to God clearly and with little doubt because He chose to reveal Himself through His activity in and through the events recorded and interpreted in and by Scripture. God is the redeemer who oversees the first Exodus in the Book of Exodus. This “exodus type” is not prophetic in its own right. There are not indications that the Exodus narrative is predicting something about the future. As God reveals more of Himself and His activity in history, it becomes clearer that the “exodus type” is something God likes to use. We find, then, Israel’s later return from captivity in Babylon being interpreted by the Prophets as another Exodus albeit far less spectacular than the first. Luke records in Lk. 9:31 that Jesus was leading a new exodus as well. The first Exodus in the Book of Exodus is just an event, but later revelation by God shows that this historic event was setting a fountain of God’s preferential activity in history. Thus, the NT author Luke can use the Exodus, not as a prophecy in its own right, but as an indication of the same God who led Israel for 40 years in the wilderness who was now leading humanity in the Son of God Jesus.

B. T. Scalise